Page 107 of I Heart Mason Cartwright
I watch him walk back to his Jeep, torn between wanting to call him back so I can give him a proper kiss, and leaving things as they are.
Roar.
“Hey, Mason,” I call.
He turns, brows raised and a hopeful look in his eyes.
“Want to come in for a drink or something? Maybe give my dog some attention. I have a feeling she’s dying to see you.”
“Love to,” he says jogging back up the path to the door.
P-Tink attacks me first when we get inside. Pushing against me and licking and yelping like I’ve been gone for years instead of just a few hours.
Then she sees Mason.
And she loses her poor little mind. Her tail wags so hard it moves her entire back end, and I swear she’s smiling. Big. He kneels to pet her, cooing the entire time. She rolls to her back for a belly rub and he obliges. I kick off my heels, which were surprisingly comfortable, and take a seat on the couch to watch them play. I expanded my living room furniture quite a bit after Zach’s first little set, and now have two couches and two chairs to fill the space, plus a raised doggie bed shaped like an armchair for P-Tink.
Mason adores my dog. God, I love that. Even if he wasn’t insanely attractive and made my insides heat like lava, I would want him for how he treats my dog. It says a lot about a guy, how he treats animals. I firmly believe the gentler a man is with an animal, the gentler he’ll be with his woman. I don’t mean in a passive sort of way, but in how he handles and treats her. How his attitude is toward her and his temperament. With Mason I’m certainly spot on.
He looks at me. “I think she likes me.”
“She freakin’ adores you. I swear she went into mourning after . . .” I stop. I promised myself I wasn’t going to bring up anything about AshLynn and what happened.
“It’s okay. I mean we should probably talk about it anyway, right? If we’re going to be seeing each other.”
Does he mean seeing each other like dating? Or just because we live in the same general city?
“I had a great time tonight, Willow. And not just the kiss, but the whole evening. I want to see you again. Date you again. See where this goes.”
He means dating.
I nod.
“Do you?” he asks.
“I think so,” I say as honestly as I can. “I mean, I think about you, like that, a lot. But I just don’t know how my family would handle it and I have to be honest, that kind of freaks me out. Plus, if I’m super honest, I’m nothing like my sister. And you liked her enough to want to marry her.”
“Half sister.” He smiles.
I smile back.
“Can I be honest?” he asks.
I nod.
“Brutally honest?”
“Of course.”
“AshLynn and I weren’—”
“Actually, I don’t want to know.”
“I want to tell you.”
“I don’t want to know. It doesn’t matter. I know myself and I’ll just draw comparisons, it’s not healthy for me. Let’s just pretend I never asked.”
“Even if knowing would make you feel better?” he asks.
“Especially then,” I say.
He runs his hand over his hair, mussing it. “Uh, okay.”
