Page 62 of I Heart Mason Cartwright
“Hey, you want lunch?” she asks. I nod even though it seems like we just had breakfast. My stomach growls loudly, obviously not agreeing with me about breakfast. I check the time surprised to see that it’s been almost four hours since we started.
“Zach is going to go pick something up. Feel like deli sandwiches?”
“Sounds good. Did he already leave?”
“No, he’s outside writing.”
“Oh, is he a writer? What does he write?”
“Children’s books.”
“No shit?” That surprises me. Only because he doesn’t look like the kid book type. Though if I think about it, I’m not sure what that type looks like.
“He writes under a pen name, TJ Lane, about a gay superhero named Captain Cupcake who travels around the world teaching anti-bullying tactics and helping children and pre-teens accept themselves as they are regardless of sexuality.”
“That is really cool.” I find myself developing a newfound sense of respect and awe for the man I previously thought of as the frivolous gay sidekick. Then I feel ashamed of myself for having those thoughts in the first place.
“He’s had a tough time of it. His parents abandoned him when he was young, he spent some time in the foster system before he was adopted by a family who is very well off financially, but very closed off emotionally. And not accepting of him when he came out.”
“That’s tough.”
“Yeah, he’s always been a pretty boy which didn’t help matters when he was young. He’s the most important person in my life. I would do anything for him.”
“I admire that,” I say honestly.
“You don’t have a friend like that?”
“Maybe my buddy Jake whose party I was at the night I met AshLynn. But that’d be about it.”
“You only need one.”
“True.”
She fiddles with her phone a moment then hands it to me. “Okay, here’s the menu, let me know what you want.”
I’m reading what they have to offer when she gets a text. I realize from the preview that it was definitely not meant for my eyes.
ZACH: Me hungry. Stop drooling over Lil B’s hot AF fiancé—he’s off-lim . . .
Hot as fuck?
Is she drooling over me?
I peek over at Willow, she’s studying the space where the wall used to be, lips scrunched, with one finger rubbing the space behind her ear, thinking about something.
Me, maybe?
It would never work between Willow and me. I’m pretend engaged to her sister. Who is blackmailing me for perving on Willow through her window.
Wow. I’m an asshole.
Willow looks up at me and catches me watching her. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “Did you say something? I was totally lost in my own world there.”
I shake my head. “No. I uh, I’ll go with the Italian, extra pepperoncini. And, you got a text.”
She takes the phone and looks at it. Her face turns a deep shade of red. “I’ll . . . ah . . . okay, extra . . . yep.” She leaves to give Zach our orders. I run a hand over my face and sigh. Questioning, once again, just how the fuck I got myself into this situation, and how I’ll ever get out of it.
