Page 81 of I Heart Mason Cartwright
PSS—Hopefully waking up to coffee helps take the sting out of the missing mug.
He’s right about that. Waking up to coffee is my favorite thing in the entire world. I know I could just set a timer and make it the night before, but I never know for certain when I will wake in the morning. I know, how sad for me that I have no schedule for when I must be awake. It actually is inconvenient at times.
That’s a lie. It pretty much rocks.
Regardless, it’s just easier to make it fresh each day. So having it ready and still steaming hot, is truly a treat. I fix a cup and head out to the deck. P-Tink follows me but doesn’t romp in the sand like normal. We watch the ferries traverse the sound while we slowly wake up. The slight chill in the air has me grabbing a blanket and wrapping it around me.
Zach joins us a short time later, with his own blanket and coffee.
“He gone?” he asks.
I nod.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. It’s just a crush. Plus nothing was ever going to come of it anyway.”
“You never know.”
“Of course I know. He was engaged to AshLynn. I’d be sloppy seconds. No way could I ever compete with her.”
“Oh stop,” he snaps.
“Stop nothing,” I say. “She’s the male species Achilles heel, taking men to their knees since puberty. She’s fun and spontaneous, beautiful and sexy. Hell, she was going to get married to someone she just met. And he was so taken with her, he agreed.”
“She wasn’t going to marry him,” Zach says.
“Yes, she was. Where have you been for the last couples of days?”
“Come on, Willicent, think about it. When has AshLynn ever committed to anything?”
I shrug.
“Plus, this is exactly like something she would do just to get a rise out of your father and Cassandra.”
“No. She acts out, but she doesn’t involve other people in it.”
“Really? South Padre Island? Disneyland? Spring break her sophomore year?” He names three instances where she did something outrageous for attention and it affected my life too.
“Okay, fine. So what if you are right? That changes nothing.”
“He didn’t love her.”
“So?”
“I’m just saying, it’s not much skin off his back to be out of this is all.”
“Except that he left a check for over nine thousand dollars for my dad.”
“I gotta say, Willie, that was the most ballsy thing I’ve ever seen. And I see a lot of balls if you know what I mean.”
“Cassandra asking for money?”
“Yeah. Cassandra asking Mason for money. That was straight-up outrageous. Made the whole insufferable dinner worth it just to see that in person. Because if you had just told me about it later, I guarantee I never would have believed you.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you about something like that.”
“I know. It has nothing to do with you. It’s a suspension of belief that you’ve witnessed something so completely extraordinary that your brain almost can’t comprehend. Like, remember when little Mikey Lawson got the compound fracture in soccer practice and we saw the bone sticking out of the skin, but you couldn’t believe it was actually bone you were seeing?”
