I pushed myself up further so he could maybe breathe better, and tried to pry his fingers away from his face, but I ended up slipping and falling on him more fully, because somehow this day kept gettingworse.
“Christ, I’m sorry. Mason?Fuck. Please calm down. It’s gonna be okay. Okay? It’s gonna be… you know…fine.”
I shook his shoulder, but the sobbing continued, so I ran a hand over his wet hair instead. I was leagues out of my depth and sinking fast.
“I know you’ve had a lot happen today. And it’s gotta seem overwhelming. But… just… don’t cry. Did you concuss yourself?” I pulled at his fingers again. “Did you… Wait!Motherfucker. Are youlaughing?”
Mason nodded, his eyes still squeezed shut. His whole bodytrembledas he sucked in a breath. “Oh, God! This day. I’m not a passionateperson,” he moaned. He let his forearm fall back over his face and shifted so he was lying on his back in the inch or so of water that remained in the tub. “Figures I want something that’smine, and it turns out what’smineis a situation that’s fucked-up beyond all recognition.”
“Are you… are you having a mental break right now?” I demanded as I tried to process his collection of unrelated sentences.
“All I wanted was respect and independence. Is this better or worse than being recruited by the mob, do you think?”
Shit. “How hard did you hit your head?” I pulled at his arm again. “Look at me, Mason. Can you focus? How many eyes do I have?”
He sniffed loudly and moved his arm just enough to look up at me.
“You haveone,” he said promptly. “At least, one that I cansee, because the other is nearly swollen shut.” He lifted a hand to my face, but I flinched away, and he shook his head disapprovingly. “You should’ve kept the ice on it,” he chided softly.
“Yeah, well. I was a little busy playing chauffeur.”
“And intimidating innocent doctors.”
“Did not.”
But he lifted an eyebrow, and all of a sudden, I remembered with a wince. Rafe’s office. My shirt.
Right.
“You’re not innocent. But I, ah… I definitelydoowe you an apology for that scene earlier.” I took a deep breath. “I’m truly sorry that I tried to intimidate you. I’m sorry I made things weird. I’m not that guy, I swear. Okay?”
Mason nodded slowly and wiped his eyes. “Okay.”
“Just like that?” I mean, I wanted him to believe me. I just… didn’t get why he would, after the day we’d had.
Mason smiled. “You’re a jerk and possibly a serial killer, but I don’t get the impression that you’re a liar, and dealing with your uncle would make a saint commit a felony. Plus, I’m not sure if you noticed, but my own behavior today wasn’t exactly impeccable. So, yeah.Okay.”
“Okay,” I repeated, weirdly relieved. “So, I brought up your suitcases. And I bought you dinner.” I hooked a thumb out the bathroom door, to where the room door was still hanging wide open and the darkening pink sky was just visible over the water. “Chicken stew and fried yucca. As a peace offering. And I, um… brought you an old plug-in night-light I found kicking around.” Kicking around at Pickles’ grocery store in the home goods section, to be precise. “Just in case the room got—”Jesus, I sounded like an idiot.“—dark.”
“Wow.” He smiled and turned my words from earlier back on me. “Well, as apologies go, I’ve had worse.”
My throat went tight.
Mason’s hair was a mass of damp, brown waves that made him look about twelve years old, all pushed back as they were. But right at the front, two or three silver threads glinted, and I couldn’t help but stare. It was another chink in Mason Bloom’s veneer of perfection—not that there was much of that left, to be honest, given where we were and why. A little crack that let the truth of him shine through.
My gaze tracked lower, and when our eyes met I saw that his were wide and watchful, a luminous green against his pale skin, and it might have just been my wishful thinking or whatever, but I’d have sworn he was waiting for something.
Waiting forme.
My eyes darted down to his lips, which were parted slightly, and I noticed the moment when his breathing hitched from something that was definitelynotlaughter. My gaze shifted back to his, but Mason didn’t move, so neither did I, and the moment spun out. It lasted two seconds—then ten, then twenty—and for every second, there was an alternate universe in which one of us moved forward or back, committed or retreated, but in this one we were frozen. Staring. Daring each other with our eyes.
No misunderstandings. No place else to be. We might have stayed there forever.
But then a gust of salty air blew through the room, sending the bathroom door crashing into the wall and kicking up little goose bumps on every part of my skin that was damp—which was basicallyall the parts. I shivered back to reality and straight into an Adam-and-Steve-type moment of awareness, where I suddenly realized that—Hey, now!—Mason Bloom was all the way naked.
And lying under me.
In a pink bathtub.
