“It’s, uh, been a while, Vroom,” I stutter over my words, using her old nickname to try and remind her that we were best friends once upon a time.
“I guess it has been, Peppermint,” she spits out. Gone is the teasing tone she used to use when she called me that. It sounds like she’s damning me to hell as she uses my old nickname.
“Did she say Mason Kane?” someone whispers from behind me, and my attention is yanked away from Karoline’s malicious eyes. I place my sunglasses on, stand up, and say, “Well, it’s been good, boys. See y’all tonight for Meatball Monday.”
I turn my head towards Karoline who has not taken her eyes off me. “Karoline.” I nod towards her. “Let’s catch up soon?”
She breathes a laugh laced with disbelief and disdain before shaking her head.Yeah, that’s what I thought.
I speed walk away from the table and towards the door. As I reach for the door handle, I hear Karoline click her tongue and say, “The sheer audacity of that man.”
I slip out of Books and Beans, my security guard, careful to keep distance between us so as to not look suspicious, follows me after I get through the door. After I’ve walked a few blocks to where I parked my truck, I scamper into the lifted black Toyota Tundra and finally allow myself to breathe.
I can handle getting noticed for being Mason Kane, country music superstar, but I can’t handle the unadulterated hate burning in Karoline’s eyes, especially knowing I’m the fool who put it there.
Seems like three years isn’t enough time for some sins to be forgiven.
Chapter Four
Mason - Three Years Ago
Lyrics race through mymind as I think about my little situationship with Cassidy. We met the first week of classes at college three years ago and have been friends ever since. She’s into music like I am and is breathtakingly pretty with her platinum blonde hair and light blue eyes. She flirts with me and asks me to accompany her to events and get-togethers,but she’s never taken the next step with me, and when I try to bring it up, she shuts me down and changes the subject.
She has to be into me. That’s the only explanation as to why I’m always her stand-in date, right? Maybe she’s shy underneath all her extroverted layers? Maybe she likes the man to embark on a chase for a while?
“Hey, Vroom?” I jot down words in my songbook while Karoline sits next to me staring at a blank canvas in the shade of our favorite magnolia tree in her parents’ backyard.
“Hm?”
“What does it mean when a girl always asks you to go places with her and do things with her, but she avoids having a define-the-relationship conversation?”
“This again?” Karoline sighs. “Didn’t I tell you last week to move on and forget about her when we were throwing the ball around?”
I’m just a boyfriend without the benefits, your favorite arm candy without sweet kisses.The lyrics are flowing, but I have to admit, they are painful. “Yes, but I can’t forget about her. She asked me to accompany her to a Morgan Wallen concert in Nashville for the fourth of July, and I want to go, but it’s a lot of gas money and time to drive up there for the weekend just to get shut down again. I’m trying to figure out if it’s even worth the effort.”
“Morgan Wallen is worth the effort alone,” Karoline says. I cut my eyes to where she sits beside me, and she wiggles her eyebrows, the paintbrush in her hand momentarily suspended in the air while a still blank canvas sits in her lap. “You can bring me along. I’ll help with gas money to see Morgan Wallen.”
“Very funny, Vroom. With what money?”
“The graduation money I received, duh.”
“You need that money for college, dipstick.” I pluck grass from beside me and flick it in her face. A piece lands in her mouthand she starts spitting and using her tongue to get it off her lips. Some kind of built-in warning alarm in my brain begins to blare as I watch her tongue roam the top of her lip, and I get the fiery urge to bite the bottom lip.
Whoa. What in the—
“Forget college. Morgan Wallen is more important. Let me tell you why…”
I shake my head, trying to focus on her words over the intense pounding of my heart and the fog of confusion wrapping around my brain. Did I momentarily find Karoline Wright attractive?
Sure, she’s objectively pretty. Any person would have to be blind not to notice, but that feeling was… something else. My body is hot, but I know it’s not from the scorching June heat this time around. My eyes are still locked onto her moving lips, and I want to say “to heck with it all” and give in to this animalistic urge to devour her.
But no.
She’s Karoline.
“Earth to Mason. Do I have paint on my face or something? What’s with that look?” Karoline wipes at her face, and I shake my head clear again, snapping to attention. The momentary lapse in sound judgment is now buried, never to be resurrected again. It’s the most obvious thing in the world that Karoline has a crush on me, and while I do tease her occasionally, I can’t allow myself to ever intentionally lead her on when I have zero plans to date her. She’s my best friend, like a little sister to me, and I don’t ever want to hurt her.
“What?” I look away from her intense stare and fiddle with the pen in my hand, smearing black ink against my ring finger. “Oh, nothing. Trying to think about what to do,” I say, lying through my teeth. When I turn to Karoline again, she’s eyeing me suspiciously with her brows furrowed.
