“You don’t need to wait for David and Cassidy?”
“Oh, no.I have to be up early tomorrow, and they said they wanted to stay late, so we came at the same time, but I took my own car.”
“Ah.I’ll walk you out.”
Because he couldn’t let her walk out in the dark to her car alone.It was unsafe, and David would never forgive him.
That was the only reason.
Really.
ChapterTwenty-Seven
Audrey
Oh God.
Mason was walking her out to her car.Just the two of them.
What do I do?
Act normal.
How do I normally act?
I don’t know.
Why don’t I know?
This was so much more stressful than it should have been.
But… Yasmine was doing—something—with someone else.Master Cole.Whoever that was.Did that make it okay for Mason to walk Audrey out?
Well, of course, it’s okay.It’s not like he’s doing anything other than walking.
The only reason it didn’t feel okay was because of her feelings about him.But if Yasmine was already moving on, why couldn’t Mason?
Audrey cursed the cowardice that had kept her from asking Yasmine point-blank if she had been hinting that she saw Audrey’s crush and was fine with it.But the thought of doing so and being wrong made her stomach curdle.Or what if Yasmine was fine with Audrey’s crush, but only if she didn’t act on it?
“So, is the bakery still buzzing from the video?”Mason asked as they walked out the door into the cold night.Audrey automatically hunched her shoulders in her coat, shoving her hands in her pockets, thankful she was wearing her long winter coat that covered her nearly to her ankles.Even without pants, as long as the wind didn’t whip up, she was pretty warm all over.
“Yeah.It’s died down a little, but there are still more people than usual coming in.All of them with their phones out and hopeful expressions on their faces.”Thank goodness, she actually sounded normal when she was answering him instead of like the Hot Mess Express she was inside.
“Gotcha.So, are you leaving early because you’re tired?”Mason glanced down at her, and she looked up at him in surprise.The dark shadows of the streetlamps made him look particularly dangerously handsome, especially with the sharp line of his black coat collar against his jaw, where he’d turned it up to keep his neck warm.
She looked away, focusing on the sidewalk they were walking down.Her car wasn’t that far away, which she was both grateful for and suddenly wished it was a little farther.
“That’s definitely part of it,” she admitted, and then hesitated.“The other part is that I don’t really know what I’m doing there.I don’t know whattodo.”
Why she had chosenhimto admit that to, she didn’t know.Maybe because she felt comfortable with him after he’d come running to the rescue at the bakery.Maybe because she had a crush on him and felt a connection, and she was worried he felt it too, and if anything did ever happen between them, she didn’t want him expecting some kind of experienced, perfect submissive.
She bet Yasmine was a perfect submissive.
“You know you don’t have to do anything, right?There are plenty of people who come for the community but don’t scene.”
“I’m not against scening.”Heat filled her cheeks.It was dark enough that he wouldn’t be able to see her blush for once.“But I wouldn’t know how to get into one.Even if someone wanted to scene with me, I wouldn’t know what to tell them I like or don’t like because I don’t have any experience.I don’t know.I don’t know anything.”
The frustration bubbling up inside her wasn’t just at her lack of knowledge; it was at herself.In the few months she’d had away from her parents, she’d learned more about herself than she had in the years of living her life up to this point.Realizing how much about herself she didn’t know, how much about life she didn’t know, was frustrating.Especially because the opportunity had been there, but she’d never been willing to defy her parents, not even to read the kind of books they might disapprove of.
