“You werebrave, Alex.” He hoped she could read the truth in his face. “Only reason we’re standing here now is ’cause of you. You distracted them just when we needed you to.”
She chewed her bottom lip. But given the way his body reacted, she might as well have been doing a striptease.
His own lips tingled. They remembered exactly how lush that bottom lip could be. How warm and soft.
Don’t get a boner!The old mantra screamed through his mind.
“I wasn’t trying to distract them.” Something moved behind her eyes. He’d seen that something many times with green recruits who’d gotten their first taste of battle. It was the look of someone who’d come face-to-face with what it truly meant to deal in death. “I was trying tokillthem. I wanted them dead. I wanted to send them to hell. What’s that say about me?”
“That you’re human,” he assured her. “That you’ll fight for your survival and the lives of those you care about.”
She nodded. But the funny look on her face told him that while she wanted to believe him, she wasn’t sure she did.
“It changes how I see myself.” She glanced down to where she drew a circle in the sand with the toe of her flip-flop. “But more than that, it changes how I look at the world.” When she glanced at him, her green eyes were overly bright.
It was probably a mistake, but he set the picnic basket on the ground. “Come here.” He motioned her forward.
She hesitated. So he grabbed her hand and pulled her tight against him.
Could she hear how quickly she made his heart race? Could she feel how fast she made his blood run? Did she have any idea what she did to him?
“I used to think people were intrinsically good. That life was sweet.” Her hot breath seeped through the cotton of his tank top to tickle the skin beneath. “I used to think I was safe as long as I didn’t frequent seedy bars or walk down dark, deserted alleyways. But peoplearen’tintrinsically good. And I’mnotsafe. The world is dark, Mason. And it’s dangerous.”
He wished he were more like Wolf. In a moment like this, the sorry bastard would be able to come up with something perfect and profound to help ease her mind. Instead, the only thing Mason could think to tell her was “Sorry, Alex.”
She patted his chest, her hand light and warm over his heart. “It’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault. It simplyis.”
She tilted her chin back. “Does it ever get better? Do you ever stop looking over your shoulder, expecting to find monsters creeping up behind you?”
He squeezed his eyelids shut. Partly because he couldn’t keep looking down at her without kissing her. But also because Alex was unsettlingly perceptive. If he looked at her now, she would seehim.
All of him. All the good, bad, and ugly things inside.
“Gets better for some people.” His voice was low with solemnity. “They can experience death and violence and put it behind ’em. Move on as if nothing happened. For others”—Including me, he silently added—“they’re changed. Things from their past overshadow their present.”
“What separates one group from the other?” Her tone was as somber as his.
“Wish I knew,” he told her. “But I think you’re the type who’ll be able to forget. It might take time. But I think you’ll see the world through rose-colored glasses again.”
Her lips twisted. “I take it you don’t feel you’re the kind to forget and move on?”
He shrugged and stepped away from her. She was traipsing too close to the truth of him. Also, he’d lost the battle with his body when it came to her nearness. The clean, beachy smell of her had gone to his head. The little one decidedly south of his neck.
He retrieved the picnic basket. “I was born and raised in Southie, babe. My rose-colored glasses were gone by the time I was ten.”
Chapter 20
12:12 p.m.
Alex licked the last of the chocolate brownie frosting from her fingertips and flopped onto the soft blanket Mason had laid down for the picnic. Folding her hands behind her head, she tried to see shapes in the fluffy, popcorn clouds overhead.
It was something she’d done since she was a child. She loved never knowing what sort of pattern would appear next. A pirate ship perhaps? A pig wearing a top hat?
Beside her, Mason was sprawled out, his shoulder touching hers, one arm folded behind him, pillowing his head. It felt nice. Comfortable.Friendlyeven.
Maybe this will work, she thought optimistically.I mean, it’s okay to be in love with a friend, isn’t it? As long as I don’t screw things up by telling him?
When a cloud morphed into a boy holding a baseball, she mused aloud, “Did I ever tell you that the first baseball game I ever went to was at Fenway Park?”
