Page 6 of Mason

A couple months’ worth of the rent paid for up front with money I scrimped and saved throughout college, pocketing whatever loose change didn’t go into textbooks or coffee. New York isn’t cheap, even in the less glamorous parts of the city.

I shovel a spoonful of ice cream into my mouth and let it melt on my tongue, allowing the chocolate to slide down my throat and soothe the burn of rejection. I chase it with a long sip of wine, and then another bite of fudge.

My mind inadvertently wanders back to Mason Wood, to his strong, chiseled jaw. I have an itch to run my fingers through the coarse texture of his beard, and trace the outline of his lips. A fluttering sensation crawls up my sternum. A guy like Mason Wood would never pay even an ounce of attention to me.

I’m an average looking girl with too many curves and not nearly enough experience or confidence to even qualify for a notch on his bedpost. I slug back a long pull of wine.

I throw my feet up on the coffee table and flex my toes. The jagged run in my nylons starts at my chipped toe nails and travels all the way up to my knee. Your get what you pay for, Liv. Current fashion status: dollar store chic. That same dollar store is also where I picked up my bigger utensils—spatula, soup ladle, tongs—tissue-thin toilet paper, and boxes of Mac and Cheese long past their expiry date.

Living the dream.

The trill of my phone pulls me out of self-pity.

I consider ignoring it, but I foolishly cling to the hope that Mr. Dalton has changed his mind, or that Mason Wood climbed off his high horse long enough to read my damn resume. But the voice on the other end of the line belongs to my half-sister, Renee, and despite my misery, my mood instantly improves.

“Liv, I got in!”

She is breathless, weightless, an eighteen-year-old high school graduate with barely a care in the world. The weight on my shoulders lifts, if only for a moment. “NYC?”

Renee snickers. “Obviously.” Her squeal reverberates through the line, and a ghost of a smile curls my lip up. I imagine her standing in her pink bedroom, jewel-crested phone clutched in her fist, and a wide smile plastered across her porcelain face. A smile that is identical to my father’s—and nothing like Mom’s. “I’m coming to New York. Can you believe it?” she squeals.

Her enthusiasm is infectious. “You sure The Big Apple can handle you?” I laugh.

Beneath the joke lays a thin thread of truth. Because while I am quiet and studious like my mother, Renee is a firecracker on the Fourth of July. I’m drawn to her in spite of—or perhaps because of—our differences, even though I have more than enough reason not to like her.

Renee is the only positive thing that came out of my father’s affair eighteen years ago. And while my resentment for him and his now-wife hangs off me like a lingering ghost, I feel nothing but unabashed love for my half-sister. “Tell me you got the scholarship.”

Her voice raises a pitch. “They loved my design, Liv. Loved it.”

I’m not surprised. Renee has been stitching clothes together since Dad bought her a sewing machine for her thirteenth birthday. What started as a hobby became a passion, and though most of her clothes are a bit more risqué than I’d wear, I can appreciate the aesthetics. “Will you live in the dorms?”

“That’s still up in the air,” she says, quietly.

In the awkward silence that follows, I imagine what’s on my sister’s mind. Our father doesn’t have money for college—not for books, expenses, or a roof over his own daughter’s head while she’s at school. Renee waitresses at a burger joint for extra cash, but it’s barely enough for tuition. My throat swells. The plan was for me to cover her school costs once I landed a good job. Not an option yet, so I deflect to my back-up.

“My apartment is small,” I say with caution, and scan the cramped apartment that is over stuffed with junk. It’s not much bigger than a bachelor, with a galley kitchen, one bedroom, a tiny bathroom and a balcony that fits exactly one chair and overlooks a back alley teeming with garbage and discarded drug needles. “And it’s probably dangerous.”

I can feel her grinning through the phone. “I’d like to see someone try and mess with the two of us.” I open my mouth with another protest, but she hits me where it hurts. “I can help with rent. Groceries.” Another pause and then, “I bet you don’t have more than a loaf of bread and a stick of butter in that place.”

“Wrong,” I say, smiling. “Right now, I am eating the last spoonful out of a very decadent tub of Ben & Jerry’s.”

“Chocolate fudge.”

“Mmm hmmm.”

Her tone turns serious. “What’s happened today?”

Damn it. Without thinking, I’ve let down my guard, and my sister swoops in with her sibling intuition in prime form. I’m sure Mr. Mason Wood would have something snarky to say about that too. “Nothing I want to rehash.” I swallow the last drop of wine in the glass and lean back on the couch. The cushions part to reveal three popcorn kernels wedged between them, stale and speckled with mold. An offering to the creatures that come out when I pretend to be asleep.

“If I were there, we wouldn’t be drinking that vinegar you call wine,” she says.

My gaze lands on the bottle, too far from reach. Which is probably a good thing. “Hey, I worked hard for every penny of this five-dollar bottle.”

“We’d be drinking champagne.”

“Two-dollar prosecco?”

She laughs. “You love the bubbles.”