Filed to story: Lily Bennett and Mason Cooper Book
I take another bite, eye him skeptically, and say, “You don’t seem the chef type.”
“I’m a total chef. Michigan starred.”
“You mean Michelin starred?”
He laughs and shakes his head.
“Okay, busted. My sister Tayla made them.”
“I knew it!” I say, punching his arm.
“Tell her she makes an awesome chef. And that she has a lazy brother.”
“I cannot tell her that or she’ll never let it go.”
“How old is she?” I ask.
“Fifteen. She’s a sweetheart. Gemma’s thirteen and scares the shit out of me.” He chuckles.
“And your brother? What was his name?” I ask cautiously.
“Callum,” he answers quietly.
“He was just twenty-one when… He was an addict. He was injecting heroin, but he didn’t try to hide it.”
Mason’s voice shakes.
“He threatened to kill himself so many times, Mom just stopped caring. All she did was go to work, come home, and drink.”
Tears pool in Mason’s eyes, and I scoot over to grab hold of his hand.
“But one night he and Mom had a huge fight and he stormed out. I went to bed.”
His voice cracks and the tears stream down his face.
“I got up the next morning and went into his room and he’d hung himself.”
I wrap my arms around Mason, pulling him into me, letting him sob on my shoulder.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” I say, stroking the back of his head as he clings to me.
“When he brought me here, he said it was his favorite place and he’d always wanted to jump off the top of the waterfall, but didn’t have the balls,” he says, pulling back from me.
“Then two days later he’s dead,” he mutters, looking back at the waterfall.
“Mason,” I whisper, wiping my own tears off my face.
“I don’t know what to say,” I mumble, wishing I did. I wish I could take his pain away.
“You don’t have to say anything, princess,” he whispers as he takes my hand in his.
And so I don’t say anything, just sit with him, stroking his hand with my thumb and watching the waterfall.
LILY
“There’s no way you can eat all of that,” Mason says to me, looking at the two giant steaks that have just been placed in front of us.
“I know. But I want to try,” I say, picking up my knife and fork.
“I bet you I can finish mine,” he smirks, no traces of what happened at the waterfall left on his face.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” I laugh.
Turns out after all the exercise-and the crying-we’ve done today, we’re starving.
We tear into the steaks like a couple of wolves.
Twenty minutes later, we’re both almost finished.
Mason has one bite left, and I have maybe three.
“I’m so full,” I groan, leaning back in my seat and patting my bloated belly.
“I’m going to explode.”
“You’re so close. You can do it, princess,” Mason says, glaring at his last bite.
I push down my next two bites, leaving the last piece on my fork.
Mason grins, tapping his chunk of steak against mine before we both chew and swallow the last of it.
“We actually did it!” I exclaim happily.
“Holy shit,” the waiter gasps, looking at our empty plates.
“I mean, good job.” He corrects himself, shaking his head.
He laughs, lifting up a camera.
“Say cheese!”
He snaps a photo of us for the wall, adding it to the lineup of other black-and-white photos of people smiling in front of their empty plates.
“I can’t move,” I groan, holding my stomach.
“You have to carry me to the car.”
It’s obviously a joke, but before I know it, Mason pulls me out of my seat and actually lifts me up in his arms.
“What are you doing?” I squeak.
“Your chariot awaits, princess,” he chuckles, carrying me out to the car just like I asked.
I laugh and pretend to put up a fight the whole way, but secretly, I don’t want to be anywhere else but in Mason’s strong arms.
I already miss them when he sets me down in the passenger’s seat.
Mason starts the car, and we drive in silence for a few minutes, some pop song on the radio.
I glance over at him. The soft glow from the dashboard lights up his face. He looks sad.
“You okay?” I ask.
“No,” he says.
“I don’t want this night to end.”
“Me neither! End of the night means the end of the summer, means…”
He finishes my thought.
“End of us.”
I nod sadly.
He grips the wheel tightly with both hands.
I take one of his hands, pull it to me, hold it in my lap. I feel him relax.
He breaks the silence, speaking softly.
“What if the end of the night didn’t have to mean the end of us? What if we tried?”
“To be together?”
“Yeah,” he says, “I mean if you want to.”
“The gossip and the hate would be non-stop,” I say.
“Who cares what they think? It’s our relationship, not theirs.”