Read Where We Left Off Online

Authors: J. Alex Blane

Tags: #Romance

Where We Left Off (6 page)

BOOK: Where We Left Off
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Chapter 10

 

 

“Could you believe some of the guys in there?” Aisha laughed sarcastically.

             
Sydney smiled with the corner of her mouth, as if she knew something they didn’t.

“Not
all
of them were bad,” she insisted.

             
“Maybe not all, but most,” one of her girlfriends in the back seat added, which was followed by light laughter. 

Sydney and her three friends had left The Avenue over twenty minutes ago. One of them was half asleep in the backseat from drinking too much; the other two were still full of energy but definitely ready to call it a night.  Like every other time they had gone out, the ride home was full of laughter and hilarious recaps as they recalled the numerous cheesy pickup lines and attempts by random men to try and gain their attention.  Though they talked, Sydney’s mind seemed to be off in a daze.  To her friends she just looked focused on the road, but her mind was elsewhere.

“Sydney, is that your phone?” Aisha asked, caught off guard by the ringtone.

“No… that’s not …wait, it is,” she realized.

“And who is calling you
this
late?” Aisha jokingly asked.

She had no idea.  Taking her eyes briefly off the road, she looked down to see if she recognized the number.

Her eyes squinted.  “I don’t know who this is.”

“Well, answer it,” Aisha nudged her.

Hesitant at first, she answered, “Hello?”

There was a pause before she heard him speak; it was one that would make most people hang up, but for some reason she didn’t.  She held the phone fast to her ear and waited for him to say something.  Although initially she wasn’t sure who it was, she had a feeling she knew as soon as she answered. 

Mason, on the other hand, felt like a complete desperate idiot. 
What am I thinking calling her so late?

“Um hi, is this Sydney?” he asked cautiously. 

“I would hope so. You called me,” she answered.

Her tone was soft and playful, completely different than he expected to hear, especially so late. 

He cleared his throat, adjusting himself in his chair. “Hi, this is Mason; we met at Jackson’s wedding a few weeks ago…” 

He spoke low to conceal the slight tremble in his voice, but she could hear every tremor.  She looked around at her friends, who were somewhat confused by the smile on her face, as if she had been waiting for this secret late night call all night.


It’s him,
” she forced a whisper, covering the phone with her hand. 

She hadn’t seen him when she and her friend walked in and sat at the bar, and an hour or two had gone by before she did.  Unbeknownst to him, it was in a quick glance around the lounge that she spotted him in conversation with the waitress.  She didn’t think he had noticed her; after all, it was pretty dark and there were a lot of faces, not to mention if he had seen her he would have at least stopped over and said hello. 
Right
?   That’s what she thought.  But by the end of the night, after watching him leave, there was no question that he had noticed her. 
When?
She had no idea.  And why he chose not to speak was unknown to her as well.  Sneaking a peek at him as he walked towards the door, she was sure he’d seen her.  Her girlfriends in the car pushed her to continue the conversation to see where it would go, and she played right along.

“Oh, yes, Mason,” she put her phone on speaker so they could hear.  “You do know that it’s after two in the morning right?”

Trying to impress her, he thought he’d be a little creative in his response. He hoped she would excuse him calling so late and perhaps lean the conversation the way he wanted it to go. 

“Is it two o’clock?” he asked inquisitively.  “I’m
so
sorry!  My flight just touched down from Los Angeles not too long ago.  I guess I’m still adjusting to the time difference.”

The girls looked at each other in the car, knowing he was lying through his teeth.  They were barely able to hold back the laughter pressing through their held breaths, but they did.

Sydney, although amused by his tactics, cut straight to the point to stop him from digging himself any deeper.  “
So,
I take it your calling me this late has nothing to do with you watching me all night from your little booth?”

He hadn’t expected that.  He was sure she hadn’t noticed him because he couldn’t remember a moment when he took his eyes off of her long enough to give her the chance. 

“Are you still there?” she asked in response to his silence.

“I’m here.  I’m just a little, well, embarrassed,” he chuckled.

“Well, you should be,
Mr. Mason,
” she added playfully. 

Her tone was comforting and, given the tension he thought was developing, it was needed.  

Sydney was just pulling up in front of her house, where her girlfriends had left their cars.  She lived in a duplex not too far from the city, so all of her parking was side street.  Her friends were slowly gathering their things, trying to wait and see where the rest of the conversation was going.  Mason overheard them laughing, and their light conversation, in the background.  As if being caught in a lie wasn’t enough, now he knew they knew as well. 

“I think I should start over,” he said, interrupting her goodbyes to her friends.

“That sounds like a pretty good idea.”

“Would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow night?”

Her girlfriends stopped moving, waiting in anticipation for her answer.  She moved the phone to her ear, covering it with her hand, and shot them a look. 

“Good night ladies,” she said, shooing them from her car. 

“I’m sorry; I didn’t know you were just getting in.  If it’s too late I can give you a call back tomorrow,” he said. 

She got out of her car and started walking towards her front door, her face lit up by a big smile.  A part of her was actually happy to hear from him.

“How about we do this,” she said, “I’m assuming you don’t have to hang up right now, especially since
you
called
me
.  Let’s see where the rest of the conversation goes and then… we’ll see about tomorrow.” 

“Fair enough,” he said.

Chapter 11

 

 

Sydney had Mason on hold for over 20 minutes while she got a little more comfortable from her night out.  Mason was never one to wait for anyone, but this time he did, never questioning why or whether or not he should.  He sat on his sofa in front of the fireplace the entire time, listening to her move about, up and down her stairs, in and out of rooms.   A few moments later she climbed into bed after pouring a glass of white wine and picked up her phone. 

“Are you still there?” she asked. 

“Of course.” He hadn’t taken the phone from his ear for a second..

She smiled, sipping from her glass while she pulled the blanket over her like a teenager sneaking on the phone trying to keep their parents from hearing them.  There was a slight pause in the conversation as they both waited to see who was going to start it.  Sydney laughed a little, realizing that he was just as caught on words as she was. 

“So,” she began, “what made you finally decide to call me?”

Thank God she said something
, Mason thought.

“To be honest, I wanted to call weeks ago but work had me really tied up, a lot of new projects and contracts, too many things demanding my time.”

 

“Really?” she humphed.  “I don’t believe you, but I’ll buy it for now,” she responded playfully.

He laughed. “It was really enjoyable seeing you tonight,” he added.

“Something tells me it was a little more than that,” she suggested, “but I guess we can start off light.  Since I don’t know much about you, other than what you shared at your brother’s wedding
weeks ago,
” she teasingly stressed, “how about we start from there. Where are you from?”

Sydney had a way of talking to people like she had known them forever, and right now was no different.  Mason felt comfortable on the phone, talking and laughing with her.  It was something he’d never taken the time to notice or feel with anyone in a really long time. 

They talked for hours, laughing at everything that was funny and expressing hints of compassion toward the things that were not.  Mason sat at the edge of his sofa staring at his glass, which was empty except for the remnants of an almost fully melted ice cube.  He found himself smiling unexpectedly at just the sound of her voice. The more she talked the more he sat back and just listened.

By now Mason had already shared some of his most embarrassing stories and most rewarding life achievements with her.  He shared bits and pieces of his life, not too much, and in no way everything, but he thought it was enough.  Unlike him, she shared almost everything.  She was originally from a small town in South Carolina, where she lived with her parents and her older sister until she decided to move to Delaware.  Surprisingly, her voice was absent of a Southern accent, but that in no way took anything from his perception of her, especially not her personality and certainly not her looks. 

“School is why I left,” she mentioned, laughing. “Nothing dramatic or crazy.”

Her parents and everyone else she knew were very supportive of her move; all except her older sister. She felt Sydney should’ve stayed home, met a nice guy in church, got married, and had children. 

“Exactly what she did,” Sydney laughed.  “I love my sister, but I am
not
her, and for some reason she can’t seem to understand that.”

They laughed at some of the other stories she told about her sister and other members of her family.  Mason didn’t talk much about his, only about Jackson and vaguely about his father, who had passed away, but nothing of his mother or anyone else.  Sydney didn’t seem bothered by it.  No one’s family is perfect, and everyone has things they would rather not
share
, she thought.  Mason definitely had those –things he never talked about.  

“So how often do you get to see them?”

“Who?   My parents?” She asked.

“Yeah.  From the sound of it I don’t think you’d be too enthused to see your sister.”

She laughed, “I haven’t seen them since I moved out here.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“I mean, we talk at least twice a week.  My dad works and travels all across the country so it’s not like I’m missing much.”

“Yeah, but seven years without being home…”

“It’s not as bad as you think.  I am a grown woman, you know.”

They shared a moment of laughter in the mutual enjoyment of their conversation and continued on as if the passing night was of no concern.  She wasn’t like any woman Mason had ever met, almost too good to be true.

“Okay,” he cut in, “so I have to ask you this. You’ve graduated from college. You’re young, single, no children.  You’re clearly smart, funny, and remarkably beautiful …what’s wrong with you?” he asked jokingly, but still very serious. 

She let a silence surface between his question and her answer that almost made him nervous. 

While Sydney had the ability to make people feel comfortable enough to share almost anything with her, she was often blunt and direct when it came to what she felt strongly about or wanted –sometimes too blunt and direct.  She heard what he’d asked her, and although she knew he was hinting at skeletons in her closet or something unstable about her emotionally, what she wanted to say was far from that.  She wasn’t quite sure, though, if what she wanted to say would be received in the same spirit she was giving it. 
Who cares?,
she thought. 

She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, almost easing away any doubt he could have had, and answered him, “I don’t have you.”

The poetic articulation of her words surged through his body like the tingling sensation of fading numbness.  He didn’t expect that: those words, from her, at that moment.  He really didn’t know how to respond to her either.  He didn’t know how to respond to himself… what he felt when she said it,
why
he felt what he did when she said it.  

She has to be joking,
he thought;
either that or she really is crazy
.  He wasn’t the relationship type of guy, or the monogamist like his brother.  He wasn’t the guy to catch feelings.  He wasn’t the guy to love. 

She could tell he was at a loss for words, and by then wasn’t sure if she was more direct than she should have been.  She had to say something, it seemed like the ice they had already broken had completely frozen over again. 

“So …about tomorrow,” she mentioned, “dinner, if I recall correctly.”

Happy she changed the subject, he knew she was referring to him asking her out to dinner.  She gave him an excuse not to dwell on what he was feeling in the moment.

“You mean
today?”
he replied. 

Yesterday was long past, and with that, she could hear the relief in his laughter.  She looked behind her at the clock on her nightstand and saw that the hours had nearly reached sunrise. 

“Yes…today,” she reassured him, as her voice softened with sleep.  “But how about we make things a little less predictable?” she suggested.

“What do you mean?”

She snuck in a light chuckle.  “I’m sure dinner for you often ends with
dessert
.” 

He laughed, knowing she was more right than wrong. 

“How about we do brunch?” she offered. 

Still laughing, he replied, “Brunch sounds great.”

“There’s a diner on Concord Avenue called The Charcoal Pit.”

“That sounds appetizing,” he joked.

She laughed. “I take it you’ve never been?”

“I can’t say I have,” he admitted.

“Trust me, you’ll like it.  Can you meet me at 11:30?” she asked.

“11:30 it is.”

They toyed with the idea of trying to figure out who would hang up the phone first. Neither of them said anything, but it was pretty obvious.  Even though it was late and they were both tired, they didn’t want to get off the phone.

“I guess this is good night then, Ms. Sydney.”

“I guess it is…” 

She rolled over in her bed, looking out at the sun just beginning to rise.

“Goodnight Mason, and thanks for the drinks tonight.” 

Mason hung up the phone, baffled by the entire conversation.  By then the glass he drank from earlier was dry, as if nothing had ever been in it.  He sat it on the counter and headed back upstairs, trying to beat the sun before it rose any more than it already had.  His hands pressed against his bedroom door but as it inched open, he was reluctant to push it any farther.  Until then, he had completely forgotten that Erika was lying in his bed sound asleep.  As quiet as he tried to be, the quick sound of the door closing was enough to interrupt her sleep.

“Did you bring me something to drink?” she attempted to ask, but her words faded, merging together as her eyes drifted back to sleep. 

She hadn’t realized he was just now coming back to bed.

He lay there listening to the sounds of Erika breathing softly beside him. 
This is crazy,
he thought.  Within arm’s reach was a woman he’d slept with only hours ago, now asleep in his bed, and yet all he could think about was Sydney.  He turned one way in his bed, forcing his eyes closed, and then turned to the other side.  The more he tried to force himself to sleep, the harder it became.  He wasn’t sure if it was excitement that pulsed through his veins or the unexpected nerves that found themselves settling at the bottom of his stomach.  For the strangest reason, though, talking with Sydney and knowing he would be seeing her again in only a few hours felt really good.  Unfamiliar, but good. 

BOOK: Where We Left Off
10.61Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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