Ex Games

“Fucked?” Mason filled in wickedly, that gorgeous smirk on his lips. I wet mine.

“Yes.”

“Fine, I’ll keep my hands off of you till you get home,” Mason groaned, falling away from me to return to the cup of coffee he’d been drinking. “I had a surprise for you though. Guess it’ll have to wait.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Nuh-uh, we’re not playing this game. What was the surprise? You need to tell me before I go to work.”

“Do I? Why’s that?”

“Because it’s Wednesday and I can always use a little boost on Wednesdays.”

Mason laughed as he set his cup in the sink. “Jesus, Taylor. You know that’s just a self-fulfilling prophecy now.”

I knew. But I liked to continue my joking hatred of Wednesdays by constantly pointing out when not-so-great things happened on Wednesdays. It wasn’t like it actually bothered me anymore, nor did it make me remotely sad or angry about my past engagement to Aaron. It was just my humorous way of acknowledging the other Leo brother because we were both so thoroughly past him and the presence he once had on our lives.

As predicted, Aaron pulled away from his family, as he had already begun to do during his engagement to Eva Tully. According to Mason’s mother, Aaron was still “finding himself” amid his travels to Southeast Asia. After the almost-wedding to Eva last year, he wound up leaving his second life behind, packing a few things from the Tully estate in Silicon Valley and booking a one-way ticket to Thailand. He still lived there and while either Mason

nor I kept in contact with him, we were in fact relieved to hear he was doing well, and even happier to know that he was calling Clara somewhat regularly – for his standards at least. They were mending their relationship from afar, in the non-confrontational way that Aaron clearly required when it came to approaching his problems.

“I miss hugging him,” Clara confessed when Mason and I visited her for her birthday in the summer. “But any physical presence I’ve lost from my son, I’ve at least gained in a daughter,” she said, holding my face and planting a giant kiss on my forehead. It was a sweet moment that she only lightly ruined by adding, “And hopefully soon…”

“Clara!” I warned her, knowing she was about to say “grandchildren.” From where he sat, Mason laughed, asking his mother to ease off of me.

“Let me marry her first,” he said.

“Then… do it, no?” Clara made a face as if it were the simplest solution. “My other son was too stupid to make her Mrs. Leo, but I expect my older one to be smarter.”

I laughed at the way she phrased it. I quite enjoyed it actually, because I no longer looked back on my three years with Aaron with regret. Not a single day of it. Our complicated journey created the path on which I found Mason. It was a jagged, broken one with more twists and turns than I could’ve ever imagined, but that only attested to our strength – to the universe’s persistence for us to find one another. For that reason, I didn’t worry about when our engagement would come. I just knew that eventually, it would. And like our whirlwind romance, it would be that much better because we waited. Because we stretched ourselves to the breaking point before giving ourselves the reward.

Officially together for a year now, I suspected I could wait several more before I was at my limit. It would hurt, but I could bear it considering the daily victory that came in coming home at nights to Mason.

“Fine, I take it back,” I huffed, throwing myself toward the kitchen counter at Mason and laughing when he pretended to reject me.

“No. I can’t give you the surprise without touching you.”

“Then touch me.”

He flashed that dirty, sexy smile. “Anywhere?”

I narrowed my eyes as he stared at the diamond between my breasts. “Yes, Mason. Anywhere.”

Studying me in silence for a moment, Mason finally reached for my waist and pulled me in with both hands, turning me around to hoist me swiftly onto the kitchen counter. Our eyes level, he gazed a bit more seriously at me now. Having lived together for so long, I was better than ever at reading the man, so my heart pitter-pattered before he even slid the velvet box from his pocket. Of course when I saw it, my heart full on thumped like a rock under my ribs, throwing itself against my chest with a dizzying excitement.

“Don’t do this to me,” I whispered desperately. “I swear to God if there are Wednesday panties in there, Mason…” The first tear fell as he shook his head, a gentle laugh breathing from his perfect lips as he held the box before me and lifted the top to make my heart explode. “Oh my God.” There wasn’t enough oxygen in the world to placate my lungs as I stared in instant worship. I didn’t need its brilliance or its size to sweep me off my feet, but the diamond itself was in fact as glorious as the moment was and I had no idea how to stop crying. “Mase, oh my God…”

“Hey,” he teased with a sweet chuckle at my reaction. “You know what I’m going to ask so before you lose the ability to speak, I need you to give me an answer.”

“Asshole,” I giggled through tears, hardly surprised that our engagement would somehow include profanity. “Knowing it is one thing, Mase. Hearing it is another.”

“Yeah? You wanna hear it?”

“Yes, let me hear it.”

Laughing, Mason gripped me gently, sliding me off the counter so I could stand on my shaky feet as he dropped to one knee before me, looking up with more love in his eyes than I’d ever seen or felt in my life. “I had a fantasy about this the first second I looked at you, Taylor. Make it real for me now,” Mason murmured, starting toward the words I had been prepared to wait till the edge of forever for. A grin curving his mouth, they finally uttered from his lips. “Will you marry me?”

“Yes!” The answer burst out just as he finished popping the question, and as Mason took my hand through what I could’ve sworn were tears of his own, I did my best to breathe. But it was hard to as my heart settled on the name I had long fantasized about saying aloud someday: Taylor Leo.

Scratch that.