“You okay?” he asked as he opened the car door. “You’re awfully quiet.”
She shrugged. “We don’t have to go to the club if you aren’t up to it.”
He leaned in the door. “You don’t want to go?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Mason stood back and shut the door a little too hard. When he entered from his side, his lips were pursed. He started the engine without saying a word.
They drove for fifteen minutes in silence until Jenna wanted him to let her out of the car wherever they were so she could escape his brooding. She didn’t know what his problem was. Was he mad about losing? Or was he mad about her attitude? She didn’t know how to tell him the fight scene wasn’t her thing.
Finally she realized they were headed to her place. She was both relieved and disappointed. Maybe this entire adventure had been a pipe dream.
Mason pulled up to the curb and stopped the engine. He sat still for a minute. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”
This? This what? This relationship or this evening?
Jenna gripped her hands in her lap and looked at his profile, trying to read him.
He spoke again without looking at her. “I don’t lose often. I’m not very good at it.”
“I understand.” But she didn’t. None of it. Not the fighting or the no-girlfriend rule or the fetish scene. It suddenly seemed way out of her league.
“Can I take a rain check?” He glanced her way.
“Of course.” Or maybe not.
She grabbed her bag from the backseat, feeling foolish now to have thought she would ever wear such a thing. When she reached for the door, he stopped her with one hand. “Let me get it.”
He was out of the car and around to her side in seconds. At least he hadn’t lost that gentlemanly touch. When she exited, he lifted her chin and frowned into her eyes. He kissed her forehead and then walked her to the door. “I’ll call you tomorrow?”
“Okay.” She ducked inside quick, fighting back tears, wishing he would go so she could wallow in her own stupid hurt.
Mason turned around and ambled back to his car with his hands in his pockets.
Jenna watched him from the window as a lone tear slipped down her cheek. Why the sudden emotion, she had no idea.
It was all so stupid. She never should have let herself get caught in this roller coaster ride. She’d known for a week it would come to this. She wasn’t cut out for his life, and he couldn’t change for her.
She headed straight to her bedroom, stripped off her clothes, and tugged on a T-shirt. After a quick trip to the bathroom, she curled into her bed and let the tears of regret fall from her face. She didn’t bother wiping them away.
She deserved to wear them, like a badge of her own ignorance for letting her heart get involved with a man like Mason Simmons.
Chapter Twelve
Her phone was ringing. It had been for a while.
Jenna rolled onto her back and glanced at the clock. Shit. It was already eight. She never slept this late. She had to get to the shop. It was her turn to open. She flung back the covers, ignoring the ringing that started over in the kitchen, and headed for the shower. In twenty minutes she was clean, dressed, and out the door.
She didn’t glance at her phone until she opened the shop at nine.
Katy. Call me. What happened?
Jenna sighed. The last thing she wanted to do this morning was rehash last night. She didn’t want to think about it.
Luckily the shop was busy all morning. David arrived soon after she opened and started with the deliveries. Mariel came in at noon and took over the front, leaving Jenna to brood alone in the back while she did what she loved most in the world.
As she reached for the wide white ribbon to finish off an arrangement, she cringed and chose a different style.
When the door between the shop and the back opened later in the afternoon and Katy barreled in, Jenna was almost ready to smile.
“What happened? And why didn’t you call me back?” She cocked her hip and set her hand on it.
“I’ve been busy, and nothing happened.” That was an understatement.
“Then why did Mason show up at the club alone last night and spend the evening sitting at the bar alone? He never does that; and he never broods.”
“He went to the club?” She took the information like a punch to the gut.
“Yes. And he looked like he’d been beaten too. I guess he lost his fight?”
“Yep.” Jenna continued to arrange the spray of pink carnations in front of her.
“That’s it? Just, yep?” Katy leaned on the counter to make eye contact with her friend. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Jenna took a deep breath. “Nothing really. We went to the arena. He lost. He brooded. He brought me home. The end.”