Sounds of Silence: A Contemporary Romance Page 7

  I leaned forward on the table, folding my hands across one another as I held her stare. “What? No small talk?” I grinned. “What did you do last night? Go to any parties? Have some fun? I had to work, so it wasn’t like I was staring at my phone all night waiting to hear from you.”

  Hmm. I always ran my mouth before thinking. Perhaps that wasn’t something to joke about. She might think I was serious, that I really did stare at my phone, waiting for her to text. That was closer to the truth of what I did today, not yesterday, but she didn’t need to know that.

  It was crazy, but I never realized how lame I was.

  When she only stared at me, looking at me like I’d sprouted a third eye right in the middle of my forehead, I said, “Come on. Humor me. Tell the inquiring minds what Bree does on her Friday nights.” Personally, I thought I sounded charming, confident. Was that her type?

  Hah, I was everyone’s type.

  Well, maybe not everyone’s, but—

  To my surprise, Bree actually spoke, telling me what she did last night: “My sister dragged me out of the house on a double date with her boyfriend’s brother.” She spoke it as her eyes fell to her hands in her lap, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say her cheeks were a bit pinker than they were before.

  A date? I did not like hearing that. Was someone else moving in before I even had the chance? No fair.

  Oh, well. This wasn’t going to make me give up. No, if anything, it would only make me try harder.

  I repeated, “A date. Don’t keep me waiting in suspense. How did it go?” My not-so-sly way of asking if she was going to see him again. Was it wrong to hope the date went horribly so that I could have the chance to give her a real date? Probably, but did that stop my mind from going there anyway? No, no it did not.

  Bree’s thin shoulders shrugged, and she reached up to tuck some of her pink hair behind an ear. Normally she hid behind those pink tendrils, but when they were tucked behind her ears, her face was visible to any and all—and what a face it was. She really was pretty, and I bet she had no idea how pretty she was.

  “Not so good,” she muttered, frowning to herself as she recalled the date.

  I caught myself smiling, but then realized how much of an ass it might make me look, so I quickly hid the smile. She wasn’t my territory, but I did feel a few pangs of jealousy when I imagined her on a date with another guy. “I’m sorry to hear that.” No, I was not, but again, I wanted to be sympathetic.

  If anyone was going to take her on a date and show her a good time, it was me.

  She didn’t know that, though, and at this point, I had no idea how the hell I was going to pull it off. She didn’t seem eager to talk to me, or even eager to meet with me for this project. Hmm. I supposed I could give her some time to get used to my amazing presence, and then I could bombard her with asking her on a date.

  Bree shrugged again, this time meeting my eyes. “I knew it was going to be bad. I’m not…I don’t do dates.”

  That got me to chuckle. She’d said it so seriously, and yet I had to ask, “What do you mean?” The longer we spent not talking about our project, the more time I’d be able to spend with her. I’d consider that a win.

  “I just don’t. I don’t do dates, I don’t do boyfriends. I don’t go to parties or hang out with friends.” Bree’s voice quieted, and her green gaze once again fell to her lap. “I’m really boring, Mason.” She spoke it like she was telling me a deep-seated secret, something no one else in the world knew.

  I let myself revel in the way my name sounded on her tongue for a few moments, then I said, “I don’t think you’re boring.”

  A teeny, tiny smile graced her face. “Just wait, then. By the time this project is done and over with, I’m sure you’ll regret picking me for a partner.” The way she insulted herself, took herself down, it came so naturally. I bet she did it all the time.

  This girl didn’t think she was worth anything, did she? I couldn’t say why, but that bothered me. No, Bree was wrong. By the time this project was over, she wouldn’t think that way. I would never regret choosing her as a partner, even if she refused to see me in a friendly, dating manner; I would make her believe that she was worth it.

  “Why don’t you let me decide on that,” I suggested, grinning. “Here’s a hint: I don’t think that’s how this is going to end.”

  That must’ve caught her off-guard, for she looked up sharply and asked, “And how do you think this is going to end?”

  “You and I, acing this stupid project and being the talk of the class,” I spoke, still grinning. At least Bree wasn’t frowning anymore; I hoped my smile was a little infectious. “But hold on, because that’s not all.”

  She lifted a brow—a brow that was still a brown color, her natural hair color. “It’s not?”

  “Nope. In addition to getting a perfect grade on this project, you and I are going to become close. Very good friends.”

  “Are we?”

  I could tell she didn’t believe me. That was okay. I could handle her non-belief. It would make proving her wrong that much more delicious. “You bet. The best of friends…who also see each other in a more than friendly capacity.” Eh, probably should’ve kept that last part to myself, but I had to test the waters, see her reaction.

  She’d had a horrible date with her sister’s boyfriend’s brother. But what about a possible future date with me?

  “More than friendly…” Bree started to echo me, but she drifted off, her beautiful gaze widening when she finally realized what it was I meant. “Mason, I told you I don’t date.”

  “You also said you think you’re boring, and I know you’re not. You might not do dates, but maybe that’s just because you haven’t met the right guy yet.”

  Bree let out a sigh. “I’ve met a lot of people. I’m never anyone’s first choice.”

  “What if I say you’re mine?”

  She froze, unable to say anything or even blink for the longest time, as if she was afraid she’d misheard me. Eventually she smiled. Just a quick, small thing before it faded and she said, “I’d tell you to stop lying.”

  I held her stare for what felt like forever, knowing nothing I could say today would change her mind. I’d give her time. Time was the great equalizer, wasn’t it? Or was that death? Oh, well. In this case, it was time—and I would take as much time as I needed to make Bree realize that I wasn’t lying to her.

  Bree shifted in her seat. “Are we going to choose a topic, or did you want to meet to talk about my dating life?”

  To be honest, I didn’t know she had a dating life until a few minutes ago, but that was neither here nor there. I couldn’t push my luck when it came to her too much. To go at her too hard, too fast would be to scare her away; I had to take it slowly with her. Right now, I’d settle for spending any amount of time with her.

  One step at a time.

  “You’re right,” I agreed, watching as she visibly relaxed. “We should get a-choosing. Does that pink head of yours have any ideas? Everything I like has been done a thousand times over.” Also, I Googled it yesterday.

  The easiest experiment we could run, the easiest way to gather data was to create a questionnaire and get a good subject pool in responses. We could organize the responses based on age, sex, socioeconomic status…or anything else.

  Only problem was we had to figure out something to base our questions on, and make a hypothesis as to what we thought the results would be.

  I hated experiments. I really did. They were so not my thing.

  “I don’t care,” Bree muttered, turning to gaze out of the window. Outside, the sun was shining, a bright, warm fall day.

  “What do you like?”

  Bree openly glared.

  “I’m not trying to dig into anything personal,” I spoke with a chuckle, though in reality that’s exactly what I was doing. Trying to get to know my partner and my future girlfriend. That wasn’t so weird, was it? “I just think if we center the project around somethin
g one of us likes, it’ll be easier to do.”

  That seemed to placate her somewhat. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know what you like?”

  “I mean, I haven’t thought about it in a while. I wake up, I go to school, I go home. Rinse and repeat.”

  “Okay, and what else?”

  She gave me a crazy look.

  Well, it might not be an I love you smile, but at least it was some emotion. Getting any emotion out of her was better than none, right?

  “I meant,” I added, holding back another laugh—if I laughed too much right now, she might think I was laughing at her, which was not the case. “What do you do when you’re not here or sleeping? There are more hours in the day to fill.”

  Bree took her time in answering, “I don’t do anything else.”

  I couldn’t say how long I stared at her after that. That…made me feel some kind of conflicted. She didn’t do anything else? So then what did she do, just sit in her room and wait for time to pass? For whatever reason, something inside me ached when I thought of that possibility. “Okay, then, when you were a kid, what did you do then?”

  God, this girl…what was I going to do with her?

  Her teeth found her bottom lip again, something that must be a habit with her. “Uh…is it bad I don’t really know? I mean, I used to draw and stuff, but…” Her shoulders rose and fell once.

  “Good, what else?” If I had to pry things out of this girl, I would.

  It was a few moments before she said, “I used to watch a lot of Disney movies. They were my favorite. When I was a kid, my mom said I used to watch The Lion King every day when I came home from school.” This time, the smile that grew on her lips was genuine, and it was a smile I wanted to see more often. True, sincere, wistful.

  “The Lion King, huh? Have you seen the live version?”

  She scoffed, “How can it be considered a live version when it’s all CGI?”

  I acted confused. “You mean they didn’t get real lions to sing?”

  The laugh that came from her right then made all of this worth it. It was a sound that instantly caused my heart to skip a beat and my mind to wander. Such a melodious, entrancing sound. I could listen to it all day.

  Eventually, her laughter died down, and she said, “No, and no. I haven’t seen many new movies. I just…I can’t get into them now.”

  That was sad, but I had the feeling that sad was Bree’s middle name. It was strange, because before, when I’d only seen her in passing, I never knew how seriously dejected this girl was. She seemed normal, pink hair aside. But talking to her, seeing her up close…it was impossible not to see the deep-seated sorrow in her eyes.

  “Well, I think we should do something involving Disney, then,” I told her, pushing past the way she instantly seemed so depressed. “Does being obsessed with Disney when you were younger relate to how you are when you’re older? Or something like that.”

  Bree nodded, and for the next hour we talked about what we could possibly do it on. The professor had been lenient about the subject of the project, so that really left it all up to us. Did watching Disney movies when you were younger affect your outlook on life when you were older? We specified movies, because I knew Disney had its own channel, not to mention it owned a bunch of other networks and had its own streaming service now.

  Our hypothesis was yes. Yes, being obsessed with Disney when you were younger was related to how you viewed life when you were older.

  Bree was into it, which was good. I wanted her to enjoy this project as much as anyone could enjoy a college psychology experiment.

  What Bree failed to realize, however, was how close to home this experiment truly was to her. We weren’t saying watching the movies when you were younger affected you outright when you were older, but there was probably something to be said about how many times girls watched the princess movies and how they viewed dating when they were older. Guys? I didn’t think guys watched Disney nearly the same amount as the girls. Hell, I didn’t think I’ve ever seen Sleeping Beauty or any of those older ones.

  Finding Nemo, though? That shit was awesome.

  By the time we’d settled on what we were doing, it was early afternoon. Kind of late, and my stomach was not happy since I’d skipped lunch. We’d decided to meet at the library again sometime this week—we’d discuss it in class, since we’d see each other every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—to check out and make copies of the scholarly articles we’d use to write the paper and back up our hypothesis.

  Bree and I were walking out of the library together when I stopped beside her and said, “Did you eat lunch?”

  She shook her head, the outside breeze whipping her pink hair around. Today was a bit warm for any jackets, and yet she looked snug in her long sweater. I couldn’t help but wonder, right then, what she looked like under that fabric. I bet she looked fantastic naked.

  No, definitely shouldn’t be thinking of her body without any clothes on. Definitely not…

  “You want to stop by the union and pick some up? I’ll buy,” I offered, giving her a smile I hoped she couldn’t deny.

  And, for a long moment, it looked like she was about to—but then something inside her changed, and she let out a soft sigh. “I guess I could eat a little something.”

  That I would consider a win.

  We walked to the union together, Bree mostly being quiet and listening to me ramble and joke about anything that crossed my mind. That girl better be careful; I would weasel my way into her heart before she knew it.

  Chapter Seven – Bree

  It was seven on Tuesday night when my sister Michelle barged into my room, folding her arms across her chest and giving me an unimpressed and yet pissed off look. I was sitting at my desk, figuring out possible questions Mason and I could use for our questionnaire for the psychology project, but I had to stop the moment I met my sister’s stare.

  She really didn’t look happy, for whatever reason.

  I blinked, really just wanting her to go away. “What?”

  Michelle’s blonde hair was up in a messy bun—a bun that looked cute, something I was never able to accomplish. She wore skin-tight leggings and a low-cut shirt that was half see-through. For once, she wasn’t hanging out with Kyle.

  If she was with Kyle, at least she wouldn’t be in my room, about to bug me with whatever was on her mind. Although…it kind of looked like she was angry with me, which was just ridiculous, because I hadn’t done anything—

  “Guess what I just heard from Kyle,” Michelle spoke, stepping inside before kicking the door closed behind her with her foot.

  I had no idea how the hell I was supposed to know what Kyle just told her, but I knew Michelle well enough that if I didn’t play this game with her, she’d never leave my room. “Uh, I don’t know. He got another gecko?” Kyle had a thing for lizards. Every few months it seemed he got another one.

  And then, a few months later, it somehow got out and disappeared. Everyone in their family blamed their cat.

  “No,” Michelle stated, cocking her head at me like I was the one at fault, which was ridiculous. I had no idea…

  Oh. Oh, wait.

  “Kyle just told me that Calum said he has another date with you on Friday.” A muscle in Michelle’s face twitched as she strained an annoyed smile. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me? When did this happen? Bree, I asked you for details about when he took you home, but you said nothing happened.”

  “Nothing did happen,” I said, though I swallowed down any other arguments when I remembered those soft lips of his on my cheek. Okay, besides a quick, chaste kiss on the cheek, nothing did happen.

  Okay, the kiss and him asking me out on a redo date. But I knew the redo date was only a pity date. And, frankly, it hadn’t crossed my mind lately, since I’d been drowning myself in the project with Mason. Mason, who…in spite of everything, seemed to be enjoying every second he spent with me. I had no idea what game he was playing, but I wanted no part
of it. The thing with Calum was enough.

  Michelle laughed, though it was a curt chuckle that died soon after it came out. “Oh, I’d call asking you out again something!” She quieted, inching closer to me. She knelt beside my desk, holding onto its edge as she met my eyes. “Did he kiss you goodnight? Have you two been texting? You’re supposed to tell me these things—I’m your sister! I set you two up. I need to know how it’s going.”

  I was tight-lipped about what happened Friday because I didn’t want to talk about it, and I sure as hell didn’t want to relive it. Why couldn’t Michelle see that? Resisting my urge to roll my eyes, I said, “We haven’t been texting. He just said he was sorry for not being his best and said he’d pick me up here on Friday.”

  My baby sister blinked, eager to hear every juicy detail—though my story was anything but juicy. If anything, it was the opposite: super bland and dry. “And? Did he kiss you? I swear, Bree, if you had your first kiss and didn’t tell me, I’m going to be so pissed.”

  “No,” I quickly said, feeling my cheeks heat up. “He just kissed me on the cheek, and only because he felt bad—”

  “A cheek kiss? That’s so sweet.” Michelle stood, pushing herself away from my desk, falling onto my bed with a swooning sigh. “I love cheek kisses.” She propped herself up, giving me a look that I knew too well. “Do you have any idea where you’re going on this second date?”

  “No.”

  “That’s okay, I can—”

  It took everything in me to say, “Michelle, I don’t want…I don’t want your help.”

  “What?” She acted shocked.

  “If I’m going on this date, I’m going as me.” That much I knew already. I wasn’t going to let Michelle play dress-up with me again, not going to let her put makeup on me and expertly blend my eyeshadow like you saw in those YouTube videos. I wasn’t like that normally. There was no point in trying to be someone I wasn’t, just for a stupid date that was nothing more than a pity date. Surely she could understand that.

  “Fine, but I want your word that you’re going to tell me all about it. No more keeping things to yourself,” Michelle spoke, swinging her legs off the bed as she hopped up. “I want every detail. Every single detail.”