“So he says.” Aria sets her cocoa down on the table with a thunk and props her hands on her hips. “You can’t know that’s the truth.”
I lift one shoulder. “I guess I can’t, Aria, but I trust him. He freaked out and left me, but he’s not a liar. He never was.”
Aria sniffs. “We’ll see about that.”
I freeze, my gaze drifting between Melody, Aria, and the table, the computers and papers suddenly making sense. “You’re looking for dirt on Mason?”
“We’re just checking into some things,” Melody says in a placating voice, clearly reading the outrage in my expression. “It’s no big deal. We just want to make sure he’s not going to hurt you again.”
I take a deep breath, doing my best to rein in my anger. “Listen, I know you both mean well, but this isn’t right. This is between Mason and me. I’m the one who has to decide whether or not to trust him again, and what it will take for that to happen.”
“All it takes is a few dates, apparently,” Aria says. “You’re starry eyed after three days, Lark. At this rate, you’ll be pregnant by the end of the week.”
“That’s not fair.” I scowl, barely resisting the urge to say something mean in response.
But you don’t kick someone when they are down, and for all her bluster, Aria is down. Down on men, down on life, and down on hope, which is exactly why she’s so afraid for me to start hoping with Mason.
She isn’t trying to hurt me; she’s trying to protect me.
Even if I’m not asking for protection.
“I’m not trying to be mean,” Aria says in a softer tone. “I’m just worried you’re not thinking clearly.”
“I am thinking clearly, and I’ve done what I needed to do to make me feel good about moving ahead with Mason.” I didn’t tell my sisters what I had planned for Mason tonight before I left for the date, and I don’t want to tell them now. It’s private, between Mason and me. “I trust him, and now I need you two to trust me and quit nosing into Mason’s business.”
Melody nods, looking ashamed, but Aria only crosses her arms and says, “We’ll stop when we get all the facts.”
“No, you’ll stop now. What happens or doesn’t happen between Mason and me is our business, no one else’s.”
Aria huffs. “Well, it was certainly our business when he left you the last time.”
“Aria, don’t,” Melody says, but Aria pushes on.
“How many nights did we sit up with you while you cried over him?” she asks. “Picking apart every detail of your relationship and his proposal and the last night you spent together, looking for some sign, some clue you’d overlooked that would have let you know he was going to run?”
I close my eyes. “That was different.”
“The only thing that’s different is that you’re under his spell again,” Aria says. “But what happens when he leaves the next time, and you’re even more broken than you were before? Are you still going to tell us your relationship with Mason, or lack of relationship with Mason, is none of our business?”
“I won’t come crying to you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I say, opening my eyes, meeting Aria’s hard gaze with one of my own.
“You can always come crying to us,” Melody says, a quiver in her voice. “Come on, y’all, let’s not fight. I hate it when we fight.”
“I’m not fighting,” Aria says. “I’m doing what I think is right for my sister, because I love her and I wish someone had done the same for me before I screwed everything up by trusting a man who didn’t deserve it.”
It’s the first time I’ve heard Aria even hint at what happened with her and Liam, Felicity’s father, and enough to make me hold the verbal dart on the tip of my tongue. Aria has been very tight-lipped when it comes to Liam, saying “it didn’t work out,” and leaving it at that. Even Dad hasn’t been able to get any more information out of her, and Aria has always been a daddy’s girl.
“So, let me snoop. Please,” Aria continues, eyes pleading with mine. “You need someone with a clear head looking out for you. I’ll keep checking up on Mason, and if I don’t find anything, then we won’t have to talk about this ever again. But if I do…”
Aria doesn’t finish her sentence.
She doesn’t have to.
I know what will happen if Aria finds something on Mason. She will try not to gloat about being right. But secretly, she’ll be happy, or at least grimly justified that she was correct in her suspicions.
“Do you want this to fail?” I whisper, tears rising unexpectedly in my eyes. “Just to prove that all men are awful or something? Do you really think that’s true?”