The Distance Between Us

come we’ve never hosted one?”
    “Our store is way too small for that.” She looks at the almost blank calendar. “Anything else?”
    My eyes linger on Saturday, the day Xander and I had been doing our career days. It would be his turn. “No. Nothing.”
    “Wow, we have an exciting month. I don’t know if we can handle such a full schedule.”
    “No birthday parties?”
    “Not yet.”
    She puts away the pen and gets out some cleaning supplies. Throughout the afternoon I find myself staring at the calendar and the Wednesday night “meeting” written there in black. Why am I so suspicious of that? I had been lying to my mom for the past few months about who I was hanging out with. Is it possible she’s been lying to me as well? The name Matthew pops into my head and I quickly try to push it out. But it lingers there.
    “Mom, who is—”
    The bell on the door rings, cutting off my sentence. I look over, some silly false hope inside telling me it could be Xander. It’s not. It’s Mason.

Chapter 22

    M y mom smiles. “Hi. Mason, right?”
    She remembers his name?
    “Yes. Hi. Nice to see you again. I was hoping I could steal Caymen for an hour or two, if that’s all right with you, of course.”
    “That’s perfectly fine. Where are you headed?”
    “We have band practice and I wanted her opinion on some songs.”
    “He doesn’t know my opinions on music are worthless yet,” I say to my mom.
    “She has great opinions,” my mom assures him as if he’s really worried about it.
    He walks by my mom and I see her eyes linger on his calf. She points. “What does it mean?”
    He twists his foot to look at his tattoo as though he forgot it was there. “It’s a Chinese symbol. It means ‘acceptance.’”
    “Very beautiful,” my mom says.
    “Thank you.” He turns to me. “You ready?”
    “Sure. Thanks, Mom. I’ll see you in a while.”
    He puts his arm around my neck. I’m getting used to Mason’s need for human contact. I kind of need human contact right now, too.
    I nudge him with my elbow. “You’re wearing shorts in November?”
    “It’s not that cold.”
    He’s right, of course. On the coast of California the beginning of November is fairly similar to the beginning of most months. “Where do you have practice?” I ask.
    He points to a purple van.
    “In a van?”
    “No, we’re driving there.”
    The side door to the van slides open, and Skye climbs out with a smile. “I didn’t think he’d be able to talk you out of that store.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because you’re so responsible. But he assured me that he could. Apparently I underestimated Tic charm.”
    More like she underestimated my loneliness. Mason smells good, and I lean into his chest a little more. “Well, my mom was in a good mood. It was really her that made the decision.”
    “ Oh!” Mason says. “Check it out.” He opens the passenger-side door and practically dives in, retrieving something off the floor. He brings out a Starz magazine. “Another article. You should start collecting them. They’re like our claim to fame now, right?”
    I grab the magazine and scan the cover until I find Xander under the caption Xander Spence and Sadie Newel spotted in LA over the weekend. The picture is him holding hands with a girl who has short dark hair and long tan legs. My stomach twists so tight I want to vomit. So Xander got more than a customer’s dress shirt last weekend.
    I open to the article and read, “Xander Spence, the son of high-end hotel owner Blaine Spence, was spotted in Los Angeles last weekend outside the nightclub Oxygen with his longtime girlfriend, actress Sadie Newel, who has been filming in Paris for the last six months. . . .”
    Longtime girlfriend? I can’t read anymore because my vision blurs. There is no way I’m going to cry over this. I had already let Xander go. I gave back his camera , I remind myself. That was my release. But secretly, deep down, I had been hoping he would come back around. I bite the inside of my cheeks and force back the tears. “Wow, exciting article,” I say. “Two people were seen walking. Now that’s news.”
    Six months. She’d been gone for the last six months filming. I was his distraction. My mind chooses this moment to remind me of how platonic our relationship has been: how he never walked too close, how he pointedly called himself my friend when talking to Mason, how he never called our outings dates. They were “career days.” How he