I envy that about him.
What does it feel like to be so good at something you love that you can do it in your sleep? I wish I had something like that. I love dancing, hell, I’m good at dancing, but not good enough to be a professional. Maybe if I’d been born in a different world, the daughter of different people, but there is no sense dwelling on maybes and what ifs.
His friends surround him, and I observe as they slap his shoulders, exchange fist bumps as they congratulate him. Or maybe even tease him about it? I’m never sure which one it is when guys are concerned.
One guy, I’m not sure of his name, pulls the ball cap off Mason’s head, messing up the mop of dark curls as he says something.
Whatever it is, catches Mason’s attention because his head shoots up, eyes scanning the crowd until they land on… me?
Thump-thump-thump.
The guy is still saying something to Mason, and he must be listening because he nods his head a few times, his eyes never leaving mine. I gulp down my nerves, my throat suddenly dry. All my attention is on him as my heart picks up speed, the sound of my pounding heart erasing the noises of the gym.
Another slap on his shoulders and Mason grabs his ball cap out of his friend’s hand and puts it on his head before starting toward where I’m standing.
“What the hell is happening?” I ask Yasmin, my whole body going on alert as he stalks toward me with the determination I’ve only seen him show on the court.
Did I do something to piss him off? Did he finally catch on to the fact that I’ve been sneaking in here to watch them play? Yasmin was right, I shouldn’t have been coming here so often, but I couldn’t help myself.
I didn’t usually visit the gym area, but one day J.D. was late picking me up, so I hung around with nothing better to do. I saw the guys playing ball, so I decided to stay and watch. That’s when I saw him for the first time. Mason owned that court like it was in his blood, the ball an extension of his hand. Watching him play was magnificent, and not just because I found him cute—although let’s be honest, he’s not just cute, he’s smoking hot—but also because I loved to just watch him play. See the joy on his face every time the ball would fall through the hoop.
So I kept coming back. Not often, I wasn’t stalking him or anything, just stopped every now and then after my dance class.
But maybe I was more obvious than I thought.
“We have to go,” I say, grabbing Yasmin’s hand and giving it a firm squeeze.
“Too late for that,” she grits through her teeth.
And she’s right, because in the next moment Mason’s standing right in front of me.
He looks even taller up close; I’m by no means a short girl, yet I barely reach his collarbone. Up close I can see his brown eyes surrounded by thick eyelashes, and his brown hair peeking from underneath his ball cap.
“Hey!” Mason smiles at me, two matching dimples appearing on his cheeks as he bounces slightly on the balls of his feet, his hands shoved into the pockets of his sweats. They hang so low on his hips I swear I can see a glimpse of skin showing.
“Hi,” I squeak back and feel my cheeks grow even warmer.
“I’m M—”
“Mason,” I finish and then look down.
God, are you for real, Grace? What the hell? This is so embarrassing.
“Mason,” he confirms with a chuckle. “I guess you have the advantage of me here, because I don’t know your name.”
I peek up at him, my teeth grazing over my lip. “G-Grace.”
“Grace,” he repeats as if he’s testing the way it sounds on his lips. “I like it.”
“Thanks.”
Yasmin snorts, and I want to strangle her. Can this be any worse?
If Mason heard it, he ignores it. Instead he tips his head toward the court, where his friends continue playing without him. “You like playing ball, Grace?”
“No, I’m here for ballet.” Yasmin nudges me in the side with her elbow. “What I mean to say is, I don’t know how to play, but I enjoy watching you guys.”
Great, I basically admitted to stalking them. Earth, will you please open up and swallow me to spare me this embarrassment?
“Cool.”
I nod, unsure of what to say. Well, I better not say anything, because as it is, I dug a big enough hole.
“Maybe I can teach you one day?” he offers, surprising me.
“I-I’d like that.”
He pulls his hands out of his pockets and I see a phone clasped in his hand. “Maybe if you give me your number, we can set that up. You know… sometime?”
I blink. Once, twice. And then his words finally register in my head.
Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod… This can’t be happening. Mason, asking me for my phone number! How is this real?
“S-sure,” I stutter, keeping to that one word because I don’t think my brain is capable of forming something more coherent. I rattle off my phone number and he saves it in his phone.
Those brown eyes of his give me another once-over as he slowly starts to pull back.
“Talk to you later, Legs,” he calls out, that boyish smirk, the one he has every time he scores, on his face.
My heart is beating loudly as I watch him leave and join the game.
Yasmin’s hands wrap around me as she squeals in my ear. “He’s totally into you!”
When I get out of the community center a little while later, a black SUV is already parked by the curb. I go straight for it, rubbing my hands and cursing myself in my mind because I didn’t bring my gloves.
“Hey Gracie, how was it?” Sienna asks as soon as I open the door.
“Good, I had fun,” I say, putting on my seatbelt.
Sienna is my older brother’s wife, but she’s also so much more. It’s always hard to explain our relationship to people. She’s my best friend and a mother figure in one. Something I never had before meeting her; hell, something I never thought I’d ever have, and I never plan to take her nor our relationship for granted.
“Are you working on something in particular?”
I met Sienna three years ago. She was volunteering alongside her mother in the community center. I actually met her before I met my brother. It was just my mother and me for years until she found out J.D., her child from her first marriage and who she left, has become a professional football player. Only then did she reach out to him and told him about me, requesting money for my “upbringing”. She only wanted it for booze, and he knew that so he refused to give it to her until he met me. It was just pure coincidence that destiny brought us all together and made us a family. In no way traditional, but family nonetheless.
“There are actually quite a few new girls, so we went back to the basics. Miss Caroline let me help.”
“That’s amazing, although I’m not surprised. You’ve come a long way in the last few years and you’re so good with kids.”
Sienna puts her hand on my knee, giving it an affectionate squeeze.
“I’ve had a lot of practice.”
Sienna and J.D. married just shy of my thirteenth birthday and now have two little boys that I love to dote on as much as I can. For most of my life—and when I say most, I really mean most, twelve whole years—I was an only child. That is, until J.D. walked into my life. Still, the age difference between us is so big; he’s more of a father figure than anything else. Their sons, Nicky and Wren, might be my nephews, but they’re also the little brothers I never had, and I want to spend every opportunity I have with them. In no time, I’ll have to pick out a college to go to, and things will change yet again.