Rumor Has It (Limelight) by Elisabeth Grace Page B

that you don’t feel the pull between us like I do, I’ll leave and never come back.” He took a step closer.
    It was on the tip of my tongue to say just that but something stopped me. I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t the truth.
    “That’s what I thought. You’re the most refreshing person I’ve met in years, Ellie. You’re not working an angle, you’re intelligent and you’re so goddamn beautiful in a way that grabs me by the throat and makes it hard to speak. And I sling rhymes for a living so that’s saying something.”
    I was speechless. I’d never had anyone describe me quite like that. The descriptors of me in YouTube comments were “cocktease,” “cockblocker” and another “c” word that even I wouldn’t repeat.
    The best part was that I could tell he meant every word.
    Every. Damn. Word.
    The images in my head of the two of us splashed across the front of some tabloid were even more painful with that realization. I opened my mouth to tell him that none of that mattered, I still couldn’t see him, when his phone rang.
    He let out a frustrated growl and pulled his phone from the pocket of his shorts and glanced at the screen.
    “Damn it,” he nearly yelled, hit a key on his phone and brought it to his ear. “What?” I had no idea who was on the other end but his body language changed almost instantly. His muscles became tense and rigid. There was a tick in his jaw as he clenched his teeth together.
    “You’d better be fuckin’ kidding me,” he said into the phone, and his voice rose with anger. “How long has she been in there?” He paused for a second and then, “No…no. I’ll come down there to deal with her. We need to have a conversation.”
    His voice was heated and menacing. Call me Miss Obvious but it was clear he was pissed. Beyond that there was a weariness and sadness in his eyes. It pained me to see him like that. Vulnerable almost. It didn’t seem right that someone like Mason could be made to feel like that. It reminded me of every time my mother told me she was getting a divorce growing up. I always knew it was coming, but somehow I still held out hope that maybe that day would never come. This husband would be the one that stuck.
    He hung up without saying goodbye and looked over to me, his face drawn.
    “Everything okay?” I asked. I didn’t know what else to say. He was intense when he’d arrived here but the phone call had brought him to a whole new level.
    “I’ve got to go,” he said and started to walk past me.
    I reached for his arm and he stopped at my touch. “Wait. Are you okay?”
    “Fine. Nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”
    “You’re upset.”
    He paused, seemingly deciding whether or not to share with me what was bothering him. “My mother’s fallen off the wagon again. Ended up in a holding cell for drunk and disorderly and property damage. I have to fly to Texas to bail her out and deal with her shit. Again.”
    I don’t know what possessed me to say it. Maybe it was the look in his eyes that I recognized so well—the disappointment in the one person you’re supposed to be able to rely on, or his little speech about me prior to the phone ringing, but I blurted it out before thinking.
    “Do you want some company?”
    The surprised look on his face told me that was the last thing he expected to hear. “You’d come?”
    “If you think it’d help.”
    Twenty minutes later I’d changed, left a note for my mom that I’d be back sometime tomorrow, and was boarding a private plane to Texas. What the hell had I gotten myself into?

 
    CHAPTER TWELVE
     
    I couldn’t believe she’d done it again. I don’t know why I was surprised. My entire life my mom had been delivering one disappointment after another. It shouldn’t even faze me anymore.
    My brother and sister didn’t deserve any of this. After all the opportunities I’d given to my mom….FUCK! She’d had access to the best rehabs, the best sober companions, the best