Downfall | ✔️

Chapter 18.

I drive home all giddy like a little girl, I didn't get to bask in our first kiss for too long since we got interrupted, I'm making up for it now. I'm smiling from ear to ear. Nothing can bring my mood down, not even my mom.

I sit my car keys in the bowl behind the door as I walk inside.

"I was with Mason, by the way." I say proudly to my mom, who didn't ask—but I don't really care.

"Come sit." she says, tapping the spot on the couch beside her. Here we go again.

"Tell me about him." she says, looking me in the eyes.

What?

"Tell you about him?" I repeat her words, to make sure I heard them correctly.

"Yes, tell me about him. I want to know." she says, smiling to mirror my prior mood as I came into the house.

"Okay.." I say, raising my eyebrow.

"He's.. well, he's great. I don't know what to say." I crinkle my brows.

"Is he good to you? Does he make you happy? Do you really like him?" she asks.

"Yes, he is. And yes, he does. And yes, I do. I really do, a lot." I force back a smile as I answer her question and Mason's face flashes through my mind.

"I'm sorry for overreacting." four words which I never expected to come from her mouth regarding Mason Loche.

"I want what's best for you, and when I seen how upset you were, my first instinct was to dislike him." she explains and I sigh.

"I know, but you didn't have to make him feel so unwelcome." I find myself defending Mason further, despite her apology.

"I know." she gives me a sympathetic smile and squeezes my hand gently.

"I made dinner, want some?" she asks, pointing to the kitchen where I can see a freshly baked lasagne on the table. Nobody will ever cook a better lasagne than my mom's, I could bet my life on it. Usually, I would decline her offer and go to my room, due to our... complicated dynamic at the moment, but the look of the food on the table, and my sheer happiness from my kiss with Mason—I'm not going to decline a calm, non-argumentative dinner with my mom.

—————

I feel sick from the sadly large portion of food I just ate, but I have no regrets. I take a sip of my drink as my mom tells me how happy she is that we're having a meal together.

"Speaking of dinner, we should all go out for dinner this weekend, you know, you, Mason and I." she chirps and I physically choke on my drink, my eyes watering from coughing so hard.

"I don't think that's a good idea." I tell her as I compose myself, as politely as possible. If my mom is beginning to like Mason, introducing them at dinner is an awful idea. It's not that I don't think she'd like him, but... I don't think she'd like him.

He's amazing, but first impressions are not his thing. My mind casts back to the first time I met Mason and how rude to me he was.
He also has a foul mouth and cannot tell when the right time is to make sarcastic, borderline rude comments. I've learned to live with it, but I don't know if she'd understand the same at first. Plus, Mason is so nervous around my mom—for some reason, and I know it would probably go awfully. I feel my newly digested food begin to rise in my throat, this will not happen, I can't let it.

"Oh, don't be silly!" she laughs at me.

"I want to apologise, and meet him properly. If he's your boyfriend, I want to know him." she says in the most meaningful way, but the word 'boyfriend' makes my stomach drop a little, "I'm not your boyfriend."
Masons words from only hours ago.