Part 1

Kieran

Mason's knuckles smacked my ear and my eyes opened with mild irritation. I rolled over and threw his arm back at him, it bounced off his forehead and flopped to his chest without waking him. I turned away again and closed my eyes intending to go back to sleep, I couldn't though, sunlight was assailing my eyelids, that early morning type, the golden kind that burns with earnesty.

I rolled over again to admonish Mason for waking me but when I saw his face my mouth closed, redirecting the charged breath out my nose, the tamest rubuke known to man. Warm light glanced off his skin and touched me with it's softness, mellowing the edge of interrupted sleep.

I watched his chest rise and fall peacefully before my attention was captured for the hundredth time, effortlessly, by the faint freckles on his cheeks. His light brown lashes fluttered ever so slightly and the light reflected off them with the tiniest twinkle, like some kind of honest magic.

I stared for awhile, until I saw him frown, disturbed by his own dream. I felt the urge to swat it away like a bothersome fly.

I moved closer, wrapping him up protectively with one arm and touching his cheek with my lips softly. For some reason that I didn't understand I impulsively licked the freckles there. Mason groggily opened his eyes, wrinkling them with erratic blinks, fully disoriented. He placed one arm over mine on his waist and turned his face toward me slightly.

I kissed his lips.

"Are you awake?" He mumbled. I didn't answer, only brushed my nose on his. After a silence he seemed to wake up a bit more,
"You never wake up before me. Am I sick?"
"No, I'm sick." I said with a fake mournfulness. "What?" His confusion made him loud, disrupting the mood. I swallowed my mushy lovesick joke and changed course.
"Sick of you smacking me in your sleep."
"Oh. Sorry. I can't help it."

Why is love so sharp sometimes, for no reason?

The sharpness followed me long after the moment ended, resurfacing while Mason happily ate the pancakes I made him, gushing about their supposedly perfect amount of fluffiness and complimenting my genius for warming up the syrup on the side.

I joined him at the table eventually and noticed a change in his expression. A far off look. One of his crafty looks.
"What?" I said with apprehension.
He started guiltily. "Nothing."
"Do you have something to tell me?"
He searched my eyes, "You already know?"
"Know what? Spit it out." The drop of his eyebrows told me he was giving up on whatever he'd been fabricating up there,
"Well, my siblings want to go on a camping trip to spend some quality time together."
"Good for them." I tried to intimidate him out of the begging that I sensed was about to come.
"Obviously, they want to spend time with me, we've barely talked since I started school."
"Then hopefully they choose a spot close enough for you to make a day trip." My tone held a warning that I knew he recognized.
"You know I have no intention of spending a single day apart from you this summer."
"Wonderful. So you'll be telling them no altogether."

We stared at each other in a silent battle of wills. Arguing without words.

I narrowed my eyes.

He widened his.

I gathered my brows.

He raised one of his.

I wrinkled my nose and curled my upper lip.

He tilted his head to the side.

I crossed my arms.

He put his elbows on the table and leaned forward lifting his gaze provocativly.

I scoffed.

He huffed and sat back in his chair, crossing his own arms and glaring at me. I didn't like that. It affected me differently than usual.

He broke the silence first, "What if I just kidnap you? What then?"

"I dare you to try." Outwardly I kept my voice confident.

"I will." He said obstinately, "I'll just wrap you up in a tarp and lock you in the trunk. I'll put the camping gear in the front, it'll probably be better company than you anyways. Even if you go willingly, I'm sure you intend to punish me with a sour attitude."
"Childish exaggeration."
His disapproval deepened at my accusation.
"Hardly. You always act like it's such a chore to do things with me."
My own glare broke with surprise.
"Mason! That's untrue and unfair!"
"Alright, let me rephrase that. It hurts my feelings that you're not able to enjoy things just by us being together. Like I do."

Sharp sharp sharp.

"I'll just go." The words slipped out before I could catch them. Mason missed them at first,
"Can't you find it in your cold heart–" He blinked, "What did you say?"
"Nothing." My pride was injured by how quickly I'd folded.
"No. You already said you would go. That was much shorter than I expected." He grinned easily and my suspicion was triggered.
I scowled, "Are you playing me?"
"Not exactly." He replied with a shrug.
"Did you mean that? About your feelings being hurt?" He looked away.
"Mason?" I pressed.
"Well. It was a childish exaggeration."

I realized something then. Mason already knew that I would give in, he had every reason to expect it. Historically I'd allowed myself to be dragged to his family events dozens of times by now. All of this back and forth drama was just for show. To accommodate me by providing an outlet to play out my frustration at being obligated to do things like this for him.

"Do you know something?" I spoke abruptly after the long silence in which Mason had gone back to chewing his pancakes, "I love you so much that I actually annoy myself." He smiled at the table and then looked up with a devastating glimmer in his eye.
"Likewise."

Fucking hell, Mason's smile is sharper than any wooden stake.

"Alright. Here's the thing. I won't be the only non-werewolf in the woods. That's too much even for me. I'm bringing Marcella. Can we work around that? When she's available?"
"See! That's what I was talking about! I'm not enough for you!" He teased.
"Babe? Shut the fuck up." With that I stood up from the table.