Page 5 of Letting Go at 40

And he’s down on the beach with one of his best friends, Mason Becker.

Without being in their presence, their conversation plays out in my head.

Ben is being altruistic. Mason is an ass.

I’ve known Mason Becker as long as I’ve known Ben. Both were young, fit, and fine in my late-teenage eyes, but while Mason was broody and distant, Ben was funny and sweet. He’d won me over with a smile, humor, and persistence. He kissed me one summer night when I was eighteen, and love blossomed for this shy virgin wanting desperately to be deflowered and bloom.

Ben had been all my firsts.

And he’d be my last.

I didn’t care what he thought he knew of Mason.

From my position on the landing, marking a halfway point up the one-hundred and fifty step climb to my family’s second home, I watch Mason react to Ben. With a certainty I shouldn’t have, my head knows what Ben is asking. Mason’s body language confirms my thoughts.

Within minutes, Mason is climbing the steps, leaving my husband alone on the beach. Ben will never again thunder up these wooden stairs the way Mason does.

Mason is fit. With model worthy looks, he’s handsome to a fault. Artfully curled, brownish hair wraps over his head and kicks out along his nape. He has arresting blue eyes, and a smile that melts panties, although mine have always stayed intact. Too many of Mason’s truths rest in my head.

However, Ben loves Mason. My husband has stayed loyal to a friendship that baffles me.

As Mason nears me, his head is lowered. The weight of his thoughts maybe keeping it downward. When he hits the landing, he startles when he sees me.

“Anna.” He chokes on my name.

Mason and I don’t really talk. He avoids me other than brief greetings or quiet partings. He never touches me. No welcoming hug. No goodbye kiss on the cheek. No physical contact ever. Not that I need it from him. If I were still a child, I’d worry about cooties from the number of women he’s had in his bed. He’s a sexual transmitted disease waiting to breakout.

My thoughts are unkind, and Ben would admonish me for thinking them, telling me I don’t understand Mason. He’d be correct. I don’t understand the man who stands before me with doe-like eyes, but a body tight like a hunter. With his shirt off, sweat glistens on his skin and his chest heaves from the exertion of climbing, or maybe it was his run, or perhaps whatever my husband said.

A man at forty shouldn’t still have a body like he is twenty. His physical appeal has always rubbed me the wrong way. While I love my husband, I’m not blind. Mason is an incredibly good-looking man. A certain magnetism exudes from his toned form and edgy face. One look at that crooked smile of his and I can see why panties ignite and women fall into bed with him. My attraction to him has always bothered me.

“He told you, didn’t he?” My voice is edgy, cutting to the quick. My skin feels sharp and prickly so the snark on my tongue shouldn’t be any different.

Mason nods and grips the railing of the landing. He keeps his distance. One foot on the deck. The other foot poised on the stair below. His position suggests he might take off any moment, racing up the remainder of the stairs in an effort to get away from me.

“I won’t need you.”

“What?” Mason gapes. His fingers tighten on the railing, and he pitches forward at the waist as if I’ve punched him in his rock-hard abs.

“Whatever he asked of you, I can do myself.” The words are harsh, aimed like the knife I’ve become, ready to slice at the world for what’s happening to Ben. “I can handle this myself.”

Turning my head away from Mason, I glare down at the quiet water, rippling against the sand. The lake is a lover’s caress at this time of day, gently lapping along the beach, like a soft tongue along tender skin.

I don’t want to lose Ben’s touch.

I don’t want to walk alone one day.

I don’t want to release my heart.

My eyes close and I cross my arms over my chest as if shielding myself from the pain or perhaps holding myself together.

The sudden thud of feet on the plank landing warns me of Mason’s approach. His whisper of my name has my lids flicking open before he reaches me.

“Don’t.” Don’t approach me. Don’t offer me condolences I’m not ready to hear. Don’t touch me.

Mason stops short, as if he were able to hear my unspoken demands.

“I won’t need you,” I repeat. The words are a grizzled growl of contempt, unnecessary and unwarranted.