~~~

"Ana come here," Anastasia suddenly heard Mason shout from the kitchen. She sighed, resisting the urge to roll her eyes as she placed a sheet of paper in her textbook to save the page and closed it.

They had spent the past three hours studying together for their upcoming finals before Mason had finally declared that he needed food and had left her by herself at his desk. She had assumed it would only take him a few minutes at most, as he was most likely just going to make himself ramen (or so he'd told her).

She glanced at the alarm clock on his nightstand, eyes widening when she realized she had lost track of time and it had almost been forty minutes since he left.

She pulled on his sweatshirt that was still laying across his bed, tugging her hair out from underneath the neckline as she walked out of the room. She had been relying on both Mason's body warmth and a blanket to keep her warm earlier and now the chill of the dorm was starting to get to her.

"You should probably not say my real name so much you know," she called back.

There was the sound of clanging dishes for a brief second and Ana's eyebrows furrowed. "We're the only two here right now."

"But still-," she stopped short at the sight in front of her.

Mason had laid an array of blankets and pillows on the living room floor, plates of food arranged on the coffee table. She glanced around the rest of the room, realizing he had shoved back the couches so that there would be more room for the blankets.

She turned to face Mason, who looked up at her as she stepped over the bedding strewn on the floor. "You like dark chocolate right?"

"What?" She shook her head to clear it, trying to focus on what he was asking and not the pile of pillows she was currently standing next to. "What does that have to do with anything?"

He gestured in front of him and she only then noticed that there were roughly a dozen strawberries organized neatly on a cutting board, their stems seemingly cut off. "You don't like milk chocolate so I was thinking I could do dark chocolate instead but I realized I never actually fucking asked if you like it or not."

"Is this what you've been doing out here this whole time?" She nodded behind her at the food already made and plated in the living room.

"Yeah," he nodded distractedly as he pulled something out from the cupboard beside him. "We also have white chocolate, do you want that instead?" He set down both a bag of white and dark chocolate.

Ana blinked. Why was he so suddenly doing all this? "Dark," she finally said.

"Great," he dumped said chocolate into a pot on the stove before turning on the corresponding burner. "Shit," he turned back around, "That's going to take a while to melt." He smiled awkwardly at Ana, "Surprise?"

"What's the occasion?" She raised an eyebrow in question, curious to know what caused the romantic gesture.

He placed his forearms on the counter, leaning forward to kiss Ana lightly on the cheek. "Besides our one month anniversary? Nothing."

She felt herself smile, "You celebrate that?"

"Not usually," he shook his head, teasingly brushing his nose on hers in the process.

"Oh, so I'm a special case then," she snorted.

He gave her a small grin, head tilting as he pressed his lips against hers and softly kissed her. "Something like that," he muttered against her mouth.

Her breathing hitched at the intimacy of the moment; she cleared her throat and stepped back away from him. "Why'd you set up everything in the living room?"

"You wanted to go on a picnic, but we can't really do that in this cold ass weather so I thought an indoor one would be the next best thing." He said it so simply, as though he hadn't just told her he had assembled everything with her specifically in mind.

Ana's heart skipped a beat.

"Let's go eat," Mason walked around the counter and grabbed her hand. "I'm fucking starving."

After situating themselves onto the floor they dug into the food, which Ana discovered was shrimp alfredo pasta with homemade alfredo sauce served with a salad and fruit. "How can you cook but not bake?"

"Those are two very different things, one always has shitty directions and the other doesn't."

She giggled just as he suddenly shoved another forkful of pasta into her mouth. She chewed it with wide eyes. "Be nice to your boyfriend, Ana," he mock scolded.

A few moments later they were still eating in a comfortable silence when a thought suddenly occurred to Ana. She tapped Mason's shoulder, adjusting slightly so that her legs were now slung over his, her head on his chest. "Why did Charleigh say that by the way?"

She could feel him stiffen underneath her before relaxing. "What did the bitch say now?"

"Mason," she chided gently. She shook her head to refocus as he gave her a smirk. "She hasn't said anything to me recently, but that one time we spoke after class she said it made sense I didn't like her because I know you. Why would she say that?"

He sighed heavily, "It's a long story."

"I have time. I always do for you." Ana pulled away just enough to make eye contact with him; she wanted him to know she was serious about that.

"Fucking hell," he abruptly muttered. "Be warned, it's not fucking pretty."

She nodded and resettled against his chest, snuggling into his warmth and inhaling the scent of his skin. "We met last summer, and she was nice and all but there was just something," he paused as if trying to find the correct word, "off about her."

"Off like how?" She asked before she could stop herself. At the teasing glare he sent her she smiled sheepishly. "Sorry," she whispered.

"Anyways we kind of started hanging out more because my friend was friends with her friend; it was all so fucking complicated," he wrapped his arm around her. "We just usually saw each other in big groups or whatever," Mason further elaborated. "One day we got left alone and obviously I'm not just going to ignore her cause that's a mega dick move."

He shuffled back, pulling Ana with him as he leaned on the couch. "So we start talking or whatever and I start to realize how much she fucking knows about me. Like obsessively a lot. She knew things I'd never even mentioned to anyone before. And it was so much fucking stuff too but every time I brought it up she just said I did actually tell someone."

"So at first I thought okay maybe she's right, maybe I did mention and just forgot." He rested his cheek on Ana's head and she gasped when she realized how hard he was breathing. She reached up with one hand to run her fingers through his hair.

"Then she ended up asking me out at some point but I rejected her because I wasn't even attracted to her, let alone liked her you know?" Ana felt herself tense at this newfound information. Charleigh liked Mason? "And I didn't think it was a big deal at first because everyone gets rejected you know? Like it's just what happens sometimes."

"But I think that's what set her off or something because she started following me around everywhere. And it wasn't really obvious in the beginning, I would just kind of see her around when I went out which isn't that weird cause I used to live in a small ass town."

"But then I noticed that she was actually following me. Like I'd go into the shitty ass movie theatre and she would be sitting directly behind me or some shit. It was starting to really freak me out so I confronted her and obviously that didn't go over very well."

"I won't get too much into it but there was a lot of yelling on her part," his nose wrinkled with blatant contempt. "I basically just told her to leave me alone and she started getting mad and saying I only told her that because she liked me. But then I think it's finally over after that and that she's going to stop literally stalking me but of fucking course it wasn't."

Mason rolled his eyes and Ana brought both her hands to his shoulders to massage the taut muscle. "The next time I saw her she was in my room. She had somehow figured out my address and climbed through my window while my mom was at work, Ana." Mason suddenly looked so drained and she couldn't resist pulling him into her arms and he buried her face into her neck in response.

"Do you know how fucking terrifying it is to come home and see a random fucking person going through your dresser drawers and stealing everything you own just because you own it?"

"I'm so sorry," she slowly started rubbing his back, hoping to help him calm down at least a bit. "That sounds awful." He nodded sluggishly into her neck and Ana froze at the realization. "But you didn't call the police?"

"I did," she relaxed slightly at his words. "But only for theft."

Ana pulled away, feeling her skin heat as her anger finally made itself known. "What?"

"How the hell was I supposed to explain that I was scared of this fucking tiny girl, Ana? How was I supposed to tell them that she had been stalking me when everyone knew her as the sweetest fucking girl on the planet? It drives me insane knowing that even if I did tell them all she would have to do is smile and they wouldn't believe me."

She softened, tugging him back into her form. "I believe you," she whispered into his ear.

He shuddered as he tightened his arms around her, crossing his ankles at her back and creating a semblance of a cage around her. Except she didn't feel trapped at the change in position; not with him.

Never with him.

~~~