🏃‍♂️Clark's POV🏃‍♂️

It was a couple of days after our meeting for the twins', mainly Jazz's, birthday party, and after what I saw that day I had become extremely suspicious. After we broke into our specific pairs, I noticed how Mason and Mark were acting around each other.

They had already been looking at each other plenty while the meeting had been going on, but once they were talking among themselves, the first thing I noticed was how close they sat.

Mason made sure to keep his shoulder brushing against Mark's and I noticed Mark's hand resting comfortably on Mason's thigh. They didn't seem as if they were discussing the important subject of making sure that there was good food at the party but more like they were talking about how they were going to go to the beach next weekend.

I sniffed out a ship,

And not just any ship,

But a sailing one.

I already knew that there was something going on, the two had some chemistry going between them from the first time that I met them, and there was that kissing scene that I remembered happening while they had all been celebrating Aiden and Aaron's anniversary.

The idea that the two were just fighting the inevitable fact that they would soon date was not a new idea to me. The new idea was that some development already happened and Mason hadn't told me yet.

The notion actually hurt me more than he would like to admit, so to defeat the pitiful feeling, I had been texting Mason every day to prep him and then invited him over to my place to "hang out". Sure we would hang out but I planned on spending most of the time interrogating Mason until he spilled the tea and told me what was going on between him and Mark.

I had taken the day off and was cleaning up the kitchen while the Stir Fry that I made warmed on the stove. I was going all out when it came to buttering Mason up, I was extremely curious about what happened and I liked the chance to cook and show off.

I was in an even better mood than usual because while I was brushing my teeth this morning I thought of something that first made me freeze, then had me jumping for joy.

I hadn't had a dream about him for over a month. In all the years that have passed since I moved to Toronto, I have never gone that long without dreaming about our relationship. But now a month had passes and my nights had only been filled with random dreams or sleepless nights. It had me ecstatic.

I wonder if it was because I was dating Liam now?

Our relationship had been amazing even recently, we had gone on two more dates, not counting times where he would come over and just do nothing with me on the living room couch while we watched TV and Ethan watched on from the kitchen. since the time where I fed him his first Gyro. And I was happy to be able to state that he now loved them almost as much as me.

I heard a knock on the door while I was drying my hands and grinned excitedly. Here he is.

I quickly walked to the front door, when I threw it open I was met with a brightly smiling Mason holding a bag of, *Gasp*

SweetChiliHeatDoritos!

My mouth fell open and I looked at Mason with an expression that could only be described using 1 word.

Love

Pure and complete, wholesome (alright, maybe you could use more than 1 word) love.

I grabbed the bag from him and stepped aside to let him in.

"Welcome to my humble abode." I smiled widely at Mason, watching as he walked in with an amused smile.

"Humble huh?" He raised an eyebrow and I just shrugged. "I think your version of humble is starting to get mixed up with Jasmine's." I chuckled and started walking towards the kitchen once Mason's shoes were off.

"Well, I guess that I just got used to this place after the first 6 months of living here." I shrugged. I walked over to the stove and grabbed the large saucepan filled with Stir Fry. I walked back over to the dining table where Mason had already sat down and placed the pot in the center of the table.

"Oooh, this seems fancy." I grinned at Mason's comment and made two more trips to get the rice and the plates and forks.

"Yeah, I hope you didn't eat lunch like I told you and made room for . . . " I lifted off the cover of the pan. "Chicken Teriyaki Stir Fry." Mason and I took in a deep breath at the same time to smell the food. The sweet smell of the Teriyaki sauce accompanied by the natural scent of cooked chicken danced up to our noses. We both sighed simultaneously and then laughed afterward at our behavior.

"This looks and smells amazing, Clark," Mason said with an expression of awe on his face as he complimented my food. I was currently serving out our plates and Mason's eyes were glued to the plates the entire time. "I can't believe that I get to be spoiled like this."

"Oh no, I'm not doing this for you," I told Mason with a joking tilt to my voice and a shake of my head. "At this point, Ethan treats me like his kid and cooks for me so much that I rarely get to do it anymore. I want to do this, and I am just happy that I have another mouth to feed."

Mason laughed and I laughed along with him. I finally sat down in my seat and Mason relaxed into his chair.

"You talk as if you are the one getting fed." Mason teased.

"Getting fed, doing the feeding. Same thing in my mind." Mason rolled his eyes while shoving his fork into his food. I stared at him as he brought the forkful into his mouth. When he moaned out in delight I relaxed back into my chair. Yep, still got it.

After that, Mason and I joked and talked the entire time that we ate our food. During our conversation the both of us talked about what was happening in our lives, mentioning the little details and small events that we had never thought to bring up while we were talking with the rest of our friend group.

Don't get me wrong, I love when Jazz is with us and we become some version of the "Three Musketeers", not really but a boy could dream. I also loved it when all five of us, or more like all six of us when I count Santiago, got together and laughed our asses off. But when I talked with Mason while it was just the two of us, we shared more of our lives than we had in a long time before. It made me consider trying to do this with every one of my friends because I felt like we better knew each other after this.

We finished our food an hour later and then moved to the living room to watch TV. The main purpose of the TV at that moment was to act as background noise to our conversation and act as a source of entertainment whenever there was a lull in the conversation or when we got tired of talking.

47 minutes after we moved to the living room we ripped open the bag of Doritos that Mason had brought and started digging in while talking over the Cutthroat Kitchen Marathon that was playing.

Mason had been telling me about one funny incident that happened to him in middle school and I was dying of laughter but now as he went about how odd his parent could be sometimes I thought about why I had invited him over in the first place. I loved talking to Mason, I really did, but I was still dying of curiosity to find out what was going on. I had to know.

I glanced at the TV for a moment then looked back at it again when I processed what I saw. There was a chef who was currently competing, unlike most of the other chefs that he saw he was young and very handsome. Usually, the male chefs were older, at least 37 most of the time, and, through the tough stressful restaurant industry, found the years visibly catching up to them fast. But this guy was actually damn cute. With him in mind, I crafted how I would bring up the topic. Once satisfied with my mental script I started.

"Oh, Mason. That guy on the TV, what is his name? I didn't see it." I said casually, watching as Mason looked up at the screen.

"Which one? The guy using a handheld torch to cook his food?" Mason asked, talking about the guy who looked to be forty or so.

"No, the one with the floppy quiff." I corrected him, pointing at the guy who was just showing up on the screen.

"Oh, yeah. His name is Kenneth," Mason told me, the both of us still looking at the handsome chef.

"Mmm . . . " I hummed, a small smile on my lips. "He is pretty cute, usually all the guys are old and just not eye candy, and the only cute ones are the girls." Mason's eyes widened and he gasped softly.

"Wait, you're into girls?!" Mason sat up straight up into his seat and looked genuinely shocked. "How have I never known this? I swear to God I thought you were gay."

I huffed and rolled my eyes, pushing Mason a little bit so that he would sit back down.

"I am into guys. But just because I am into guys doesn't mean that I can't acknowledge when someone, even a girl, looks cute." I told Mason with an annoyed drawl, completely in defense of my sexuality as I spoke. Mason made an unconvinced "mmm hmm" sound that annoyed me a great deal.

"I know you think that you're right, but what you said is exactly what straight guys say when they're in denial about liking the D." Mason hummed. I let out a short chuckle.

"Trust me, despite the amount of respect that I have for the body part that gave birth to me, I have little hope that I will be doing anything sexual with a vagina in my lifetime." Mason and I giggled a little bit before calming down.

"That Kenneth guy really is cute though," Mason said while staring at the TV. I looked at the TV myself and found Kenneth whipping up a small layered cake for the dessert round.

"He really is . . . " I trailed off, finding myself just staring at the guy on the TV at this point. "And speaking of cute guys, what has been going on between you and Mark?"

Mason eyes widened for a second before he tried to school his features.

"Between Mark and I? Nothing has been going on. I really don't know where you got that idea from." Mason shook his head. "Doesn't make any sense to me."

I raised an eyebrow and watched as Mason's practiced expression fell for a moment.

"Stop putting up a front Mason. Other than the time that time at Aiden and Aaron's anniversary, which was a great choice of location might I add, where you guys joined the group again looking as if you had spent have an hour just biting each other's lips," Mason went beat red but I didn't stop. "At the meeting for the twins' party, you to were figuratively and literally connected at the hip. His hand barely left you thigh the entire time. Now tell me that there was nothing going on!"

Mason didn't say anything for a while and after being exposed like that, I assumed that he wanted to gather his thoughts and whatever pride he had left. When he opened his mouth to speak, a bubble of excitement formed in my chest and suddenly I was holding my breath.

"Well, Mark and I are . . . trying things out." My eyes widened and without being able to stop I squealed.

"Trying things out? So, what does that mean? Are you two dating?!" Mason was still blushing but a small was growing on his face as well, probably absorbing some of the excitement that I was oozing out like soap from a pump.

"I mean, yeah." I screeched this time and Mason chuckled while I celebrated. "There had been this, thing growing between us for a while, I have liked him for a really long time but recently something between us had just been growing and after what happened at Aiden and Aaron's we both realized that we had to acknowledge it. We tried just seeing if we could . . . "

Mason paused and I wanted to scream at the sight of his blush deepening.

"Mark and I tried to see if we just had physical attraction and tried to, uh, deal with it. But that didn't work so now we are trying to date and see how it will go. Mark and I want to keep it low-key right now but . . . I-he- He's really perfect Clark." Mason turned to me with slightly watery eyes and I cooed before wrapping my arms around him. "I can't believe that I am dating him, Mason. He is so much more than I ever thought he was and, he is really perfect."

Mason's voice was shaky but I could hear how happy he was, it made me so happy to know that he was finally happy with Mark. It was just the icing on the cake to know that he was happy with the guy that Jasmine and I have been shipping him with since time! Speaking of Jasmine.

"So, does Jasmine know yet?" I asked Mason. Usually, Jasmine spoke to the both of us separately more than we spoke to each other without her so she usually knew about things that had to do with Mason before I knew and vice versa. Mason shook his head and my eyebrows shot to my hairline out of surprise.

"Really."

"Yup, I wasn't planning on telling anyone but you just happened to interrogate me before she did this time." Mason shrugged after explaining the situation.

"Maybe it's because of the party, Jasmine is pouring her heart and soul into it." I thought aloud. Mason nodded in agreement.

"I agree, she is really trying to get as much work down for it as possible despite it still being two months away," Mason added knowingly. I placed a hand on his shoulder and plastered on a serious expression.

"Look on the bright side," I urged Mason. "If it weren't for Jasmine's busying boss at work-ness taking up all of her free time right now. She would have already interrogated you."

Mason chuckled lightly and nodded.

"And without evidence that would have forced you to spill, she probably would have resorted to singing until you spilled your guts," I laughed while Mason shivered violently.

Jasmine was a great friend and Mason and I loved her to death. But although she had many talents, singing was not one of them. In fact, it was so bad you could categorize it as something she would have to warn future boyfriends about before they started dating. And she has used it to get tea out of the two of us and the rest of our friend group before.

"Ugh, I can even imagine it." Mason groaned, causing me to laugh harder. "Her constantly of tune words, her wobbly and even scratchy voice." I continued to Laugh and eventually, Mason joined me.

Both of us sobered up and started watching the new Cutthroat Kitchen episode that we hadn't been paying attention to at all.

"She really would though," Mason added with a low voice, causing me to chuckle lightly.

"Yeah, she reeeaally would."

We spent the rest of the evening watching Cutthroat Kitchen until ordering out for dinner, which we ate with Ethan after he came back from work. When Mason left I was comfortable knowing that I had just deeply bonded with one of my best friends, and my favorite ship EVER was now sailing.

Today was a damn good day.