by Holly Renee
“Is it going to bother you if we hook up with other people?”
“We are friends, Mason.” She finally looked at me. “Do you and Parker care if one of you hooks up with someone else?”
“No.” I watched her eyes for any trace of something more before I leaned in and whispered, “But I also didn’t fuck Parker until he was screaming my name.”
She blushed, just a trace of pink tinted her cheeks. “I wouldn’t say that I screamed,” she whispered back so Nate and Drew wouldn’t hear.
“Yeah.” I chuckled. “I guess it was pretty hard with Brandon in the next room.”
She rolled her eyes, but there was a small smile on her lips.
“So, rule number two is neither one of us can get jealous?” I watched her.
“Agreed. No jealousy. Whatsoever.”
“And if one of us does get jealous, we tell the other.”
She nodded her head. “It won’t happen, but agreed.”
I followed her eyes to where she was now watching Drew and Nate who had left us alone at the table and picked up pool sticks.
“You want to play?”
“Sure. Against each other or you and me against them?”
“That depends. How good are you?”
“Good.” I chuckled.
“Me too.” She grinned. “Let’s smoke their asses.”
Staci
I couldn’t stop watching the look on Nate and Drew’s faces as they watched me sink shot after shot.
“What did you do, bring a pool shark with you?” Nate looked up at Mason who was watching me with a smirk on his face.
He shrugged his shoulders casually. “I told you she was awesome.”
And just like that, I got those stupid damn butterflies in my stomach again.
I wasn’t the kind of girl who got butterflies. I wasn’t.
“It’s not my fault you two kind of suck.” I shrugged my shoulders at Nate and Drew, and Mason’s smile widened.
“They do. Don’t they?” Mason jabbed at them and both guys rolled their eyes.
I leaned down to take my next shot, a shot that would leave Nate and Drew with basically no chance at coming back. I squared up my pool stick, and I looked down the line to make sure it was my best shot. I took a deep breath to steady my hands and suddenly all of my breath was ripped out of my lungs as I felt a hint of a touch of callused fingers against the back of my thighs.
I closed my eyes momentarily and opened them to see Mason staring at me from where he now stood beside me. Friends my ass. Mason was still playing a game. A game I wasn’t sure I didn’t want to play.
I took the shot and missed.
Fucking missed for the first time that night.
My gaze jerked up to his and I bit down on the inside of my lip when I looked at that lethal smirk on his face.
“You got too cocky, Staci. It happens to the best of us.” Nate moved around the pool table to line up his own shot, and I just smiled at him.
But Mason said nothing.
Not when I leaned against the wall next to him.
Not when I cocked an eyebrow at him waiting for whatever words I assumed he would spit out at me.
Instead, he just stared at my mouth. Stared at it like he was going to devour it at any minute, and I knew that I wouldn’t stop him. I had no chance in stopping him.
His breath rushed out and I could taste the hint of beer and lust on my lips.
“Mason, you’re up, man.”
I blinked. Letting reality set in as Mason turned away from me and headed toward the table.
This was not supposed to be happening.
We were supposed to be friends. That was the only way this relationship, I cringed at the word in my own head, could work. Otherwise, one of us was going to get hurt. Because that’s what Mason and I did. We hurt people. Not intentionally. At least that’s what I told myself, but I refused to allow a man to get close enough to me to hurt me, and over the years, pushing guys away had somehow resulted in me hurting too many good ones.
But here I was watching Mason bend down and take the shot. I watched the way his back bunched under his t-shirt as he guided the pool stick between his fingers. I stared at his ass that looked ungodly perfect in his jeans, and I ran my fingers through my hair.
Mason Connor was not the guy I should be losing my head around. He was the opposite actually because for the first time in a very long time, I think I was truly at risk for a guy hurting me.
Just the thought had me setting down my own pool stick and heading to the bar. I could feel his eyes on me as I walked away, but I didn’t care. Fuck, that was a lie. I was already caring too much, and that was why I needed another shot of tequila.
The bartender came up to me the moment I stepped up to the crowded bar and I ordered my shot. I turned my back to the bar as I waited for him to pour my choice of poison, and I looked around the bar. There were so many hot guys in that bar, but even glancing at them felt wrong somehow.
And it was exactly what I didn’t want.
We were friends for fuck’s sake.
I turned to face the bar again, and my gaze halted when it hit him. He was sitting on a bar stool, a beer in his hand, and he was watching me with a soft smile on his face.
Not the same predatory smile that he had been looking at me with earlier, but a smile that looked like he was happy. Happy that I was here. Happy that we were friends, and that smile was far more dangerous.
And even though it killed me to even think it, I knew that I needed to do something to distance myself from him because I wasn’t going to get played by Mason Connor. I refused to get hurt, but something deep inside of me told me that I refused to hurt him as well. It was how I knew that this wasn’t going to work. It wasn’t going to go any further than this night.
Mason
I wiped the sweat from my brow as I stared around the house. We were finally down to the finishing touches.
It was one of the largest projects my company had ever taken on, and if I was being honest, it had scared me shitless when the client had decided to go with my company, a company that had far less experience than the competition, but they fell in love with my plan.
And I couldn’t fuck this up.
There was too much riding on this project. Too much opportunity that would come from it.
“Knock knock.” I heard my sister’s voice before I could see her.
“In here,” I yelled out as I watched her step over tools on her way to me.
“Do I need a hard hat?”
“Considering the walls are up”—I looked around the room at the finished walls—“I would say no.”
She cocked her hip and rested her hand there. “Damn. I would have looked really cute in one.”
I rolled my eyes at her then pulled her into a hug. She cringed at my sweat, but I didn’t allow her to pull away from me.
“What do you think?”
She looked around the room as she wiped off her arm, and I tried to see it through her eyes. I tried to take it in as if I hadn’t spent hundreds of hours working on it.
“Seriously, Mason.” She turned to me. “It’s phenomenal.”
My chest bloomed with pride. “Thank you.”
“Well, let’s go. Give me a tour.”
I took her around, room by room, showing her what we had done. Pointing out all of my favorite details.
When we got to the master bathroom, she sat down on the toilet and looked around. “No offense, but I kind of can’t believe you did all this.”
I huffed as I crossed my arms, and she held her hands up defensively.
“It’s not that you did it. It’s just that I can’t believe I know someone who is capable of doing all this.”
“Thank you for your backhanded compliment, Livy.”
“You’re welcome.” She grinned then she narrowed her eyes at me. “Since we’re in here all alone, I think it’s time we had a talk.”
“A talk about what?” I knew exactly what
she wanted to talk about. My sister was sweet and sassy as hell, and if there was one thing I could count on her for, it was that she would always be nosy when it came to me.
“Staci.”
“Ah.” I rubbed the back of my neck, and I could feel the stress that had been building there. Stress that hadn’t been there until the other night at the bar. The night that Staci went rigid as if I had done something wrong. Something that I had absolutely no idea what I did. One minute she was fine. The next, I could see it in her eyes. Her urge to run. To get away from me.
“What are your intentions with my best friend?” She crossed her arms and attempted to look intimidating.
“Shouldn’t you be asking her what her intentions with your brother are? Plus, I didn’t put you through this when we were in the opposite position.”
“I have talked to her about her intentions, but you’re the one I’m worried about. I’m not sure you have the best motives.” She stood and made her way over to me.
“What did Staci say her intentions were?” I tried to ask the question casually, but I knew it sounded anything but. Because I couldn’t figure the girl out if my life depended on it.
Livy narrowed her eyes farther. “She tells me that you two made a deal to be ‘friends’.” She actually did air quotes with her fingers when she said the word friends.
“We did.” I nodded. “We’re friends.”
“I call bullshit.”
I grinned at my ballbuster sister. “Why can’t Staci and I be friends?”
“You have seen her, right?” She waved her hand in the air. “Staci is a freaking babe. There is no way you can just be her friend and not want to get in her pants.” She stared back at me as she ran her fingers over the counter. “Again.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to get in her pants. I just said that we were friends.”
She watched me, and I could feel her assessing my every word.
“I’ll ask you again. What are your intentions with my best friend?”
“Honestly?” I scratched at my beard that I hadn’t shaved in several days.
Her face softened a bit, and she nodded her head.
“I’m trying to be her friend while simultaneously trying to not be friend-zoned. I’m trying my damnedest not to freak her out while she figures out that she wants to be more than my friend.” It was the first time I had said those words, even to myself. It may have been the first time I really realized what the hell I was actually doing.
And it knocked the damn wind out of me.
I didn’t do relationships. I didn’t, but I was willing to try. For her.
“I knew it.” She smiled, a huge smile, and I couldn’t stop my own smile from taking over my face.
“You’re not going to tell her, are you?”
“Are you kidding me?” She drummed her fingers together like she was some sort of evil witch. “I’m going to be the best wing woman you’ve ever had.”
She put her hand out toward me waiting for me to put my hand over hers. “Go team Maci on one?”
“Maci?” I looked at my lunatic sister.
“Yeah. You know. Mason and Staci. Or we could do Stason, but that’s a little weird.”
“You’re a little weird.” I pointed out the obvious.
“Yes, but aren’t you glad I’m on your team. Your love team.” She made a heart with her hands and moved it back in forth from her chest.
I just walked away while shaking my head. She was right though, having her on my team was like having a trick play that Staci wouldn’t see coming.
Staci
I grabbed my phone out of my back pocket as I started cleaning up my station. I had just spent the last three hours working on a back piece and my hands were tired as hell.
“Hey, Dad.” I plopped down in my chair.
“Hi, doll. How’s it going?” His familiar gruff voice hit my ears, and I instantly smiled.
“Good. Just busy with work. You?”
“Everything is good.” He cleared his throat, and I knew something was coming. “Ben came by here yesterday.”
My lungs seized up at hearing his name coming from my father’s lips.
Why the fuck would he go to my father’s house?
Why couldn’t he leave me alone?
“What did he want?” My voice sounded weaker than it did only a moment ago and that fact alone made me hate Ben even more.
“He said that he wanted to stop by and see you, but he knew good and well that you weren’t here. He just thought he could pull a fast one over your old man. When I told him you weren’t here, he asked for your number.”
“Did you give it to him?”
“Hell no. I didn’t give it to him.” My father sounded good and angry. “I’m not sure what all went down between the two of you, but I’m smart enough to know that if that boy caused you to move several states away from me, then he did something to majorly fuck it up.”
That was a complete understatement.
But my father was right. He didn’t know what had happened between me and Ben. He didn’t know the pain that he had caused me. I never told him. I still couldn’t. Because as bad as Ben hurt me, I didn’t want my father to hurt at the same time.
And he would.
That was the kind of man my father was. Anything that happened to me he put the blame on himself. Always.
When I didn’t make the high school softball team, he said it was because he didn’t help me practice enough.
When I broke my arm doing a trick on my bike, he said it was because he wasn’t watching me.
When I had my heart broken by Ben, the first thing my father said to me was that it was his fault I didn’t have a mother figure in my life.
And the look on his face destroyed me.
My mother left us when I was at the ripe old age of four years old, and she never looked back. I didn’t know much about her besides the fact that I could be her twin. A fact I only knew from her from the pictures my father kept locked up in a box. Oh, and she was a worthless mother.
But my dad took the blame for that too.
He always had.
“Good. I don’t want to talk to him.”
It had been over three years since I had spoken to him. Three years since I had looked at his face. Just knowing that he was at my father’s house, my childhood home, made my skin crawl.
“He wasn’t too happy that I wouldn’t give him your number, but you and I both know that boy doesn’t have the balls to stand up to me. He just kept asking different questions, the same ones he asks every time I see him.”
I knew the questions he asked.
He wanted to know how to get ahold of me. He wanted to know where I was.
But I had been out of his grasp for this long. There was no chance in hell I would allow him to find me now.
“Just avoid him.” I picked at the tear in my jeans.
“I always do, but you’re going to have to deal with him eventually. You can’t do this forever.”
“I know, Dad.”
He huffed, a long, worried sound, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
“When are you going to come visit me anyways? It’s been about six months since I’ve seen you.”
“Hopefully soon,” I lied. I didn’t want to be anywhere near there if Ben was sniffing around. I needed to give him time to settle down and set his sights on something else. “I’ll see when I can get off work.”
“Okay, doll.” I could hear the creak of his old chair that should have been replaced fifteen years ago. “I’m going to jump off here and get some work done around the house.”
“It sounds like you’re about to take a nap in your recliner,” I teased.
His hearty laugh filled my ears and my chest ached with how badly I missed him.
“I never could get anything past you.”
“Don’t think you’re going to start now.”
I could practically hear his eyes rolling. “All right, girl. I love you.”
&
nbsp; “I love you too.” I saw movement at the door to my station and looked up just as Mason walked in. “I’ll call you later, okay.”
“Okay.”
“Bye, Dad.”
Mason sat down on my stool across from me.
“Bye.”
I clicked off my phone and set it down in my lap. Mason looked tired. He still looked hot as hell, but he definitely looked exhausted.
“Hey, Mason.”
I twisted my neck from side to side trying to rid myself of thoughts of Ben. If I didn’t get him out of my mind, it would fester, just like him, and I couldn’t afford a sleepless night while worrying about him.
I was already missing too much sleep thinking about Mason and how I had left things the other night.
“Hey. You okay?”
His eyes were assessing me, and I knew that he was seeing too much. Mason always seemed to see past my bullshit.
“Yeah. Just tired.” I climbed out of my chair and started finishing the cleanup I was working on earlier.
“You up for dinner?” He crossed his arms over his chest, and I watched how it made his muscles stand out more than they normally did.
“I don’t know.” I threw away the used ink. “I was thinking about going home and vegging out in front of the TV.”
He nodded his head. “We can do that.” His eyes lingered on my tattoo chair.
I shook my head at him. “I meant alone. You know, me, a big old t-shirt, a tub of ice cream, and a good chick flick.”
He grinned at me, a devastatingly handsome grin, before shrugging his shoulders. “If we can throw in tacos before the ice cream, I’m down.”
“You want to watch a chick flick with me?” I put my hands on my hips.
There was no way Mason wanted to come to my house to watch chick flicks. There was no way that I should let him.
“I would prefer to watch something with a little more action, but if it’s what you need tonight, then that’s what we’ll watch.”
I stared at him trying to see more of him than he was letting me. I didn’t know what he was doing, what he was doing to me, but I did know that everything about him was fucking with my head.
