Price of a Kiss

by Linda Kage

  “You are so flunked,” E. hissed under her breath.

  Oh, God. I was.

  ~$~

  “We’re getting our noses pierced this weekend.”

  I paused eating my lunch to gape at E. “Say what?”

  I’d been so deep in thought, wondering if I should transfer out of my literature class, I hadn’t been paying a whole lot of attention to her prattling. But I swore I’d just heard something along the lines of—

  “You, me, nose rings. This weekend.”

  She sat next to me on the bench to the table I had decided was going to be my lunch spot for the rest of the semester. My memory of sitting here with Mason the day before had pretty much cemented that decision—even if sitting with him was going to get me flunked from my English class. It was as if we’d christened it as ours.

  It actually kind of felt like a betrayal to sit here with Eva instead of him.

  But I suspected she was hanging around me so much today in the hopes I’d be granted another “gigolo-sighting,” as she was calling it.

  “I’m not piercing my nose. Are you insane?”

  “But they’d look so cute.” She stole one of my fries and decidedly stated, “I saw Alec checking out a girl wearing one yesterday. So, yeah, we’re getting them.”

  I snorted. “If you want to go poking holes in strange places on your body just to impress your wandering-eye boyfriend, be my guest. But I will not be getting one with you.”

  She merely sent me a cool smile and shrugged. “We’ll see. Oh, by the way, Mom and Dad are taking off early next Friday to spend Labor Day weekend at our beach house. They won’t be back until late Monday night. I’m thinking…party at my place, Friday.”

  “Beach house? I had no idea you guys had a beach house. Oh, my God, why aren’t you going with them?”

  Eva yawned as she flipped open her pink and black tiger-striped planner with a matching fuzzy pen. “Um…because I’m not ten. How lame would it be to spend Labor Day weekend with the rents? Seriously, ReeRee. I have so much to teach you.”

  If my parents had a beach house, I’d be there every weekend. I don’t care how lame spending time with them might look. But this was Eva we were talking about. So I just shrugged. “Well, I can’t make it on any Friday. I have to babysit.”

  Eva scowled. “Who? The gigolo’s retarded sister?”

  I sent her a glare to kill. “Her name is Sarah. And yes, I’m talking about Mason’s special needs sister. Don’t ever call her retarded in that derogatory way again.”

  With a roll of her eyes, she relented. “Okay, fine. How about Saturday night? Are you babysitting any freaks then?”

  I ignored the bash against my little buddy by gritting my teeth and dipping one of my fries into a vat of nacho cheese. “Just how big of a party are we talking here?”

  Ever since Jeremy, I had soured to huge gatherings full of too many strangers.

  But Eva brightened. “Epic.” Then she spotted a group of guys passing our table. “Hey, boys. Party at my place. The Saturday of Labor Day weekend. You in?”

  They grinned and gave her the thumbs up. “An Eva Mercer party? Oh, we are in.”

  “Great. See you then.” She turned back to me, looking smug.

  I blew out a lungful of irritation. “I guess we’ll be throwing a party, then. And now I know why my mom was so worried you might become a bad influence.”

  “Oh, let’s not call it a bad influence.” She slung an arm over my shoulder and grinned. “Let’s call it bringing a little color into your life.”

  Behind us, someone snorted. “Only you would call it that, Mercer.”

  The breath whooshed from my lungs as the owner of that voice rounded the table to sit across from us.

  Mason.

  Damn, he looked good today, all fresh and friendly with a charcoal gray v-neck that made his eyes look lighter than usual. He grinned at me and promptly scoped out what I was eating.

  “Ooh, chili cheese fries. Good choice. Better than the rabbit food you had yesterday.” He stole one off my plate and popped it into his mouth.

  “Well, look who’s come to visit Miss Deluded,” I snarked back, hiding my intense reaction of all things excitable to his presence. “Do you ever eat your own food? Or do you just get a perverse pleasure out of eating mine?”

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out.” He sent me a grin full of promise and hidden meaning. I fell into a mini trance, watching his lips purse and move as he chewed. Then my attention fell to his tanned throat as he swallowed.

  Seriously. Eating a chili cheese fry should not look that sinful.

  “Umm. Can we help you? Mason?” Eva asked pointedly, glaring daggers at him.

  He sent her a strained smile. “Nope. Just eating my lunch.”

  “My lunch,” I cut in right before he pulled a plastic-wrapped sub sandwich from his bag. He waved it tauntingly, letting me know he had brought his own food.

  I scowled back because, really, I hated being bested.

  Watching him unwrap his meal and take a bite, Eva muttered, “Do you seriously have to eat here? With us?”

  “Eva!” I gasped. What was her deal? Earlier in Brit Lit, she’d acted as if being in his presence was the bomb. Now, she was just…a bitch.

  “Jesus, Mercer.” Mason scowled as he lowered the hoagie. “I’m not contagious.”

  “Are you sure about that? I mean, who knows what kind of nasty STD—”

  “Okay, okay, okay,” I broke in, lifting my hands and waving them in the universal white-flag gesture. “I’m sensing a disturbance in the Force between you two. Is there some kind of history here I’m not aware of?” Then I gasped. “Oh, my God. You two have slept together. Haven’t you?”

  Eva huffed out an aggravated sound and wrote something in her planner vigorously enough to make the fuzzy tassel on the end of her pen bob sporadically.

  Mason merely stared at me in awe as he shook his head. “Wow, your curiosity has no filter whatsoever, does it?”

  I scowled back because he was purposely avoiding my question. Glancing at my cousin, I said, “E.?”

  “It’s nothing,” she muttered, suddenly very interested in turning the page and checking future dates.

  With a roll of my eyes, I whirled to face Mason with a pointed look.

  “What?” he asked, pulling back with an overly innocent expression. He cast a questioning glance at Eva before focusing on me. “She said it was nothing.”

  I opened my mouth, but Eva must’ve had a change of heart.

  “Nothing?” she repeated in an offended voice. Slamming her planner shut, she narrowed her eyes. “Okay, fine.” She finally gave me her attention. “One night at a party about, oh, a year ago, I’d had a little too much to drink and I ended up throwing myself at him.” Her gaze pierced Mason with hateful shards. “And he turned me down. Flat.”

  I frowned, confused. Umm…wasn’t that kind of what a guy was supposed to do when a drunk girl came onto him?

  “And she proceeded to call me a pretentious bastard for it,” Mason added, glaring right back at Eva.

  “Well, you are,” she hissed.

  “…who had no right to act so self-righteous because I’m nothing but a high-priced whore with a pretty face, who’ll end up an overweight, broke, balding no one by the time I’m forty.” His jaw tightened. “Isn’t that how you worded it?”

  I gasped and pinned my cousin with an incredulous glance. “You called him a whore?”

  She shrugged. “He is a whore.”

  “So that’s what I get for trying to be a gentleman and not take advantage of the stumbling, slurring drunk girl.” Looking pissed and a trifle hurt, Mason reached across the table and picked up my cup as if he needed it to console himself. But after taking a deep drink through the straw, he winced and pulled back. “What is this?”

  I wrinkled my nose at him and pushed my hair out of my face. My drink didn’t taste that bad. “It’s a diet cola.”

  Okay, maybe it
did taste that bad.

  He set it back in front of me, looking deceived. “So…you eat chili cheese fries loaded with grease, calories, and carbs. Then get a diet cola?” He gave an amused laugh. “You’re such a girl.”

  I tossed my hair again and leveled him with a fake scowl. “Maybe I just ordered a nasty-tasting drink because I knew you’d try to steal it. This could’ve been the only way to protect what’s mine.”

  “A,” he said with a smile. “That won’t work on me. I’ll always steal whatever food or beverage you have. And B.” He fluttered his lashes. The feminine move should’ve looked ridiculous on him. Which, okay, it kind of did. But it also looked drop-dead sexy and somehow masculine. “I’m flattered you took the time to think of me at all.”

  “Oh, gag me,” Eva howled. “If you two are done eye-humping each other, I’d like to go throw up now.”

  I sent her a glower, promising a good strangulation later. I even opened my mouth to tell her in no uncertain terms that Mason and I were not flirting.

  But he ignored her and said to me, “Are you watching Sarah tonight?”

  I gave him some major brownie points for being able to totally blow off Eva’s rude comment. But the tightening around his mouth told me her words hadn’t left him unaffected.

  Following his example, I decided to ignore her too. “Yep. I think I’m going to give her a mani-pedi and paint her fingernails and toenails some wicked awesome color.”

  He nodded approvingly as he rewrapped his sandwich and slid his lunch back into his messenger bag. “She’ll get a kick out of that. I’ll see you at the house, then.” He knocked on the table in front of me as he stood. “And don’t forget that book you promised to lend me.”

  “Right.” I sucked in a sharp breath, tickled he’d remembered. “Yeah, okay. I won’t.”

  “Good.” With a warm, congenial smile for me, he stole one more of my fries. “And for the record, I like deluded.” Then he strolled away without once glancing at Eva.

  My cheeks flamed. I loved knowing he liked me just the way I was, naïve tendencies or not.

  I didn’t notice how Eva had spun to me with an expectant arch in her eyebrows until she demanded, “What book?”

  I played with my fries without eating any. “Harry Potter. He said he’s never read the series before. Can you believe that? So I offered to loan him mine.”

  “Really? Harry Potter?”

  She sounded so skeptical, I sighed. “No, we were talking about a Kama Sutra book. Yes! Harry Potter. Why is that so hard to believe?”

  Eva shrugged. “I just can’t see Mason Lowe reading Harry Potter. I can’t see him reading anything.” Then she made a face, letting me know she’d thought up an allowance. “Except maybe Kama Sutra.”

  I shoved my fries away and turned to pin her with a frown. “You know, he’s not that bad of a person. Once you actually talk to him, he’s just another guy.”

  Just another guy who made my body heat, my pulse pound, and my throat go dry. Another guy who was fun to talk to, got my jokes, and liked my taste in food. Another guy who made me forget I was leery of the opposite gender these days. Yeah, just another guy.

  “I don’t understand why you’ll talk about him behind his back like he’s some kind of god, but you just treated him like crap to his face.”

  “Oh, sweetie.” Eva’s features filled with sympathy as she grasped my hands. “You poor, deluded thing. I’m going to have to explain the social pyramid to you, aren’t I? Mason Lowe is an honest-to-God gigolo. Guys like him are fun to gossip about. They’re fun to flirt with when nobody else is around, and I’m sure they’re fun, period, when you employ their services. But you do not sit with them in public and talk to them like they’re just another guy. Because they’re not.” She sighed and patted my hand. “I knew I needed to keep an extra-close watch on you today. Because look what happened. He came sniffing around, trying to ruin your reputation, and—”

  I yanked my hands away from hers and lurched to my feet, not about to listen to another word. “If he’s such bad news, then why did you try to get a freebie from him?”

  Eva flushed even as her eyes narrowed with outrage. “Okay, one, I was drunk and I am still absolutely humiliated I did that. And two, I could actually handle him without getting in too deep. You’d probably go and fall in love with a piece of underworld scum like him if he ever had sex with you. And that’s completely unacceptable, ReeRee. A prostitute doesn’t belong anywhere near you. You’re too sweet and innocent.”

  My mouth fell open as I openly gaped with outright disgust. “Oh, my God, E. I’m going to ignore the way you just totally insulted me because I think you were coming at it from a good place. But I will not sit here and listen to you bash Mason like that.” I stood and gathered my things. “He may have made a…bad career decision, but he is by no means—”

  “Dear God, you’re already falling for him, aren’t you?” Eva scooted across the bench toward me, her eyes pleading. “Don’t do it, sweetie. You’re just going to get hurt. It’ll be Jeremy all over again.”

  “Whatever,” I muttered as I swept my book bag over my shoulder and whirled away. “I’m out of here.”

  I stewed all the way to my next class. Eva was wrong; Mason would never be another Jeremy. First of all, I would never date Mason. I knew he was off limits. Not that he was unworthy, just that he was incapable of being faithful, due to his job and all. I knew I could crush on him from afar but never hope for more. I knew that. And secondly: Mason didn’t give off one control-freak vibe, not the way Jeremy had exhaled them like carbon dioxide. He was most certainly not the girlfriend-beating type.

  But I remained moody for the rest of the day because Eva had said one thing that had completely freaked me out. Despite knowing I would never date Mason, I thought he could still hurt me, because I was pretty sure I was falling for him on a level I couldn’t stop.

  He would be able to hurt me in a way Jeremy never had. I might have told my first boyfriend I’d loved him when he’d expected me to say it, but I’d never really given my heart to him. There was something about Mason though that told me I could give it to him.

  A little too easily.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  When I went to babysit on Friday evening, and the Monday after that, I didn’t get to see Mason either day. He’d already left for his “country club” job by the time I arrived. And Dawn got home from work before he did on both nights, meaning he’d stayed late…with a client, no doubt.

  The thought made me burn with…I don’t know. Lots of emotions. Anger, jealousy, sadness, depression. I was pretty much a tangled, hot mess inside.

  And his mother forgot to pay me—yes, on both nights. But then, Mason had warned me she was a tad on the forgetful side when it came to settling her debts.

  The only bright spot on both of those evenings had been getting to spend time with the sweetest little girl with cerebral palsy on the face of the planet. I was quickly falling in love with Sarah, and her smile.

  After I painted her fingers and toes with Purple Passion on Monday, then topped them off with some plastic jeweled bling, the biggest, brightest smile lit her face. I was tempted to pull her into a big ol’ bear hug and kiss her all over her adorable face.

  I put her to sleep by reading her the first chapter of Harry Potter, which I’d brought for Mason. Then I dragged myself into the Arnosta kitchen and tried to catch up on a little homework. I gagged my way through a Humanities assignment before Dawn showed up about twenty minutes after midnight.

  Bummed that I hadn’t even caught a glimpse of Mason, and even more bummed because I knew why, I drove home and did a walkthrough of my apartment to make sure nothing looked disturbed. When I collapsed on my bed, I forgot to set my alarm clock.

  So of course, I slept in on Tuesday.

  With no time to do my hair or put on makeup after a quickie shower, I dashed out the door, figuring I’d buy breakfast on campus. But, au contraire. Remembering I was low on funds for
a couple more days, I dashed back into my apartment and snagged a banana from my rarely picked-from fruit basket sitting on my kitchen counter.

  I reached campus ten minutes before my class started, which made me gnash my teeth and wonder if I’d had time to primp after all. Oh, well. It was just going to have to be a grunge day.

  My usual table where I’d first eaten lunch with Mason was taken. Taken! I know, I was going to have to carve my name into it. I slumped to a nearby tree and collapsed on a sunny patch of grass. Digging my banana from my bag, I wrinkled my nose at the brown, aged spots on the peeling and decided I was too tired to eat anyway. So I closed my eyes and waited until it was an acceptable time to drag my bootie to class.

  I was trying to boost myself to stand when a shadow blocked out the sunlight. I sensed someone standing over me a split second before that voice I loved and loathed at the same time—because it made me want things I couldn’t have—said, “Question.”

  I opened one eye to see Mason. He looked perfect. As usual. Wearing loose, scruffy pants and a form-fitting, dark-plaid top, he grinned down at me, holding his hands behind his back.

  “What?” I mumbled drowsily.

  “Why are we sitting on the grass this morning?”

  We? When had we become a we?

  God, I loved how he said we.

  Damn it, we could never be a we.

  Life was so freaking unfair.

  I flung a lazy hand in the direction of my table. “If you haven’t noticed, our table is already occupied.”

  He glanced over, and then looked back to me. “Really? Hmm. Actually, I hadn’t noticed.”

  I lifted my face from my book bag I was using as a pillow—a really sucky, lumpy, hard pillow—and craned my neck as far as my body would allow without exerting any more energy than absolutely necessary. When I saw our table was indeed empty again, I groaned and dropped my head back with a thump.

  “Well, it was occupied when I got here, so I opted for this lovely spot of fresh grass. And don’t even think about making me get up to move now. I’m too”—I paused to yawn—“tired.”