The Price of Mason (Forbidden Men 10)

As soon as I exited the bathroom, there she was, walking down the hall with Eva and studying a sheet of paper in her hand as Mercer rattled on about something next to her. I jarred to a stop so fast the closing bathroom door swatted me in the ass.

But neither girl noticed, especially when Glowing Girl ran smack into a carpet-covered support beam in the middle of the hall.

“Oww,” she muttered dryly and clutched her nose as she dropped the page she’d been holding. Then she threw back her head and laughed over her clumsiness. “Oh, God. That was classic,” she announced even as she patted the column in front of her and apologized to it. “Sorry about that, buddy. Didn’t see you there.”

Mercer groaned and shook her head. “Seriously. It’s like I can’t take you anywhere.”

“Whatever. You love me.” Glowing Girl bent down to retrieve her page, and I did not check out her backside as she did so.

Lie, total lie. She had the sweetest ass.

When she straightened, Eva hooked her arm through the brunette’s and sighed dramatically. “It seems I’m going to have to hold your hand all the way to your first class, otherwise you’ll probably trip and fall down some rabbit hole and disappear into an alternate dimension forever.”

Tugging Mercer closer, Glowing Girl only grinned contentedly and rested her cheek on Eva’s shoulder. “See. You do love me.”

I shook my head over her good-natured responses and watched as the two girls moved out of sight. She seemed cute, apologizing to inanimate objects, laughing over her own inelegance, and not growing the least bit offended when her friend mocked her. It was a refreshing change of pace from the type of woman I was used to.

And I was not going to let it charm me. Nope. Not charmed. Not even when her laugh floated down the hall again.

Gah, that laugh was awesome.

Blowing out a breath, I shook my head to reinforce my resolve against her and hurried to my first class. My body had calmed down but the rest of me remained wired. I slid into the first chair I came across and plopped my bag onto my desktop before removing the essentials.

I had my laptop open and booted up just in time for my sociology professor to walk into the room.

As he went over the syllabus, my mind wandered, and sadly it took me the entire hour to convince myself I was being an idiot.

After looking at some stranger one time and listening to her laugh, I had applied a completely fictional personality to someone I didn’t know a thing about. I’d probably done it because there was so much about my life I hated and I’d taken up daydreaming a lot lately to get through. My mind could check out and go somewhere pleasant while my body was occupied elsewhere, doing not-so-pleasant things.

I have no idea why my mind had gone so many places with that one girl, though. I doubt there was anything special about her, I mean, aside from the fact she had a cool-ass laugh, a good sense of humor about running into things, and she tended to defend complete strangers. Maybe I was so desperate for some kind of deliverance that I’d just latched onto the first thing remotely different, thinking it could save me.

But the only thing that was going to save me from my own life was to keep doing what I was doing until I’d earned enough money to get my family set up in a better place.

So, back to my real life I forced my thoughts to go.

After sociology, I had a pretty full schedule with U.S. Politics, speech, calculus, and then economics before I could break for lunch. Since I’d basically only had two crackers, some jelly, and peanut butter for breakfast, I knew I was not going to last that long. I planned on stopping by the food court for a drink on my way to the next class, except yep… There she was, waiting in line at the coffee station.

I kept walking by to avoid another staring encounter with her and went straight to politics. Another long, boring hour passed, but at least it was safe in there with no Glowing Girl sightings. I was hesitant to head to my speech class after that. But when I stepped into the hall, she was nowhere to be seen. Thank God.

Fortunately, speech class was able to pull a little more attention from me, and by the time it let out, I was sure I was past all the daydreaming bullshit for the rest of the morning… Until I found my fourth class and walked inside the calculus room, where my daydream—who was leaving—plowed right into me.

Literally.

I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going, too busy looking for the perfect place to sit and mentally erase the rumors I’d just heard in the hall.

Isn’t that Mason Lowe? You know what he is, don’t you?

I ground my teeth, wondering how many times I was going to overhear that line in the coming months. And that’s when it happened. The impact knocked the breath out of me and yanked me to the present, only to find a girl sprawled out on the floor in front of me in the aisle between desks. Her long, dark silky hair told me who she was immediately. Since our collision had caused her to spill her bag to the floor, she started grabbing things up even as she began to apologize.

“Oh my God. Sorry. I didn’t see you. I’m so sor—” She looked up, and the words died on her tongue.

It didn’t escape my notice that she was damn near kneeling right in front of me. And yep, my mind went there. But come on, all she’d have to do was reach out, unzip me, and open her mouth, and we’d be in business.

God, I was a sick, sick bastard. But I’m sure every other straight guy on the planet would’ve been thinking the same thing if he were in my position and she was in that one.

I commanded my anatomy not to react, even as I imagined myself tangling my fingers in her hair and guiding her face forward. Every muscle in my body grew so taut I’m surprised I didn’t combust on the spot. A ringing started in my ears, and she began to jabber something to me at top speed, but I didn’t hear a word she said. It took everything I had to keep absolutely still so I wouldn’t reach for her. But then she lurched even closer to grab a few more spilled items, and if she had looked, I know she would’ve seen just how friendly I was currently feeling toward her.

I jumped back to keep my own decency intact, and she looked up, her eyes startled and hurt. A sharp pain stabbed me in the chest because I knew I’d caused that miserable look. She thought I was offended by her; I could see it all over her face.