The Price of Mason (Forbidden Men 10)

I shook my head, too overcome to speak just yet. Then I cleared my throat. “I just…” I flailed out a hand. “I don’t know.”

Would it be weird if I pulled her into my arms and bawled into her hair right now because I was so happy?

Yeah, probably.

So, I managed to refrain.

Sarah stared at me, her eyebrows furrowing. “You don’t think she likes me, do you?”

“What?” I cried, immediately waving my hands. “No, no, no. That’s not what I was thinking at all. Of course, she likes you. Who wouldn’t like you? You’re the sweetest little goober there is.”

She frowned. “I’m not a goober.”

Chuckling, I ruffled her hair. “Of course you are. And I was just happy that you liked her.”

Sarah let out this sound. I swear, it was like a dreamy sigh. “I love her,” she swore with an adoration that made me shake my head slowly.

So the glowing girl had somehow managed to enthrall my sister too. Maybe there’d been a reason why I’d been instantly drawn to her after all.

As I dug up some socks from my drawer and pulled on a pair of Vans over them, Sarah continued to tell me about her evening until Mom popped her head into the room and jiggled her keys at us impatiently, announcing it was time for her and Sarah to go.

I hugged my sister goodbye and kissed the top of her head before murmuring in her ear, “I’m glad you had fun last night.”

She looked up at me, grinning. “I can’t wait until she comes back again tomorrow.”

I smiled into her gray-blue eyes and touched her hair before she wheeled herself away and rolled her chair from my room.

Damn. That girl. Seeing her smile was my kryptonite, I swear. I’d probably lay my soul at the feet of the devil just to make Sarah happy. So keeping the babysitter around was a must. I’d just have to figure out how to conceal her identity from a couple manipulative, conniving clients of mine in the process.

I was so busy trying to figure out how I was supposed to accomplish such a feat that I hurried off toward college without eating breakfast or thinking about what I might need to finish—homework-wise—before my first class.

I didn’t remember until I made it to campus that I was supposed to read the first chapter of my ethics textbook because we were going to discuss it today, and I just knew that if I didn’t even glance over it, I would be the first person the professor called on for input. It was Murphy’s Law.

So I found a free bench outside and plopped myself down. I’d just started Chapter One on why it was so important to even study ethics and was jotting down notes when it struck me how much I probably should’ve taken this damn class two fucking years ago. Because now my public image was mangled all to hell. There was no way to recover from what I’d become. Unless maybe I went somewhere new where no one knew what I was. But I couldn’t abandon Mom and Sarah, so that idea was out.

With each note I wrote, my spirits sank. I’d fucked my identity all to hell, all because I’d never seriously considered the ethical side of my actions. I mean, I knew I wasn’t being moral or virtuous, but it’d been for a good cause. For my family. So I did it anyway, except, now everything in me had suffered because of it.

I was about to slam the book closed because I wasn’t sure if I could take much more of this torturous guilt when a small, to-go cup appeared in front of me with a brown paper sack dangling beside it.

“Here,” a familiar voice said.

Like a shot of adrenaline straight to the bloodstream, my body reacted. I looked up and brushed my bangs out of my eyes with the end of my pen so I could clearly see the girl holding out the cup and bag. She was glowing again; the sun was shining in around her, making her silky dark hair sparkle to an almost blue hue.

“This is my apology,” she said, looking as serious as I’ve ever seen her, “for being such a rude, nosey bitch to you last night. I’m really sorry. I mean, what you do in your personal life is totally none of my business, and I shouldn’t have been meddlesome. Please believe me when I say I never meant to offend you.”

Confession #10: So maybe I needed to work on my small talk.

I was so startled I didn’t even know how to begin to react. I hadn’t been expecting any kind of apology, mostly because I didn’t need one. She hadn’t done anything wrong last night. It wasn’t a crime to ask questions. And her questions had seemed so innocent in their curiosity, lacking any kind of judgment to them, I wouldn’t have even called them rude questions. It was my own fault I’d managed to make myself feel guilty about a lot of points she’d brought up. That was on me. Not her.

She leaned in, filling my head with that scent that I was quickly coming to associate with her alone, and everything in me went tense with alert desire.

What the hell was she doing?

All I could think was kiss. She was going to kiss me. On the cheek? The forehead? Mouth? I had no clue, but I craved any of those possibilities so much that I just sat there in eager, frozen anticipation.

But then, all she did was set the cup and bag on the bench next to me before pulling away as soon as she was done.

“It’s a bear claw in the bag and a white chocolate mocha espresso in the cup,” she told me. “I don’t… I wasn’t sure what you’d like, so I hope it’ll do.”