Reputation (Mason Family 2)

“Yeah.” I walk around the table. “Coy is helping Bree, the little girl I babysit. Hear that?”

We pause as someone, obviously Coy, plays Matchbox Twenty’s “She’s So Mean” on the piano. It doesn’t take long before his voice barrels through the house as he sings the lyrics. It’s perfectly in tune and thick and warm.

The bastard.

Siggy tries to withhold a chuckle.

I can’t. I laugh. “It’s fine. We both know Coy is talking about me.”

“I didn’t want to suggest such a thing, but … I think you’re right.” She laughs freely. “He loves getting under your skin.”

I love when he gets under it too.

No. No, no, no.

“Can I get you a drink?” Siggy asks as she opens the fridge. “I’m about to go to the office. My first shipment of the special edition pieces of my new collection comes in today.”

“Larissa was telling me about the new line. She said it’s your best yet.”

Siggy beams. “Well, that’s nice of her to say. I’m in love with it. Rodney says it’ll never sell because I love it so much. The last time I was this obsessed with a collection, I couldn’t give it away.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

She smiles. “Do you want a drink?”

Coy’s voice peters off, and the music stops playing.

I look at Siggy. “I think I better go get Bree. She’ll take up Coy’s whole day if we let her.”

“It’s not like Coy has much else to do.”

I shrug because I don’t know. I don’t know what he has going on or what he has to do.

She must read my reaction because she closes the refrigerator softly.

“Did the two of you make up?” she asks. “I mean, I know it’s none of my business, but I hate seeing the two of you so estranged.”

I grip the back of a kitchen chair. “We aren’t estranged. Just … on different paths, I guess.”

Walking over to the table, she pulls out a chair and sits.

“I make it a habit not to get involved in my children’s personal lives. It’s not my place,” she says carefully. “But you and Coy—and Boone, for that matter—have been the best of friends throughout your entire lives.”

I nod.

“Sweetheart, those are the friends you want to keep close,” she says softly. “I know Coy is hard to love sometimes.”

“Coy shits clovers.” Boone storms in and barely misses a swat from his mother. “What? It’s true.”

“What does that terrible analogy even mean?” Siggy asks him. “And what are you doing here in the middle of the day?”

I laugh as I watch their interaction. It’s so foreign to me, and if I didn’t adore them both so much, I’d be jealous.

“It means that everything works out for Coy, and he doesn’t even have to try.” He points at me as if my presence personifies it for him. “Coy shits clovers. Get it?”

“Not really,” Siggy says, her face screwed up. “I’d rather not hear that again.”

“Yeah. Same,” I say.

Boone shrugs. “And for the second part of your question, I’m here to eat and to avoid the office.”

“What’s happening at the office?” Siggy asks.

“Oh, nothing except I just convinced Holt not to send me to Portland, and now he and Oliver are at each other’s throats over something else, and I’m being called to side with one of them. That always ends well—with all sarcasm intended.”

“Whose side are you on?” I ask.

Boone looks at me over the door and makes a face before going back to his hunt for food. “Neither of them. Holt will make my life hell professionally, and Oliver will harass me mercilessly in person. I can’t win, so I won’t play.”

“But who is right?” Siggy asks. “If you had to pick a side?”

Boone grabs a slice of pizza from the refrigerator and closes the door. “Oliver. But if you tell Holt that, I will put you in a nursing home when you get old.”

Siggy laughs.

“So on to other more important and interesting topics—what are the two of you doing here?” He grins at me before taking a bite of pizza.

“Well, I live here,” Siggy says. “And Bellamy brought her little babysitting charge over to get lessons from Coy.”

She turns in her seat and smiles at me like we have some big secret.

Boone nods appreciatively. “Well, they can be in the same house without it burning down. Good to know, good to know.”

“You stop that,” Siggy tells him. “Don’t make this awkward.”

I snort. “I kind of think we’re already there. And on that note, I think I’m going to go grab Bree and make a run for the hills.”

“It was great seeing you, Bellamy. Come by any time,” Siggy says.

“Thanks, Siggy. It was nice seeing you too.” I walk to the doorway. “Call me later, Boone.”

He nods with a mouthful of pizza.

I shake my head and make my way back through the house. Baby pictures of the Mason boys hang on the walls of the hallway leading to the stairs. They’re all adorable with chubby cheeks and the same white-blond hair. It’s hard to tell one from the other.