Spite Club (Mason Brothers 1)

Why was I so stupid sometimes?

It was none of my goddamn business. She was right, I’d said no. Evie was free and single, and could go to Cintano’s on Saturday night if she wanted. Pick up who she wanted. Fuck who she wanted.

Not my business at all.

Except Cintano’s was a meat market. She didn’t belong in a meat market, meeting those kinds of guys. Letting them buy her drinks and come on to her. Letting them touch her and take her home.

I didn’t care. Nope. We’d been of some use to each other, gotten drunk for one fun night, and that was all. We weren’t dating or fucking. We weren’t anything, even though she’d tried.

She was at Cintano’s on Saturday night.

The beast inside me roared to life again. Evie with her pretty red hair, her soft skin, her nice round ass, at Cintano’s. Right now.

I should not fucking care about this.

The phone buzzed in my hand again. It was Evie.

Confession, she wrote. It isn’t going very well.

Oh, fucking hell. That sealed it. I’ll be right there, I texted back. Don’t move.

“Hey!” Andrew said as I came back inside and put on my leather jacket. He held up his hands. “What about bros before redheads?”

“Next time,” I told him.

“Fine. But while you’re gone, I’m going to draw Lightning Boy and Judy Gravity getting it on. And it’s going to be filthy.”

“Do not draw that,” I shout

ed over my shoulder, and I banged the door shut behind me.

Thirteen

Evie

Confession. It isn’t going very well.

I had never been to Cintano’s before. But if a girl is going to try and get herself laid, she may as well go to the top place in town for it. On Saturday night.

This was the new me—or, should I say, newer than the last new me. I was going to be bold and sexy. Adventurous. But I was also going to be confident and in control. I wasn’t going to be the sad-sack cheating victim Josh had made me out to be, or the pathetic hard-up girl who begged Nick Mason to have sex with her. I also wasn’t going to be the boring bank teller with “marriage material” on an invisible sign over her head. None of the guys at this bar knew me, so I was going to be someone new, and sexy, and fun, just for one night.

Fuck Nick Mason and his stupid scruples. Just fuck them.

There were plenty of men in Millwood. Nick Mason wasn’t the only one. I would go pick another one. Easy.

While my roommate Heather blared Howard Jones in her room, I picked out a wrap dress from my closet: basic black, knee length to cover my ass, with a deep V neck. I added a silver necklace and a pair of heels. On a wave of inspiration, I picked up the jean jacket Nick had lent me and tried it on. The look was dressy and classy, overlaid with the sharp denim, and I liked it.

I was adjusting the jacket when I noticed something in the breast pocket. I pulled it out and found a business card. Andrew Mason, programmer. Specializing in PHP. There was a phone number and an email. Huh. Who was Andrew Mason? A brother or a cousin? The jacket was a too small to fit Nick, but it was definitely a guy’s jacket, big enough to give cover to my ample boobs, though I had to roll the cuffs.

Whatever. Nick was a mystery in a lot of ways, but he wasn’t one I was going to ponder tonight. I put the card back in the jacket pocket, blow-dried my hair, put on some makeup, and headed out.

I only had a mild panic attack when I got out of the Uber in front of the bar. And a second one—again, mild—as the bouncer waved me through. Oh, God, I was in Cintano’s. To pick up. Right. Let’s do this.

There was a dance floor, already full, ringed with tables, chairs, and booths in lots of dark nooks and crannies. A huge bar lined the back wall, lit with cunning little lights inside the bar and above it, so you could see what you were ordering and paying, but not a whole lot else. The whole place smelled like perfume, cologne, dank dance floor sweat, and sweet mixed drinks.

I walked to the bar and ordered a white wine. I was dressed to kill and obviously on my own—should I find a guy and talk to him? Or would he talk to me? Even in the bad old days I’d met guys through work, school, or friends, so I’d never done this before. But I got my glass of wine and nothing happened, so I sipped it like a loser, wondering what was next.

There was lots of traffic at the bar. The guys were dressed up—nice dress shirts, styled hair, some of them with necklaces or rings. There was a lot of cologne. They weren’t the kind of guys I’d dated before, but they weren’t hideous either, and that was what this night was about. Someone new. Someone different.