Crashed (Mason Brothers 2)

“Hey,” she said, coming into the room and pushing her sunglasses up on her head. Scout jumped off the sofa, wagging her whole body at Evie in greeting, and then jumped back up, adoring Nick again. Evie’s smile faltered a little when she caught the vibe between Nick and me.

“Um,” she said, “are you guys done?”

“We’re done,” Nick said, picking up his notebook and pencil and putting them in his bag. His tone was calm.

“Sure,” I said. “We’re done.”

“Okay. This was on your porch.” Evie scooped up Scout and held out a piece of paper to me. I took it. It was a flyer advertising the neighborhood barbecue on Saturday. “Games for the kids!” it said, in Comic Sans font, the paper printed at the local Kinko’s. “Burgers! Dogs! Come have fun and meet your neighbors!”

I tossed the flyer aside. Nick and Evie left, and I wheeled to the kitchen to get myself a sandwich. It was physiotherapy day, and my head hurt like hell.

Twenty-Three

Tessa

* * *

I had been to dozens of casting calls in my career. I’d made sacrifices. I’d stood in many studios just like this one, smiling for the camera. Modeling was my dream and my career.

Today I didn’t want to do any of it.

I was standing in my underwear, doing the easiest job in the world, and I didn’t really want to be here. It was cold, and I was hungry because I’d skipped breakfast for black coffee in order to look thin. But aside from that, there was something just… off. I didn’t feel the happiness I usually felt doing this.

Honestly, I wanted to be wearing sweats and a stretched-out T-shirt, lounging on Andrew Mason’s sofa, listening to him shoot barbs at me. Eating his pickles. I itched to text him every time we had a pause, but I refrained. It would seem clingy, like I was feeling sappy about him. He’d probably hate it.

Besides, I wasn’t feeling sappy about him. At all.

Last night was good. Really, really good. But I didn’t do relationships, and neither did he. We had a thing. It was a good thing, but it was just a thing. Not a sappy, messy commitment.

We were on the final few products for the catalog, which included a strapless bra and one with criss-crossed straps. When we finally took a break, I sipped my lemon water and stared at my phone, pondering for the thousandth time whether I should text Andrew. As I was moping over it, the phone rang in my hand.

It was my mother. I did a quick calculation: It was around noon in Colorado. What the hell was she calling me for?

“Hey Mom,” I said when I answered, trying not to sound put out.

“I can’t believe you,” my mother said.

I frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“The money.” My mother usually had a chill hippie attitude, but she could get petty and angry. Right now she was both. “You’re just going to keep it, aren’t you? You’re not going to share any of it with me.”

“What money?”

She made a disbelieving sound. “You’re going to pretend you don’t know about the money? I talked to the lawyer, Tessa. He said he sent you a letter about it.”

The lawyer had sent me a letter? If it had come to my grandmother’s house, I hadn’t seen it. But then again, I hadn’t been home yesterday. I’d worked all day and all night, then I’d stayed the night at Andrew’s. “Wait a minute,” I said to Mom. “You’re saying that aside from the house, Grandma left me money?”

“All of her money,” Mom said. “Including the money left to her when my father died and she got a life insurance payout. She left you everything, and she didn’t leave any of it to her own daughter.”

I blinked in shock. I realized I was standing in the dressing room in my underwear, and I grabbed a robe and pulled it on, wrapping it around me. “I didn’t know about the money, Mom,” I said. “I swear I didn’t.”

“Well,” she said, only half believing me, “I’m a little short right now, and I need funds. If you could send some, it would be great. Considering it’s really both of our inheritance.”

I opened my mouth, and the words that were going to come out were the ones without thinking: Yes Mom, sure, of course you’re right. The words were right there on my tongue. And then I stopped myself.

I hadn’t known my grandmother. I’d never talked to her. I didn’t know her before she died. Whose fault was that? My mother’s, for sure. Maybe my grandmother’s, too. Maybe all three of us took some of the blame.

The point was, I didn’t have the chance to ask what my grandmother was thinking. But instead of that, her will left a pretty clear message.