Mason“You ballsy motherfucker.” I opened my eyes. It was morning. Definitely morning. Sunlight was streaming in through the cracked blinds of my bedroom. I could feel the warmth of it on my face, arm, and shoulder of the arm I had out of the blankets and wrapped around Laina. I rolled halfway over and looked over my shoulder to see Rick standing in the doorway of my bedroom. His words had woken me, and he was shaking his head while grinning at me. “You’re lucky it’s me standing here and not Benji. He might have done Sid and Mark a favor and killed you in your sleep.” I rubbed at my eyes. “What time is it?” “Seven thirty.” “Why the hell are you waking me up so early?” Rick grinned. “I think we found a car.” He hooked his thumb over his shoulder. “Meet me downstairs. We’ll talk about it. And try not to wake her. She’s had a rough couple of days dealing with your shit.” I listened to Rick’s footfalls on

LainaThe hot stones being rubbed on the bottom of my feet felt heavenly after the last couple of days I’d had. The young woman doing my pedicure smiled up at me. “Is it too hot”? “No,” I said. “It’s perfect. Thank you.” Ginny was beside me. Her chair was on full-blown massage mode, and her body was being jostled around as a rolling ball in the back of the chair pressed into her shoulder blades and spine. She groaned and nodded appreciatively. “We need to do this more often.” “Agreed,” I said. After the massage and spa portion of the pedicure was done, the estheticians set to work painting our toes. I had chosen a dark purple color with a bit of glitter in it, while Ginny had favored a hot pink. She looked over at me as she turned down the intensity of her chair so her foot wouldn’t be moving while it was painted. “I can’t believe I missed Saturday night. And all that shit went down. It’s insane.” “Be glad you weren’t there. It sucke

MasonI sucked in a pinched breath as I bent over to retrieve my jeans and shirt from the bedroom floor. After stripping out of them last night, I’d fallen right into bed. Now Laina was coming over to stay for who knew how long, and my house wasn’t in the best state—neither was I. The pain wasn’t as bad as it had been. I could move around on my own fine and perform most of my daily tasks. Bending over, turning too quickly, or lifting anything that weighed more than fifteen or so pounds made my ribs scream bloody murder, though, so I’d left some of those tasks and put them off. But now that Laina was on her way, I had the strange urge to try to make everything as perfect as possible. “Fuck,” I growled under my breath. When had I started to care this much? When had things gone from a fun, casual hook up after the bar that night to this full-blown need to impress? I shook my head. This was the exact path I’d gone down with Evelyn. And that had left Ric

LainaThe handle of the guest room door was cool against my fingertips. I tightened my grip and almost opened the door to go back out into the living room. Almost. But something held me back, and I let my hand fall to my side. Seeing Mason talking to Evelyn had been a curveball. I’d felt physically ill when she walked past me in the driveway, and the feeling of rolling nausea hadn’t passed since. Why did it suddenly feel like the ground was falling out from under me? I went to the bed and perched myself on the edge. I rested my elbows on my knees and leaned forward, staring down at the plush gray carpet beneath my feet. Mason’s guest room was nice. Simple, but nice. The cool gray carpets and white walls provided a calm, soothing environment that wasn’t cluttered with stuff. All that was in the room was the bed, a nightstand with a lamp, and a chair in the far corner with one pillow. Sheer navy curtains hung in front of the wi

Mason“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Laina asked. She was sitting in the passenger seat of Rick’s Jeep—his daily driver—and had twisted around to look at me in the back seat. We were slowing cutting through the crowd gathered for the last race before the final showdown of The Streets. This was the biggest turnout so far, and there would only be more and more people coming over the next hour and a half leading up to the start of the race. I nodded to her. “Everything will be fine.” “You don’t think we should have come a little later?” she asked, looking out her window at the people outside. “We won’t be able to keep it a secret that you’re here. We’re basically handing over the opportunity for Mark and Sid to concoct their master plan.” “Master plan?” Rick chuckled. He had one hand resting lightly on the top of the steering wheel as he put the Jeep in park with the other. “You make them sound like movie villains.” “They m