by Emma Hart
“By that woman, I assume you mean Lauren.”
“Whatever her name is. Yes.” She moved toward me again. “Six years, Mason. That’s something to think about.”
I put my wallet and phone in my pockets and grabbed my keys from the coffee tables. “You’re right, Claudia. It is. Six years is a long time to be with someone, but you should have thought about the sanctity of our relationship before you decided to wrap your legs around someone else’s body because they had more money than I do.”
“Mason, it wasn’t—”
“We’re done here.” I opened the door. “I have to pick up Lauren, and I have no idea to hear any more of your excuses. You’re only here because I’ve moved on.”
Claudia hauled the strap of her purse up onto her shoulder and pouted at me. “We’re not done here, Mason.”
“We were done when you shoved your boss’ dick down your throat. Out.”
She did as I’d said, shooting me one dark look as she disappeared out into the hallway and toward the elevator. The doors opened for her to step inside right as the door opposite me swung open.
Mrs. Allerton hobbled out, staring down the hall after Claudia. “What did that hussy want?”
Usually, I’d correct her, but… “She was trying to get me back, Mrs. Allerton.”
“Did you take her back?”
“No, ma’am. I kicked her out.”
She grunted. “Good. Can I give you some advice?”
“I’d love it,” I said politely. She was going to give it anyway.
“You wouldn’t buy a rotten vegetable. Don’t date one, either, especially if you’ve already thrown it out already.”
How about that? That was some good advice.
“Solid advice, Mrs. Allerton. Thank you.” I stepped out and locked the door. “Thankfully, that ship has sailed and sunk.”
She tapped her chin. “She was here the other day. Shall I shoot her if she comes back?”
“Probably best you don’t. The building manager doesn’t know about your gun, does he?”
“Hmm. He doesn’t.” She sighed. “Stupid people. Stupid rules.”
I nodded along as if I agreed. It really was the easiest option, and my mind was already whirring with the presence of Claudia.
“Are you off somewhere nice?”
“My grandpa’s birthday party,” I said. “And I really have to be going before I’m late.” I checked my watch. “Thanks for the advice, Mrs. Allerton. I’ll keep it in mine.”
“You do that, Mason.” She disappeared into her apartment and shut the door before I could say anything else or even say goodbye.
Typical.
I shrugged it off and after checking that my door was locked, headed for the stairs. I was hyper-alert as I walked into the parking lot—I didn’t want to be blindsided by my ex-girlfriend and whatever bullshit story she wanted to spin me again.
Thankfully, there was no sign of her car or of her, so I climbed into my truck and hightailed it out of there.
Just in case.
I had little time to think about her or her reasoning for suddenly appearing at my front door. The drive to Lauren’s apartment was quick and painless, and I shook all thoughts of Claudia away as I entered her building.
I took the elevator up to her floor and stepped out. It was as silent as still as always, and I was starting to wonder if anyone else actually lived in this building. God only knew mine was lively enough.
I was a little jealous of the peace and quiet.
Her door swung open before I had a chance to knock. Lauren looked me up and down with her light-blue eyes, taking every inch of me in. It gave me a chance to do to the same to her.
She’d gone for a black dress today, one that hugged the top half of her body with a neckline that dipped into a deep ‘v.’ The skirt was full and swayed as she stepped back to judge me. “You’re late.”
I dragged my gaze up from her chest. Her dark hair was curled and hung over her shoulders, and a light-pink lipstick coated her soft lips.
Shit, I wanted to kiss her.
“Hey!” She snapped her fingers, pulling my attention from her mouth to her eyes. “I’m up here, moron.”
“Sorry.” I wasn’t. “Are you ready to go?”
“I just told you that you’re late.”
“You’re feisty today.”
“I’m feisty every day. Some days more than others.”
“Is this some days?”
“You’re standing in front of me, late, and ogling my chest. If it isn’t already, it’s about to be.”
I reached forward and tugged up the neckline of her shirt. “Problem solved.”
Lauren leaned forward and covered my eyes with her hand. “No. That is problem solved.”
“Touché.”
She dropped her hand with a roll of her eyes that I only just caught. “Whatever. Let’s go before it all goes to shit.”
“Before what all goes to shit?”
“The rest of my day.” She pushed some hair behind her ear and grabbed her purse. She held the clutch tightly against her side as she all but pushed me out of her apartment and slammed the door shut.
I took a step back from her, keeping my eyes on her as she turned the key with more vigor than I’d ever seen anyone do it before. She shoved the key in her purse and slapped the top of the clutch down, then looked up at me.
There was nothing but pure frustration in her eyes.
I did the thing that came most instinctively to me. I reached for her and pulled her against me. She froze, her entire body turning to a plank of wood until she finally relaxed against me. Slowly, she slid her arms around my waist and held me tightly.
It was hard not to focus on how well she fit against me. How perfectly the top of her head tucked under my chin and my hand cupped the back of her neck as I held her tightly.
It was even harder to ignore the way my heart beat a little harder.
Lauren shuddered, her warm breath dancing across my arm when she turned her head. “Thanks. I needed that.”
“I could tell.” I pulled back, not quite letting go of her, but not quite holding onto her either. “You good now?”
She nodded.
She didn’t move away from me, though.
“It’s one of those days. My water cut out because the building manager forgot to tell us there was work being done on a pipe and I was halfway through a shower, so I had to wash shampoo out of my hair in the kitchen sink with bottled water. Then Henry left me a present on the windowsill, and my boss called to ask if I could work tonight which I had to say no to because we have these plans, then my sister called and she’s having a rough time, so my mom called to tell me I need to support her more because she’s not there to do it, and I had to listen to ten minutes of guilt-tripping even though she’s on vacation in the Cayman Islands with my dad and their friends.”
Wow. She didn’t even take a breath through most of that.
“Feel better?”
She blinked at me. “I do, actually. Apparently, I just needed a bit of a bitch.”
Grinning, I stepped back, releasing her entirely. “How about we stop and get you a cheeseburger on the way there? That’ll cheer you up.”
Her eyes lit up. “You’re the best fake boyfriend ever.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN – LAUREN
“One lap dance and I’ll never bother you again.”
At this point, it was actually a good deal.
I looked at Mason’s Great Uncle Charlie and shook my head. “I tried to give a lap dance once. I fell face-first into a toilet.”
Life lesson learned: don’t ever lap dance in a bathroom when the floor is wet. Or when you’ve been drinking. Or at all.
“All right, how about—”
“How about you leave the poor girl alone, Charles?” Pru swept in with a dry tone and a gin and tonic in her hand. “She doesn’t want your sexual favors. She’s not going to dance like a puppet for you. Let her drink her wine and judge pe
ople with me.”
Before he could say a word, Pru grabbed my arm, barely leaving me enough time to pull my clutch against my body and scoop up my wine glass.
Thank God.
I thought I was never getting out of there.
“I wish I could say he was senile,” Pru said. “But my brother has always been a dreadful pervert.”
Of course. With a personality like that, there was no way it could be anything else.
Pru lead me over to a table that was slightly out of the way and insisted I sit down. I did. I didn’t want to upset her—not only was she my only true ally here, but I had no desire to be at the end of her sharp tongue, thank you very much.
“All right, if you’re gonna survive this shitshow, here’s what you need to know.” She put her gin and tonic that, on reflection was probably just gin, down on the table between us. “Avoid Charlie, but you know that already. Alfie, he’s the guy in the red fedora, avoid him, too. He likes to pull unsuspecting women into Cha Cha Slide battles.”
“Do I want to know what that is?”
“No.” Pru sipped her drink. “Now, Elsie is proficient at the Macarena, and while she’s fun to drink with, do not let her get you drawn into vodka shots.”
I nodded.
“And Shirley—she’s the bleach blonde tart with the leopard print shoes talking to Nadia—is a slut for some Fireball. Don’t be there when she gets control of the bar. It won’t end well for her.”
“Right,” I said slowly. “So I should hide in the corner and hope nobody notices me.”
“That’s about right.” Kirsty slid into the chair between us. “What up, Aunt Pru? Pissed anyone off yet?”
“Only your father, but that’s par the course.” Pru was completely unbothered by it. “What are you doing here? Don’t you have a date?”
“I did, but he sent me dick pics, and they weren’t that impressive, so I bailed.”
“Ah.” Pru nodded as if she understood.
Hell, maybe she did.
“How’s Mason?” Kirsty nudged my shoulder.
I side-eyed her. “He looks fine to me.”
And he did. Fi-i-ine. He was at the bar with his buddy, Trevor, who I’d met at the reunion. Apparently, their families were close friends, and that was why he was here tonight.
“Mhmm. Just fine?”
“We’ve already spoken about this,” I reminded her. “I’m here because you made me be. You’re responsible for this.”
I wasn’t in the mood for this tonight. I was here, being nice, being the socially acceptable good girlfriend, despite the bad mood that bubbled underneath it all.
I wasn’t over my mom’s scolding. She’d gotten under my skin with her hypocritical criticism of me, but that was nothing new. It was the thing I’d grown up with, and Imogen had, too, to an extent.
This time, she’d really pissed me off, and I couldn’t shake the frustration no matter how hard I tried. After all, I’d been the one who’d been there the day after Imogen had given birth. I’d cooked her meals and bought her beaver-dam-sized sanitary towels. I spoke to her every day, and for my mother to drag me down the way she had really made me mad.
And I hated that Mason hugging me had taken the edge off.
Seriously.
What was he? A human vodka shot?
Now I was here, at his grandpa Eddie’s birthday party, with his family, pretending like I was okay, while he stood at the bar with Trevor and watched me with a stupid little smile on his face?
All I could think of was his lips on mine for the few fleeting seconds they’d been there. It was a frustrating balm to my annoyance. The thought of kissing him was way more soothing than it had any right to be.
The idea of Mason running his fingers through my hair while his lips moved across mine, and I ran my hands over his shoulders and arms as our bodies pressed closer together…
Jesus, I was getting a complex with this man.
Complex feelings.
Kirsty grinned. “You’re doing a great job at convincing everyone else you’re the real thing.”
I sipped my wine. “It’s not hard. Nobody is paying attention to either of us.”
Charlie’s attempts at hitting on me didn’t count. He’d already moved on to a lady in a fetching violet dress, and I doubted she’d be the last woman in his sights tonight.
“It can’t all be fake, though. I mean, he keeps looking at you.”
“Probably to see if you’re pissing her off,” Pru snapped. “Which you are.”
Kirsty looked at me, wide-eyed. “Am I?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” I said tentatively. What? Fake or not, I wasn’t in the habit of being rude to strangers. Unless the stranger was Claudia.
“Oh.” Pru finished the rest of her gin. “I guess it’s me you’re pissing off.”
“Let me get you another drink,” I said quickly, reaching for her glass. “I’m going anyway.” I punctuated that by downing the remaining wine in front of me and getting up so quickly that my head almost spun.
Thankfully, it didn’t, and I beelined for Mason and Trevor at the bar.
“What’s up?” Mason asked, his eyes never leaving my face.
I set the glasses on the bar with a sigh and leaned forward. “Give your sister a pole, because she’s fishing hard.”
“What’s she fishing for? Compliments? She’ll have to try harder.” Trevor snorted. “There’s nothing to compliment.”
I thought Mason would tear him a new one, but he didn’t. He simply chuckled his agreement, and I guess he was in the same situation I was: Kirsty deserved it.
“She’s fishing for feelings where there aren’t any,” I said quickly before I grabbed the bartender and ordered new drinks.
Mason rolled his eyes. “I told her to cut that shit out when she tried it with me earlier. Has she forgotten she’s the reason we’re in this situation?”
“Evidently.” My tone was dry. “But feel free to tell her again. She’s not listening to me.” I passed money across the bar to the tender and handed Mason the gin and tonic. “Take this to Pru before I regret all my life choices even more.”
Laughing, he took the glass and left, making his way over to the table where his aunt and sister were sitting.
Trevor sidled up to me. “No feelings, huh?”
I side-eyed him, picking up my glass of wine. “Do I look like the kind of girl who catches feelings like people catch a cold?”
“I’m not gonna answer that. There’s no right answer.”
“Hey, you’re smarter than you look.”
“You’re witty. No wonder Mason keeps staring at you.”
I snorted. “He doesn’t keep staring at me.”
“Have you been looking at him?”
Yes. “No. He’s not a TV.”
“Then how do you know he hasn’t been looking at you?”
“Because I’m also not a TV,” I said dryly. “It’s also called a gut feeling. I think I’d know if I was being watched like a cheap studio sitcom.”
Trevor blinked at me. “You have one hell of a way with words, Lauren.”
I raised my glass to him. “Thank you. I pride myself on it. It keeps people on their toes.”
“What does?”
“Never knowing what shit is gonna come out of her mouth.” Mason stepped up next to me and stretched his arm out behind me to grab his beer. “Keeping up with the Kardashians is nothing compared to keeping up with Lauren Green.”
“I’m going to take that as a compliment because I’m not sure starting a fake argument here is a good idea.” I sipped. “But if you’d like to provide entertainment…”
“Damn, I’m almost hoping Claudia shows up,” Trevor said. “I’m still pissed I missed that.”
“It wasn’t that impressive. Well, maybe to you guys. But for women, it was just a regular way to shut another woman down. We’re good at it, given that all women are bitches.”
“All women are bitches?”
“We
ll, yeah. We’re all bitches inside. It doesn’t matter how hard you try to hide it, it’s gonna come out sooner or later. I just prefer to be a bitch to people’s faces.”
Mason cocked his head to the side. “Why?”
“Because I’m a woman. If I’m a bitch in private, it’ll get back to them, and I’ll have to be a bitch anyway. I like to cut the middleman and save us all some time.”
Trevor choked on his beer. “Seriously, if you aren’t gonna date her for real, please let me date her.”
“You wouldn’t be able to handle me, Trevor. I’d chew you up and spit you out in a night.”
Mason nodded. “It’s true. She would. She’s hard work.”
I nudged him. “You’re not exactly easy yourself. You are why we’re in this situation, if you remember.”
“Actually, you are. You’re the one who put an ad online.”
“Look, if we’re going to get into semantics, I can’t argue with you, and that doesn’t benefit me at all.”
He laughed and stepped in closer to me. “Ah, but semantics benefits me. You’ve shut down the conversation already.”
“No, I told you I can’t argue with you if you bring semantics into it. I can, however, talk to you and break down all your arguments.”
“That’s something I’d like to see. Do I have to pay for it, or are the tickets free?”
“You can get a free front row seat since it’s you I’m tearing down.”
“The romance. I can hardly take it.”
“I’ll sprinkle rose petals across the floor before I rip your arguments to shreds. How does that sound?”
“If you were a good girlfriend you’d sprinkle a trail of your clothing toward the bedroom, but whatever.”
“Well, thank God I’m not.”
Trevor looked between us both with bewilderment in his eyes. “You two need to get married.”
With that comment, he left us alone, heading in the direction of where Kirsty and Pru were huddled over the table talking.
“That’s two people in your life who think you need to marry me,” I said slowly. “Either you need to re-evaluate your taste in women, or I need to stop being so delightful.”
“Probably the first one.” Mason leaned back against the bar, his finger tickling my arm. “You are a real delight, did you know that?”