Page 53 of The Dating Pact

Brooke

Come over later.

Brooke

Bring a mask.

Well, shit.

I pulled up to the farm as the sun started to set, and when I didn’t spot Brooke in the immediate fields, I headed into the farmhouse. The screen door slammed behind me, and I needed to fix that. Or, I mean, find someone else to fix it. No one in my family was particularly handy, and my father wasn’t the type to take me into the garage to show me how to patch a tire or build a birdhouse.

“In here,” I heard Brooke call out from her office in the living room, and I walked through the kitchen to find her on her laptop.

I leaned against the doorjamb, sticking my hands in my pockets. “Hey.”

She smiled up at me from her place on the couch. The couch where we’d had sex. “How was your day?”

“Good. All your sister’s candy came in. You want me to hold on to it or…?”

She picked up her cell phone, typing on it, presumably to ask Sabrina. “She said she’ll come pick it up tomorrow.”

“Okay.” I ran my hand over my beard, catching Brooke’s attention. She narrowed her brows. “You got a trim.”

“Yeah.” I scratched at the shorter bristles on my jaw. “Figured it was about time.”

She shut her computer and stood, still studying me with her probing gaze. “Your hair too.”

I’d had a few inches cut off this afternoon. “My mother and Youmna will be happy.”

Brooke laughed and combed her fingers through the strands, skimmed her palms over my beard as if she liked it.

“What do you think?”

“You’re always handsome, but I can see more of your face now, which is nice.” She took the elastic band I’d habitually worn around my wrist and used it to tie her own hair back.

“You don’t have enough hair ties of your own?”

“It’s like stealing a boyfriend’s sweatshirt. Sure you can use your own, but his is always better.”

I didn’t know why it made me so inordinately happy that my black elastic was wrapped around her ponytail, but I crossed my arms over my chest, as if I could cover up how my heart pounded.

“So, the book,” she started with her crooked smile. “You liked it, huh?”

I let my gaze wander over her face and then down to her T-shirt and stained jeans. She must’ve been working in the dirt today. She always wore jeans when she tended the fields.

“Yeah. I bought book two.” I skipped over how I’d texted Dylan and Liam about it. A few months ago, they had both admitted to occasionally reading romances with Evie and Kennedy, and I hadn’t thought I’d ever want to do that. Yet here I was. A full-fledged dark romance reader.

“I knew down deep you were a sex fiend,” she said, grinning. “Did you bring a mask?”

I pulled a light blue medical mask from my back pocket, holding it up between us, and she threw back her head, cackling in delight.

She smacked my shoulder. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“I know.” I tossed it on the table in the corner then yanked out the mask I’d found in the big tub of old Halloween costumes. One year, Mira and I had dressed as movie serial killers, her as Patrick Bateman, me as Ghostface.

“This what you wanted?” I showed Brooke the well-known mask from Scream, and she gasped, clasping her hands in front of her.

She nodded silently, teeth sawing into her bottom lip, her cheeks pink. There must have been some primal animal instinct still inside me because I swore I could smell her pheromones change. Feel her anticipation and excitement. Made my own skyrocket.

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