Page 21 of They Break Beauty

“He missed us. He needs to finish his degree. His internship came to an end.”

“All surface-level excuses.”

There it was.

I hadn’t seen it from him in a while, because things had been all smooth-sailing.

Well, aside from the whole frat debacle of the last couple of weeks when the sorority heads had come to him with evidence of all the sick shit some bastard members had been up to.

But here it was now out in full force.

A whole load of worry.

That part of him that couldn’t let go of even the smallest thing, who took on the responsibility of everything.

Mason was two years older than mine and Lev’s twenty-one years, so he’d naturally fallen into the role of our unofficial leader. But it had gotten worse over the years and moved beyond that to the point where he needed to exert control over everything, to make sure nothing and no one could touch us. To do that, it had caused him to also exert control over us, to going to every effort to keep us in line.

That had calmed down during the last year with Levi away.

But now he was back, it seemed Mason was already falling right back into it.

Well, Lev kind of brought it out in him.

It was largely because of the incident that had happened about five years ago.

That fucking nightmare had almost broken all of us, and it had completely fucked with Mason’s life, even turning him from his artistic side to a boring-ass law student who was just doing it for his big-shot lawyer daddy.

Maybe with Lev back, despite this concern that it was bringing Mason at the moment, it could ease him back on the real path he belonged on. Lev might cause him grief, but he also inspired with the way he was so passionate and determined to do what he wanted, to live his life how he deemed fit. I was hoping once Mason got past this aspect of Lev’s return, that he’d be drawn to that other aspect.

“Even if they are excuses, what does it matter? We have him back with us.”

“What does it matter? You know how he is, Colt. I mean, yeah, I’m happy he’s here, but if you think that won’t come without complications, you’re really packing on the denial. He’s up to something.”

“Well, it has been too easygoing and kind of boring since he’s been gone. He does bring the fun.”

“Fun?” He scoffed. “Anarchy is more like it.”

“Well, he is nicknamed Hellraiser for a reason.”

He grunted, then gestured at his dick. “Sorry tonight isn’t working out. Maybe call up one of your groupies, have them take the edge off.”

“No fucking way. I want you tonight. Although, I could call one of them in to join us if you want? Carly, maybe? Hayley?”

While I was bisexual, Mason identified as heterosexual to the outside world and the only guy he fooled around with was me, and just once in a while. Even when we shared women together, he wouldn’t touch me then in front of them because of his issues there.

More repression from him.

He was unbelievably tightly wound.

It was a mixture of him being uncomfortable in his own skin with everything, his father’s overbearing influence, and also the fallout from the incident.

“No, I’m not in the mood for anyone else to be here with us.” He went to sit up, saying, “I’ll go down some liquor and then—”

“No. Only sober with us, remember? I won’t have it any other way.” And it shouldn’t ever be any other way.

“Colt—”

His words caught in his throat as I shucked off my leather pants, my hard cock springing free.

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