Page 40 of Please Hate Me

Mason’s shoulders were tight, and her breathing was shallow. While I wasn’t opposed to seeing her miserable, I had to wonder why she didn’t go upstairs.

Whatever. Maybe I could make her uncomfortable enough to go hide in Sebastian’s apartment.

With this new goal in mind, I marched toward the back of the couch. I planted a hand near Mason before hopping over the back, landing between the two of them. The cushions bounced under me as Sophia shot me a glare, and Mason made a barely audible humming sound. It was brief, but years of dealing with Mason taught me how to listen for her nervous tics. Not like she’d ever verbally tell me how she was feeling.

“What, were you raised in a barn?” Sophia chided.

“Nope, a McMansion in the suburbs of Portland, just like you.” I kicked my feet onto the coffee table. “What are we watching?”

I threw an arm over the back of the couch, draping it over Sophia’s shoulders. I wasn’t her primary partner, but I still had enough authority to claim her as mine.

“You aren’t watching anything with that attitude. Get up, walk around the couch, and try again,” she lectured.

I rolled my eyes. Sophia may have been the boss of the house, but she was all bark and no bite. What was she going to do? Make me wear a collar? Force me to write something one hundred times? Embarrass me a little?

All of those were worth it if I could scare off Mason-fucking-Albright.

I blindly reached over, snagging the book from Mason’s hands before skimming through the pages so she’d lose her place. In the past, this always pissed her off. She’d yell at me and strike my chest, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to prove a point. I wanted that reaction. I needed to prove Mason never fucking changed. Maybe that way, Sophia could see that Mason was the same flighty bitch who left us.

I braced myself for impact as I tossed the book over my shoulder, but the room remained quiet, and there was no ‘surprise’ assault. Instead, there was a barely audible whimper before Mason stood.

“I need to use the bathroom,” she meekly explained, looking at Sophia but not me.

“It’s just down the hall.” Sophia pointed toward the hallway next to the bookshelves. At the end of that hallway, my bedroom sat opposite Cam’s with our shared bathroom in the middle.

Mason nodded and turned on her heels before scurrying off.

Where was her anger? Why didn’t Mason put me in my place? I knew from experience that she could.

“What the heck was that?” Sophia hissed.

Her reaction took me back for a beat. Was she seriously mad at me? I didn’t even do anything wrong.

“What? You’re the one who wants to act like bitch-face never left. She and I used to do this shit to each other all the time!”

“I didn’t say that at all,” Sophia warned, keeping her voice low. “You can tell she’s not the same… there’s something wrong. I just don’t know what.”

“I know what’s wrong. The pop-star princess isn’t used to living with us peasants. She’s a celebrity, Sophia.”

Mason was probably used to getting everything she wanted. She likely had servants crawling up her ass, making sure she never had to lift a finger. The tiny bedroom in the barely-remodeled apartment was probably nowhere near her standard, and she was just being pissy.

“Have you ever seen Mason act like that?” she challenged.

I wanted to cross my arms and tell Sophia she was wrong… but I couldn’t. Mason had never cared about money. Even if she did have servants, it probably wasn’t by choice. I sighed, still reluctant to admit Sophia was right.

“Why can’t you just accept that I want nothing to do with Mason?”

“Because I know that’s not true,” Her hand found mine. “You don’t want to be hurt again, and that’s fine. It’s common for people who have trauma from previous relationships—”

“Ahht! No.” I paused to look her over, checking to see if my first refusal had its desired effect. “No. Absolutely not. None of my relationships have traumatized me.”

Sophia’s lips quivered into a slight frown. “You and Mason were talking about marriage, and then she vanished out of nowhere… well, almost nowhere. I guess Mason’s mom did die right before she left.”

I shuddered at the memory of Holly’s suicide note taped to a wall soaked in gray matter. Just the smell was enough to haunt me, but of course, I was lucky enough to witness the entire gruesome scene.

“And after that, your need for commitment spiked. You wanted to have our names on as many of the same things as possible—our lease, my car, utilities. All of it.” The way Sophia said it made it sound like a bad thing. “Which is why you poked a hole in the condom with Ashley, and then she left too.”

“I didn’t poke a hole in Ashley’s condom.”

---