Page 64 of Snake

“But enough about me...baby girl, you look fucking delicious.” Mason turns his head, speaking behind him. “Hey, Si, come check out our baby girl. Tell me you don’t want to rip off this dress and do unspeakable things to her.”

They’re not exactly keeping up their end of the deal. There’s an awful lot of touching going on. But my brain has had to handle too much shit today because I don’t have the bandwidth to put up a fuss right now.

Silas appears at Mason’s side. Their faces could have been the symbol of theater. The wide grin for comedy, the morose scowl for tragedy. “Whatever it cost, he paid too fucking much for it.”

Mason tsks him, but doesn’t come to my defense. I guess I deserve that. Judging from the furious look Silas sends my way, he’s still raw about everything. Thankfully, I force down the apology swelling on my tongue and instead tug on the ends of my glove. “That tuxedo looks so good on you, Daddy.”

I earn a sparkling grin from Mason for this, and an even deeper scowl from Silas. Then he storms past us both, crashing into Knox’s room like he intends to take the door with him. It slams so hard that my teeth chatter as I flinch.

“Forget about him,” Mason says, stepping up so he can slip an arm through mine and lead me toward the stairs. “He’ll be fine soon as he settles those feathers you ruffled.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, pulling Mason to a stop. “You’re right. What I did to him…it wasn’t fair. I was too hard on him.” When I look up, Mason has a serious expression on his face. But he shrugs, grabbing the end of my braid and using the stiff hair near the end to tickle the side of my neck. “So that’s why you keep running into things. Stop looking back, Nim.”

Then he tugs at the red triangle sticking from his pocket. “Did you notice it matches?” He glances down at my dress and then gives me a smile. It’s not as warm as the previous one, but at least it’s a fucking smile.

“Whatever happens tonight, just try to enjoy yourself.”

I frown at him. “What do you mean, whatever happens?”

He shrugs. “You’ve ruffled a lot of feathers lately. Some people forgive easier than others.”

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