Page 7 of Masks and Mishaps

“Not really,” I reply, forcing myself to ignore the crestfallen look on his face. “Not when you threaten to dismember my friends.”

He snickers before muttering, “You love it.”

I hate that he’s right.

“Don’t you have more important things to do?”

“Nope.”

“Your annual salary is literally half a million dollars. You absolutely have more important things to do than lurk around the Halcyon.”

“I don’t,” he enunciates, “have anything more important to do thanthis.” He tips his head in the direction of the elevator doors. “Are you going to fuck that guy?”

“None of your business.”

“It is.”

“How?”

“Because you’re my…” His eyes drift to the side, and I know he’s running down the long list of things we are to each other, most of which prohibit us from being…more. He shakes his head before focusing back on me. “Tell me. Are you going to fuck him?”

“And if I am?”

Dalton’s shoulders tighten into his body. His chest rises with an inhalation, and his chiseled jaw squares when he clenches his teeth. “No.”

Bullshit. He doesn’t get to do this.

For the first year of our friendship, hooking up seemed like a given, but one of us (not naming names) dragged their size fifteen feet. Hint: It wasn’t me.

Ultimately, we waited too long. When our parents announced their engagement, it all…stopped. The late-night calls. Texting me pictures of his breakfast. Sending me coffee money on days when I had a paper due. These microdoses of Dalton I’d enjoyed for over a year disappeared eleven months ago.

We becameregularfriends. Platonic.

As my platonic friend, he doesn’t get to tell me who to fuck.

I step forward. “Why do you care who I sleep with?”

“You’re one of my best friends,” is his response, and the disdain is thick in his voice.

“Right. I’m your friend,” I repeat. “And yoursister.”

“Stepsister,” he emphasizes as the elevator reaches the tenth floor with aDing!

Frustrated, I turn to exit, but Dalton catches my arm and hits the button for the lobby.

“What are you doing?” I question, halfheartedly shaking my wrist free despite my fascination with how huge his hand looks wrapped around it.

“We’re not done talking,” he insists. “Look, I wouldreally, reallyprefer if you didn’t fuck that guy.”

“Because I’m your friend? Because I’m your stepsister?”

He pauses before he bobs his chin. “Yes.”

Yes. He doesn’t mention how on my twenty-first birthday, he pulled me aside, gave me a pair of emerald stud earrings, and told me,One day, I’m going to fuck you down while you wear nothing but the jewelry I buy you.

“That’s it?” I try to keep my tone even. “Those are the only reasons you don’t want me with Alec—because I’m your friend and your stepsister? There’s no other reason?”

Dalton doesn’t respond, which is rare for him. The guy has a less effective filter than a decade-old Brita pitcher in a frat house mini-fridge.

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