“You’re up early.” Mark Stevens leaned against the booth and eye fucked Jo. “I can see why, though.”
“Jo, these are my frat brothers, Mark, Scott, and Devin. Guys, this is my pseudo sister, Jo. She’s off limits.”
“Hey, Jo. Good to meet you.” Scott was the first one to recover from Mason’s snarled statement.
“Nice to meet you too.” She smiled, and Mason had the sudden urge to pull her across the table and tuck her into his side, away from his friends.
“She has a boyfriend.” The edge in his voice was a clear warning, and Scott took it as such. He’d had to knock the fucker out his first semester here. Idiot thought he could haze the new guy. Fat chance of that.
“I do.” Josephine looked at Mason like he’d grown a second head. He sounded almost jealous when the guys came over. That couldn’t be right, though.
“Yeah, but are youattachedto said boyfriend?” the third guy, Devin, asked, a twinkle in his eye.
“I live with him, so I’m pretty attached.”
“Damn, girl, all the good ones got to be taken, don’t they?” Devin teased.
Jo wasn’t really paying attention to Devin. She was too focused on Mason. He looked pissed.
“She’s taken, so fuck off.” Mason turned his head so he could see them. “We’re eating. Go get your own table.”
Scott held out his hands in surrender. “Fine, grouchy. We’ll leave you the fuck alone.”
As soon as they walked away, Mason relaxed. “Stay away from those three.”
“Why?”
“Because there has been some shady shit go down at the frat, and those three are at the center of all of it. We can’t prove anything, but that don’t mean shit.”
“Noted.” She took another bite of her pancakes, careful of her hands. It would be her luck to spill something. “So, I was looking through your videos last night.”
Now, that got his attention. He stopped glaring at the guys a few booths away and turned his attention back to her. Jo had never seen anyone with eyes like Mason’s. They were a true black. You couldn’t tell where the pupil ended and the iris began. They were beautiful.
“You did?”
She nodded and sipped her coffee. “Yeah. You do some funny skits. I even saw a few Let’s Plays on there.”
“I only record the games I really want to play. The last two I did were Resident Evil Seven and Outlast Two. I typically keep it light and funny.”
“So, horror games are light and funny?”
“Well, no, but they made for some funny moments seeing me scream my ass off onscreen.” He smiled sheepishly. “I’ve been thinking of adding movie reviews as well.”
“I was thinking of doing movie reviews too.” Jo made a note to look up his playlist for those games. Mason screaming like a girl was something she definitely wanted to watch. She pushed her plate away, unable to eat anything else. “Think maybe you might want to go watch a couple movies with me, and we can do them together? Swap it from channel to channel each week, and that way fans don’t think we’re straying too far from the content they expect from us?”
Mason’s eyes got huge. “Really?”
“Really. Maybe give your channel a boost in the process. I figure if you can haul me back and forth from school, I can introduce you to my subscribers.”
“I’d like that.” He gave her a shit-eating grin. “I’d really like that, and not just because of the channel. I have a feeling you and I are gonna be really good friends, Josephine.”
“I could use a friend.”
He took her hand, his thumb stroking the back of it, sending a wave of shivers along her arm. “You got one,moye dragotsennyy.”
“What does that mean?” His accent was thicker today. She’d barely detected it yesterday. Keith told her Mason grew up in Russia, but hearing him speak it in that accent did things to her girly parts, and she felt a blush race up her neck and bloom on her cheeks.
Mason leaned forward, his black eyes intent. “You’re blushing, Josephine.”