Page 15 of Enemies with Benefits
"Not just a bike,thebike?"
"Thebike?"
"Yes!"
"Wait...thebike, bike?"
"Yes!"
"No shit."
"Yes, shit."
I whipped around, staring at the hotel, taking it in, and frowning. “I don't remember this hotel being here."
"The building is kind of old, so it's definitely been here."
"No, I mean, the name doesn't stick out."
"Should it?"
"I've lived and worked in this part of the city my whole life, Kay. Of fucking course it should sound familiar. Or at leastfeelfamiliar, which it does, but the name doesn't."
"That weird brain thing you do never gets less weird. Google says it had a different name a few months ago, but the same owner."
"What was its name before?"
"Mmm, Beckett Place. Weird to change it when you've owned it forever, I mean?—"
I stopped listening as a wave of something ugly washed through me. "Shut up."
"Rude, but alright," he said, shoving his phone away as I moved toward the front doors. "Woah, what are you doing?"
"Going in," I said, stepping around his arm.
"What're you going to do? Walk in in plain clothes, while you're on unofficial leave, and start interviewing people about that bike?"
I didn't answer and marched through the doors into the lobby. The strange mixture of quirky and cozy decor struck me. A young man behind a computer looked up as I approached the desk, his eyes roved over me briefly, and he hesitated before slapping on a smile that, while genuine, made my stomach squirm. I wasn'tgoodwith people like Kayden was, but I could usually read them, and this was not the first time another guy had looked me over and immediately brightened because, for whatever reason, gay men seemed to be into me more than women, at least initially.
"Can I help you?” he asked with a wide smile.
I opened my mouth before I heard a laugh from the bar area. I spun around, the hair on the back of my neck standing up. Iknewthat voice. I ignored the guy behind the front desk and dismissed the possibility that he was watching my ass as I walked off. Instead, I focused on the man standing beside the bar past the restaurant, leaning on the countertop with one arm and gesturing with the other.
My stomach did an ugly flip at the sight of the familiar face that had lost what little baby fat it had had in his teenage years. A strange tightening at the base of my gut happened when he raised his arm, the muscles stretching the shirt as he grinned at the woman he was speaking to. The woman shook her head, flapping a hand at him before turning to look our way. I didn'tknow what stopped me faster, the look on her face or the look on his when he turned to look at me.
Moira's reaction was recognition and surprise, but the lack of anger said she had apparently gotten over the bitterness of our breakup years ago. His, however, was confusion as he looked at me for a few heartbeats, and then my heartbeat sped up when recognition lit up his features and was replaced with a shit eating grin that made me want to punch him until he didn't have teeth left to grin with.
"MasonFuckingBeckett," I growled.
MASON
Hearing my name with such vehemence and with 'fucking' in the middle was...not an uncommon thing in my life. Then again, I would bet that anyone who knew me for long wouldn't be surprised by that little factoid. To be fair, I’d earned that particularly furious reaction from people, and in this case, it was also deserved. At the same time, there were those who used that name who’d earned my being a bit of a dick, and...that was the case as well.
"As I live and breathe," I said with a laugh. "Jace the Grace."
"That name was stupid when we were in high school, and it's even stupider now."
"Pretty sure it's just 'stupid', 'stupider' isn't really a word."
