Page 11 of Mason
I groan. “You know the name of the position has nothing to do with the development of the muscles in a player’s ass, right?”
She laughs. “I don’t even care. It was too good not to point out.”
Behind us, a throat clears. “Well, well, well … what’s going on here? You two besties now?” Duke’s question catches us both unaware, as neither of us had been facing the door. The grin stretching his cheeks is not a good sign. I know him well enough to know that means trouble. It means he’s pissed off and putting on a front.
I push upright but remain kneeling on the mat as I wait for whatever he’s about to unleash. I swipe my forearm over the sweat collected on my brow. “Duke, man. Come on. She was just learning the lay of the land and happened to find me down here. We were talking football.”
His gaze shifts to Lennon. “Is that so, Stella? Already got him fucking fooled, working those feminine wiles. Maybe you think if you open your legs to enough of us things won’t go as badly for you.”
“I already told you once. You won’t break me. Not with cruel words or push-ups or alcohol or dunks in the pool. So, rather than deign to acknowledge your disgusting comments, I’m going to take this opportunity to walk away.” Her words are pretty convincing, but the way her back has gone rigid and her cheeks have flushed pink tell another story. But to her credit, Lennon stands up from the bench and walks toward the door.
“Stella,” Duke murmurs, the command evident in his tone.
She stops, cocking her hip to the side, and crosses her arms over her chest. She waits but doesn’t turn around.
His voice takes on a dangerous quality that’s downright menacing as he clarifies the situation for her. “I’m allowing you to walk away from me because there’s nowhere you can go to escape. Nowhere to hide. Eventually you’ll have to face me. Youwillhave to own up to your ambitions.”
She gives a swift nod, then keeps going.
Duke watches until she’s out of sight to round on me. “The fuck, dude. Down here laughing and cracking jokes with her. I thought we were on the same page.”
“We are. But there’s some shit that went down in your absence. While you were out doing who knows what, because apparently you don’t trust me enough to tell me, our boy Mason had one of his nightmarish episodes and attacked Lennon.”
He grimaces, scrubbing his hands through his hair. “Did you ever think for a second that maybe she deserved it?”
Uncertainty seeps through me, but I shake my head. “Either way, a conversation with Mason is in order, whether that pisses you off or not. We agreed to have each other’s backs this year. To present as a single force leading this house.”
Duke’s gaze pierces me. “For brotherhood stuff. Whatever the fuck Mason gets off on during his own time has nothing to do with me.”
* * *
I’ve tried really hard notto let what Duke said bother me, but hell. What I witnessed on the balcony early this morning has had me shook all damn day, and the fact that Duke doesn’t want to hear any of it leaves it to me to figure out. Saturdays are meant to be relaxing, but how can I do that when every time I look at her, I see the girl I scooped up off the balcony floor. The one who huddled against me until she could stop the quaking of her body. Ugh. Finally, I can’t stand it any longer. I glance at Lennon who’s on the couch, scrolling through her phone, lean over the couch and murmur, “Can I ask you one question?”
Almost as if she senses the direction of my thoughts, she nods, a slightly panicked expression crossing her pretty features. “I guess so.”
I draw in a deep breath and let the words out. “What were you doing out on the balcony?”
Slowly, she shakes her head. “I don’t remember.”
She means it… and it’s so far from the answer I was expecting, it makes my head spin.
SEVEN
LENNON
Steeringclear of ten other people in a house this size shouldn’t be so damn difficult, yet, that’s what today had been. An unending loop of me finding a spot to hang out, only to have others join me—and seeing as how I’m not trying to join their damn brotherhood, I don’t feel the need to participate in all the bonding and togetherness unless I’m directly asked to participate. It’s bad enough that if I don’t comply with their demands, they could make things really shitty for me. My current plan is to keep my head down and try not to get too tangled up in what they tell me to do. I’ll let it all roll off my back.
That is, until I wake up on the balcony with no recollection as to how I got there, with Mason’s hands wrapped around my neck again. Because if that was the first half of a double feature, I do not want to stick around for the second showing.
I wonder if what happened on the balcony has something to do with what he’d said to me earlier that day. It’d almost felt like he’d been warning me away from him when we talked before going down to join the others out at the pool last night.
And I haven’t seen a sign of him today, not on the balcony or anywhere else in the house. Could he be as thrown by what happened between us as I was? I’m not mad. Iama little freaked out, though. I see something inside him that’s so clearly and deeply wounded, I couldn’t possibly anticipate what else he might do. One minute he seems perfectly normal, if a little asshole-ish. But the next?Shit.
As I walk down the stairs to find something to eat, my fingers probe the skin of my neck. I can’t see anything yet beyond some redness, but I have a horrible feeling from the ache I feel from the slightest touch that I might end up with some visible bruising by tomorrow. I’ll have to think about what I want to do should it be obvious.
Ducking into the kitchen, I find Arik and Quincy seated at the small table there, already finishing up their meal. Like a trio of toddlers, we’re banished to the kitchen for meals until we’ve earned the right to eat with the brothers in the dining room. It doesn’t bother me as much as it does these two. I give them a little wave, but they hardly respond. It’s cool if they don’t deem me worthy enough to join their conversation, but they’re so busy grumbling about the way they’ve been separated from the brotherhood that they don’t realize their sullen voices are plenty loud enough for me to hear them—and possibly the brothers, too.
I skip getting food in favor of seeing if Mason is in the dining room. I don’t owe him a damn thing, but I’ve been so curious, especially once Bear refused to say anything.
