Chapter 16: Fifteen

I missed my afternoon class. But to ensure Reese’s safety, it was worth it.

Monica seemed pleased, anyway.

“Wow,” she panted from the top of her desk where she’d collapsed after coming…for a second time. Sweat matted her hair to her face, and a satisfied laugh tumbled from her lips as she rolled onto her back to gaze up at me, watching me zip my jeans back into place. “I mean…just… Wow. Excellent performance, Mr. Lowe. You were so good, in fact, I’ll make sure your little girlfriend gets an A after all.”

I glanced at her as I fastened the top button of my fly. We hadn’t ~once~ discussed Reese’s grade. Why the fuck was she bringing up Reese’s grade?

Shaking my head, I frowned suspiciously. “Why don’t you just give her whatever grade she actually deserves?”

“Hmm?” After lifting her eyebrows, she shrugged and glanced at her fingernails only to frown when she found a small chip that she’d probably gotten from grabbing onto the edge of her desk as hard as she had. “Well, okay then. But I figured you wanted to receive ~something~ extra in return for all your hard work.”

“I am,” I said slowly, my eyes narrowing as I stepped closer. “I’m ensuring your silence with Patricia.”

She cringed. “Yes, but the thing is…I already ~told~ Patty everything.”

I paused, then very slowly said, “Say what now?”

After tossing out another careless shrug, she added, “Before you even came into my office.”

I took a breath to clear my head because this shit was not funny. I stared at her intently, waiting for her to laugh and tell me she was joking. Because she ~better~ be fucking joking.

But she offered no such relief, and my heart skipped a beat.

Oh shit. Mother fucking son of a bitch. She wasn’t joking.

The urge to curse fluidly and grab my hair with two fists as I kicked her desk and maybe even knocked papers off it, scattering them everywhere, filled me until I actually wanted to physically hurt her. Yet despite how much I might scream and rage and blame her for tricking me, sadly, I was mostly just pissed at myself for falling for it.

Because, fuck… Why hadn’t I known better? I’d walked right into that like a damn dumbass. And now… Now Reese had been made.

I shook my head, my skin going cold as I tried not to think about worst-case scenarios, even as fifty of them flooded my head.

“You did what?” I said slowly, just to make sure I hadn’t heard her wrong. “Because you said before we started that—”

Monica’s laugh cut me off. “I said?” she repeated in amusement, pressing a hand to her chest like some kind of innocent angel. “Baby, I said whatever I needed to say to get what I wanted. I mean, isn’t that what ~you~ do?”

To clients, maybe. I said what they wanted to hear to get my paycheck. That never hurt anyone, though; it usually left them smiling and feeling better about themselves.

But this… This could hurt Reese. It directly involved risking her safety. Because Patricia was a fucking viper, and if she thought some girl had become special to me, I knew without a doubt she’d find some way to spread her poison all over Reese.

Acid burned and gurgled in my stomach just thinking about the bright and bubbly Reese being hurt.

“Honestly, Mason,” Monica went on, “Patricia’s my best friend. I tell her everything.” A ding from her computer made her perk to attention. “Oh! There.” She reached for her mouse to wake the screen. “That’s her reply now. I was sending her a copy of Miss Randall’s school records when you appeared in my doorway.”

“Wow, because that’s fucking legal,” I snarled.

She snickered, “Said the male prostitute.”

Shit, I couldn’t turn her in for her breach of ethics or she’d turn me in for my own illegal activities.

I glanced away. God, I was such a fool. A stupid naïve fool that hadn’t learned a single thing since Patricia had walked into my backyard two years ago and tricked me into following her home.

“You lied to me,” I charged quietly.

“Aww,” Monica said, reaching out to cup my chin. “Did I hurt your feelings?”

When I jerked out of her grip to glare at her, she chuckled. “Well, it’s time to grow up, sweetheart, and face the facts. You’re a worthless little whore who wasn’t giving me what I wanted. Why did you even think I owed you any kind of honesty or decency?”

The rush of hate and anger that filled my veins momentarily blurred my vision. This instinctive need to grab her neck and start strangling her until her face turned blue and she realized how despicable and amoral she was flashed so strongly inside me I had to ball my hands into fists to physically restrain myself from lifting my arms.

But just under the rage, I felt as low and worthless as she’d just told me I was. Tapping my foot, I managed to relieve enough shame and hopelessness and rage to respond.

“Thank goodness you don’t teach ethics,” I managed to say as calmly as possible, somehow keeping my chin up and back straight. She’d never see how much she slayed me.

With a laugh, she nodded. “God, yes, you’re telling me. Literature is much more my speed. Now about next Thursday. My husband’s out of town again, and I want—”

When she reached for my arm, I snapped it out of her reach, saying, “No. Never again.”

She paused, not quite able to mask the initial rejection she felt before she laughed as if amused. “Oh, yes. ~Again~,” she countered, growing deadly serious. “Whenever I want it, in fact. I’d say your little Reese’s ~grade~ depends on it.”

“Fuck you,” I growled, stepping closer. “I said never again, and I meant it. I will turn myself over to the authorities, the dean of the English department, and whoever else I have to, and expose us ~both~ before I let you mess with her grade. Do I make myself clear?”

Worry lined her eyes even as she tossed me a gloating smirk. “Cute bluff, darling. But I’m not buying it.”

I reached for her so suddenly she gasped and reared back. But all I grabbed was a piece of her hair. “Go ahead,” I challenged softly. “Call my bluff. ~You’re~ the one who has so far to fall. I’m just the worthless whore who doesn’t deserve anything, remember?” Shrugging, I stepped back. “What do ~I~ have to lose?”

She definitely wasn’t Patricia. Patricia would’ve swung back, hit me where it hurt most, threatened Sarah and my mom, probably even Reese again. But Monica wasn’t nearly as ballsy.

Visibly shaken, she took a step back and pointed toward the door, before growling, “Get out.”

I sneered out a dark smile. “Gladly.”

With my head held high, I walked from her office, only to curse under my breath once I was halfway down the hall. I think ~she~ bought my bluff, but now I had a whole new—worse—horror to face.

Patricia Garrison.

Learning a bit of my lesson with Monica, I knew I couldn’t just outright confront Patricia to settle this. She’d immediately assume Reese was important to me, and she’d sniff around the poor girl more ardently than ever.

I had to play this cool. Smart. Low-key.

Approaching Reese in public was probably what had gotten me into all this trouble in the first place. But I figured if I shied away from her now and kept my distance ~that~ would raise a bigger flag to Patricia, making her think I was ~trying~ to protect Reese. But if I continued to hang out with her as if I wasn’t worried about her safety, it would send Patricia the message that I didn’t care as much as Monica might’ve made her think I did.

At least, I ~hoped~ that was how it would play out. No matter what I did, it was a risk either way, one that made me break out in a cold sweat whenever I thought about it. I didn’t want Reese falling victim to anything Patricia-related.

But Patricia knew me; she knew the lengths I would go to for the people important to me. And whenever Monica told her what I’d done just now in that office, because of Reese, she would know my first instinct now would be to stay as far away from Reese as possible in an attempt to show that I ~wasn’t~ into her. Meaning, I had to do the exact opposite of my instincts.

It felt all kinds of wrong, but it also felt like the safest bet. Besides, if I stayed closer to her, maybe I could divert Patricia’s punches before she threw them.

So…

The next day at lunch between classes, I approached Reese again, my palms sweating the entire time, hoping this plan didn’t backfire like the last one had.

Eva Mercer sat next to her, which normally would’ve kept me away, but I had to make this look real—casual—and not like I wanted to flirt. A friendly encounter. Ergo, Mercer’s presence might actually help. Nothing about Mercer being around would put me in a flirty mood.

I blew out a long breath as I moved close enough to hear their conversation. They were talking about a party when I sat on the empty bench seat at the table across from them, surprising them both. When I stole one of Reese’s chili cheese fries, because that seemed like something a friend might do and because I just liked to tease her, she rewarded me by sassing back about my thievery.

Instant warmth filled my chest, and I realized the true reason why I was here.

I could tell myself all I liked that I only wanted to protect her and keep her out of a bad situation that ~I~ might’ve put her in, but the fact of the matter remained: I just wanted to be around her, to learn more about her, to simply be able to look at her up close and see the details of her smile, hear all the different inflections in her laugh, experience the warmth of her joy.

I was freaking hooked.

When Eva rudely tried to shoo me away, it didn’t take Reese long to realize her friend and I had some serious beef with each other.

“Okay, okay, okay,” she broke in, waving a hand to interrupt. “I’m sensing a disturbance in the Force between you two. Is there some kind of history here I’m not aware of?” Then she gasped. “Oh my God. You two have slept together, haven’t you?”

Impressed she could sense a personal difference between us so quickly, I shook my head even as I internally frowned over the very idea of me and Mercer ~ever~ hooking up. “Wow,” I told her. “Your curiosity has no filter whatsoever, does it?”

I guess I didn’t answer her question sufficiently enough because she scowled at me before turning to Eva. “E?”

“It’s nothing,” Eva muttered, growing engrossed in a planner she was flipping through.

Reese sighed and lifted her eyebrows expectantly at me.

“What?” I asked, pulling back, not liking her probing stare. It made me want to confess all my sins. Except none of them had anything to do with Eva Mercer. “She said it was nothing.”

To which Eva sniffed and slapped her planner shut. “~Nothing~?” she screeched incredulously before whirling to Reese. “Okay, fine. One night at a party about, oh, a year ago, I’d had a little too much to drink and I ended up throwing myself at him.” Her gaze pierced me with a hateful squint. “And he turned me down. Flat.”

Her glare seemed to say, ~how dare the worthless hooker think he was too good to be with me?~

I narrowed my gaze right back, because to me, it had been a kind, chivalrous gesture, not something to hate me over. “And ~she~ proceeded to call me a pretentious bastard for it,” I told Reese.

“Well, you are,” Eva muttered.

“…who had no right to act so self-righteously because I’m nothing but a high-priced whore with a pretty face, who’ll end up an overweight, broke, balding no one by the time I’m forty.” I lifted my eyebrows Eva’s way. “Isn’t that how you worded it?”

With a gasp, Reese pressed her hand to her chest. “You called him a ~whore~?”

I grinned, always pleased when she defended me.

Eva merely shrugged, unrepentant. “He ~is~ a whore.”

I flashed out my hand in a ~see-what-I-mean~ gesture for Reese. “So that’s what I get for trying to be a gentleman and ~not~ take advantage of the stumbling, slurring drunk girl.” I picked up the cup Reese had been drinking from and took a big sip through the straw, only to pull back and wince. “What ~is~ this?”

Reese wrinkled her nose at me. “It’s a diet cola.”

This girl. I swear. She could eat salad one day and chili cheese fries the next. Then she went from a calorie-loaded latte to a Diet Coke. She was the ultimate conundrum.

And every time I discovered more pieces of her puzzle, I realized I liked her even more than the day before.

Which was dangerous.

So, I made an exit not long after that, knowing I was tempting fate. It was one thing to hang around her in order to ensure Patricia wasn’t picking on her and try to make it look as if I didn’t care all the much about her while I got to learn more in the process. But it was another to flat-out ~fall~ for her. So yeah, I fled.

Only to find myself buying her a latte and sitting with her in the grass before classes the following Tuesday morning, where we talked about my sister’s upcoming birthday and the horrors of face acne, of all things.

On Wednesday, our topic of conversation veered toward the Dewey decimal system and how wonky it was, because another one of Reese’s part-time jobs was at the college’s library. That day, she had a bag of honey mustard and onion pretzel pieces, which I had to taste. They weren’t half bad, so I helped myself to the rest of the bag.

Thursday, we partook in a serious, in-depth debate over television shows. I maintained that ~The Walking Dead~ was ten times better than ~Breaking Bad~, but I could never quite get her to agree. So, I made her share her orange with me for being so stubborn.

By Friday, she’d convinced me she ruled at math, plus she packed two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that day, already aware I would thieve food from her. After polishing our lunches off, we started our calculus homework together, and somewhere between question one and twelve, we began opening up on a more personal level.

It started by Reese accrediting her father for her math skills since he taught the subject, and before I knew it, she was asking me about ~my ~dad.

“I don’t remember much about him,” I admitted, shifting uneasily next to her on the bench seat. “I just know he was in the Army.”

She immediately set her hand over her heart, her mouth forming a worried O. “I’m so sorry. Was he killed in the Middle East?”

I sighed, not wanting to confess, but then I confessed anyway. “No. He never went to combat. He got tanked one night and killed a family of four, plus himself, in a drunk driving accident.”

“Oh my God. ~Mason~.” She grasped my arm. “That sucks.”

I don’t think she even realized what she did; she let go of me before I could really enjoy the touch, so I drew in a bracing breath, forced the brief delight of flesh against flesh from my mind, and nodded.

“Yeah, pretty much. And in this small town of a community, everyone knows how he died, so I can’t even fabricate some hero’s death for him.”

She looked uncertain a moment before saying, “So… Can I ask about Sarah’s dad?”

I wasn’t sure how she knew my sister and I had different fathers, probably because Mom and Sarah had a different last name than me, but I didn’t particularly want to talk about ~him~ either.

“Butch Arnosta,” I admitted reluctantly. “That loser ran off after we learned about Sarah’s condition. Mom met him when I was seven. They had a quickie romance, she got knocked up, they got married, and then he was gone again as quickly as the doctor said the words ‘cerebral palsy.’ After that, I think Mom gave up on men completely. She never really dated again.”

And thank God for that. I already had enough to worry about from her. Having to wonder which lowlife she was hanging around next would’ve stressed me into an early grave for sure.

Reese nodded sympathetically. “Well, I don’t blame her any. Sounds like she has as bad a track record with men as I do.”

I shook my head. “How can ~you~ have a bad track record? You’re only, what, eighteen?”

She sniffed, lifting her chin. “Eighteen and a ~half~.”

I laughed. “I beg your pardon, old woman.” Then I held out my hand to her. “Let me see your palm, Miss Eighteen and a Half. I’ll take a look at your love line and tell you just how ~bad~ your track record really is.”

And that’s when the whole palm reading bit had started, which had allowed me to experience a little more flesh-on-flesh action with her—innocent action, of course—but I was also able to discover a crook in one of her fingers, where she told me she’d broken it playing ball in high school.

I never would’ve guessed she’d been a basketball player, but she assured me she had been during her freshman through junior years but not her senior because I guess she’d broken her arm then. She paused in a strange way when she admitted that, but then she moved on again so quickly I forgot all about it moments later, mostly because we veered into old boyfriend territory next, which really caught my attention. When I learned she’d only had ~one~ past boyfriend, it struck me that she’d said she had a bad track record with guys.

At first, I was sure she was referring to me, because how could befriending a twenty-year-old gigolo be considered a ~good ~record?

But when I questioned her about him, her face paled and her eyes filled with wary unease. “Sometimes it’s more about the quality than the quantity that counts,” she murmured quietly enough to put me on instant alert.

“That bad, huh?” I asked, all the while pushing down the urge to gather her into my arms and just protect her from the entire world. She was becoming the bright spot of my day. I didn’t want anything clouding that. “What did he do?” I asked as nonchalantly as possible, needing to know why I already hated the bastard who’d hurt her. “Cheat on you?”

“Among other things,” she mumbled, looking away and trying to pull her hand from mine, because, for some reason, I’d never quite let her go after my faux palm reading.

And I couldn’t let her go now, either. Not until I learned everything. “~What~ other things?”

She never got to answer, though. Three girls walking by interrupted with their noisy conversation.

“See, they ~are~ dating,” one said, staring right at us. “He’s holding her hand. I told you he couldn’t be a gigolo.”

Dammit.

What the hell was I doing?

I was supposed to make it look like we were strictly in the friend zone.

I jerked my hand from Reese’s and shifted backward on the bench to put some space between us.

Reese scowled at the passing girls. “We can ~hear~ you, you know.”

All three of them snapped their gazes our way and just as quickly looked away again. Then they scurried off, laughing among themselves.

Turning to me, Reese motioned vaguely after them. “Don’t listen to them. They’re…ignorant.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I said, slamming my calculus book shut and shoving it into my bag. I sent her a tight smile, hoping to God I hadn’t made things worse instead of better by sitting by her every day. “Have a good Labor Day weekend, okay?”

But really, I was telling her to have a good life, because I knew I’d been going too far. It was time to stop this little obsession I was growing. It was time to stay away permanently.