CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Well, I was going to be an aunt. Or was it a second cousin?

Oh, who cared how the relationship worked; Eva was pregnant any way you looked at it. The world was coming to an end.

I spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon with her, soothing her frazzled nerves. I managed to make her laugh a few times, but mostly I handed her tissue after tissue. We talked about her future, about what she wanted to do with her situation, and how she was going to tell her parents and Alec.

I think she was more worried about telling Alec than Aunt Mads and Uncle Shaw.

“He’s not the one, ReeRee. I can tell you that right now. He and I aren’t going to last. He’s never once looked at me the way Mason looks at you, and you two are apparently ~just friends~.”

I straightened my shoulders. “How does Mason look at me?”

Eva shook her head and sighed wearily. “If you don’t know, I’m certainly not going to tell you. I still think you should stay away from him. You have less future with him than I do with Alec. Jeez-us. But Alec is going to flip when he hears this.”

I was too busy thinking about Mason to answer. But really, how the heck did he look at me?

“Shit!” I sprang off my couch, remembering the last time he’d looked at me, before I’d shut the door in his face. “Sarah’s party. I totally forgot. It started five minutes ago. I’m sorry, E. I have to go.”

I rushed to my room and grabbed my gift. Eva was struggling to her feet, looking panicked as I reentered the living room. “But—”

I held up a hand. “Chris and Liam. Chris and Liam,” I reminded her. “It’ll be fine. I’ll return in a few hours and we can continue where we left off. Okay?”

Eva bit her lip but nodded. “Don’t forget about me.”

“Never.” Glad our relationship was somewhat restored since the afternoon I’d caught her macking on Mason in the library, I gave her a quick, impulsive hug. “I love you, E. Everything will be fine. Trust me.” Then I was out the door.

Dang it, how could I forget about Sarah? I had to be the worst babysitter ever.

Five minutes later, I skidded my car to a sloppy halt in front of the Arnosta house. Jittery adrenaline roared through my veins.

I jumped into the birthday festivities with both feet.

“I’m so sorry I’m late.” Breathless, I blew through the front door without knocking. “I lost track of time while I was writing a paper for school. I know…” I paused to grin and pose in a jaunty kind of position, because the tension in the air almost choked me as soon as I entered. “I’m a total geek that way.”

Then I turned toward the three young girls I didn’t recognize. They hovered in a pack together on the opposite side of the room from Sarah. “Hi, I’m Reese,” I told them, striding forward to shake their hands. “I’m Sarah’s evening sitter.”

Brittany, Leann, and Sorcha introduced themselves, giving me stiff smiles and casting uncomfortable glances at Mason and Sarah, who were crowded together by the loveseat.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you guys. I’m sure we’re going to have a blast today. Sarah is always the life of the party. Which reminds me, I need to give the birthday girl a huge hug, like right now.”

I hopped over to Sarah and leaned down to enfold her into my arms before I waved her gift in front of her, letting her hear the items inside rattle. “I think you’re going to love it.” I set it among the pile of other gifts on the coffee table.

Sarah looked absolutely miserable. I swear tears were gathering in her eyes, and the anger oozing off Mason kind of shocked me. He wouldn’t stop glaring at Sarah’s classmates.

I rubbed my hands together. “So…where’s Dawn?”

Mason sliced his scowl to me. Through gritted teeth, he hissed, “She’s in the kitchen, setting out the food.”

“Great.” Ignoring his nasty mood, I forced a huge smile. “I’m starving. Let’s help her.” Hooking my arm through his, I dragged him to his feet and patted Sarah’s shoulder as I passed. “We’ll be right back, little buddy.” As soon as I had Mason in the hallway, I hissed, “What the hell did I miss?”

“Brilliant idea to invite the classmates,” he muttered. “They’ve been ignoring her the whole time and won’t even stand on the same side of the room as her.”

I rolled my eyes. “Well, what did you expect, with you hovering over her like a pissed off guard dog? I swear, you were foaming at the mouth as you stared at those poor little girls. I’m surprised they haven’t run screaming from the house yet.”

“Poor little girls, my ass. We invited every brat in her class, and only ~three~ of them showed up, the three who openly confessed they were only here because their parents forced them to come. Sarah is ~crushed~.”

Our conversation abruptly halted when we entered the kitchen to find Dawn rushing around frantically, taking ice cream out of the freezer and setting it by a bowl with no punch in it.

“Hey, Dawn,” I greeted. “You look a little harried. Why don’t you go visit with the guests? Mason and I can take care of this.”

“Oh, Reese, you’re a saint. Thank you.” Dawn sent me an exhausted, yet relieved, smile—something her son had yet to do. “I’ve been scrambling all morning to get this party ready. It’ll be nice to get off my feet for a bit.”

As she left the kitchen, Mason muttered, “Thanks for volunteering me.”

“What?” I asked, shocked by his bitterness…towards me. I mean, hello, I’d just walked in the freaking door. “What did ~I~ do?”

“Where ~were~ you?”

“I told you; I was at home, writing a paper.” Yeah, yeah, that was a total lie. I’d finished that paper last night before my mother had called. But I couldn’t tell him about Eva. She hadn’t even told Alec or her parents yet.

Finding the punch mix sitting in a pitcher in the fridge, I grabbed it to pour it into the bowl as I rattled on. “It’s actually a pretty interesting subject for my Brit Lit class. We had to read Chaucer in Middle English, which totally sucked monkey butt, and then translate it into today’s English. But let me tell you, ~The Canterbury Tales~ is not just some sweet, innocent fairytale. I mean, I’m still pissed the rapist ended up in a happily ever after romance, but—”

“I don’t care about your ~paper~, okay.” Mason threw his hands into the air. “My sister is about to cry in there. I wanted this to be the best birthday ever…but she ~hates~ it.”

My mouth dropped open. “Oh, my God. Is it your time of the month, or what? I ~said~ I was sorry. I honestly lost track of time. And it ~will~ be the best birthday party ever. I swear. We just need to get past that first stage of awkwardness and everything will be fine. Trust me.”

Running his hands through his hair, Mason watched me begin to cut the cake. Since it didn’t have any cool design on it, or even an awesome slogan like ~Happy Birthday, Sarah~, I assumed it was safe to cut.

“I’m sorry,” he immediately relented, clutching the back of the kitchen chair and bending forward to blow out a breath. “It’s just…After that thing with Eva this morning, I wasn’t sure if you were going to come. Then you were late, and I thought—”

“Hey.” I paused after sinking my knife into a thick layer of frosting. Keeping my voice gentle, I set the knife aside and reached for his hand, forcing him to look at me. “Don’t worry about Eva, okay? We talked. She isn’t going to go to the police. I swear to you, you don’t have to worry about her.”

His eyes were still slightly bloodshot from his night of gin. They penetrated me with meaning as he squeezed my fingers. “That wasn’t the part I was worried about.”

I frowned, trying to remember what other part there had been, and I realized he must mean the part where Eva had told him he wasn’t good enough for me.

I let go of his hand to slap his shoulder. “Oh, whatever. You know you can’t get rid of me that easily. I’m going to be that annoying friend who never leaves you alone.”

His shoulders relaxed as he watched me return to cutting the cake. But his eyes remained tormented. “Promise?”

I grinned and winked. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

He snorted at my joke, but the tension in his shoulders settled. For a microsecond, anyway. Then he winced. “That’s not all. Mom went and invited our ~landlady~ to the party. And she said yes.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” I started, scooping up the first sliced piece to wiggle it onto a plate. Then it struck me. I glanced at him. “Wait. Is this the same landlady who was your first—”

I broke off as he seared me with a threatening glare.

“Right,” I finished slowly. “Well…this should be fun.”

I couldn’t wait to meet his cherry-popping, cougar pimp landlady again. Said no one ~ever~.

Mason spun away to pace the kitchen, much the same way he’d paced my living room the night before. He even ran his hands through his hair, making it all sexy and tousled, which wouldn’t do. I so did not want the cougar to see him looking sexy and tousled.

“I hate it when she comes over,” he ranted quietly. “She always manages to find a way to corner me somewhere and ~talk~. It makes my skin crawl.”

Grabbing his arm when he passed, I paused in my slicing duties to pat his hair back into place. He was still too sexy for my comfort, but his locks no longer held that just-rolled-out-of-bed look. Standing passively before me, he let me groom him as his eyes ran over my face.

“Do you want me to protect you from the mean old cougar?” I asked sympathetically.

He dropped his head and leaned in toward me as if he wanted to rest his face on my shoulder. “Yes.”

“Done.” I grinned and licked frosting off the butter knife.

He glanced up and his lips quirked with amusement. “You got a little something.” Stepping closer, he reached out and gently rubbed his thumb slowly—oh, my God, so agonizingly, deliciously slowly—over the corner of my lip. When he withdrew his hand, there was a dab of pink frosting on his finger.

Feeling a little breathless and dazed, I flicked out my tongue to the spot where I could still feel an echo of his touch. I was tempted to dip up a finger full of more frosting straight off the top of the cake and intentionally smear it all over my mouth just so he’d touch me like that again. But I was a good girl. Drawing in a shuddered breath, I watched him stick his thumb into his mouth and suck the icing away.

Dear God.

My bra suddenly felt itchy around my way-too-sensitive girly parts, and my panties were no longer all that comfortable either. I’d never grown so turned on, like full-out aroused, by simply looking at a guy before, as in, one more lick of frosting would have me screaming out a healthy release.

But Mason Lowe let off some powerful pheromones. My body soaked them in and begged for more.

As if he knew he was causing all my hormones to whimper and squirm, his eyes heated and he swayed toward me. A foot of space between us became six inches. Then three.

~Danger. Danger, Will Robinson~, my heart screamed, thudding against my ribcage as if it were pounding on the door to my head to get my attention and pull me back to reason.

Holding my breath, I turned away and snagged up the can of mixed nuts to open the lid. “You know, I might’ve been saving that frosting for later.”

His chuckle was strained. “But you know me. If you have food on you, I’m bound to steal it.”

“True.” I ripped off the freshness seal to the nuts before offering him some.

“See, you ~do~ know me.” With a sensual grin, he took out a handful.

His fingers lingered in the jar, so I frowned. “Don’t take them all. The guests might want some.”

His grin fell flat. “Those ~guests~ better start treating my sister right, or they can kiss my ass.”

Not fair. If anyone was getting the honor of touching his perfect, tight tush, it really should be me, not a bunch of snobby little teens who were upsetting his sister. Really.

“Don’t worry,” I told him with a wink. “I have a plan for the little children. They’ll be eating out of Sarah’s hand before the end of the day.”

Mason shook his head. “You’re smiling a bit too evilly right now. I don’t know whether to be awed or scared.”

“Awed,” I answered as I fluttered my fingers over the rough stubble on his cheek with flair. “Always be awed of me.”

He smiled and swayed close, looking drugged by my touch. “I usually am.”

His reaction did naughty things to me. Things I loved but couldn’t think about right now. What was important was that I had successfully calmed all his frazzled nerves. Damn, was I good or what?

But with Mason pacified, it was time to save my little buddy.