We’d arrived at the elevators, and the button was already bright red.
“Not yet.” I didn’t even know where I was supposed to go to tomorrow, but I presumed Trinity would tell me. On second thought, I probably needed to figure that out myself.
“Can you give them to me? And your address? I’ll be there at nine am, if that works?”
Kaz made an amused sound from the back of his throat. “You’re going to need to adjust your schedule. We’re night owls.”
“We don’t start working until about three,” Mason said. “And we stay up late.”
Right. They were up-and-coming rock stars, hardly a group known for being morning people. It dawned on me then that if I’d thought Mason liked to have a good time back in college, he must’ve evolved into a truly experienced partier by now. Was I going to have to watch him make out with groupies multiple times a week? Could Ihandlewatching him do that?
I was going to have to pull on my big-girl pants and get over any remnants of my old crush. He clearly despised me. Even before he’d despised me, he han’t wanted me. Really, what did this man have to do to get me to move on?
“That’s okay,” I muttered as Kaz typed his and Mason’s address and phone numbers into my phone.
When he handed the device back to me, his fingers brushed against mine. I swear he did it on purpose. There was a wicked look in his eyes that should have raised all kinds of alarms, but I was already alarmed about everything, so it all just blended together.
“See you tomorrow,” Kaz said, meeting my gaze. A weird tension electrified the air between us. Mason watched us, his face fixed in a grim expression.
“Until then,” I said. Trinity might disapprove, but I didn’t stick around to watch them leave. I ran to the bathroom. As soon as I closed the door to the stall, I emptied out my lunch in the toilet.
5
MASON
I had a lot of flaws.More than the average human being. But there was one I was confident I’d overcome. Cowardice.
I’d spent the past few years being brave. I’d moved to the other side of the country with my friend. Started a band with no safety net. Put my music out there for anyone to judge and tear apart. Somehow, it had all turned out well. Maybe the universe thought I was doingtoo well.Or maybe fate had a funny sense of humor. Why else would it package up my past in a sleek yellow dress and throw it in my face?
I’d always been a coward around Molly. And it had taken less than an hour for that cowardice to creep back in.
“Keep her away from me, okay? I want as little to do with her as possible,” I said to Kaz as we merged into traffic on the 101. We’d left Hyperion’s office no more than five minutes ago, and my thoughts were circling around Molly like vultures. Damn it, she looked as good as ever. No, better. That blond hair that drove me crazy. Those big, expressive eyes. A body that made men stupid, no matter how hard one tried not to look or fucking think about it.
“Why did you let her stay on?” Kaz asked.
Because I might be a coward, but I couldn’t bring myself to cross the line into being an asshole. Seeing her upset, let alone being the source of her anguish, made me feel awful. “She said she needs this gig. I don’t know anything about her life anymore, and I don’t want to hurt her. I just don’t want to deal with her.”
“That’s going to be hard to do when she’s supposed to be at our house multiple days a week, taking pictures of us.”
“I know.” What I was asking of my friend was unreasonable, but I wasn’t thinking straight. I needed to lean on him, like I’ve done so often ever since we met. Kaz was more than a close friend. He was a brother to me.
“I’ll be a buffer between you and her.” His elbow was hanging out the window, the foreign writing on his arms offering a mystery to anyone who paused to look. “However I can,” he added after a moment. “She’s no one to me.”
Except a girl he’d once kissed. The image of his mouth locked on hers was etched on the backs of my eyelids, even after all these years. Unlike with me, she’d been prepared for his kiss. She’d gripped his arms, pressed her body flush against his, allowed him to explore her mouth with his tongue. With me, she’d been stiff with surprise. I’d stolen that kiss, desperate to know just once what she tasted like, and before she could respond, I’d pulled away. I’d been afraid that when the surprise wore off, she’d push me away.
Coward.
“Thanks,” I muttered, my thoughts skipping all over my and Molly’s history. It hadn’t even been that messy. At least, not as far as she was concerned, which is probably why she’d seemed so taken aback today by how I’d behaved toward her.
I exhaled a heavy breath. Fuck. The past swam before my eyes. It had been easy to be around her before we made it to Northeastern. I’d been a relentless flirt, eager for a reaction from the girl who’d stolen my breath the first time we met, but there was never any chance of taking it further. Her sister, my old friend Ade, would tell me off, and I’d back off. Molly’d been fifteen when we first met, two years younger than me. There were good reasons not to seriously pursue her.
But then we got to Northeastern. She turned eighteen the same day I got my diagnosis. My worst fears had been confirmed, and I knew there was no way I’d ever ask her out after that. She was clever, hardworking, and gorgeous. If she was the entire package, then I was a piece of discarded wrapping paper that no one wanted. I was defective. By then, I suspected my attraction wasn’t one sided, but I knew whatever she was starting to feel for me would be gone in the blink of an eye if she ever found out.
I stalled, and she must have felt the change, because she quickly pulled away. That hurt far more than getting kicked out of Northeastern.
Not that the latter felt great, but it was inevitable. I’d been preparing for it ever since I stepped foot on campus. People like me didn’t belong in places like that, no matter how much my parents had insisted on denying that reality.
“Molly aside, I think we’ve made the right call with Trinity,” Kaz said, interrupting my thoughts. It was probably for the best. There was no point in dwelling on the ugly past.
