“Asshole,” I mumbled into his neck.
He didn’t let go for a long time. Had to get his scowl back in place.
“So,” he said when he finally released me, “you sleeping okay?”
Of course that was the first thing he’d ask. “Yeah,” I said.
He gave me a skeptical look, but I was telling the truth. My second night at Mason’s, Dog had scratched at my bedroom door until I’d let him in and then he’d jumped up onto the bed like he owned it, so that was where he slept now. And the couple of times the dream I was having had started to turn bad, Dog’s wet tongue rasping against my cheek had woken me before I could sink too far into nightmare territory. Knowing Dog was watching out for me made it easier to go back to sleep, and the weightof him curled up against the back of my knees was somehow enough to convince my brain to behave at night.
I wasn’t sure why it worked, but I wasn’t questioning it.
Chase gave me a long look, then asked, “How’s your bunnies or whatever.”
“Kittens,” I corrected, even though of course he already knew. “Want to see my photos?”
“No,” he lied, already craning his head to look at my phone.
We settled on the ratty old couch and he rested his head on my shoulder as we looked at the pictures for a while and he pretended he didn’t think the kittens were cute. I caught him smiling at the orange cat, though.
Chase reached over and slid his thumb across the screen for the next photo and froze. His mouth turned down. “Why do you have a picture of your vet?”
It was a picture of Mason grinning as he held a kitten in each hand, and it was clear that he was the main focus and not the cats. Mason was stressed a lot of the time, but he’d looked so happy in that moment that I’d wanted to capture it, and he hadn’t objected.
“We’re friends,” I said.
“You don’t have friends,” Chase pointed out.
He wasn’t being mean. It was true. Chase knew me too well. How did you make a friend when you couldn’t even make a conversation? My whole life I’d let Chase take the lead when it came to talking with strangers because I couldn’t. We’d gotten lucky when we’d landed in Goose Run, both our defenses down too far to resist being dragged into Danny’s collection of strays. And we’d stayed long enough that we were family. But we’d skipped right over the friendship part.
Chase had been surprised enough to find out I was talking to Mr. Conrad, and I was sure he pictured him as frail and doddering and therefore nonthreatening, even though he wasn’teither of those things. He was just old. But Mason? I usually avoided people like Mason. I usually avoided people, period. But I’d changed, and Chase hadn’t realized because he was too close to see it.
But he wasn’t stupid. He looked at the picture again and narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re not fucking him, are you?”
Heat rose in my cheeks as I shook my head. Technically, it wasn’t a lie. We hadn’t gotten any further than kissing—mainly because we were both too tired for anything else. But that didn’t mean I hadn’t thought about it. About sneaking into Mason’s room at night and curling up with him and waking him up with kisses and seeing how far things would go.
I knew it wouldn’t work like that. I knew that Mason wouldn’t do anything, wouldn’t let anything happen without explicit consent. Because I hadn’t told him much about me or my past, but Mason wasn’t stupid either. And he’d seen how I flinched when he touched me unexpectedly.
If he’d been a dick, we would have fucked already. But also, if he’d been a dick, I never would have gotten close enough to him to consider fucking him.
If anything was going to happen, it was up to me to initiate.
I must have been quiet for too long because Chase let out a slow breath and whispered, “Holyshit. Youlikehim.”
My face burned.
“I didn’t think you likedanyone.”
“Me neither.” I shrugged. “He’s… it’s different with him, okay?”
Chase glared at Mason’s picture and said, “I don’t like him.”
“You don’t like anyone,” I said. “And don’t be an asshole. You don’t even know him.”
Chase’s protective streak mostly manifested as an aggressive streak.
“I don’t like that he’s your boss,” he said, his scowl deepening. “He’s not like, pressuring you, is he?”
“He’s not my boss,” I said. “We’re friends. If I wanted to quit helping out there, I would. But I don’t want to. And yeah, I do like him. And also, fuck you, because if anyone is sleeping with the boss, it’s you, not me!”
