Sarina humphed. “I think that’s a given. We won’t give it to her, though. This is our chance to fix things with Sky, if you can keep your hands out of his pants.”
A crooked smile spread across Mason’s face as he recalled how round and firm Sky’s ass looked when he was crawling and rolling around on the floor with Sam earlier. It was definitely fuller and his thighs weren’t as lean as they used to be. He licked his lips, imagining how Sky’s ass would taste. Mason already knew what Sky’s cock and his cum tasted like but he wished he had tasted the rest of him when he had the chance.
He grunted when Sarina jabbed him with her elbow. “I saidif you can keep your hands out of his pants,” she scolded.
“Right.” Mason nodded quickly.She didn’t say anything about my tongue…He flicked himself hard on the temple. “I will maintain a respectable distance between us at all times.”
“That’s not what I meant.” She rolled toward Mason and petted his arm. “I’ve always known that you…had a thing for Sky,” she whispered, startling Mason.
He rolled toward her and shook his head. “I didn’t! I don’t!” he whispered back, lying.
“It’s okay! I secretly hoped that one day the two of you might…” Her lips pulled tight and she sighed sadly. “I don’t know, run away together.”
“Run away? I never wanted to run away. Do you think Sky did?”
“Probably all the time,” she said with a sniffle. “I understood why you didn’t come out and why you couldn’tdate guys when we were in high school. But when you didn’t come out in college, I kind of hoped you were waiting for Sky and that one day we would be like…our own happy family. He had the biggest crush on you and I don’t think he ever outgrew it. I think that’s why he’s still so mad.”
Mason remembered what Nana said about him rescuing the wrong Sutton. “I wish I could stop letting him down. I keep doing the wrong thing.”
“That’s not true.” Sarina curled her pinkie around his. “You try so hard but it’smeand my stupid mistake that keeps messing things up for all of us.”
“Stop it. You had a lapse of judgment with the wrong person, but I wouldn’t trade Sam for anything, Sina. I’d do it all again in a heartbeat, I’d just find a way to protect Sky too.”
“You don’t have to save everyone, you know?” she said softly.
He nodded. “I know, it’s just harder to accept when you’ve let down someone you love. Sometimes, I still see that skinny kid who used to tag along with us and I wish I had done more and been a better friend.”
“You were also a kid and then we were away at school when that business with the creepy track coach happened,” Sarina reminded him.
“I swear, if I had been here, Sina…” Mason gave her a hard look. He wasn’t an aggressive or a violent man and had always preferred to save that kind of behavior for the hockey rink. There, it was appreciated and everyone involved was wearing protective gear. But Mason would have enjoyed breaking Brian Digby’s jaw and several of his ribs.
“I would have helped,” she said in a low growl. “And I sure as hell wouldn’t have let Mom and Dad pack Sky off to the city likehehad anything to be ashamed of.”
“My dadhatedthat they did that,” Masonconfided. “He told me Stewart wouldn’t let him talk to Sky about it. But Dad didn’t think all that went downafterSky turned eighteen and that Digby might have been a groomer, especially after the other boys came forward.”
“Sam Sr. was probably right but you know what my parents were like.” Her lips twisted thoughtfully. “I bet you rue the day we met and wish you’d picked Marla Kloss to be your best friend.”
“Ew. Not Marla.” Mason pushed his tongue out. “She was always mean and look at how she turned out: married to a shitty CEO and almost bald from bleaching her hair blonde for twenty years.”
“Everything about her has always been fake. God, remember when she got her first nose job and she looked like the Crypt Keeper?”
They burst into tearful giggles and Mason had to shush her when she attempted the Keeper’s maniacal laugh. “Who lets a sixteen-year-old get a nose job?” he asked with heaps of judgment.
“My mom definitely would.”
Mason hummed in agreement. “Good thing you have a perfect nose.” He carefully booped it, afraid of the mask, and she held onto his hand.
“Do you ever regret becoming friends with me?”
“Never,” Mason stated. “You have your moments, but you were so sweet and you made it so easy for me when I told you I was gay, and you’ve never looked down on me because my parents weren’t rich like everyone else’s.”
His family was actually blue-collar, which wasrarefor Roseview. His mother had trained as an electrician under her father and worked for the family business until he retired in 2012. The Cartwrights had been mayors for four generations but most of the men in Mason’s family were carpenters andcontractors. Mason’s father’s small construction company had built several of the homes and businesses in Roseview but some of its residents still treated them like outsiders and acted like they were beneath them.
Including Adele Ainsley-Sutton.
No one would ever accuse Sarina or Sky of being well-adjusted but neither were stuck-up assholes like their parents and they avoided the rich kid cliques in school. Unlike their peers, both understood at an early age that money couldn’t buy you brains or class and that shallow people made the shittiest friends. Perhaps that was one of the few benefits of being raised by Adele: no one was ever going to stab Sarina or Sky in the back or step on them like a doormat. They had been raised by a stone-cold, razor-tongued cunt who would cut them to shreds if they allowed anyone else to make a fool of them.
“I thought you were so cool because your parents weren’t like ours,” Sarina chuckled fondly. “Sometimes, I was jealous because Sam Sr. and Kate were so kind and normal, but you were always happy to share them with us so I forgave you for having the best parents in town.”
