Moving around her, I placed my hands on the sides of the doorframe, blocking the path downstairs. She walked right into me and made an angry noise. “Kaz, what the hell?”
“You sure you don’t want to come? Mase knows how to throw a damn good party. I’m sure you remember the last one you went to.”
Her cheeks turned pink. “How could I ever forget,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. “The highlight of your time in college, I’m sure.”
“You’re not wrong,” I said, letting my gaze drift down her body. Her eyes widened in response. “You ever wonder what it would be like to have me kiss you again?”
She sucked in a breath. A tense, delicious silence rang out loudly in the air between us.
God, why was riling her up so satisfying?
One of her little hands curled into a fist, and I’m sure the other one would have too if it weren’t holding her camera. “You can’t say things like that,” she stammered, keeping her voice low. “It’s inappropriate.”
The longer we interacted in close quarters, the more inappropriate things I wanted to say and do to her, but I knew I’d never get a chance to if I didn’t play this carefully.
“Sorry,” I said with a nonchalant shrug as I moved out of her way. “Just thought I’d be honest with you.”
Her eyes met mine head-on, a mixture of anger and heat that made my dick twitch inside my jeans. She brushed past me, careful not to touch me, as if I’d burn her if she did. “There’s sharing, and then there’s oversharing,” she said over her shoulder.
I stifled a laugh and followed her down.
We worked in the basement for the next few hours, and I could have sworn that whenever I caught her looking at me, her gaze drifted down to my lips.
9
MASON
Friday rolled around,signaling the end of the week. So far, I’d managed to keep my distance from Molly. Sure, she spent a great deal of time with us in the basement, but besides exchanging a few greetings and answering a sporadic question or two, I’d allowed Kaz to handle most of the talking.
She hadn’t pressed me to review more contracts ever since that first day. If she thought my hard stance on that was strange, she hadn’t brought it up again, and that was just fine by me. I didn’t have many excuses to use with her and telling her the truth was out of the question. She probably already thought I was lazy at worst, uninterested at best, and yet both of those were still better than her knowing I couldn’t understand the fucking things.
I heard the front door slam. Kaz and Molly must have been back from their coffee run. A few moments later, my friend came down the stairs, holding two cups in his hands. Molly trailed behind him, her cheeks sporting a light-pink color.
Did I want to know how Kaz’s seduction plan was going? Fuck, yes. Was I going to ask? Hell, no. I could deal with him going after Molly—at least, that’s what I told myself—but I sure as hell didn’t need to know the details.
“Oh, damn. Is it ready?” Kaz handed me one of the cups and leaned over my shoulder to look at my screen. “He’s putting the final touches on our latest track,” he said to Molly.
“I’m almost finished.” I’d been cooped up down here for most of the early afternoon, eager to get this thing done. Kaz may handle all of our paperwork, but I pulled my weight in other ways. Why the hell was I hoping Molly would notice?
“Let’s hear it.” Kaz sat down on the chair beside me and glanced at Molly, who was standing awkwardly in the corner. “You good?”
She raised the camera in front of her chest. Sometimes it was like she used that thing like a shield. “Yep. This is a good moment for me to capture.”
Kaz’s lips turned up at the corners. He always got excited about this part, and he seemed to have no reservations about having her here, when in the past it had always been just us two.
Me? I gave Molly a weary look before getting busy on the computer once again. I felt exposed by her presence. A few moments later, our latest and greatest was playing on the sound system.
As the notes we’d meticulously arranged together filled the room, I began to relax. My foot tapped out the beat, and my fingers drummed along the edge of the desk. Kaz was softly singing along to the tune. The world melted away, all of its conflicting ugliness and beauty moving aside to make space for the only thing that had ever made sense inside my faulty brain.
Music.
At some point, Kaz closed his eyes, and when the song ended, he didn’t open them right away. I waited. I could nearly see the ideas forming inside his head.
When he launched off the couch and picked up his guitar, I was ready.
“Something just came to me,” he said as he tuned his instrument.
Maybe it was narcissistic for him to be inspired by a song we’d written, but I’ve always believed we were capable of creating things that were better than us. Art frequently transcended its flawed creators.
