Page 22 of Breathe Like Hell

Me

Don’t come to the door. Just text me when you’re here and I’ll come out. Okay?

Mason didn’t reply to my next text, so I set my phone down flat and propped my chin on my hands, elbows braced on the table. Mila grabbed two ice pops from her freezer, then offered me the one that looked darker through the white plastic packaging—the grape one. She kept orange for herself, thankfully.

“Am I going to meet your possessive man when he arrives?” Mila questioned, licking the frosty crystals off her ice pop.

“I don’t think so. I told him to wait for me to come out.” I sucked the grape ice into my mouth. How many artificially-flavored frozen treats was too many for one day? Whatever.

“Why would you tell him that?” Mila adjusted how she was sitting, bending her knees up, putting her feet on her chair, shins pressed to the edge of the table. She slurped up some sticky orange juice before it dripped onto her hand. “I want to see him.”

“I don’t know. It just feels better if you don’t.”

“Do you have a picture of him?” She glanced at my phone.

“I have one,” I admitted, my stomach flipping and a blush creeping up my neck. It was random—just a picture I’d taken of him to put as his contact photo—but any picture of Mason would be capable of giving me butterflies. Murderous, toxic butterflies.

“Show me. Now,” Mila demanded.

I took a breath as I picked up my phone and clicked on his contact, then pressed on the photo. He was shirtless in his bed, laying with a hand behind his head on the pillow, looking at the camera. I could envision myself kneeling on the mattress, in his t-shirt, taking the stupid photo while his cum dripped out of me.

I shoved my phone across the table to Mila. She immediately snatched it off the surface, eyes widening as she took in the glory that was Mason Ashborn.

“Is this edited?”

“No.”

She stared up at me. “Then you took this from Pinterest. Surely. There’s no way you’re fucking a man that hot and you’ve neglected to tell me—or show me.”

“I’m not sure what to say.” I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. Showing Mila a picture of Mason was perhaps the most normal relationship thing I’d ever done with him, and he wasn’t even here. Relationship? I cleared my throat, then tried to reach for my phone. “Give it back.”

“No. I’m zooming in.”

She held the phone closer to her face and I leaned forward, resting my head on my arms folded on the table, eyes slipping shut.

“Do you have a sex tape I can watch or something?”

“Mila!” I shot up to sitting, grabbing the phone from her hands, laughing. “Stop it.”

She held her hands up in surrender. “Hey, I’m curious. Sue me. Now, do you have any other secret boyfriends you’re hiding from me, or is he the only one?”

I hesitated, unsure what to say. I didn’t know enough about Micah’s aspect to know what made people forget him, or how long it would take for that to happen. Either way, I’d never taken a contact photo for him, so…

“No. Just the one.”

“You better not be lying,” she warned jokingly. If only she knew.

My phone buzzed with a notification on the table between us once we’d finished our ice pops—Mila tried to grab it, but I was quicker, holding it close to my chest.

“Is he here?”

“No,” I lied, then hopped up and ran to her bedroom, snatching my bag off the floor.

Mila was quick on my heels, sliding on the wood in her socks and slamming into the back of me as I bent over to put my boots on. I lost my balance and tipped forward, phone flying out of my hands and skidding across the floor.

“Mila!” I screamed.

“Kota!” She crawled to my phone and grabbed it, eyes wide as the screen illuminated her face. “You’re a liar. He is here. Can I please meet your manipulator man? I don’t know how much longer he’s going to be around.” Mila pouted, which made me laugh.