Razor: A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance(18)

Mason gave me a dimpled-filled grin. “Hey, I’m the Chef here,” he said as he shook the skillet. “Gotta look the part.”

I scowled. “You’re going to owe me a new apron if you rip that thing. You’re way too big for it.”

“Deal.”

I stared at the pile of food, my stomach growling. “Since when do you know how to cook anyway?” As far as I could remember, Mason didn’t even know how to heat up a cup of Ramen noodles. In fact, he probably hadn’t ever washed a dish in his life.

“I picked a few things up on my own.”

I crossed my arms across my chest. “Which you have yet to tell me about. Where did you go?”

A shadow passed over his face as a pancake he was flipping missed the skillet and hit the floor. So much for being a master chef. “I’ll tell you later.” He bent down and picked up the pancake and tossed it in the small wastebasket under the sink. Then he nodded at my small circular table in the nook. “Go sit down. Food will be ready in just a minute.”

I bit back an acerbic reply. Who did Mason think he was, ordering me around? This was my place, after all. And I hated that he was being evasive.

I was saltier than a McDonald’s French fry with Mason, but I was trying to put the circumstances we were under in perspective. We had bigger things to worry about. I could drill him about his misadventures later.

“Fine,” I muttered. “But I’m only doing it because I’m hungry and not because you told me to.”

Mason chuckled. “Right.”

I walked over to the table and took a seat. I was hungry as hell.

He tossed a glance over my way while flipping a pancake. “Want coffee? Or orange juice?”

Did aliens abduct Mason and replace him with someone else? I wondered.

“Orange juice, please,” I replied.

Two minutes later, Mason was seated across from me scarfing down scrambled eggs.

“This is good,” I remarked over a mouthful of syrup-soaked pancakes. “I can’t believe you actually made this.”

Mason chugged down half a glass of milk. “What can I say? I’m a man of many talents.”

“Please. I said it was good, but I’ve had better.”

Mason winked at me. “Don’t lie. You know you love it.”

The food was delicious, that’s for sure.

As we ate, it dawned on me that we were in such a romantic setting — a cabin in the woods, alone without anyone around. It was actually the sort of thing I used to daydream about sharing with Mason.

Except this is more like a nightmare with what he’s involved in, I thought. And it’s not like he ever noticed me before, so why would he notice me now?

Finished with his eggs, he grabbed the maple syrup and doused his pancakes. “I was thinking,” he said.

I forked at a piece of fat sausage. “About what?”

“I don’t want to upload the footage from here.”

“Why?” I asked after shoving the sausage into my mouth and savoring the sweet, smoky flavor.

“Whoever it was that caught me in their system, they have to know by now what I took. Once we upload it, it’ll only be a matter of time before they trace it back to where it came from, and I don’t want that to be here.”

“Then what do we do?”

“Use public Wi-Fi. Much easier.”

I nodded, and Mason impaled a stack and stuffed it into his mouth. “And another thing,” he chewed. I marveled at his powerful jaws at work. “We probably shouldn’t stay here. Once the authorities narrow down the people or places I’d likely go to, they’ll show up here eventually.”

I finished off my sausage, reveling in the deliciousness. “You might be right about that. But I would think we would be safe here for now at least. The utilities aren’t even in my name right now. No one knows that I live here except for my landlord, and he doesn’t pry into my business. I’ve never told mom or Brian or any of my college friends where I live. For all they know, I room with a friend in San Fran.”

“Hmm.” Mason grabbed his glass of juice and washed down the pancakes. “Speaking of family — how’s Dad and Sherry?”

I frowned into my orange juice. “They’ve separated.”

Mason didn’t look surprised one bit. “Why?

“After you left, Brian became bitter. He and mom argued incessantly. He blamed her for a lot of things, became cold and heartless. She couldn’t take it and left shortly after I graduated college.” I looked up at Mason, who was staring at me. “They haven’t divorced yet, but it looks like they will.”

“That sucks.”

I took a swig of the juice to wash down the aftertaste of the sausage. “You don’t seem that broken up about it.”

Mason shrugged. “It was bound to happen anyway. The writing was on the wall for years now.”

I wanted to yell at him, to tell him that part of their separation was his fault for taking off. But what good would it do me besides venting my frustration? And in another way, I felt a little guilty myself. If I hadn’t ratted him out, maybe he’d have never left to begin with? But what was done, was done. I needed to stay focused on the task at hand.

If I can stop thinking about Mason every other second, I thought.