Five Ways to Fall (Ten Tiny Breaths, #4)(15)

A sudden voice behind me interrupts us. “There you are, Ben. Natasha’s waiting.”

My eyes do an involuntary roll, both in response to the sound of my stepbrother’s mind-numbing tone and to the mention of Natasha, the thirty-year-old type-A law bot who’s trying to kill me with divorce depositions. Ben catches my reaction and doesn’t even try to hide his grin as he offers, “Hey, Mason. I was just on my way back to my office.”

“You know there’s no cleaning staff here on weekends. You’re inviting infestation with this mess,” Mason mutters, and I know that’s directed at me. Mason couldn’t sound more apathetic with me if he tried. We may live and work under the same roof, but we’re no more friends now than we were before I moved in eight months ago. I actually wish I had caught his reaction on video when he came home from class and found me in the kitchen, drinking straight from the chocolate milk jug. Jack hadn’t given him any warning that I was back in their lives. I thought his head was going to explode.

“But I have pets to feed,” I retort. Everything about Mason—except the unruly mop on his head—is pristinely neat: his pressed shirts and pencil-leg pants, his Subaru hatchback, the office next to Jack’s that I’ve seen him disinfect with Lysol wipes every single day. The only time he has anything to say to me is when he’s pointing out how pristinely neat I am not. Needless to say, we don’t cohabitate well.

“You don’t want to talk to her this early in the morning. She hasn’t had her first feeding yet and she’s more abrasive than usual,” Mason warns Ben.

“Listen to Jiminy Cricket. He knows things.” It has taken almost two months of snarls and glares, but I have everyone trained. Even Jack knows not to attempt conversation with me until this giant cup of coffee is empty and I’ve opened my office door, after spending an hour cursing the sender of every new email that has filled my in-box. I’m relatively pleasant after that. Of course the lawyers tolerate it because I run circles around all the other paralegals here, even the ones who’ve been here for years. Clients agree to flat rates for paralegal work and then I deliver on it in record time, freeing me up to work on more cases and generate more profit. They leave the heavy clerical shit to the others and give me work that requires research and analysis and critical thinking, stuff that has always come naturally to me because I’m inquisitive and willing to test boundaries. I guess it helped that, while I was sailing through the paralegal program, Jack was passing on all kinds of books on statutory and case law, stuff they teach you in law school. Looking for ways to drown my spare time, I devoured them. No one would believe that I’ve been here for only two months. It feels good. For the first time in years, I feel smart.

With a chuckle, Ben begins making his way out, stepping around me extra slowly. “Maybe abrasive is what won me over before.”

“Wait a minute . . . You two know each other?” There’s definite wariness in Mason’s voice now.

Ben’s wide grin doesn’t fill me with ease. “Yeah. We met in Cancún.”

Mason pushes his big, geeky glasses up with an index finger as he looks at me. “When were you in Cancún?”

I shake my head at him. Of course he wouldn’t remember. As tidy and regimented as Mason is at work, he can be scatterbrained when it comes to regular life. He kind of reminds me of a mad scientist, without the lab coat and test tubes. “July. My birthday. Remember? You gave me tickets to see U2?”

Mason’s eyes ignite with a spark of anger. “I didn’t give you those tickets. You stole my credit card number and ordered them!”

I make a point of holding my hands up to my chest in mock insult. “I was merely ensuring you got me a memorable gift for my twenty-first birthday.”

“I thought you were twenty-nine,” Ben pipes in with a wry smirk.

“And I thought I’d never see you again,” I snap.

Understanding seems to hit Mason then and, when he shifts his focus to Ben, I see something that looks an awful lot like revulsion pass over his face. “Please tell me Reese isn’t the purple-haired girl Kent was talking about?”

“Reese?” I hear Ben’s voice somewhere in the background, but my brain is too busy processing key words.

Purple-haired girl. Kent. Talking about. Mexico.

For the second time in under five minutes, I feel the blood drain from my face as I’m hit with my own level of understanding. And horror. Ben isn’t just a new employee. “Oh my God. You’re friends with my stepbrother?”

Ben’s eyes cut to me, his brows shooting high up his forehead. “Your stepbrother?”

“Oh, f*ck!” Mason starts shaking his head. “Seriously, Ben?”

I steal a glance at Mason, who never swears, before settling daggers on Ben’s face. “Yeah, Ben. Seriously?” I hiss through gritted teeth. “What would Kent have said about the purple-haired girl, Ben?” I haven’t admitted to that night to anyone except Nicki and Lina, and that’s only because I came back to the hotel limping. If Ben told his friends . . . and Mason knows . . . I’m going to die. Mason will totally use that against me one day. He’ll tell everyone at the firm and they’ll talk about it behind my back. I’ll walk into meetings to the abrupt end of giggles. And then I’ll be forced to kill everyone.