Fallen Crest University (Fallen Crest High #5)(71)

Before anyone could say a word, he dropped everything on the table and pumped his arms forward and back, like he was a machine gun. And for the grand finale, he swung his leg over an empty chair, slid down into it, and his arms crossed so that his elbow landed on the table at the same time as when his palm propped up his head. He batted his eyelids at Summer. “What’s happening, hot stuff?”

She dropped her pen into her book. “Did you just quote Sixteen Candles to me?”

His eyelids fluttered, and two dimples showed in his cheeks. “Does it make you horny?”

“No.” She scowled.

He didn’t care. His cocky grin went up a notch. “My name could be Long Duck Dick for you. Does that make you horny?”

“You’re messing with me on purpose. Stop it.” She poked at the pizza box. “We can’t have food in the library.”

“Yeah, we can and I haven’t even started. Do you like cupcakes? Because I do, and ass-skirts. Just putting that out there.” She sent him a warning look and Logan dropped the flirting, his grin deepening. He leaned back, hooking his fingers behind his head. “How do you think I brought it in here? Walked right past the librarians.”

“You can’t have food like this. Sandwiches, salads, bags of chips—we can have those. But a large pizza? You’re going to get us kicked out, and I don’t know about the rest,” she cast Mason and me a look, her eyebrows locking together, “but I can’t study at my dorm. Kitty and Nina have a rotating schedule of their meltdowns. If Kitty’s not crying about how she’s going to fail poli-sci, she’s comforting Nina with her full-blown dry-heaving panic attacks. Like I said, I can’t study there.”

Logan frowned. “I was joking before, but seriously, you need to get laid. You’re wound too tight to get any real studying done.” He wasn’t looking at her as he said that. He reached forward and flipped the pizza box open.

I didn’t move. I waited, watching my roommate. Beside me, Mason was doing the same. Her scowl morphed into blind panic as Logan talked, and it changed to speculation.

She was going to do it.

I saw the wheels spinning, and as Logan took a slice of pizza and started eating it, she studied him. Her eyes slid over him, taking in his hair and how he got a crew cut, going down his throat as he was swallowing the pizza, moving to his hands and how he folded the pizza in half. He took one, large bite, devouring half the slice right there. Her eyes lingered on his shoulders, which were accentuated by the shirt he was wearing. His shoulders were broad, and the shirt showcased how his bicep muscles were cut and sculpted, rippling as he leaned forward for another bite of pizza.

She shoved back her chair, throwing me a pleading look. “Don’t think less of me.”

Logan looked up. “Huh?”

Summer grabbed his hand and yanked him behind her. “We need to find a closet.”

His eyebrows shot up in the air, but he flashed us a grin and waved the pizza at us while Summer led him around a bookshelf. Right as they did, he stuffed the rest of the pizza down and hurried, catching up with Summer, his hands on her hips.

Mason grunted as he got up and shut the door again. “We got thirty minutes.”

I laughed, focusing on my laptop again. “I say twenty.” A large envelope was tossed on the desk, and I grew distracted. “What is that?” It was wrinkled from wear and tear. One corner of the envelope was ripped open, and the edge of a photograph peeked out. My mouth dried up, and my tongue felt like a lump of coal.

This was not good.

Mason leaned back. I felt his gaze on me, but I was too scared to look. I had a suspicion of what might be in those pictures.

Swallowing over a lump, I asked, “What are those?”

He shoved them closer to me. “Why don’t you take a look?”

My gaze lifted to his. Bull’s-eye.

Contained anger stared back at me. He was heated, really heated.

I licked my lips. “Mason—”

He interrupted, “I hired someone for you.”

“What?”

“The day after you moved in, I called a company that my dad uses. I wanted someone guarding you because I was worried about you. Sebastian can hurt me in a lot of ways, but you and Logan are where I’m most vulnerable.”

“Did you…”

“Yes,” he answered the rest of my unspoken question. “I hired a security guy for Logan, too, but he doesn’t know it.”

A headache was pressing behind my forehead. “That means that you…” Summer. Her parents’ house. Garrett even. I hadn’t said a word about any of it. I didn’t know how to explain that I’d seen Sebastian or how I knew about my little sister or Sebastian.

Mason knew who Summer was.

He was staring back at me, pinning me down.

A memory came back.

“My dad has a weakness for weak women.”

Again, there was no judgment. It was a fact, and he said it as such. The truth of it held more power because of the lack of emotion with him.

My throat went dry. “You called my mother weak.”

“Isn’t she?”

His gaze was searing into mine.

My chest tightened. My throat clamped up. “I, uh—”

He snorted in disgust. “You think so, too, but you can’t say the words, not to me. That’s all right. I understand. She’s your blood.”