Fallen Crest Public(117)

His hand smoothed my hair, running down and over my back to circle up and repeat the caress. His other hand was rubbing over my thigh.
I paused.
A small trigger went off. Mason. He was close. I felt his presence how I always felt him, but that wasn’t true. It was in my mind. He was with her. Kissing her. Stroking her.
It was like his hand went into my chest and grabbed my heart. He squeezed it with every memory. He was with her. I needed it gone. Now. Anyway I could, and I felt Logan’s hand then. It touched the side of my face and I turned back to him. Mason moved to the back of my mind.
“What the f*ck?”
But he wasn’t. I turned. Mason was standing right there. He wasn’t in the back of my mind anymore.
Logan’s hand jerked away, like it’d been burned. He lifted me off his lap to the couch and stood up. “It’s not what you think.”
Mason was there. The timing struck me, and I started laughing. He was there now, and that was all he had to say. Neither of them said another word. Both were silent and I couldn’t stop laughing. No. I was crying now. The booze wasn’t helping. I was still feeling everything, even the pain from my ribs were hurting me again. I tried to stop laughing, but I couldn’t. The couch had imprisoned me. I curled to my side and stopped laughing enough so I could draw in a deep breath.
Shit. My ribs were really hurting.
“Is she drunk?” Mason asked now.
That struck me as even more hilarious. High-pitched laughter peeled from me. Then I begin giggling in between, alternating between the two with a sniffle every now and then. Nope. I sobbed now. More laughter, giggle, sobbing. I couldn’t stop.
Logan’s voice lowered. He was cautious. “She saw you and Kate.”
“I know,” Mason whipped at him.
The rage was there. He was barely holding it back. I recognized it, but I couldn’t say anything. I was able to stop the laughs so only giggles came from me, but then I realized I didn’t want to stop. It would hurt again once I did. He’d been touching her.
“Sam.”
I held a hand out to stop him and buried my head into the couch. It muffled some of my hysteria.
“What the hell did you do to her?” he growled.
Logan snapped back, “What do you think? She saw you with Kate.”
“I told her—”
“She saw you, Mason! You’re ready to beat me up because I was comforting her. You were making out with another girl. Put two and two together.”
“I am.”
“You’re not. She’s hurting, like a lot, and not just from seeing you and Kate. She’s drunk as hell, but her ribs have gotta be killing her.”
Mason cursed.
My laughter had subsided to soft chuckles now, but I still couldn’t stop them. So much damn pain was slicing through me. I couldn’t move so I stayed there, curled into the couch, my head pressed against the cushion. It hid the tears that I couldn’t stop either.
I was a mess.
But they were there. Both of them. This was what I wanted. I needed to know they would come back. Someone sat beside me and the couch shifted underneath me. Another burst of fresh pain went through me. This time it was like a knife had been stuck deep into me. It was pulled back out and back in, over and over.
“I’m sorry, Sam.” Mason touched my arm now. It was so gentle, so tender. It brought a new wave of tears. He tugged on me.
“Be gentle with her.”
“Can you leave us alone?”
He wanted to talk to me, but I couldn’t talk to him now. What had I done? No. What had I been about to do? Another image of Kate straddling him flared again and I stopped crying.
“Sam,” he murmured again as a door shut somewhere in the house. His arms slid underneath me on the couch, and I was lifted in the air a moment later.