Price of a Kiss (Forbidden Men, #1)(24)

Now she really looked mystified. “You like Justin Timberlake?”

“Hello.” The look I sent her said, Yes! Duh. “He brought sexy back.”

Ooh, and now that I was thinking of it, that would be a good song to add to my phone for Sarah to groove to.

“Well, whatever,” E. murmured beside me as I searched for “SexyBack” since “Let’s Get It Started” had finished downloading. “You can deny jealousy all you want. I don’t think Dr. Janison is going to be so forgiving, though.”

I whipped my head up. “What do you mean?”

“Honey, she’s going to flunk you hard for playing with her boy toy…without paying for him.”

I swear, she and Mason sounded too much alike sometimes. I opened my mouth to tell her our professor was a professional; she would not flunk me just because I had one lunch with her gigolo.

But Dr. Janison interrupted me by beginning class. “Good morning. Today, we’re going to start studying a new author. I think everyone will get a kick out of Chaucer—”

She broke off mid-word when her gaze caught mine where I sat near the right side of the room midway down the aisle. Recognition lit her gaze, and her face drained of all color. Then her eyes narrowed ominously. When everyone turned to glance at me, I shrank lower in my seat.

“You are so flunked,” E. hissed under her breath.

Oh, God. I was.

$

“We’re getting our noses pierced this weekend.”

I paused eating my lunch to gape at E. “Say what?”

I’d been so deep in thought, wondering if I should transfer out of my literature class, I hadn’t been paying a whole lot of attention to her prattling. But I swore I’d just heard something along the lines of—

“You, me, nose rings. This weekend.”

She sat next to me on the bench to the table I had decided was going to be my lunch spot for the rest of the semester. My memory of sitting here with Mason the day before had pretty much cemented that decision—even if sitting with him was going to get me flunked from my English class. It was as if we’d christened it as ours.

It actually kind of felt like a betrayal to sit here with Eva instead of him.

But I suspected she was hanging around me so much today in the hopes I’d be granted another “gigolo-sighting,” as she was calling it.

“I’m not piercing my nose. Are you insane?”

“But they’d look so cute.” She stole one of my fries and decidedly stated, “I saw Alec checking out a girl wearing one yesterday. So, yeah, we’re getting them.”

I snorted. “If you want to go poking holes in strange places on your body just to impress your wandering-eye boyfriend, be my guest. But I will not be getting one with you.”

She merely sent me a cool smile and shrugged. “We’ll see. Oh, by the way, Mom and Dad are taking off early next Friday to spend Labor Day weekend at our beach house. They won’t be back until late Monday night. I’m thinking…party at my place, Friday.”

“Beach house? I had no idea you guys had a beach house. Oh, my God, why aren’t you going with them?”

Eva yawned as she flipped open her pink and black tiger-striped planner with a matching fuzzy pen. “Um…because I’m not ten. How lame would it be to spend Labor Day weekend with the rents? Seriously, ReeRee. I have so much to teach you.”

If my parents had a beach house, I’d be there every weekend. I don’t care how lame spending time with them might look. But this was Eva we were talking about. So I just shrugged. “Well, I can’t make it on any Friday. I have to babysit.”

Eva scowled. “Who? The gigolo’s retarded sister?”

I sent her a glare to kill. “Her name is Sarah. And yes, I’m talking about Mason’s special needs sister. Don’t ever call her retarded in that derogatory way again.”

With a roll of her eyes, she relented. “Okay, fine. How about Saturday night? Are you babysitting any freaks then?”

I ignored the bash against my little buddy by gritting my teeth and dipping one of my fries into a vat of nacho cheese. “Just how big of a party are we talking here?”

Ever since Jeremy, I had soured to huge gatherings full of too many strangers.

But Eva brightened. “Epic.” Then she spotted a group of guys passing our table. “Hey, boys. Party at my place. The Saturday of Labor Day weekend. You in?”

They grinned and gave her the thumbs up. “An Eva Mercer party? Oh, we are in.”

“Great. See you then.” She turned back to me, looking smug.

I blew out a lungful of irritation. “I guess we’ll be throwing a party, then. And now I know why my mom was so worried you might become a bad influence.”

“Oh, let’s not call it a bad influence.” She slung an arm over my shoulder and grinned. “Let’s call it bringing a little color into your life.”

Behind us, someone snorted. “Only you would call it that, Mercer.”

The breath whooshed from my lungs as the owner of that voice rounded the table to sit across from us.

Mason.

Damn, he looked good today, all fresh and friendly with a charcoal gray v-neck that made his eyes look lighter than usual. He grinned at me and promptly scoped out what I was eating.