When Its Least Expected (26 page)

“So, did you guys, like, do it then?” Mason froze in place, his hand hovered high
over the

door knob. He looked back over his shoulder at her, a hating glare in his eyes.

Oh
hell
no. She did not just say that.

Her eyes and mouth widened in disbelief, and she giggled seconds later, “Not
that,
you idiot. I meant did you ask her out, as your
girlfriend
?” Mason let out a relieved breath. Thank God that’s all she meant. He did
not
want to have that talk with his fifteen year old sister.

“Yes, I did as a matter of fact, but that doesn’t mean you can go around advertising
it to

the world.” The lock clicked open, and he held the door for her to go in first. She
frowned at him, a weary look in her tired, blue eyes.

“Well, I kind of thought after that incident with Toby in the hall on Monday that
you’d

want everyone to know your status.” She shrugged, slipping her shoes off and running
her hand along the sole of her feet. Her eyes closed in that movement as if she was
two seconds away from falling asleep in the standing position.

Mason, on the other hand, was now more awake than ever. “What in the hell do you

mean by that?” He tugged at his tie, loosening it from around his neck as she tossed
the keys across the hallway table. “Harley didn’t mention anything about an incident
with that dick head to me.”

His sister glanced over at him but didn’t respond other than a tiny shrug. Freaking
little

sisters and their nonchalant, don’t-give-a-shit attitudes!

“Maisy, come on. What the hell do you know?”

She shrugged, sitting on one of the kitchen bar stools and swinging her short little
legs

underneath her with her lips pressed tight in a line. He was getting pissed. She needed
to cut the crap. “Tell me otherwise I’ll hang all of your a-cups out the front window
when the lawn guy you drool over comes around.”

She gasped; eyes full of contempt, “You wouldn’t…”

His eyebrows rose in challenge, “I would…”

Her eyes narrowed further, and she flipped him off but still didn’t tell him anything.

What was she hiding? “Come on, Maisy. Tell me.”

“Fine, jeez. Lighten up, and get your man panties out of your ass cheeks, brother,”

she chuckled. He smacked her alongside of her head; they just had that kind of relationship.

Luckily for her, she had bobby pins up the ying-yang and didn’t seem to feel a thing.
“Well according to Ava Duncan, who just so happens to share second hour with Harley,
that Toby dude had cornered her outside of her class on Monday.” He pursed his lips
in confusion. He’d been with Harley before first hour that day. What the hell? “And
I guess he was pretty much trying to cop a feel on her right there in the hall.” He
gripped the edge of the counter, his knuckles turned white as anger surged through
his body.
What. The. Hell?
“Apparently, she kept trying to push him away, but he kept holding on. Then her little
blonde friend pulled her away, and Toby just stood there laughing outside the door,
calling her bunch of names like slut, whore, you get the picture.”

Mason pushed away from the breakfast bar. His vision shadowed with red and white tiny

spots of fury. Flames had to have been pouring from his ears as he shoved the innocent
bar stool onto the ground. Maisy jumped. Her words were tentative as she stared up
at him.

“You okay, Mase?” He leaned against the door frame and nodded, but was he really that

ready to run; ready to find that piece of dog shit and… Hell, he didn’t know what
he’d do first if he found him.

“I’m going to bed.” Mason gritted his teeth and pulled at his hair, but he didn’t
look back as he stalked angrily from the room. Sleep would take the anger away. It
always did. Otherwise, he’d probably go and do something crazy like hunt down that
bastard down.

Maisy’s soft voice sounded from behind, and he paused, already half-way up the steps.

He didn’t look back though. “Mason, don’t let this get to you alright? Harley’s tough.
She can take care of herself.” She was right, but he couldn’t accept the fact that
he wasn’t there for her like he should have been.

He slammed the door to his room. He tossed the rest of his clothes onto the floor
and

threw himself onto his king sized bed. He rolled onto his back against his pillows
and closed his eyes. He had to breathe. He had to get his shit together. Every emotion
known to man was

passing through him as he pictured Harley and that dickhead together as his sister
had described.

He clawed at his eyes, remembering too the nasty things he, himself, had said to her
that same night on the phone.

He was a fool.

Then again, why would Harley keep this from him? What if she was keeping other

secrets? Did she not trust him to help her? Did she think he was too unstable to
deal with it all?

God, he was worse than a girl! How in the hell would he ever survive a relationship
with her if his emotions were always this crazy?

“Mason, don’t go. Please…”

“You knew it was going to happen, Harley. You had to have known.”

“But you said you loved me, and that you wanted to be with me!” She grabbed onto his

shirt pulling him closer as her emotional pleas fell from her lips. The tears were
streaming down
her face at an unstoppable rate, but his eyes were filled with something closer to
disgust.

“Yeah, well, I say a lot of things I don’t mean. I thought you would’ve figured that
out by
now.” Mason backed away from her, hands outstretched in front of him. Her heart did
a free fall
onto the cement under feet.

“No, you don’t mean that. Please, Mason.”

“You don’t know crap, Harley. You’re too messed up in that head of yours to know

anything.” She fell to the ground as desperation filled the air along with the sound
of her sobs.

Mason curled his lip and shook his head before turning away.

He was leaving! “Nooooooo…” She wailed in desperation, arms outstretched at the boy

who had just stolen her very soul.

“Harley, wake up! You’re having a bad dream.” She gasped and sat up, her hand over
her

chest. She blinked before staring up at her brother’s concerned face. She exhaled
heavily and shut her eyes to block any tears that still demanded exit.

Oh, thank God. It was just a dream.

“You all right, sis? That was a bad one. I could hear you from my room.” David threw
a

thumb over his shoulder, and Harley groaned, running a hand down her face.

She glanced over at the clock. Holy hell, it was Sunday, and she was awake at seven.

Looking down at her shirt and shorts, she realized both were drenched in sweat. She
shook her head in disgust.

“Sorry, David. I didn’t mean to wake you up so early.”

“No prob. I couldn’t sleep anyways. My neck’s all cramped from sleeping in the same

position all night. What brought that dream on anyways? I haven’t heard you scream
from a

dream like that since…” he paused and shrugged but didn’t finish his sentence. No
need. Harley knew what he was thinking.

Nightmares after Aiden’s death had plagued her for a long time, and it wasn’t until
just

recently that they had stopped.

David used his arms to pull himself closer to Harley’s bed. She watched carefully
as he

used his Hercules-like strength to move himself from his chair to her bed. “Scoot
over, would ya?” She nodded as he plopped down on the pillow next to her. Harley smiled
at the childhood memory of him doing the very same thing. He used to sneak into her
room early in the morning so they could watch cartoons together. Their parents would
scream at them if someone woke

them before eight on the weekends, so it was always Mason and Harley’s secret little
routine.

She didn’t realize how much she had missed the simplicity of it all until that moment.

“Are you feeling better today?”

She nodded and stretched her arms over her bed. Her words came out with a yawn, “I

think so, at least my fever finally broke and my head doesn’t feel as if someone is
nailing it with a hammer.” David laughed, but it was temporary. She stared back at
him, noting the sad frown on his lips.

“Are you okay, D?”

He turned his face towards hers and smiled half-heartedly as he shrugged. “I talked
to

Abigail last night about some stuff.” Her eyes widened in surprise, and she sat up
to look down at him.

“And…?” She bit her lip, hoping for good news.

“I told her I didn’t want a relationship with her.”

“You what?” Outraged, she threw her hands out to the side and gave him her best evil

eye. “Why in the hell would you do that?” She stood and shook her head in annoyance.
She had to call Abigail. She was probably devastated! She tightened her hands into
two fists so as not to smack her idiot brother in the head.

“Harley, you know why. She’s going to be going off to college in a few months, same
as

you, might I add, and I don’t want to hold her back either.” He closed his eyes probably
so they wouldn’t reveal his emotions. He wasn’t fooling her one damn bit.

“Jeez, David. She’s going to cosmetology school a half hour from here. She’s not moving

across the damn country! You
know
I’m not going anywhere either, at least not without you!”

His eyes narrowed, rage made the brown turn black. “Don’t pull that crap, Har. You’re

going to college whether you want to or not. You’re not waiting around for my sorry
ass and neither is Abs.” He pushed himself in to a half-sitting position and scooted
to the side of the bed.

“The hell I am, David. You know as well as I do that college is not going to happen

without you. We’ve talked about it!” Furious waves were rolling off of her as she
moved to stand in front of him.

Her stance softened when his eyes sympathetic, lost, and wet stared up at her. “Yeah,

Har, we talked about it like ten years ago when we were kids, remember? It doesn’t
count

anymore.” She shook her head at his defeated tone. Now her heart hurt more than ever.

“Listen, I’ve got, like, seven months until graduation, okay? Let’s not worry about
it until then.” She smiled tightlipped, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“Now, as far as Abigail goes, you’ve got some major ground work to cover in order
to make up for your stupidity.”

“Um, Har? I’m not going there. I told her I didn’t want a relationship with her, and
I

meant it.” He frowned harder and hopped one legged to his chair.

“David, here. Let me help you, please.”

“Dammit, Harley. I’ve got it,” he smacked her hand away, and she winced but obeyed
his

command. He was going to get hurt trying to prove he was capable. He was in a way,
but if he would just get that stupid prosthetic. “Just let me do it my own way.”

She knew without a shadow of a doubt, that he meant those words in more ways than

one. “I’m sorry, David. I don’t mean to push a relationship onto you. I just know
how much she loves you, and I see how you look at her too. You’ve been in love with
her for years.” He glared up at her from his chair but didn’t deny the accusation.

“Just leave it. Abigail and I are
never
going to happen.” Her shoulders sagged as he pushed himself from the room. She’d
done it again. Her heroine complex was severely messing with all that was good in
her life and with her brother’s life.

“K …” Harley whispered under her breath, watching him wheel from her room.

She was so tired of screwing up. First with David, then her parents, and probably
next it

would be with Mason. That foreboding dream had said it all.

* * *

dinner too?” Ugh, his mother freaking sucked.

“Yes, Mom. I’m getting up now.”

“You okay, son? You’re not feeling sick, are you? You know you shouldn’t be around

sick people without getting a flu shot. That Marley girl you’ve been hanging with
might have had the seasonal flu and now–”

“
Harley,
Mom. Her name is Harley.” She lifted her hand against his cheek and forehead, and
he shook it off with annoyance. Her drama was the only thing making him sick at the

moment.

“Don’t you get an attitude with me, young man... You may almost be eighteen, but I
am

still your mother.” She stood in haste with a “huff” and walked from his room, slamming
the door shut behind her like a child.

He groaned, throwing his head back down under his pillow just as the door clicked
back

open.

“Mason, what the hell? She’s only been awake for, like, two hours, and you’re already

making her cry.” Maisy’s squeaky sounding voice echoed around him. Whatever happened
to

knocking? To privacy?

“Get out, Maisy. NOW!!” His booming voice was likely to explode like a bomb if she

didn’t turn around. With nothing more than two hours of sleep, he was unwilling to
care about anyone else’s feelings but his own.

“No, you jerk. You do not get to speak to me like that. I’m not mom, and I’m not going
to

take it,” she walked over to him and repeatedly laid a smacking palm upside his shoulders.
Out of all the emotions he was having, laughter was the one that bubbled up in his
chest at her move.

She finally stopped with her incessant wailing, and he peeked over at her from under
his

pillow. She was cracking a smile and fighting tears at the same time. She had sat
down on the edge of his bed and was focused not on him but on the picture sitting
next to his bed.

She ran her finger over the glass and spoke wistfully, “I love this picture.” Mason
didn’t