Not that it mattered. Sometime in the last few minutes, Mason had stopped knocking. The only sound was her too-loud heartbeat.

  Calm. You have to calm down.

  Some undefined amount of time later, Laila finally summoned the energy to get off the couch. Night had fallen outside her tiny window. The studio was dark. Red-eyed and puffy-faced, she flicked on the secondhand desk lamp on her side table before taking stock of the scattered groceries by the door.

  Laila picked up a can of diced tomatoes, finding Mason’s spare key underneath it.

  Oh. He was gone. And she had to water his plants… Laila closed her eyes, taking a deep, shuddering breath.

  At least now she knew what he was knocking about—not an apology or an explanation for the redhead. That was obviously too much to ask for. She was a one-night stand, who, unfortunately for them both, lived next door. Other women didn’t have to be explained to one-night stands.

  There was a piece of paper on the floor next to where the key had been. She picked it up, heart pounding.

  For a split second, she thought it might be from Mason because it didn’t match any of the labels from her shopping. But the scrap of paper was blank. Shaking her head for getting herself all worked up for nothing, Laila tossed it in the garbage.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Two weeks later

  “Get up, Lazy Jones,” Rosamie said in her bright, overly cheerful voice, bouncing up and down on the mattress right next to her head.

  “Remind me why I let you come over today?” Laila muttered, half her mouth flattened against the pillow.

  “Because you promised you were going to come out with me,” Rosamie said, continuing to bounce.

  Laila shot her friend a bleary-eyed scowl. “You said you were bringing a bottle of wine over. I thought that meant we were staying in.”

  “I did bring a bottle.” Rosamie grinned. “But it’s tequila, and it’s strictly for our prep round.”

  “Prep round?”

  “That’s right. You and I are going to forget about all douchebags—starting now. First, we’re going to that bar down the block, then we’re taking the bus to Club Casim to get our groove on.”

  Groaning, Laila dragged the pillow over her head, but Rosamie pulled it off. “You have got to stop moping over the mercenary.”

  “I’m not moping,” Laila lied. This desolation was several degrees removed from such a commonplace term.

  Laila felt…hollow. But she didn’t blame Mason. No, the fault was hers.

  Laila had set herself up for this pain, mooning over a man who was totally out of her league. She had been the one to extend that dinner invitation, and when he’d come to her later, she hadn’t said no. Mason would have stopped if she had told him to leave.

  And Mason hadn’t made her any promises of fidelity. Well—there hadn’t been time for conversation. Everything had happened so fast. Too fast.

  How would you have known he would jump into bed with someone else the very next day? Unless it had been intentional…Perhaps Mason had sought out another woman to show her their night wasn’t special.

  Mason had responded to her unspoken invitation without thinking about the complications. He must have realized sleeping with his mousy neighbor, a woman who had clearly been pining for him since he met, was a huge mistake. So, he wanted to make sure she didn’t read more their sexual encounter—cue the redhead.

  He could have just said as much. In fact, hadn’t he told her they needed to talk? And despite that parting—and very misleading—kiss, he must have decided it was easier to show her how little their night had meant to him.

  Still, parading another woman in front of her had been unnecessary. All right, maybe she did blame him for that—a lot. But it wasn’t a problem. She could take the hint. Or, in this case, the hammer to the head.

  Blinking back tears, Laila tuned back in to find Rosamie riffling through her closet.

  “Trust me on this,” her friend said, taking out a little black dress and discarding it with pursed lips. “Hooking up with another man—any man—is the answer. You know what they say. The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else…or on top. Or in front while on your hands and knees. Or—”

  Limbs too heavy for anything more athletic than shuffling to the fridge, Laila forced herself to sit up. She held up her hand. “I get the picture. But I’m not sure I’m up for a club.”

  “Please,” Rosamie pouted. “I have big news, and I want to celebrate.”

  Laila forced a smile. It felt like a grimace, but she needed to try for her friend’s sake. “What’s your news?”

  Rosamie drew out a deep yellow sundress from the closet—one fit for high summer. “Put this on, and I’ll tell you.”

  Laila made a face. “It’s not warm enough for that dress. The black one is better for this weather.”

  “You’ll get plenty hot after we dance until we drop. And forget all those drab dark colors. This color makes your skin pop. Add a little lipstick and eyeliner, and no man will be able to resist you.”

  Laila snorted at the absurdity. Rosamie sat next to her, then threw an arm around her shoulders. “Okay, I’m going to tell you the news so you can appreciate it—I heard from the housing office. I got a room in Wardley!”

  “What?” There wasn’t a lot of graduate housing available at their school. Wardley was the sole dormitory reserved for their use, which was why it was notoriously difficult to get into. But if a student did get in, it was worth it. The university subsidized the housing, so the room was around a quarter of the amount to rent the average L.A. apartment. That and it was close to campus, just a block over. And it was two blocks from Gardullo’s Grocery.

  Most of the rooms in Wardley were earmarked for students that came from abroad. Only a few were available to California residents. Students had to win a lottery to get a room. Unfortunately, the odds of winning the real lottery were slightly better.

  Laila hadn’t realized Rosamie had even bothered to put her name down—the competition was that intense. Also, her friend saved money by living at home.

  “How did that happen?” It was mid-quarter.

  Her friend beamed. “Well, it seems a certain dynamic duo got caught sleeping with their advisor and had to leave the Biochem program after an attempt to bribe her with the pictures they secretly took.” Rosamie waved her hands about. “It was a whole thing.”

  Wow. Laila had been in her own world, so she hadn’t heard. She listened open-mouthed as Rosamie detailed the scandal. When she was done, Laila gave herself a little shake. “And is your mother okay with you moving out?”

  Rosamie laughed. “She knows she can’t stop me. Nor does she blame me, not with the way the twins have been acting lately. We’re slowly being suffocated by testosterone, zit cream, and teen angst. I think she secretly wishes she could move out with me. But she can’t because you are.”

  Laila started to get dizzy. “Huh?”

  Rosamie bounced on the bed again. “I put your name down in the lottery along with mine. We got a double!”

  “Oh my God.” Laila felt staggered. “But what about my apartment?”

  Rosamie shrugged. “I know you have a few more months on the lease, but the dorm is way cheaper. In the end, you’ll save money by letting it lapse. You might even get someone to take over the lease. This area is always in demand.” Rosamie’s expression sobered. “You know it’s for the best. There’s no way you’re going to get over the scum-bucket formerly known as Mr. Marvelous if you are still living here.”

  “I would,” Laila said. But it felt weak, even to her ears.

  “Can I ask you something?” Rosamie pressed her lips together before clicking her tongue. “Are you still watering his plants?”

  Wincing, Laila didn’t answer.

  Rosamie pointed at the door. “It just goes to show you how unbelievably dense some men are. Mr. Marvelous must think he’s God’s gift to women. I can’t believe he still trusted you with the key after the shit he pulled. We should go over there and cut out the crotch in whatever pants he left behind.”

  An unwilling laugh escaped Laila. Rosamie patted her leg. “We can move into Wardley as early as next week. You never have to see Mason again.”

  Laila took a deep breath. How could one phrase fill her with relief, yet hurt like hell at the same time?

  “I’ll have to find someone else in the building to water his plants,” she said eventually.

  Mr. Tran wasn’t reliable, but there was a nice-enough retired lady on the floor below them. Mrs. Turnbull would do it, especially once she learned how much Mason compensated for the simple task. Plus, Mrs. Turnbull’s son was a cop. She wouldn’t rob Mason. Mr. Tran, on the other hand, would drink everything in the liquor cabinet if she chose him.

  There are always empty boxes by the recycling bin. Very few of her neighbors broke down their delivery boxes. Most of what she owned could fit in her extra-large suitcase and a few of those cartons—half a dozen at most.

  Laila shook out her hair. “We can go to the club, but I’m not hooking up with anyone. I’m going to need to be up early tomorrow to start packing.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Rosamie beamed. “Now, go jump in the shower because your hair is a greasy mess.”

  Forcing herself up, Laila paused to salute before crossing the room, stripping her clothes off as she went.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mason’s thick blond lashes screened him from the worst of the burn, but the overhead fluorescents still managed to scour the inside of his brain.

  He licked his dry lips. “Where am I?” His voice came out as one long, dry wheeze.

  “It’s about fucking time you woke up.”

  “What?” Mason’s lids scraped his eyeballs like sandpaper.

  Ransom sat in a chair next to him. Mason laid in a hospital bed, the nondescript utilitarian decor and furniture giving little clue as to his actual location.

  He tried to sit up, but he couldn’t. His head hurt like hell, and his body wouldn’t respond. He started to panic when he registered that his entire chest was wrapped in a cast that stretched down his arm to his wrist. “What the hell happened?”

  Ransom leaned in, concern in his eyes. “You don’t remember going all Captain America and saving everyone’s butt?”

  Gingerly, Mason shook his head. “It’s a blur.”

  The mission had been a shitshow from the start. Auric’s oil company client had severely underplayed their situation. The local state of affairs in Columbia had blown sky-high. Used to small-scale flare-ups, the client had downplayed their problems. When Mason’s team hit the ground, they realized they needed backup, but there hadn’t been time to wait. Four of the client’s people had been taken hostage, with a dozen more under threat.

  His team had managed to extract the latter with relatively little trouble, but the hostage situation had taken a bad turn before their support team could arrive.

  “Last I remember, we were brainstorming ways to get those executives out.”

  “Your plan worked,” Ransom said pointedly, giving credit where credit was due. However, the words did jog something in Mason’s memory. Hopefully, after his head stopped aching, he would remember what it was.

  “We took a few knocks and a hostage was shot, but it was just a flesh wound,” Ransom continued. “But getting them out of the country was a hot mess. Insurgents attacked your position. There were no good egress routes. You and Dom split the civilians between you two. His half went first, and he managed to get out with the help of some locals. We paid a king’s ransom for their vehicles, but you had to hole up and wait for them to double back.”

  Ransom sat deeper in the chair. A swizzle stick appeared in his hands from God-knows-where. He used it to dig under the seam of his cast, scratching some otherwise unreachable itch.

  “I’m not sure what happened after that. Your position was compromised somehow. The teammates who stayed behind with you—Wes and Klein—said you had to move out fast. You sent them ahead with the fittest and fastest hostages while you took the rear, defending the stragglers. There was an IED explosion. Somehow, you got your little ducklings to cover.”

  Ransom threw his free hand up, pointing at Mason with the swizzle stick. “Man, I think you pulled a car out of your ass or something. The vehicle got blown over. It caught you in a glancing blow—pinned part of you against the wall. Your ribs are broken. One punctured your lung, and your arm is broken to boot. You also took a good knock to the head. Dom had a hell of a time getting you evaced in one piece.”

  Grinning, Ransom pointed to Mason’s cast. “At least now you can’t give me shit for this. Yours is bigger than mine—the only time you’re going to be able to say that.”

  An unwilling laugh shook Mason’s body. It hurt like hell. Ransom chuckled, too, but then his face sobered. “Buddy, you’re looking at months of recovery and PT.”

  “Fuck,” Mason swore. He swiveled his head gingerly. There was a window, but it faced a brick wall, giving no clue to its location. “And where is this?”

  “Mexico City,” Ransom supplied. “Quinn knew a guy who knew a good doctor. I flew in when you got here, about two weeks ago.”

  “Two weeks?” Holy shit. Mason’s head spun, doing the math. He’d been on the ground over a week with Dom and the rest of the guys. “I lost a lot of fucking time.”

  “You weren’t in a coma. You kept coming in and out. But you couldn’t hold any conversations for a while. You’d drop off in the middle, then couldn’t remember them afterward. But I think this one is going to take.”

  “Hell, I hope so.” Mason’s stomach soured. “When can we fly back to the States?”

  “Not sure, but it may be a while.”

  Mason shook his head. It still hurt. “I gotta get back to L.A. Where is my phone?”

  “It’s here.” Ransom fished it out of his pocket. “But no worries. I’ve been keeping the home office updated.”

  “That’s not who I’m worried about,” Mason said, pressing the power button on his phone. It stayed dark. The battery was dead.

  “Have you got the charger on you?”

  Ransom sucked in a breath. “No. You didn’t have it on you. It must be with your gear.”

  “Can you find me another one?”

  “Yeah,” Ransom agreed, but he didn’t seem happy about it. “But I don’t think it’s going to do any good.”

  “What?” Mason wrinkled his nose, still mashing the buttons on his phone as if that would magically get it to restart. “Why?”

  “You’ve been asking for Laila.”

  Mason blinked. “I have?”

  Ransom’s face twisted. “Yeah. You keep calling out for her in your sleep.”

  “Oh.”

  Uncomfortably, his friend shifted in his seat. “It was enough that I tried to call her with your phone before it ran out of juice. She didn’t answer or respond to any texts. I couldn’t find her on social media because you don’t have her last name down in your contacts—and I scoured pics of every Layla living in L.A. on Facebook. Nada.” He swiped at his nose with his cast. “I even had one of the guys swing by her place a few days ago. He knocked for a while, but she wasn’t home.”

  Mason tried to shrug. It hurt too much to finish the gesture. “She works a lot.”

  Ransom grunted. “Look, I don’t mean to get in your business, but this girl is no good.”

  The IED hadn’t kill Mason, but the irony might. “Laila is the definition of good.”

  Ransom scoffed. “If she can’t be bothered to answer the phone while you’re in the goddamn hospital, then she isn’t worth shit.”

  God, Mason didn’t want to talk about this. But he couldn’t let Ransom think the worst of Laila. “She must have blocked my number. And she probably did it before we went wheels-up to Columbia.”

  Confusion creased his friend’s face. “Why’s that?”

  Mason sighed. “Things went tits up before I left.”

  “That was fast.” Ransom raised his brows. “You don’t usually make ‘em run screaming until a few months in. Didn’t you just start things with Laila?”

  “One night,” Mason muttered, sounding like an emo fuckboy. “All I got was one damn night.”

  The memory of waking up next to Laila was vivid and a little fucked up. How could he have freaked like that? The night before had been mind-blowingly intense, but he’d known then and there his life would never be the same. And then one stupid mistake—one he hadn’t even made—and it had all got blown to smithereens.

  Mason studied the view out of the window. “Did you ever save someone for later?” he asked in a low voice.

  “What do you mean?” Ransom looked like he was trying to compute complex calculus in his head. But he was a neck-or-nothing type. Mason doubted Ransom ever thought about holding anything back in any aspect of his life.

  God, this sucked. Mason’s chest ached, and not because of his ribs. Great. I am an emo fuckboy.

  “I mean…did you ever avoid spending time with someone, not because you didn’t like them but because you liked them too much? Well, that’s what I did with Laila. I tried not to think about her. And I was damn good at not thinking about her, but she was always there in the back of my mind.”

  Mason wished his arms were free because he wanted to strangle himself. “I knew if I let my guard down, that she’d be it for me. The whole nine yards—marriage, house, kids—and I wasn’t fucking ready for it.”

  He was kicking himself for it now. All the time he’d wasted…

  “I kept telling myself later. Laila was for later—once I was done with this job and cashed out. Then I’d ask her out properly. It was a mistake. She was there the whole time…waiting.”

  Seemingly at a loss for words, Ransom just stared at him.

  “Am I making any sense, or is my brain so scrambled this is coming out as gibberish?”

  “Nah, I get it.” Ransom raised his cast, his face screwing up. “You had a someday girl, but you fucked it up before it ever got going. I’m still waiting for that story, cause that’s the part I can’t figure out.”

 

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