Page 45 of Hot Ice, Tennessee

I didn’t care if I was woozy on allergy pills or not. He was mesmerizing. Did he have this effect on everyone? And those—

“Tattoos,” I said out loud in a murmur, out of nowhere. Shit. That’s not how conversations worked.

“What about them?” Jesse asked.

“They’re just really nice. Do you have a favorite?”

There. That was a perfectly reasonable, grammatical English question.

“Maybe this,” Jesse said, sliding his hand out from where I was holding it and pointing to a tattoo on his other arm. “It’s called a summer redbird. I saw one the morning after I found out about my ex cheating, and I had one tattooed on me by the end of that week. She kind of marks the beginning of my fresh start, and I fucking love her.”

“So beautiful,” I said, and I meant it more than ever. It was one of my favorite tattoos of his, too, a gorgeous ruby red bird in flight, just below his elbow. “Hey, Jesse. You don’t have to stay here, if you have, y’know, places to be. Frat houses to… do frat things, in.”

He looked serious for a moment, glancing back down at my hand and squeezing it again, running his fingers along my palm now. “I have absolutely nowhere else to be, Mason.”

God, that feels so good. Keep doing that thing with your fingers. Forever, if you want.

A moment later I blinked my eyes open.

Shit.

Maybe it was more than amomentlater.

I was dozing off without realizing it.

“I’m awake. Is it almost time?”

“No. Because we’re calling this party off,” Jesse said. “Text your friends.”

“I can still… well, maybe I shouldn’t.”

“I think sleep is what you need most. Here.”

He handed me my phone. I grabbed it and thumbed through it, but with how drowsy I was, texting everybody honestly seemed like more effort than it was worth.

I waved my hand through the air.

“They can still come over. Just tell them I’m sleeping.”

Jesse smiled. “You are so fucking cute.”

Ugh.

Yes.

I liked that. Way too much.

“Fine. Help me out,” I asked him, navigating to my texts. “Top three group chats. Just sayparty’s off, or something. They’ll understand.”

“Okay,” Jesse said, and he sat next to me, thumbing through and tapping out a message to the group chats as I watched. “Done. They all know.”

My eyes scanned the previous messages on the screen of the last group chat, and I bit my tongue as I saw the top one.

I’d messaged them earlier today:

>>Mason: Is it bad to want to fuck your friend’s brother? For context, hypothetically, he’s the hottest person you’ve seen in years. Keep that in mind.

I had no clue if Jesse had seen that text or not, but the look on his face was pretty goddamn satisfied right now. A moment later he put my phone down on the coffee table, turning to me.

---