Page 124 of Exposed

Mason always surprised me. When I first met him he’d seemed so cold. But I knew that wasn’t true. “I missed you too, Mason.”

He smiled down at me.

“Can I cut in?” Rob asked.

Mason took a step back. “She’s all yours, man.” He dropped my hands and Rob grabbed them.

I looked over at Matt standing by the bar as Rob pulled me closer.

It suddenly felt a lot like homecoming 16 years ago. And I was pretty sure that was a bad thing. I stole another glance at Matt. He didn’t look upset. But my heart started racing thinking about how that dance had ended. God, what if Kennedy was wrong? What if this club wasn’t as private as she said? What if anyone could just walk in and…

“You’re not going to have another panic attack on me, are you?” Rob touched the side of my face so I’d look at him. “Take a deep breath.”

I stared up at him and exhaled slowly.

“And another.”

I laughed. “I’m okay. But thank you.” It was easy to not panic when I was around Rob.

“You know…I’ve been thinking a lot about when we used to hang out back in high school.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Specifically whenever it was just the two of us.”

I stared up at him. “I remember dancing with you at homecoming. Just like this. But we mostly hung out with other people around.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“It definitely is. I remember being in class with you and Matt. And in your treehouse with James.”

“Right. But that wasn’t what I was referring to. Think, Sanders. Think real hard.”

“We were never alone.”

“I mean Matt was close by. Come on, I know you remember. When I pushed you into Matt’s bedroom and held the door shut.”

“Oh.” I definitely remembered that. God, I’d been so mad at him.

“If I recall correctly, you screamed my name….”

Ooooh. Oh, no.Shit.He wasn’t seriously going to…

“You still owe me a favor, Sanders.”

“Rob, I definitely do not.”

“You absolutely do. You screamed my name. We had an agreement. You’re at my mercy.”

“I pulled that prank on Isabella. That counted.”

He shook his head. “No, we agreed that didn’t count. Because you wanted to do that. You wanted revenge.”

“I did not want to dothat.”

He laughed. “I’ll admit, you weren’t privy to all the details. But you loved it. I mean…up until Matt lost it. And you died or whatever.”

“Died or whatever?Rob.”