Page 49 of Enemies with Benefits (Finding the Right Brother #1)

He shrugged. “Emotions don't make sense, and they don't exactly have good timing.

Plus, it makes sense. A lot of what we've done together has involved anger, so it kind of makes sense that my brain would take your anger as a signal for sex.

Plus, it's a little sexy to hear you get so pissed in defense of someone else. "

"You have...so many problems."

"Tell me something I don't already know

"I'm grateful."

He blinked. “What?"

"To you. For helping me. And I'm not pissed at you for it. Or for what you said to my captain. So there's two things you didn't know."

He stared at me for a moment before a smile made itself known.

It was a little thing, even shy, seeming so at odds with the guy I knew.

Yet it also made sense because I had already come to the realization that there was a lot more to him than met the eye.

The Mason I thought I knew wouldn't have interfered to help me, he wouldn't have.

..stood up for me to my captain, and he wouldn't have taken care of me for however long I’d been there.

Even his suite showed more about him than I would have ever dared to assume, someone who had their passions and an inner world with more complexity and color than simply being a hedonistic jackass.

"Yeah, well, give it time, I'm sure I'll find a way to piss you off again," he said with a shrug.

I stared at him for a moment and scoffed. “You're as bad as me."

"Huh?"

"I don't know how to react when people thank me either or say nice shit about me. You make jokes, and I get grumpy."

"I don't know how to feel about us being so similar about something."

"I don't either. But I don't know how to feel much of anything right now."

His expression drooped, and I waited for him to inevitably change the subject to something easier to deal with.

Not that I blamed him, I didn't even want to deal with my emotions, I wasn't going to expect Mason, of all people, to want to deal with them.

I could usually trust myself to handle my shit, and there wasn't much point in dragging other people into the mess with me.

People had enough of their own shit without me throwing mine onto the heap, especially when I knew damn well I was adult enough to deal with it on my own.

"Look…" I began, and then stopped when he rolled his eyes. I narrowed mine. “What?"

"You're about to say something stupid and irritating," he said, getting up and unexpectedly dropping onto the couch next to me. "So whatever it is, spare me. Let me see your hand."

I glared at him, but against every instinct I normally had when it came to him, I held my hand out. He looked at the bandages and grunted. “Looks fine. It's not bleeding all over the place, so it means I stitched you up alright."

My eyes widened. "I...what? You gave me stitches?"

"What? I'm not allowed to have a multitude of skills?” he asked, arching a brow.

" Why do you know how to do that?"

"You know, it's amazing the things you pick up when you're young, dumb, and way too full of yourself."

"Never thought I'd hear you own up to that."

"What? I'm not allowed to know that I'm an arrogant ass now? Sheesh, I thought I’d have earned at least a little complexity."

I rolled my eyes. “Knowing how to stitch people up tells me plenty about what you've been up to since high school. I knew I should have looked up your record."

Mason snorted, grip warm on my wrist as he held it, no longer looking at my hand. "Well, can't really say you would have found much interesting. Most of my stuff was like...driving too fast along a long stretch of road when no one else was around."

I jerked my head toward him. “So you're admitting that was you?"

He laughed. “We both know that was me. You should’ve seen your face when I wouldn't admit to it, I thought you were going to explode."

"Because you're an asshole and you've always been an asshole!"

"Probably, but that's who I am. Just like you're dramatic."

"I am not."

"Sure, whatever you tell yourself to make yourself feel better."

I pulled my hand away, trying not to wince when I bumped it against my knee and sent a fresh wave of pain through it. "Why the fuck were you out there hot rodding? You're a full-grown man."

"And clearly, this full-grown man has done enough dangerous stuff in his time to learn how to stitch himself up rather than waste time going to a clinic or hospital."

"Where did you learn that anyway? Internet?"

"Dated a corpsman once. He was a regular font of information."

"I feel like looking into your dating history would be more informative."

He snorted. “Well, dated is a strong word. We had...an agreement."

"What, you sleep with each other and call it a day?"

"Sort of. He was bi too, but his family finding out would have been.

..problematic to put it lightly. He wasn't interested in anything serious with a woman at the time, and his family was okay with that.

But his family was why he wouldn't even dream of something serious with a guy.

Which was fine, he was good company, was pretty good in bed, and we didn't have any expectations, which made it easier for both of us.

No expectations, no drama, no worrying, just..

.enjoying each other's company for a while. "

"And not one of you ever...got feelings?"

"Don't get me wrong, we were actually super compatible, and I always thought that if we were able to give it a chance, we'd actually do well as a couple.

Maybe even make it for the long haul. But, considering his circumstances, that wasn't in the cards.

So, I just went with what I had and enjoyed it while it lasted. "

Exactly like the sort of thing I expected to hear come out of Mason's mouth.

Of course, not that long ago, I would have said it suited him perfectly to have a situation where he could get his fun without worrying about anything serious.

Which was probably partly true, he had never taken things all that seriously, but sitting here, having been taken care of by him at one of my weakest moments, I couldn't exactly say that he never took anything seriously.

And even if he took more things seriously than I once believed, there was no denying that something about it worked for him.

In many ways, it probably worked out better than my constant worrying about everything.

After all, what did all my thinking, obsessing, and worrying get me in the end?

Sure, it sometimes let me prepare for something coming my way, but that wasn't guaranteed.

Whereas he could get through life without worrying too hard, taking things as they came, and adapting to them.

..or shrugging them off because they didn't affect him like they might me.

Which begged the question...had I always hated that about him, or had I simply, deep down, been envious of the way nothing fazed him?

Was it that his apparent disinterest in being mature was just a mask of jealousy because he could get through life without destroying everything around him, and without stressing himself to his wits' end?

It always seemed like I had no choice in what I did or didn't take seriously, whereas choosing what was serious and what was inconsequential came easy to him.

That raised another question...why had he chosen to take care of me at a bad moment as something important?

Was whatever was going on between us somehow significant to him rather than a bit of fun?

A Mason who simply enjoyed teasing and taunting me, who was just in it for the sex, was the sort of Mason I could cope with.

But a Mason who might actually turn his attention toward me and consider me.

..important? Now that was a version of Mason I didn't know how to handle.

I flinched when I felt a finger prod my forehead a few times, and I looked at him, frowning at his smirk. “You're in your head again. Quit."

"That's where I live most of the time," I said, giving his hand a half-hearted swat. "You should try it sometime."

"Yeah, see, I look at people like you and Moira, who always seem so serious, stressed out, and unhappy from all the thinking, and I think...yeah, that's not for me," he said with a snort. "The only time I ever see you 'in the moment' is when you're pissed...or we're having sex."

"Was that your version of a come on?" I asked with a scowl. "Because I'm not pissed and I'm not ? —"

" Calm thyself," he said, his tone teasing but his smile soft. "I wasn't trying to get in your pants...again."

"Huh? We never..." I looked down and realized I wasn't in my uniform. I was in a pair of lounge pants I didn't recognize and a shirt that wasn't mine. "Oh."

"Wow, you've really been out of it," he said with a shake of his head.

I frowned at what had to be the understatement of the century.

He had not only led me to his private room without me noticing what was going on, but cleaned and dressed the injury on my hand, and had stripped me of my clothes as well, all without my paying the slightest attention or remembering.

It wasn't like he hadn't seen me naked before, but?—

"I've seen you naked before," he said, unnerving me with his apparent new mind-reading abilities. "You don't really think I tried to like...feel you up while you were a zombie, right?"

"You know," I said, comforted by the fact that he wasn't in fact able to read minds. "Maybe I would have said something about you once, but no, I wasn't even thinking that. It just...feels weird, knowing I was naked while you were...I don't know, it's weird. I don't know how to say it."