Fake Friends - Saxon James Page 0,19

I’m not sure how that would work, but hey, wishful thinking?

Cannot predict now.

Well, fuck you very much.

Since when do sentient objects give you sass?

My doorbell sounds, sending my gut into a spin. Apparently the few hours since I saw him this morning haven’t been enough notice for my nerves because now they’re going haywire.

I drop my head back and try to school my face back into that I-don’t-actually-care expression I’d managed for most of yesterday.

Then I head out to let him in.

I try to look bored even as I picture him all tall and sexy, with that wiry hair that constantly makes him look like he’s just been fucked. Even when it’s as sweaty as it was this morning.

Scratch that: especially when it’s as sweaty as it was this morning.

But when I pull open the door, I’m hit with a totally different sight.

“Surprise!” Leon says, holding up a six-pack of beer. “I felt bad about leaving last night, so I decided to stop by and thought we could order takeout.”

No, no, no, no, no.

He doesn’t wait to be invited in, which isn’t something that has ever bothered me before but suddenly does now.

“This is a surprise.” I smile, baring all my teeth, and he laughs.

“I thought you’d be happier to see me.”

“I didn’t think I’d be seeing you at all.”

I trail after him toward the kitchen, where he puts the beer in the fridge and pulls one out. “You want?”

“Not right now.”

He shrugs and opens the screw top with his forearm. Then he grins at me. Widely.

He’s being weird.

I can’t quite work out why, but he doesn’t make a move to do anything other than watch me while he sips from the bottle, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say he was waiting for something.

“What’s going on with you?” I ask suspiciously.

“Nothing at all. Just wanted to spend time with a friend. Oh—” His eyebrows shoot up like he’s just remembered something, but it’s not convincing. “You didn’t have plans, did you? Shit, and here I’ve gone and started drinking and everything.”

Busted.

But how does he know?

“Who told you?”

“Told me what?”

I eye him, trying to work out if he’s still shitting me or not, when my doorbell rings again.

His smile widens. “Better get that.”

Fucker. Oh yeah, he knows.

And I don’t know what game he’s playing by showing up, but I don’t like it.

When I open the door, and this time Rowan is the one standing there, I suddenly decide that Leon being here is a good thing.

A very good thing.

Maybe even the best thing to ever happen to me.

Because dear God, Rowan looks sexy.

I eye the pizza box he’s carrying.

“What’s that?”

Maybe asking him to bring dinner was a dumb choice because I forgot to let him know about one tiny thing. The fact I don’t eat meat. And knowing Rowan, that thing is going to be packed with animal carcasses.

I step aside and wave him down the hall, not bothering to warn him about Leon’s presence. If the way he eyes me when he walks past is any indication, it’s probably better he thinks I invited Leon anyway.

The less connection he thinks there is here, the better.

Tonight is going to be fine.

I see the exact moment Rowan realizes we have company. His back tenses and he glances back over his shoulder at me.

“Leon,” he says, forcing a friendly tone.

Leon crosses his beefy arms over his chest and forces one word out on a grunt. “Harvey.”

Wow. Tonight is going to be a riot.

“Well, it’s a good thing I made a large,” Rowan says, dropping the pizza box on the counter. He starts opening and closing cupboards at random, making himself at home. It’s a weird feeling to have anyone over, let alone two people both equally trying to look more relaxed here than the other.

I have to hold back a laugh.

“So, you two, how was the shoot yesterday?”

Rowan’s hand slips from the cupboard door, but he quickly hides his fumble.

“It was fine,” I say. “So nice of you to stop by for the viewing.”

I catch Leon’s eyes, and he does that grin where his lips don’t move under his beard, but his eyes crease up at the edges. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Total pain in my ass, I swear.

Rowan starts dishing the food onto three plates. “Did Circus tell you it was me?”

“Nope. He put up a photo yesterday, and since I follow that account, I realized it was you straightaway. Not many people in Sunbury with full sleeves.”

Rowan’s face