a hardship for you.”
Flushing, Ransom touched his neck—in the wrong spot. “This was before she found out about her friend. Since the police came, she’s been alternating between making calls and crying, but that’s understandable given that they were roommates. It’s pretty messed up. So is your girl’s face.” Ransom leaned on the counter, raising a brow. “Are we gonna hunt down the bastard who did that to her, or what?”
“Don’t tempt me,” Mason growled, tightly clenching the neck of his beer. A small but ominous crack forced him to relax his hold.
“I was planning on it,” he admitted after a moment. “But I don’t want to muddy the waters. If the police are looking at Dubey as a person of interest in this death, then kicking the living shit out of him will just complicate this clusterfuck.”
Ransom sniffed, then took a swig of his beer. “Do you think they’re going to be able to pin anything on that asswipe? Rosamie says he has more money than God.”
“The money is a problem. But no one is untouchable.” Mason’s eye gravitated back to Laila the way it always did. She was nodding at something Rosamie was saying.
He took another sip of his beer. “Patience is a virtue.”
Mason gave the girls the better part of an hour together. He hoped it would give them time to get the sharpest part of their grief up and out of their system before deciding that was wishful thinking.
That was going to take time, lots of it. Mason’s thoughts were on grief and how everyone experienced it in different ways, but that still didn’t prepare him for the sight that greeted him when he walked back into the living room
“We have to make some plans…” His voice trailed off as Laila twisted to face him. Her adorable little mug was twisted, her fingers pulling down her lower eyelids. But that wasn’t half as bad as Rosamie.
The small Filipina was pushing up her nose with one finger. She’d somehow managed to flip both her upper eyelids inside out.
“Woah.” Ransom skidded to a stop next to Mason. Then he burst out laughing. “I never met a girl who could do that, too.” He then flipped his own eyelids up, making a snorting sound echoed by the diminutive Filipina.
Suppressing a shudder, Mason pointed to Laila. “You, still adorable. These other two knuckleheads, however, are grotesque.”
“Sorry,” Laila said, rubbing the tear tracks off her cheeks with the heels of her hands. “It’s just something stupid we do to make ourselves feel better.”
He put a hand up. “You do whatever you have to do.”
Ransom held out two beers to the ladies.
Fishing a tissue out of her purse, Rosamie wiped her face in straightforward, no-nonsense swipes. “Got anything stronger, playboy?”
Mason turned, fishing bottles of port and whiskey from the chest that served as his liquor cabinet. Laila took the port. Rosamie, predictably, the whiskey.
He took a seat on the other couch, outlining his concerns. “Rosamie, it may not be the best idea for you to stay in the dorm alone. Is there someplace you could go?”
Rosamie frowned. “I’m not going to let that asshole chase me off campus.”
Laila took a sip of the port, coughing. “Are you sure you want to stay in that room without Jas? You have to move out next week, regardless.”
“What?” Ransom perked up.
“It’s the end of the quarter,” Laila explained. “The summer session starts in two weeks. We have to be cleared out of the graduate dorm a week before so they can clean before the incoming students. Our dorm will be filled with high school students doing special programs for college credit.”
“I thought you were done with classes.”
“I am, but Rosamie is not,” Laila said.
“I move back in with my family in summer,” Rosamie said in a flat voice that spoke to her enthusiasm level. “To save money.”
“I was going to stay on with Joe this summer while I searched for jobs in my field,” Laila said, her eyes dropping to her hands. “But before that plan, Rose and I were going to try and sublet a place together. Maybe we should try again.”
“No,” both he and Ransom said it at the same time.
Ransom tsked. “It’s not a good idea, doll face,” he said, sitting on the couch’s arm next to the Filipina. “If some shit went down, then you two living alone is a security risk. I mean, look at you. I know you can throw a punch, but you’re kind of a shrimp.”
Scowling, Rosamie