Page 281 of Rogue Riders Duet

“Come on. Let’s go.”

“Can I go like this?” I ask after I pull on one of my oversized T-shirts, eyeing my loose shorts and bare knees.

“Sure.”

As I snag my pill organizer off the shelf, Mason watches me, quieter for a moment.

I glance at him, then down at the pills before swallowing them dry. “I take the smallest dose that still works. I’m careful.”

He didn’t ask, but I still want to reassure him, and he gives me a grateful nod before we walk toward the front of the bus.

He pauses at the door. “You ready?”

He’s still holding my hand, and he’s going to have to let go before we walk out.

I take a breath, straighten my spine, and hold back a wince at feeling the binder again. Then I drop my voice to the low tone I use with everyone outside our inner circle. “Ready.”

Mason laughs. “Fuck. I have no idea how I didn’t see right through your cover. Your man voice is so damn bad.”

“No, it’s not,” I say, dropping it even lower just to mess with him.

He groans. “Okay, Darth Vader. Calm down.”

We both laugh as we grab the water bottles he brought and head outside. The morning sun is crisp as we walk across the lot toward the chaos that is Luc’s pit.

The pink tent is halfway up, and the crew is wrestling with one of the vinyl banners while Luc stands dead center, holding a corner of it, his expression locked somewhere between majestic disdain and first-world agony.

I snort. “Why does he look like a toddler in time-out?”

“Because he is.” Mason chuckles as we both drop onto the low metal railing across from the pit. The warm steel presses into my shorts as I take a sip of the water then set the bottle down on the ground in front of me.

Luc’s entire face lights up like someone flipped a switch when he spots us. He abandons the vinyl, throwing both arms into the air to wave at us, like the toddler in question.

We’re both laughing at how adorable he looks, and I glance at Mason to see his ears turning a little red.

“Fuck,” Mason says through another chuckle.

He looks so happy. I’ve never seen him like this, and it hits me hard, because yeah, I have the same problem.

“I have no idea what he’s doing to me,” he says quietly. “I think about him all the time.” He glances my way. “Is it just me, or…”

“No, it’s not just you. I’m probably thinking about that boy more than he thinks in general.”

But he shares that space in my head with you and Finn.

Mason throws his head back and laughs loud and hard.

He looks fucking adorable when he laughs.

Yeah, I’m so fucked.

Luc seems to have heard him, too, because he glances over, still grinning like sunshine, and gives me a little nod of approval.

I grin back at him, everything in me feeling lighter.

But then a shadow falls over us as a guy steps right in front of the sun, phone already up like we’re on stage, and he’s filming a goddamn documentary.

“Allen Crews!”