His brother shoved one of the cups into Mason’s hands before pushing his way inside and heading straight for the kitchen. Mason glared at Spencer’s back, taking a sip of the coffee and slamming the front door pointedly before following the other man. Cooper was happily greeting Spencer, who had seated himself at the island in the center of the room. The guy was more than a little wet but didn’t seem to notice it.
“What the hell do you want, Spencer?” Mason asked impatiently, sitting down next to him. “It’s not even six yet. It’s freezing outside, and I’m hungover because you dragged me out last night.”
“Did Tanya ever hit on you?”
Whoa. Mason, who’d been about to say even more about his brother’s ill-timed visit, felt his mouth slam shut.
“Why are you asking me that?” he asked, monitoring Spencer’s reaction carefully.
“After you left last night, I ran into Graham Price, remember him?”
Mason vaguely recalled a guy about Spencer’s age, good with cars or something.
“Yeah?”
“Graham was drunk and congratulated me on my breakup with that treacherous skank, said she hit on everything with a dick. I mean, it wasn’t news to me, I know that she cheated on me. Saw it with my own eyes. But suddenly every guy I know has a story about how she hit on him and how lucky I am to be rid of her. And it got me thinking . . . every guy I know has a story. But not you. You never once said anything—good or bad—about her, and I was just wondering, you know. Did she ever hit on you?”
“What difference would it make if she did or didn’t?” Mason asked cautiously, hating that bitch for putting him in this position.
“Well, you’re my brother, and I reckon you would have warned me about her if she’d ever put the moves on you, right? You wouldn’t have let me just go on seeing that cheating bitch?”
Shit.
“Yeah, she hit on me, Spence,” Mason admitted, taking a deep sip of his now-lukewarm coffee, and watched his brother’s shoulders tense as he absorbed the blow.
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me, Mason?” Spencer asked, seething frustration in his voice.
“I was going to, I was trying to figure out how, but then you caught her with those guys and everything went to hell. Telling you at that time would just have poured salt on the wound and telling you afterward seemed unnecessary. You’d already heard about her from other guys, hearing it from me wouldn’t have made any difference. It would only have hurt you more. You get that, don’t you? I didn’t want to make it worse for you.”
Spencer didn’t say anything; he kept his gaze focused on his coffee.
“I feel like such an idiot,” he confessed after a long silence. “I thought she was the one, man.”
“I know.”
“So last night was a colossally stupid idea.” The abrupt change in subject threw Mason, and it took a moment for him to regroup.
“Things didn’t go too well with Daffodil McGregor, did they?” he asked with a slight grin, and Spencer huffed.
“I don’t know, man, at times she seemed to really enjoy dancing with me, but afterward it was like she didn’t even know I was there,” Spencer said.
“Pretty much like it’s always been, then?”
“Yeah, sorry again for saddling you with the other one.”
“Daisy,” Mason reminded, and Spencer nodded.
“Yes, her. I felt like a bit of an asshole when she overheard our conversation,” Spencer admitted, and Mason’s brow lifted.
“Only a bit? Spencer, the whole messed-up situation didn’t sit right with me from the beginning. She’s a nice lady; she didn’t deserve any of the shit we piled on her last night.”
“I said I was sorry,” Spencer grunted defensively, and Mason swallowed down a surge of irritation. His brother was a clueless idiot, but he was a hurting clueless idiot at the moment.
“To me. Not to her, and she’s the one who deserves the apology.”
“It’s not like I’ll see much of her again. Like you said last night, the McGregor sisters don’t run in our circles, and that one is the least sociable of the three, so we’re even less likely to see her.”
“About that.” Mason absently patted Cooper’s head, which was resting on his knee, while the dog stared up at him with slavish devotion. Having never had a dog of his own before, the last year with Coop had been eye opening. It was awesome having a buddy to hang out with during the day but also wholly uncomfortable being the animal’s whole world. For someone who had never had anyone or anything so defenseless depend on him before, Mason still felt somewhat awkward in his new role of sole caregiver to a dog.
“About what?” Spencer prompted, and Mason’s train of thought came back on track with a bump.
“You’ll likely be seeing a bit more of Daisy McGregor than usual over the next couple of weeks. I’ve agreed to be her date to her sister’s wedding.”
“Daisy McGregor’s date?”
“Yes.” Mason took another sip of his—now cold—coffee and grimaced before setting it aside. He got up and moved around his kitchen, getting a pot of coffee brewing, while keenly aware of his brother’s eyes boring into his back.
“Why?” Spencer asked, the word a study in perplexity.
“Because she asked me.”
“Even after overhearing the conversation between us? The chick must be more desperate than I thought.”
“She’s not desperate.” Mason found himself defending Daisy, even while admitting to himself that maybe she had been a little desperate to make the proposition in the first place. “She’s just . . . clever. This way she has a date for her sister’s wedding but without any commitment or emotional entanglements.”
“I’ll be damned.” Spencer’s voice sounded almost admiring. “She used your guilt against you, didn’t she?”
Mason turned to face his brother, trying to keep his expression as neutral as possible.
“You want some breakfast? Bacon and scrambled eggs?”
“I could eat. So how will this whole wedding date business work? I mean, people will know right off the bat that it’s just a pity thing on your side.”
Mason didn’t respond to that, he grabbed the eggs and bacon from the fridge and got busy preparing breakfast.