Mason growled. “I punched you back then. I will do it again.”

“What?” Logan gestured to his face. “Not this. It’s gotta stay pretty. Mama Malinda will have your ass in a sling otherwise.” He paused, his eyes alive and sparkling as they skirted between Mason and me. His lip curved even higher. “What do you think, Sam? What would they have called us? You and Mason are Samson. We could’ve been…Samog? No. That doesn’t sound right. Sagan? Lotha? Those don’t sound right either. What about just SamLo? Nah, still not right.”

Mark poured himself a glass, and he was now watching Logan. His eyes kept glancing from one side of the table to our side. His hand tightened around the glass, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.

Mason reached for his pen and leaned closer to his brother across the table. “Shut up.” He moved with lightning speed, bringing down his hand and slamming the pen into the table. As he sat back, the pen stayed upright, wedged between two of Logan’s fingers.

Everyone’s eyes got big.

Mason moved so quickly. We realized the precision of his aim after it was already done.

Logan was the first to react. A laugh came from him. It got louder and stronger. He was shaking his head at the same time. “I love messing with you.”

“You’re going to regret it.”

The laughter died. Logan grew still. “What do you mean?”

“When you get a woman who you love…” Mason glanced sideways to me. “When she means the world to you and you’re ready to do anything to keep her safe, I’m going to enjoy doing the same shit you’ve been doing all summer.”

“Well,” Logan’s eyebrows bunched together, and the corners of his mouth curved down, “that won’t be very nice of you.”

“Karma’s a bitch.” It was softly spoken, but it was a taunt, and everyone knew it.

Logan looked at me. A question was there. He wanted to ask me something, but I shook my head. I was annoyed too.

Yes, there could’ve been a Logan and Sam, but it hadn’t happened. Logan could’ve been a boyfriend, but Mason was my soul mate. The tension of that question, if Logan had feelings for me or not, had been plaguing us for a while. It was dealt with last year, right before the fraternity burned down. That truth came out, that there could’ve been an us with Logan and me. Mason took it easier than I’d realized.

And what Mason said was true. Logan had been making jokes about us a lot more lately. I couldn’t help to think it had more to do with the fact that Kris and he were finally done. They’d broken up, gotten back together, and repeated that chain of events throughout the entire year. Their final, final breakup was four months earlier. Weeks before our graduation, Logan dumped Kris at a party, and he’d gone back to his man-whoring ways that night. There were rumors he’d gotten blow jobs from two different girls that night, at the same party, and he’d gone home with someone else.

Girls were friendlier to me now than they’d been when Logan was serious with Kris. I wasn’t dumb. I’d learned to recognize the I-want-to-use-you-because-you’re-close-to-Logan-Kade looks from a distance. I was able to evade their hooks. When I couldn’t, my best friend, Heather Jax, had no problem removing the hooks for me.

Thinking about Heather now, I glanced at the clock on the wall.

I needed to go for hair primping with Malinda, her two sisters, and her best friend. I knew their daughters would be there, too. But no Heather.

“What?” Mason asked.

I asked back, “What?”

“You sighed. What’s wrong?”

“Oh.” Images of hairstylists, the smell of hairspray, and the sound of giggles and whispers all plagued me at once. I cringed. “I was just wishing that Heather didn’t have to work today.”

“Nate’s coming tonight. He has some meeting at Cain U, but he’ll be driving down later. Jax is coming tonight, isn’t she?”

I nodded at Logan. “Yeah. She’ll get off in time for the wedding dance.”

“Thank god.” He raked a hand through his hair. “She and Channing are on the outs now, aren’t they?”

I stiffened. It was true. Heather and her off-again, on-again boyfriend from Roussou, Channing, were in one of their off times, and the feisty back and forth between her and Logan increased over the last three weeks.

The look in Logan’s eyes didn’t sit right with me. Still. If Heather wanted to sleep with Logan, there was nothing I could do. It wasn’t like she didn’t know what she would be getting into, but I heard myself saying, “If you do what I think you’re going to do…” I paused to make sure Logan knew I was being serious.

He did. He moved in slow motion, so he was sitting at his highest height. The wicked glint he’d had when he came into the dining room now dimmed slightly. A more sobering look replaced it, and as he held my gaze, his head lowered just a bit. He was on my same level now.

I said, “You need to remember that she is the one female who’s been a true friend to me. Do not shit on my friend’s doorstep. You got that?”

His jaw clenched. “Jax isn’t like the others, Sam. I respect her.”

“Make sure to keep that respect afterward, too.”

A phone buzzed from the counter, and Mark went to grab it. After he read the text, he looked up. “Uh, Sam?”

I already knew what was coming, and I started to stand from the chair.