Inviting Staci out for a night with the boys might not have been my brightest idea, but I knew she would never agree to come out with me alone. She had agreed to this friendship, but she wasn’t stupid.

“So, is this Staci chick hot?” Drew asked before taking a sip of his beer.

Drew and I had been friends since we started working construction together when we were eighteen years old, and when I decided to open my own company, he was the first man I wanted on my team.

“She’s hot as hell.” It wasn’t a lie. Staci was incredibly hot, but she was so much more than that. She was fucking beautiful. “But she’s off limits.”

“I thought you said the two of you were just friends?” He smirked.

“We are just friends. For now.” Another one of my brilliant ideas, but the idea of Staci just shutting me out after the night we had together completely fucked with my head. I didn’t do second dates or second hookups, whatever you wanted to call it. I sure as hell didn’t develop friendships based off one night of the best sex I had ever had in my life, but something with Staci was different. It may have made me a pussy, but I would take time with her however I could get it.

“Are you whipped?” my other buddy, Nate, said from the pool table next to us.

“That’s a lot coming from you. What time did your wife say you had to be home?” I looked down at my watch, but not before I saw him flipping me off.

“You laugh now, but you should see this thing she can do with her tongue.”

I held up my hands for him to stop after I almost spewed my beer. “Don’t you try to fuck up the angelic image I have of Macy in my mind.” We gave Nate shit about being wrapped around his wife’s little finger all the time, but in reality, that motherfucker got so lucky. Macy was a damn catch, and he was right to thank his lucky stars he had her.

“Holy shit.” Drew let out a low whistle, and I turned my attention to the door where he was staring.

Holy shit was right.

Staci was standing in the doorway looking around the crowded bar. She was wearing a tiny pair of shorts so short her front pockets hung below the hem and a black tank top that put her tattoos on full display. So damn gorgeous.

“Don’t embarrass me, assholes.”

I quickly finished off my beer before making my way to her. She was still scanning the crowd, but when her eyes hit mine, she smiled.

And that fucking smile clouded my mind far more than any alcohol I had drunk even dreamed of.

“You came.” I wrapped my arms around her tiny frame and pulled her into me.

“Of course I came. I told you I would.”

She wrapped her arms around me, but I could feel the hesitation in her touch. When I finally let her out of my hold, she straightened her shirt and looked around the bar.

“Do you actually have other friends or was that just a ploy to get me here?”

I put my hand over my heart as if she had wounded me. “You think so little of me?”

She shrugged her shoulders and a playful smile pulled across her cherry red lips.

I placed my hand on the small of her back and led her to our table toward the back of the bar. Drew and Nate were both sitting at the table, and I rolled my eyes at the matching shit-eating grins on their faces.

I pulled out a chair for Staci. “Guys, this is Staci. Staci, that is Nate and that is Drew.”

“Nice to meet you both.”

“You too,” Nate said as Drew nodded his head in unison.

I was a bit worried that things would get awkward since they didn’t know each other, but I should have had more faith in Staci.

She held her hand up against the side of her face so I couldn’t see her mouth, but she didn’t quiet her words. “I’m actually glad to see you’re both real. I was a little worried that Mason was luring me to my death or something. I wasn’t quite sure he really had any friends.”

“He’s actually paying us to be here to impress you.” Nate smirked at me, “But he really should have hired some less attractive friends so he could have looked better, ya know?”

Staci looked around the table then her eyes settled on me. “I see what you mean. It does make him lose his allure somehow.”

“Okay. That’s enough, assholes.” I poked her in her side, and she laughed as the server came to our table.

“I’ll take tequila on the rocks.” Staci pulled out her card, but I pushed her hand back toward her lap.

“Just put it on mine.” I looked up at the server who had been giving me fuck me eyes since we walked in the place.

“No way.” Staci jerked her hand away from mine to hold her card up again. “I’m paying for my own drinks.”

“No. You’re not.” I shook my head calmly when she looked anything but.

“Mason, I swear to God.”

I just ignored her and winked at the server before she walked away.

She narrowed her eyes at the retreating waitress then turned her glare to me.

“We need to set some ground rules.”

“Ground rules?” I could see my buddies watching me, both with grins on their faces.

“Yes. Ground rules of our friendship.”

“And what would these ground rules be exactly?”

“Well, for one, no paying for my stuff. I’m a grown ass woman.”

“Uh huh.” I took a slow sip of my beer as I watched her tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. “And the second?”

“I’ll have to think about it.” She crossed her arms over her chest and looked around the bar.

“What about hooking up with other people?” I asked casually.

She didn’t turn to look at me as she said, “What do you mean?”

“Is it going to bother you if we hook up with other people?”

“We are friends, Mason.” She finally looked at me. “Do you and Parker care if one of you hooks up with someone else?”

“No.” I watched her eyes for any trace of something more before I leaned in and whispered, “But I also didn’t fuck Parker until he was screaming my name.”

She blushed, just a trace of pink tinted her cheeks. “I wouldn’t say that I screamed,” she whispered back so Nate and Drew wouldn’t hear.

“Yeah.” I chuckled. “I guess it was pretty hard with Brandon in the next room.”

She rolled her eyes, but there was a small smile on her lips.

“So, rule number two is neither one of us can get jealous?” I watched her.

“Agreed. No jealousy. Whatsoever.”

“And if one of us does get jealous, we tell the other.”

She nodded her head. “It won’t happen, but agreed.”

I followed her eyes to where she was now watching Drew and Nate who had left us alone at the table and picked up pool sticks.

“You want to play?”

“Sure. Against each other or you and me against them?”

“That depends. How good are you?”

“Good.” I chuckled.

“Me too.” She grinned. “Let’s smoke their asses.”