Royal Jester

8. Mason

Mason paused the show playing on his laptop, straining to hear the two voices drifting from the living room.

One was clearly Paris's and the other one- well he definitely didn't fucking recognize it.

He shut his laptop, leisurely walking out of his room and into the living room before stopping short at the sight of Paris. She certainly looked different. Her hair wasn't up for once and she was wearing sweat shorts and a cropped tank top of some sort with a simple jacket thrown over it. 

She always wore dresses and skirts but he swore he'd never seen so much of her skin exposed.

Upon further inspection he realized that whilst he didn't recognize the voice of her guest, he certainly fucking recognized the actual person. 

"Why the hell is he here?" At the sound of Mason's voice, Paris's laughter stopped. Why had she been laughing anyway? There was no way that Caleb was that fucking funny.

"If you must know," she rolled her eyes. She was holding a book, Mason noticed; clutching it to her chest with a vice like grip. "Caleb is my partner in class. We're meeting up tonight to talk about the project."

"Nice to see you Mason," said partner grinned at Mason. 

"And you decided to meet here because," he trailed off. "The school has a library for a fucking reason you know."

"Hence why we will be leaving to go there now," Paris suddenly freed one of her hands from the book and reached down to grab Caleb's wrist. Why in the hell was that necessary? 

"I was just picking her up," Caleb adjusted his arm slightly so that Paris's hand fell into his own. "But we're leaving now so no need to worry," he smiled.

Fucking condescending asshole. 

"Actually you could just work here if you want," Mason smirked as Paris's eyes narrowed. "You won't even notice I'm home," he stressed the last word as casually as physically possible. This was his place, and Caleb would do fucking well to remember that.

"I think we're fine actually," the guy before him returned Mason's smirk with his own smug smile.

"Aww," he forced a grin, "Am I ruining your date?" A sudden movement caught his eye and he glanced down just as Caleb linked her fingers through his. Sleazebag, Mason thought with an eyeroll. 

"You'd actually have to be a part of something to ruin it," his roommate responded. He couldn't believe she was defending such a shitty human being right in front of him. 

There had to be someway to get her out of such an awful situation. 

"Oh fine," he groaned. "But before you go you might want to check your face wash, something looked kind of off earlier when I saw it."

She glared at him, freeing her hand of Caleb's to move towards Mason. "If you did something to my face wash-," she cut herself off with a sigh of frustration. 

"Damn," Mason whistled exaggeratedly, "Making empty threats now are we?"

"A threat is only a warning, this is a promise."

Mason could physically feel his own eyes widen. For someone so elegant, she was fucking terrifying when she wanted to be. 

She pushed past him and into the bathroom, opening the cupboard to find her face wash. "Did you replace it with something gross," she called out to him. "If you think pranking me with my own idea would work then get ready to be disappointed."

"Already prepared," he responded distractedly as he watched the fucking asshole lean back against the wall. He moved towards the kitchen - keeping his eye on Caleb the entire time - before slowly walking back towards the bathroom.