He barked out a laugh. “You do that, you’d have to carry me back down. You’d probably knock me out.”

“I’d call Logan. He’d figure out how to get you back on the ground.”

“Fuck.” He grimaced, some of the blood draining from his face. “He’d probably lower me down with a rope tied around my waist. He’d get me killed.”

“But it’d be on me because I punched you in the first place.”

He laughed, and I joined in.

I rubbed a hand over my forehead. “You’re right. My brother would kill you, somehow.”

“Speaking of death,” Nate looked over his shoulder and down to the ground. “Can we please leave this thing? Logan’s batshit crazy for coming up here whenever he does.”

I stifled a small shudder and stood. “Let’s go.” Once we were heading down, I asked, “Where is Logan?”

Nate was ahead of me and he tossed back over his shoulder, “Said something about picking Taylor up. She went out with some girls and got drunk.”

“Girls?” I paused, mid-step.

Sam?

SAMANTHA

Kapow!

I hopped, threw my hand out in a karate chop, and let out a half-growl/half-gurgle. Then I snapped up my leg.

“Uh . . .” Heather traded looks with Taylor. Both were holding back grins. “Whatcha doing, Sam?”

“I’m karate-chopping your ass.” And I leaped in a circle, my hand out in another chop! before I raised my knee. I pretended to take someone’s head in my hands and rammed them down on my knee. “This is what I’m going to do to Faith Shaw if I see her on a bad night.” I swung my arms around in a wide circle, then brought them together as if I were praying. As a snarl formed on my mouth, I shoved my hands out, palms flat. “And I’ll break her nose, just like that.”

I was panting.

I frowned. That didn’t make sense.

I was drunk. With that realization, I lifted one leg, my arms to the side like I was going to do the crane kick move from The Karate Kid. “And hi-ya!” I smiled at them. “Did you hear that? I just dislocated her shoulder, all with one move.”

“Okay.” Heather moved around me out the door. “Bring those fighting moves this way. You’re holding up traffic.”

Taylor had left the group when we decided to leave. I had to run to the bathroom, and when I came back, Heather said Taylor had called a car for us and was waiting outside. Courtney and Grace were giggling at me, but I didn’t care. Each move I made, they erupted in more laughter, their hands trying to hold it in. I didn’t know why they tried.

They weren’t the only ones watching. I declared after dancing that I needed more zen in my life. I was going to make Mason take yoga with me, but I couldn’t practice any positions on the nightclub’s floor—because disgusting—so I turned to my own rendition of tai chai. Heather said it was tai chi, but she was wrong. It was chai, just like the tea. I was adamant, and then that turned into my stealth ninja moves.

Each step I took out of the club was a ninja move. I was just through the doors.

We’d started ten minutes ago.

“Sorry.” I heard Heather say to someone just behind me.

“No, no. This is entertaining as hell,” an amused guy responded. “I think I reached my black belt just watching her.”

“Hi-ya!” I leaped again, rounding back on whoever was behind me, and I pretended to ram my elbow into his chest.

Two guys were there, smiling and looking me over approvingly. The first one, who looked a little like Mason, smirked and stepped even closer. If I shifted an inch, my elbow really would’ve been pressed against his chest.

“What’s your fighting name?” he asked.

I paused, frowning. This didn’t feel right.

A door slammed behind us, and Heather cursed under her breath.

“Ninja Sam,” I said, a death warning on the tip of my tongue. But three things happened then.

First, the guys looked over my shoulder and paled, stepping back. Then my hair stood on end, and finally, a strong and masculine arm wrapped around my waist. It lifted me and threw me over a shoulder. My mind considered struggling, but my body was already melting. It recognized its mate.

“She’s mine,” Mason growled.

He carried me across the sidewalk and into the opened back door of Logan’s Escalade. I glimpsed the yellow, then Logan’s smirking face before Mason climbed into the backseat and lifted me onto his lap.

“Hi, Logan.” I waved a hand.

His eyes met mine in the mirror, but he only shook his head and waited until the rest of the girls got in. Once the last door was shut, he took off, and I curled into Mason’s arms and rested my head against his chest.

I looked up at him. “What are you doing here?”

His arms tightened around me. “Logan got a call to pick you up. I made him pick me up first.”

“Yeah?”

I smiled at him, and I knew I probably looked ridiculous—wasted and dreamy—but I didn’t care. I reached up and touched his chin, his very strong and hard chin with a dimple in it, and I let out a sigh.

“Thank you for coming.” We were broken up, but I didn’t care at that moment.

There was a lot I didn’t care about, but none of that was Mason. I was all sorts of caring about him.

His eyes darkened. “You had fun tonight?”

“I was missing you, then I was dancing.” I nodded, closing my eyes. “Then I became Ninja Sam.”

He chuckled, the sound washing over me and warming me. “Ninja Sam, huh?”

“Yes. She comes out when she has to take care of a problem.”

What the problem was, I couldn’t say.

Maybe I was missing him. Maybe it was because I wanted to call him, but knew the girls wouldn’t like that idea. Or maybe they would? I didn’t know. Or maybe it was just because I had too much alcohol in me, and I wasn’t thinking and just feeling, or no—I sat upright. My eyes opened wide.

“Sam?”

“Raelynn.”

Courtney, Grace, and Heather all turned around.

“What about her?” Courtney asked.

“Who’s Raelynn?” That was Heather.

“She was there.”

“What?” Courtney turned fully around, her hand holding onto the back of the seat between us. “Are you sure?”

“No.” Grace shook her head. “She’s injured. I talked to some of the girls, and they said she was still limping and stuff.”

“No.” I was certain. “Well, she might still be injured, but she walked past me. I was leaving the bathroom, and she was going in.”

“Did she see you?”

I frowned. “I recognized her, but I don’t think she did me. Her eyes were glazed over. She was holding hands with another girl.”

“Faith?”

“No. Someone else.” The more I thought about it, the better I remembered. There was no limp, no hesitation. She walked as freely as I did. “I guess she’s all healed up.”

“But that doesn’t mean anything. Walking doesn’t mean she can run.”

“Yeah.” I felt a pang in my chest. I nodded, moving my head against Mason’s chest. “You’re right.”

“Who is Raelynn, and who has faith?”

Grace started giggling at Heather’s question.

Even Courtney was fighting back a grin as she tried to explain. “Faith is the girl who—”

“Faith is Kate, but instead of Mason, it’s their cross-country team,” Logan cut in.

Heather nodded. “Ah. Got it.” She looked at me. “What a bitch.”

“Faith didn’t jump me in a bathroom.”

“That’s good.” Heather narrowed her eyes. “For her.”

“You were jumped?” Courtney asked.

I nodded. “I never did get her back.”

“We did.” Logan met my gaze in the rearview mirror. “We took care of her.”

That pang was there again, flipping over in my stomach now.

I peered up at Mason again, letting out a soft sigh.