Page 71 of Meet Mason, the Billionaire

“No, Brian,” I growled. “No. I know you hate that word, but N O. No.”

“Fine,” he snapped. “Then if that’s your decision, you can move all your shit out of my gallery.”

“You asshole. I knew you were going to pull something like this.”

“Look,” Brian said, sighing heavily. “I’m sorry. I’ll give you twenty-four hours to make up your mind. Just think about it, all right?”

He left me then and I fumed until I kicked an old soup can so hard it bounced off the brick walls of the alley three times.

Chapter Thirty

Mason

Perhaps because the portrait of my grandfather was so tantalizingly close, I dreamed of him once more. Looking back, I can’t say it was a good memory, but not really a bad one, either.

On the cusp of sixteen—driving age—I’d been full of piss and vinegar. Grandpa had me working on the garage, cleaning the gutters, and trimming hedges on his property because he said it was good for burning off all that ‘callow youth energy.’

If I’d been paying more attention, however, I’d have seen all the signs that he was not well, and unable to do those chores himself. He took a bit longer to get out of bed in the morning, where before he’d been up at the crack of dawn. A trek down the sidewalk would leave him gasping in a chair, even if he waved off my concerns with a voiceless smile and a wave of his gnarled hand.

Eventually, he went to the doctor for tests. Who’d then ordered him to go to a specialist for more tests, and more tests after that. I’d become accustomed to arriving home from school and finding the house empty save for ghosts.

So it was a real shock when I came home one Friday afternoon and found my grandfather not only up and about, but bent over the engine of a 60s era Chevy nova.

“Grandpa?” I put down my school bag and came up to his side. “What are you doing out of the hospital? I thought you were going to be in there until Monday?”

“Well, it’s not like they were going to cure me by then,” he said.

“Grandpa, what does that mean?”

He turned about, seeming more the virile man I’d remembered. His hands didn’t shake, and neither did his gaze waver as he rested a hand on my shoulder.

“I’m not going to beat around the bush, Mason. I’m dying.”

“What? No, the hospital can make you better—”

“Not with what I have, kiddo. I’m sorry I have to leave you, but I’ve made sure you were as strong as your father, as compassionate as your mother, and smarter than both of them put together. You’re going to do fine, my boy.”

My vision blurred with tears. “No! There must be something they can do.”

“Unfortunately, there’s not. I won’t go into the details, Mason. I’m not sure I understand them myself. But at this point, there’s nothing to be done for me.”

“But you’re doing better! You’re not out of breath, and you’re working on a car—”

“I’m on a cocktail of meds to keep me pain-free and functional. They work great in the short term, not so much in the long term—but then again, long term really isn’t a factor, is it?”

“But I don’t want you to go,” I said, breaking down. I didn’t sound like a young man full of piss and vinegar at that moment. I was a scared little boy who didn’t want to lose his grandpa.

“I know, and I don’t want to go either, but we can deal with this one of two ways. One, we can be all sad and spend what time I have left wishing I had more… or, or we could try to fit as many good times in here at the end of my life as possible. And you know there’s not much I enjoy more than restoring an old clunker to total cherry. Right?”

I wiped my tears. I didn’t want to have a good time. I wanted to scream and rage, and I did later, believe me. But at that moment I looked up at Grandpa and tried to keep my voice steady when I spoke.

“Where did the car come from?”

“An old friend who came to visit me in the hospital,” Grandpa said with a warm smile. “He’s got his own life, now his own grandkid to take care of, but he flew in special just to see me. We’re going out to dinner tomorrow night, and you'll be at your Aunt Magnolia’s.”

Aunt Magnolia was actually my Great aunt magnolia, and she was older than Grandpa by a decade. I didn’t like being in her house, but I also knew that was likely where I would end up when Grandpa died.

“I see. What color are we going to paint your car?”

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