Page 36 of Summer Lessons
She let out a bark of laughter and her eyes crinkled at the corners. “Thatisan epic failure, sir. Do you have plans to fix it?”
“Yeah—next weekend, I think.”
“That would probably be a mercy. Are you ready for your first meeting?”
Mason nodded. “Yes, ma’am—but is there any way you could order some takeout Thai food delivered?”
She barely raised an eyebrow. “Of course, sir. Anything in particular?”
“How about two helpings of mild green curry and one of pumpkin curry. You really can’t go wrong.”
“But that’s what you said about green and cream,” she told him in all seriousness.
Mason found a real smile coming up from his toes, when he could have sworn he’d be stuck with that sort of achy, anxious expression he’d been wearing since he woke up.
“Point taken. Make sure it’s a reallygoodThai place, or Skipper and his boyfriend may be feeding their dog pizza for the next twenty years.”
She laughed again and then sobered. “Mason, does any of this banter have anything to do with the young man you saw last week?”
Mason felt his face heat. “It’s sort of a way not to think about him,” he confessed, feeling raw. “He was my golfing buddy on Saturday.”
Mrs. Bradford nodded as though things were beginning to fall into place now. “Was this a good thing or a bad thing?”
Mason closed his eyes again, and this time, instead of putrid green, he saw the wonder in Terry’s eyes as he peeped at Mason through his hair.
“It was an amazing thing,” he said, but no amount of remembering the amazing could shake the trouble from his voice.
“Understood, sir,” she said.
“I wish I did,” he told her and then nodded in dismissal before he could spend any more of his morning worrying about Terrence Jefferson.
SKIPPER TOOKto Thai food like a pro, dumping the curry over the rice with unabashed curiosity. He took the first bite and whimpered, pleasure written all over his square-jawed Captain America face.
“This is good,” he moaned. Then he opened his eyes like he’d discovered a bone or something. “Is it bad for you?”
Mason smiled. “No, sir—chicken, vegetables, and coconut milk. There are way worse things.”
“Mm.” He took another bite and savored. A few more bites, appreciating every one, and finally, when he was at the slowing down part of the meal, he focused on Mason.
“You look like shit,” he said bluntly. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing!” Mason protested. Then he sighed. “Well, we tried to decorate the guest room, and it smells like paint and it looks hideous.”
“That’s it?”
Mason avoided his blue-eyed gaze. “That’s a thing,” he temporized. “It’s a true thing.”
“But is it the only thing?”
Mason let out a breath. “So. Uh, your friend Terry—”
“Jefferson?”
“His first name is Terry!”
“I know what his first name is—we went to Disneyland, for heaven’s sakes!”
Mason squinted at him. “Is that a team-building thing?”
