Page 7 of Making It Burn
Every spring for four years, it was the same story: Collegiate versus St.Christopher’s, Price versus Thatcher.We’d circle each other on that field like wolves, every game a battle of wills that went beyond scores and championships.
Mason played with precision and control; I played with fire and instinct.The local papers ate it up, calling us “Richmond’s fiercest prep school rivalry” like we were gladiators instead of kids with trust funds and lacrosse sticks.And I’d loved it—loved having someone who matched my intensity, who pushed me to be better, meaner, sharper.I’d wanted to destroy him on the field.And now, fifteen years later, here we were—not opponents on opposite sides of a field, but colleagues expected to work together.
The universe had a sick sense of humor.
* * *
I didn’t see Mason again until late afternoon.
I’d spent the day buried in case files—contracts, regulatory filings, endless emails between corporate lawyers who wrote like they were getting paid by the syllable.The PharmaTech-MediCorp merger was a beast: two massive pharmaceutical companies trying to combine forces while navigating a minefield of antitrust laws, FDA regulations, and shareholders with competing interests.
It was exactly the type of high-stakes chaos I lived for.
Around five o’clock, there was a knock on my door.
“Come in,” I called, not looking up from the brief I was annotating.
The door opened.I knew it was him before I even saw him—something about the way the air shifted, like the temperature dropped a few degrees.
“We need to talk,” Mason said.
I set down my pen and leaned back in my chair.“I’m listening.”
He closed the door behind him, and suddenly the office felt about ten sizes smaller.He stayed near the door, arms crossed, jaw tight.Even annoyed and bristling with tension, he was unfairly good-looking—all sharp angles and controlled tension.Mason probably looked perfect even first thing in the morning, which seemed deeply unfair given what an asshole he was.
“This is going to be a problem,” he said.
“What is?”
“Us.Working together.”
I raised an eyebrow.“Why?You got something against teamwork, Price?”
“Don’t.”His voice was sharp.“Don’t pretend this is normal.”
“What do you want me to say?”I stood, rounding the desk to lean against it, closer to him now.“That I haven’t thought about you in fifteen years?That seeing you didn’t make me want to—”
I stopped myself.Punch you in your perfect face had been what I was going to say, but standing this close to him, watching the way his throat worked when he swallowed, I wasn’t entirely sure that’s what I wanted to do.
His jaw clenched.“Finish your sentence, Thatcher.”
“Forget it.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you talk a big game, but you don’t actually want to deal with any of this.”He gestured sharply between us.
I took a step closer, closing more of the distance.He didn’t back away, but something flickered in his eyes—wariness, maybe, or something else entirely.“I’ve thought about you,” I breathed.“More than I probably should have.Do you ever think about me, Mason?”
For just a second, his mask slipped.I saw something raw there, something hungry and angry and buried so deep he probably thought it was gone.His gaze dropped briefly to my mouth, then snapped back up.
Then it was back: the control, the ice.
“We’re not doing this,” he said, his voice rough.
“Doing what?”
