Mason lifted the flask in her direction. An inexplicable tide of gratitude swept through her as she accepted it and took a greedy pull.
“Completely essential as part of convention survival,” he said. “At least until cocktail hour.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“As long as higher calculus isn’t involved.” Retrieving the flask, Mason took a nip as well.
Arlie paused, knowing her question came from a place inside her she didn’t especially like. A hurt, aching need for validation born directly of Samuel’s stinging rejection.
“What was it you liked about me in high school?”
Watching Mason’s smile unfold was a little like witnessing a sunrise.
He tucked the flask back in his pocket and leaned against the wall next to her. There was something so incredibly surreal about looking at a face so like Samuel’s, and so completely different.
“You’re going to force me to admit something very unflattering about myself.”
“I couldn’t imagine that such a thing exists.” The bourbon had made Arlie bold and more relaxed than she could remember in a very long time.
“Our father didn’t believe in anything as frivolous as an allowance. So if you didn’t work, you didn’t have money to spend.”
“Sounds like him,” Arlie said, trying to keep the bitterness from creeping into her voice.
“Well, Samuel always worked and was unwise enough to keep part of his stash in his sock drawer. Enterprising lad that I was, I would make occasional raids to help myself to his resources.”
“You stole?”
“I like to think of it as self-authorized loans.” Mason rewarded her with a mischievous sideways grin. “Anyway, it was on one of my covert entrepreneurial excursions that I happened to discover a sonnet written to a certain someone.” A subtle lift of his eyebrow and incline of his head let her know in no uncertain terms who that someone was.
Her.
Samuel had written a sonnet to her.
“And thus we come to the unflattering part. I knew damn well Samuel wouldn’t summon the stones to make a go for you, but thought that maybe if I did, he might be galvanized into action. Given his lifelong dislike for my general person.”
“Let me get this straight. You were never really interested in me?”
“I mean, of course I was. I was a teenage boy and you were an attractive and available female. But no, our being an item wasn’t my primary motive.”
She wasn’t sure if it was the afternoon booze or the swirling array of flashing lights and colorful flags of the booths around them, but Arlie began to feel a little dizzy.
Several portions of her personal history had now been rewritten over the past couple weeks.
“Well,” Arlie said, leaning back against the wall in a mirror of Mason’s posture. “That’s a surprise.”
“I’m full of them.” He glanced out into the maze of booths.
“Which is why I was never quite able to figure out why you’re your father’s favorite. No offense.”
“None taken.” Mason was quiet for a long time before he continued.
“When someone looks up to you, wants to be like you, at some point, you actually have to decide whether that admiration is deserved.
“For my father, I think it was easier to make Samuel feel like he didn’t measure up than to admit that deep down, my father knows he isn’t the kind of man anyone should try to emulate.”
Arlie let this sink in, feeling a twinge of pity for the boy Samuel had been. For the pain and disappointment he must have endured.
“As to my being the favorite,” Mason continued, “I don’t think I actually am.”
“I’m going to need you to elaborate on that,” she said.
“He doesn’t praise me because he truly thinks I’ve earned it. Or defend me because he really approves of my behavior.”
“Then why does he?” Arlie asked.
“Because it’s easy. When he looks at me, he doesn’t see a better version of himself. A man he wanted to be and isn’t.” This was not at all how Arlie had imagined this conversation going. “Have you ever talked about this with Samuel?”
Mason laughed. “What are the chances that Samuel would be interested in my assessment of his relationship with our father? Or with anyone, for that matter?”
“I don’t know,” Arlie mused. “You’re the closest thing to a mirror he has. And for what it’s worth, you’re a lot more insightful than you like to let on.”
The brightness of his countenance dimmed incrementally. “Sometimes it’s easier to let people believe that they know you.”
“I used to think I knew Samuel,” Arlie said, unsure why she was dumping all of this in his lap. “Apparently I was incorrect.”
“What makes you say that?” Mason nodded to a group of ever-seductive booth babes that various companies employed for the purpose of luring onlookers.
“Millhaven Foods.” Ever since Taegan had dripped this particular poison into her ear, Arlie couldn’t evict the story from her head.
“Who told you about that?” Mason asked.
She briefly debated giving him the full rundown of everything that had transpired between her and Taegan, but the very idea of it made her want to crawl under her bed. “That’s not especially important.”
“Did this person also tell you that Samuel personally paid for the college funds of all four Millhaven siblings out of his own pocket?” Mason asked.
Arlie blinked at him, this information nearly rocking her off her sensible ballet flats. “No, they didn’t happen to mention that.”
Mason rounded the corner and strolled back toward the area where she’d been diligently sorting through her cereal earlier. “Did they tell you he established a Millhaven scholarship at Harvard?”
“Also no.”