“It’s all right,” she says. “I hope you find the answer to your problem.”
I smile. “Thanks,” I say.
I get to my car in a daze.
With everything going on with his brother and with the extra training he’s doing, I know Mason’s been having a difficult time balancing everything, but things were starting to go so well.
By the time I’m pulling up to Mason’s house, I’m about as prepared as I can be for what’s to come.
I get to the door and lift my arm, though I hesitate a moment before I let the motion complete itself, knocking on the door.
I’m consciously taking slow, deep breaths.
Mason is a deceptively nice guy, so I don’t expect any screaming or rending of garments, but then again, you never know.
The door opens to Mason, standing there smiling.
“Hey,” he says. “Come on in.”
“I got your message,” I tell him as I come through the doorway. “You said we needed to talk.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Notice anything different?”
I look around and the difference is obvious.
Where once there were beer bottles and tortilla chip bags, now there is a clean, well-kept home.
“What happened?” I ask.
Mason laughs. “Oh, it wasn’t that bad.”
“It was getting there,” I tell him.
“Care for a drink?” he asks. “I don’t have anything too exciting: I think just water and orange juice.”
“I’m fine,” I tell him. “What did you want to tell me?”
“Well,” he says, sitting down on the couch, “I think I’ve asked for a lot of understanding without giving you a lot of candor on my part.”
“Okay, you’re kind of talking like a lawyer right now,” I tell him. “Should I be worried?”
“No,” he says, “nothing like that. I just wanted to let you know that it’s almost over.”
“What is?” I ask, leaning forward a little too far, my hands on my knees as I wait impatiently for his answer.
“The whole situation with Chris,” he says. “I’m done trying to clean up after him, and just as soon as he comes back—whenever that’s going to be—I’m going to tell him he’s got to go.”
“What happened?” I ask. “I thought things were going better with you two?”
“I thought they were,” Mason says. “Well, I hoped they were. As much as I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, just one more time, I wasn’t surprised when it happened.”
“What did he do, though?” I ask, finally leaning back a little in my seat.
“He’d spent the day out looking for a job—I know because I made him take me with him—and after we got home, we got to talking,” he starts. “He hadn’t been hired, but he’d had a couple of successful interviews and things were really starting to look up for once. He told me we should go out drinking to celebrate his new chapter or whatever, but I’m not too into that. When I convinced him that I wasn’t going to go, he convinced me to fund his little celebration. It was a hundred bucks. I don’t know why I expected to get it back.”
“He stole your money?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “I haven’t seen him or heard from him since he left for the club that night. It’s only a hundred bucks, but at the same time, it’s a hundred bucks.”