Page 112 of Home Grown Talent
“Always happy to spread the love,” she said airily. “Right, you’re up at eleven, so you’ve got half an hour or so in here to look over the extra questions.” She glanced at the refreshment table and grimaced. “The green room coffee is awful, but if Naomi ever gets back with my skinny cap, I’ll send her out to get you a decent one. Black Americano, right?”
“I don’t need a coffee,” Mason said, thinking of poor, harried Naomi.
“It’s no bother,” Misty protested.
Jesus.
“Honestly? I try to avoid too much coffee. Caffeine ages your skin so badly, don’t you find?” Mason smiled sweetly. “All part of the top-secret supermodel eating plan!”
Misty laughed uneasily, touching her cheek. “Yes, well. Just make sure you’ve looked at those new questions and know what you’re telling our audience. I can’t afford any more fuck-ups today.”
“Don’t worry,” Mason assured her solemnly. “I’ll be very professional, just like always.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Owen
Owen was up early on Saturday. It was a gorgeous day, with the sun strong and the air cool. He’d decided to spend the morning in the garden, catching up on some of the jobs he’d neglected because he’d been so busy working. And spending time with Mason.
The air was full of the sounds of his neighbours—kids playing, someone cutting their grass, music from a distant radio.
Just the usual weekend sounds.
Unfortunately, his early start, combined with the furious pace he maintained in order to keep himself distracted, meant that he’d finished everything by quarter to eleven. Which was exactly the time when he most needed to be doing something else.
Lewis had phoned last night to break the news that Mason would be doing another live slot on Weekend Wellness this morning. And apparently, he’d said on Instagram that he’d be talking about #pineapplegate.
The thought turned Owen’s stomach. So much so that he’d had to force himself to go into his greenhouse to water his actual bloody pineapples. The idea that Mason would publicly go along with this whole #pineapplegate crap was just so fucking painful.
A part of Owen hadn’t actually believed it until he’d seen the post on Instagram himself. Even that had pinched his stupid heart. In the picture Mason had posted, he looked sad and unkempt. Like a man not sleeping well at night. But then Owen had remembered how meticulously Mason curated the pictures he posted. No doubt this one had been used to produce exactly that effect: sad, regretful, wistful.
Mason the victim.
Even so, it had prompted an instinctive rush of concern in Owen that he hadn’t been able to reason away. Apparently, whatever else had happened this week, Mason was still under his skin. Owen still… loved him. That was something he was going to have to get over, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hell.
By eleven o’clock, Owen found himself standing on the patio with nothing to do, staring through the glass doors of his kitchen at the blank television screen.
He told himself he didn’t want to watch.
He’d told himself he wouldn’t watch, but the idea of everyone except him knowing what Mason said was somehow worse than hearing it himself. Lewis and Aaron would certainly be watching, and then they’d phone him afterwards. Try to kindly tell him how badly Mason had screwed him over.
It wasn’t that bad… he could hear Aaron saying, like a man dancing on eggshells.
Owen’s stomach churned anxiously, fizzing with dread and anticipation.
Any minute now, Mason would be speaking, would be talking about Owen, maybe repeating Misty’s lies…
Was Owen really going to hide from that? Be the only person not to have heard what Mason had to say about him? No. He wasn’t that much of a coward. If Mason was going to trash his reputation, Owen wanted to see it for himself, so he could refute each and every lie when he next spoke to Kushal.
Toeing off his work boots at the door, he strode through the kitchen and into the living room in his socked feet, switching on the TV without sitting down. His shorts were grubby from the garden, and he didn’t want to muck up the sofa, so he stood as he flicked through the channels and found Weekend Wellness.
Butterflies, angry ones, were dive-bombing in his stomach.
On the telly, they were running a segment on geocaching with a young guy Owen didn’t recognise charging about the countryside. Owen didn’t listen to what was going on, just stood staring, waiting. Dreading.
He didn’t have to wait long.
As the film came to an end, the screen switched back to Marc and Leah sitting on the familiar sofa. “Well, I don’t know about you,” Leah said, “but I have a hard time keeping track of my car keys, let alone finding a geocache!”