Page 119 of Home Grown Talent

Mason shook his head. “I will, though. I need to tell him that he’s going to have to step up more—and that I’m done being an intermediary between him and Frieda.” He gave a careless shrug, though the thought of the conversation to come made him feel anything but nonchalant. “He’s not going to like it, but he’s going to have to deal. Besides, Mel and Min are going to back me up.” He laughed softly. “Min’s pretty fierce these days.”

Owen grinned. “Sibling solidarity?”

“Yeah,” Mason said, grinning back. “It’s very new but kind of awesome.”

They went back to their spaghetti.

“This is so good,” Owen said after another mouthful. “How do you make plain old pasta and lemon taste so incredible?”

“Best-quality olive oil and parmesan,” Mason replied. “My top store cupboard standbys.”

Owen slurped up the last forkful from his dish, then leaned happily back in his chair, patting his stomach. “If this is what you do with a bit of oil and cheese, I can’t wait to see how you handle my homegrown tomatoes.”

Mason waggled his eyebrows. “I’m happy to handle your tomatoes any day, but I thought they needed some recovery time?”

Owen laughed, and so did Mason, the pair of them giggling helplessly across the kitchen table at each other. At which point, Mason’s phone—abandoned in his jacket, somewhere near the front door—started to ring, the shrill sound tipping a bucket of ice water over their good mood.

“That’s probably Frankie,” Mason said, grimacing. “Or Frieda.”

All of a sudden, his optimistic thoughts about making decisions without reference to his parents’ wishes felt hollow, punctured by a familiar stab of anxious guilt.

Across the table, Owen’s lips pressed together. “Want me to answer it for you?” Then he frowned, shaking his head. “No, sorry, that’s stupid. You don’t need me to fight your battles.”

“I don’t,” Mason said, resolved, “but it’s nice to know you’ve got my back.”

The phone stopped ringing and went to voicemail. Into the sudden silence, Owen said softly, “I’ll always have your back, angel.”

“I know.” With a sigh, Mason pushed away from the table and stood up, holding out his hand to Owen. He took it and let Mason lead him into the hall to retrieve his jacket, which still lay on the floor where he’d abandoned it during their frenzied make-up sex.

The memory made Mason smile.

He dug his phone out of the pocket, saw a gazillion notifications, and dismissed them all. There were messages from Misty, too, which he ignored, and from Frankie—lots of ALL CAPS!—as well as from his mum. But there were also messages from Min and Mel. Plenty of hearts and thumbs up emojis in those ones, which made him smile again.

“Come on,” Owen said, one hand on Mason’s shoulder as he guided him into the living room to sit down.

Owen took his favourite corner of the sofa, and Mason snuggled in next to him, his back against Owen’s chest as Owen looped his arms lightly around Mason’s waist and propped his chin on Mason’s shoulder. It felt good, to be held like that, to be supported.

First, he sent a message to Frieda.

I’m taking a few days off, but I’ll come and see you next week. We’ll have lunch. Everything will be ok. xx

Then, to his sisters.

Hiding out with Owen for the weekend :) Will sort things with Frieda and Kurt next week… Love you both!! <3

Finally, to Frankie.

Taking a few days to think about my future. Tell Misty whatever you want, but I won’t apologise for telling the truth. Sorry for dumping this on you. Will call you in the week.

Then he swiped back to his home screen, hesitated only for a second before holding his finger on the Instagram icon until it began to tremble. It took moments to delete the app and to do the same to all his other social channels. Not quite as significant as deleting his accounts—he did need to talk to Frankie about how to handle his withdrawal from social media—but nevertheless, it felt good to remove the buggers from his phone, for now at least.

With that done, he hit the power button, switched off his phone entirely, and slung it onto the coffee table. It slid into a pile of books and stopped, its blank gaze fixed on the ceiling.

“Well,” Owen said after a moment, tightening his arms around Mason’s waist, “looks like we’ve got the rest of the weekend to ourselves.”

Mason smiled, snuggling back into him. “Looks like we do.”

“Any ideas on how to pass the time?”