Page 68 of Home Grown Talent

“Fluke or not, you were amazing. You’re a natural presenter.” Tag raised his brows. “Any chance you might slip into Marc’s role? I hear he’s thinking about moving on.”

“How did you hear that?”

“Friends on the inside,” Tag said with a wink. “I met a couple of the Weekend Wellness crew at the RPP Hallowe’en party. We meet up for drinks sometimes.”

“You are unbelievable,” Mason said, laughing. “I swear, you always know someone.”

“Hey, I’m a friendly guy!”

“Yeah, you are,” Mason said fondly.

“Anyway,” Tag continued. “If Marc does move on, you have to be in the running.”

“Maybe as a rank outsider,” Mason said drily. Funny, the thought of landing Marc’s role just didn’t seem as exciting right now as it had when Misty had first hinted at it. “I’m still very inexperienced.”

“Don’t be so modest,” Tag said. “You were really good.”

“Yeah, but that’s partly down to Owen. I’m not sure I’d have been as comfortable if I hadn’t been working with him. Talking to him just felt really natural, even though it was on camera. I didn’t even have to think about it that much.”

“He is a great listener,” Tag said, “and an incredibly nice guy.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Is there anything behind all the flirting you two were doing on-screen, or was that just for the cameras?”

Mason gave a secret sly smile. “There might be.”

“Ooooh!” Tag responded, clearly intrigued. “Tell me all about it!”

“It’s early days,” Mason hedged. “Maybe I’ll fill you in more when we meet up next.”

Tag eyed him for a moment, then sighed. “Fine,” he said, pointing at Mason, “but next time, you dish. I’ll text you about meeting up next week.” He stood up then and began collecting their dishes together. “It’s back to the grindstone for me. The lunch rush will be starting soon.”

“Yeah, I should get going too,” Mason replied, standing and reaching for his jacket. He paused midway, turning to look at Tag again. “By the way—”

“Yeah?”

“Did you and Jay take my advice that night?”

“Your advice?” Tag said, frowning.

Mason’s lips quirked, and he raised a brow. “The advice about fucking each other’s brains out?”

This time when Tag flushed, his pale complexion turned beetroot. “Jesus, Mason!” he hissed, looking around furtively, though there was no one else anywhere near them to overhear.

Mason chuckled. “I’ll take that as a no,” he said. “But I still think you should consider it. All that tension between you definitely has a sexual edge.”

He left Tag spluttering in the middle of the café.

Once he was outside, Mason checked his phone. There were loads of notifications, most of them comments cooing over his latest Owen-related post, and a bunch of new follows, bringing him up to over 94,000. His numbers were steadily increasing every day, and he was excited to see what would happen after the second Weekend Wellness slot aired on Saturday.

Would Owen want to repeat last week’s sleepover and breakfast so they could watch their slot together? For a moment, he was tempted to shoot Owen a quick text suggesting just that. So tempting that he shut it down immediately. Spending cosy Saturday mornings together was the sort of coupley behaviour that might give Owen unrealistic expectations about the direction of their relationship—and hurting Owen was the last thing Mason wanted to do.

He was frowning over that thought when he realised he had three voicemails waiting for him, two from Frieda and one from his sister, Melody. If that wasn’t a message from the universe, he didn’t know what was.

Stomach tensing anxiously, he listened to the first message.

“Angel, it’s Mel. Listen, Dad’s missed his payment again, and Mum’s freaking out. We need to pay the balance of our school French trip by Monday, and she’s saying we have to cancel because now she needs your money for the gas bill! Can you call me? Please?”

Mason’s stomach twisted. Fucking hell. Another bloody family drama.

He really didn’t want to listen to the two messages from Frieda after that, but he did anyway, and clearly, she was, as Mel had said, freaking out. Tearfully, in that feeble, tremulous voice he so dreaded, Frieda went on about how she didn’t know what to do, and how Kurt’s new girlfriend was turning him against his family, and how her nerves were making her stomach play up again, and then she started sobbing, and Mason’s anxiety pinched so hard he felt sick.