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MASON

I t was a warm spring afternoon, and I was on my knees in the backyard, my hands deep in the dirt.

I liked dirt. It was cool and dark, and the scent of it—clean and green and alive—always managed to loosen knots I didn’t even know I was carrying. Dirt didn’t ask anything of you. It didn’t judge. And it didn’t know the secrets you were trying to hide.

That afternoon, the ground was still a little damp from the rain the day before. I let my fingers sink deeper, pushing through the earth like I was digging for calm.

I hadn’t slept well last night. I didn’t sleep well most nights anymore, but I tried not to think about that. For now, I just focused on the dirt. Real, solid, and unshakable. Something I could control.

I closed my eyes and imagined my fingers spreading through the soil like roots, anchoring me to the earth. I let the sun warm my back, listened to the birds in the maple tree behind me. Traffic hummed on the street out front, but I tuned it out. The birds were better.

When I opened my eyes again, Dana’s backyard was the same mess it had always been—brambles, half-buried bricks from some long-forgotten renovation, a plastic flamingo missing its head. Poor guy was more battle-scarred than I was. The house and yard were in shambles when she bought the place, but she was fixing it up piece by piece. And I wasn’t going to complain.

I didn’t have much to offer as a housemate. No full-time job. No real plan. But I could at least try to tame the wilderness in the yard. I’d done a little landscaping work after I got out of the Marines. Enough to know I liked it—up until the point where I torpedoed that job and wound up here.

But I wasn’t thinking about that now. I took another deep breath and let the green-gold light of May settle over me like gauze. It was only seventy degrees, which was shocking. Usually DC was in the nineties by now.

I sifted the loose loam through my fingers, pulling out the occasional rock or grub, making space for the fig tree I was about to plant. It was late for planting trees, but if I stayed on top of watering, it should survive its first summer. Dana had practically done cartwheels when we spotted one at the garden store yesterday. I’d gone back this morning to surprise her.

At least one of us should be happy.

I sat back on my heels and reached for the small tree, still in its plastic pot. I squeezed the sides and spun it gently, loosening the roots. A little rain of soil fell onto the crabgrass around me—another battle for another day. I teased apart the roots that circled the pot and dusted them with some mushroom mix before settling the tree into the hole I’d dug. I spread the roots out, then backfilled, pressing the dirt down firmly. When I was done, the tree sat proud and upright, slightly above ground level.

Standing up, I winced at the crack in my knees. Thirty wasn’t old, but the military had a way of aging you fast. Too many missions, too many surprise firefights. My body didn’t scream like my mind did, but it remembered.

I walked over to the spigot, turned it on, and dragged the hose across the yard. I watered the tree until the soil darkened and the smell of fresh earth filled the air. There was something satisfying about it, seeing that little tree standing proud in the chaos. It wouldn’t bear fruit this year, but it was something to look forward to.

I wished I had a future equally as optimistic.

Dana kept telling me to go back to school and finish my degree. Or find a trade, become a plumber or electrician—apparently ‘ professional dirt enthusiast ’ wasn’t a real job. She was full of other suggestions, if those didn’t appeal. Get into personal training, real estate, or solar panel sales. Just do something .

But none of it felt right, and I didn’t know how to explain to her that I didn’t deserve that kind of success.

I turned the hose off and coiled it up, brushing my hair back behind my ears. I’d let it grow long after I’d left the Marines. I probably had dirt in it now, but I wasn’t going anywhere today. Hell, I hadn’t gone anywhere in weeks.

I looked over the yard again. The east and west fences were six-foot boards wobbling like drunken dominoes. The north side was a rusted chain-link nightmare, half-hidden behind what might once have been a garage. Now it was a graveyard for broken furniture. A big silver maple in the back shaded half the yard and part of the neighbor’s.

I figured I might as well take on the poison ivy climbing the east fence. I wasn’t sensitive, but Dana was. I turned towards the house to grab gloves, but I didn’t even make it up the back steps before the door opened.

Dana stepped out onto the steps, her posture crisp as ever. As fraternal twins, we had the same dirty blond hair and the same blue eyes, but everything else was different. While I was six-three and built like a linebacker, she was five-four and could’ve been knocked over by a stiff breeze. I was in an old, stained T-shirt from high school and ripped jeans. She looked like she was headed to a board meeting in a maroon blazer over gray wool dress pants—despite the fact that she wasn’t headed into any kind of office.

And, as usual, she was wearing that look. The one that said she’d studied me like a math problem and wasn’t thrilled with the answer.

It was the way she looked at everyone. It wasn’t personal. Usually.

“Hey.” I flashed her a smile. “Coming to admire my handiwork?”

“Your handiwork?”

I thumbed over my shoulder at the fig tree.

“Oh my god!” Her face lit up, and she clapped like we were still kids. “It’s perfect! I love it so much. Thank you.”

Her enthusiasm was real, but her thank you felt like too much. All I’d done was dig a hole and stick a tree in it, not invent the cure for cancer.

“No worries. Happy to help.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Are you sure you won’t let me pay you for all this yard work?”

“You’re letting me stay here rent-free. That’s payment enough.”

“But if you weren’t here, I’d be paying someone else to tackle the yard.”

“I feel weird taking your money.” I scuffed the bottom step with my boot. “Anyway, it keeps me busy.”

Only a month had passed since I’d moved in, but I could already tell I needed something to fill my time. Dana and I got along, but when she told me she worked from home, she’d meant it. She worked worked. I couldn’t interrupt her in the middle of the day because I was bored.

Besides which, those interruptions always led to her trying to fix my life for the millionth time, which left both of us annoyed. She tossed me a few jobs here and there, but I still, I needed to find something to do with myself.

“Speaking of keeping busy,” she said, her tone a little too innocent, “are you going to be out here much longer?”

“I was about to tackle the poison ivy. Why?”

She grinned. “I might have a job for you. Tonight.”

“Tonight?” I blinked. “That’s short notice.”

Usually, she gave me a heads-up.

“Do you have plans?”

“No, I just…”

I trailed off. I didn’t want to sound ungrateful. And I was happy for the work. The jobs she threw me weren’t hard. I had nothing to complain about.

Dana was a freelance computer programmer, and picky about her clients. But she also ran a ‘ side hustle ’ that was taking up more and more of her time.

Dana’s college roommate, a stunning, brunette bombshell named Fatima who I had never seen look anything less than gorgeous and perfectly made-up, even at seven a.m., got into high-end escorting after college, to pay off her student loans before going to med school. She wanted a way to vet her clients and to process payments that wouldn’t open her up to legal trouble.

Enter Dana, who was able to run background checks on all the guys Fatima met, and secure their transactions too. Then Fatima mentioned Dana’s services to her friend Akiko, who mentioned them to Phoebe, and suddenly, Dana was managing a pricey escort company that prided itself on quality, discretion, and safety.

Over time, she began working with male escorts too, and discovered that half the time, the people who wanted her friends’ services weren’t even interested in sex—they just wanted companionship, or someone to pinch hit as a plus one at a company dinner. And thus, Heartbreakers Anonymous was born.

Dana’s brainchild now took up a solid fifty percent of her time, keeping everyone’s files secure, ensuring their tax records were clean, and doing due diligence on any new clients. Sometimes, when she couldn’t find enough information on the internet, she sent me out to watch over a first meeting in the background.

I was never an overt presence. I just hung out in the back of the coffee shop or bar and made sure I got a good look at the guy who was meeting up with one of the escorts—or ‘ relationship consultants ,’ now that Heartbreakers had rebranded.

I’d never once been called upon to step in and show a guy to the door, but everyone knew I was there if they needed backup, and in the meantime, I got to feed my growing caffeine addiction and take mental notes on who made the best pain au chocolat in the city.

I didn’t have a good excuse for turning the job down. But I hadn’t been planning on leaving the house tonight, and I’d been looking forward to really making progress with the yard. Now I’d have to take a shower, and…

“I’d ask Amir to do it,” Dana said, “but he’s already got a date tonight.”

Amir was one of Heartbreakers’ male consultants. He worked with men and women. I’d met him a few times and liked him—once I realized his relentless flirting was a hobby, not a come-on.

Amir took delight in taking people who were too uptight down a peg, and he flirted with every man he met to see how they’d react. He was more than willing to throw a punch if the reaction was homophobic. But I’d been in the military for too long to be weirded out by same sex activities. Now, Amir and I mostly traded workout tips.

“Actually,” Dana added, “he’s the one who put Oscar in touch with me. Said he’s a good guy. Swears he won’t try anything weird.”

“Who’s Oscar? The client?”

Dana nodded.

“Why would he be trying anything weird with me? Which consultant is meeting him?”

“Oh! Didn’t I say? No one. It’s just you.”

Dana was a genius, but sometimes, she wasn’t entirely plugged into the same world as the rest of us.

“Uh, Dane—it’s not that I don’t appreciate the thought, but I don’t really think the whole escort thing is for me. Especially with a guy.”

“Oh, but it’s not as an escort. That’s the whole point. This guy needs a bodyguard. That’s why you’d be perfect.”

“A bodyguard?” I’d been staring already, but my jaw hit the crabgrass at that. “I’m not remotely qualified.”

“Of course you are. You’re a big, scary-looking dude.”

“I’m scary looking?” I gestured to what I was wearing, and my dirty hands. If I was scary, it was in a wandering swamp-monster kind of way. Not actually threatening.

“You can be. You’ve got all those big muscles, and your eyebrows go all sharp when you’re angry, and you’ve got—well, you’ve got dirt on your cheek, but you’ll wash that off.” She waved her hand. “You’ll be great.”

“What’s he coming to you for, if he needs a bodyguard? Shouldn’t he be hiring a professional? Or going to the police or something? Why would he contact a dating service?”

“Because he knows Amir, and Amir recommended us.”

“Jesus. Why the hell would Amir do that?”

“You’ll have to take that up with him.”

“If this dude is in trouble, he should get actual help. Not me.”

“Yeah, except he’s probably not in trouble. From what Amir said, he’s some rich guy who’s gotten a few weird letters in the mail. He’s a little spooked, but nothing serious. You’ll probably only be there to make him feel important. And hey, you get a free theater ticket out of it. Just suit up, show up, and have fun.”

“I don’t own a suit.”

“Okay, so put on…something that isn’t this—” she gestured at my outfit “—and go meet with him. I told him you’d be at his house at six.”

“You already said yes?”

“You’re not going to say no, are you?”

This was classic Dana. She lived in her own little world, and was shocked when she realized her reality and everybody else’s weren’t the same. She made it sound like the most reasonable thing in the world that an unemployed, military veteran, college-drop-out-cum-gardener should be a bodyguard to a perfect stranger. In her world, it was reasonable.

I looked at her, my heart sinking. She was my sister. My twin. She wasn’t just the closest person in the world to me, she was letting me stay with her for free while I figured out what to do with my life. I really didn’t have an excuse to say no, poison ivy or no poison ivy.

I sighed. “No, I guess I’m not.”

She clapped her hands together. “You’re the best. You know that? The absolute best.”