Page 108 of Summer Lessons

“My old boss. Who is now living with my old boyfriend. Which is only right, since they were having an affair for two years when we lived together in my old house and I worked my old job.”

“Well, he sounds like a ripe old prick, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

“I’m sure his ex-wife thinks so too,” Mason said, and tried to remember the name of his last administrative assistant. He couldn’t, because Roy Carruthers had spun the secretary pool like a game of roulette, and Mason hadn’t seen the same assistant for longer than a month.

“I’m far better off without that situation,” he said sincerely. “But that doesn’t mean I want to go back to my old turf and tell them how they’re fucking up their business.”

Mrs. Bradford started to laugh, and it had a surprisingly evil ring to it.

“Really, sir? Are yousure? Are yousureyou don’t want to go back to your old turf and tell them how they’re fucking up their business? Because it seems to me that you wereinvitedto go back, andinvitedto talk to them about their business, and you’d have to be pretty damned angelic to resist that sort of temptation.”

Mason stared at her and thought of all the ways Roy Carruthers had made him feel like a complete asshole evenbeforeMason had found out about the affair.

“I’m not an angel,” he said, a perfect chord of beautiful, sweet revenge opening up in his soul.

“For which I am damned grateful. Angels are boring to work with, and they’re irritating as hell as friends. Now how about you write up two lists for me, okay?”

“Sure,” he said, not sure when she’d taken over this situation but not minding in the least. “What’s on them?”

“Well, one list is the ways you think your old boss could have run his company better. The other list is the series of notes you need to make about your project. I’m going to see if we can’t combine these lists into a thing of beauty.”

“Mrs. Bradford, I adore you.”

“Yes, you do, Mr. Hayes, and I have the flowers to prove it.” She paused then. “Sir, if you don’t mind me asking… about your young man?”

Mason sighed. “I was going to go watch him play soccer on Saturday morning. He asked me special.”

She pursed her lips. “Well, sir, grown-ups know how to take setbacks.”

“That,” he said grimly, “is averygood point.”

And a very good test, whether he’d thought of it that way or not.

SORRY Ican’t make it to the game. I was looking forward to seeing you play.

Mason stared at the text and debated whether or not to push Send. The car was packed, his best evening suit hung from the hook in the back, and he had a small bag of gifts from his present boss to his old boss.

He was good to go.

He just needed to decide how he was going to tell Terry he wasn’t going to make it.

“What are you doing? Why aren’t you moving? You’re just standing in the driveway like a moo—Jesus, Mason, let’s go!”

Mason looked up from his phone irritably. “You know, you could have signed up for summer courses.”

“In theloony bin. No. I’m taking downtime, and you’re avoiding the question. What. Are. You. Doing?”

“I was just going to text Terry about—”

Dane, wearing pajama bottoms and nothing else, reached out an imperious hand and grabbed the phone. His hair was down, falling from a natural part in the middle, and his scruff was almost beardlike. Mason had been calling him Hipster Jesus all morning. “Done. Texted. Now leave.”

“You and Carpenter are going to have sex in the kitchen, aren’t you? I knew it—no details. I want no details. That’s why you’re in such a hurry for me to leave.”

Dane recoiled. “Ew. No. Whodoesthat?” His eyes widened in horror. “Don’t answer that. For the love of God. Gross. But no—we want you to leave so we can watch the Star Wars trilogy from beginning to end. Not your favorite, I know.”

StarTrek,yes. Star Wars, not so much.

“Heathens,” Mason grunted. “Now give me my phone back. And be sure to tell him that—”