Page 96 of Summer Lessons

Not today.

“I like green,” he said with a small smile. Terry had liked green on him. He had alotof polo shirts and T-shirts in his closet in this exact shade of green.

Mrs. Bradford looked at him sharply. “Mr. Hayes, if you don’t mind me asking—are you quite all right?”

Mason couldn’t answer her. He shrugged and looked at the files on his desk. “Mr. Goodman?” he mumbled, partly to himself. “Didn’t I meet with him last week?”

“Yes, sir—he said he had some other ideas for those changes you wanted to implement.”

Mason tried to pull his head in the game. “Yeah—I was going to focus on those this week.”

“Good idea, sir—you won’t hear back on several of your bids until next Monday. This is productive use of your downtime.”

“I could always use my downtime researching my next acquisition,” he said mildly, but she snorted.

“You’re sort of ahead of their usual acquisition schedule at this rate anyway, sir. I don’t think the company has enough capital to keep up with you.”

Oh.

“Well then, let’s go about changing the world,” he said, trying for bright.

She paused at the door and studied him like a seventh grader studied a cow eyeball. “Sir…. Mason?”

“Yes, Mrs. Bradford?” He couldn’t meet her eyes.

“Did something happen with your young man?”

“He’s not my young man anymore.”

Mrs. Bradford’s bright red-and-yellow dress approached Mason’s desk, and he finally made himself look into her sympathetic face. “I’m sorry, Mason,” she said gently. “He seemed like a sweet kid.”

Mason grimaced. “I’m a grown-up,” he said with dignity.

She nodded. “Of course you are. But are you still having lunch with Mr. Carpenter and Mr. Keith?”

This smile was unforced. “Until they leave Tesko for greener pastures,” he said grandly. “Good friends are good friends, Mrs. Bradford.”

“Indeed.”

CARPENTER BROUGHTNoodle House for lunch. They chatted about video games and movies while Mason tried to eat pad thai without making an ass of himself. He gave up when he flipped a noodle on his shirt and couldn’t get rid of the stain.

“Oh well,” he muttered. “It’s not like I’m trying to impress Hugh Goodman.”

“Who’s a good man?” Skipper asked, and Mason had to look at him twice to see that his eyes were twinkling.

“Very funny. He’s the guy who might be able to give our tech pool education benefits and get us a commissary that’s decent and available to everybody so you guys don’t have to drive to Noodle House every Monday.”

“Ooh,” Skip said, eyes wide. “Could he get us a Starbucks? I mean… aStarbucks.”

Mason shrugged. “Why not? We’re trying to minimize company turnover in places like the tech pool and the administrative assistant pool. Little stuff, big stuff—it all adds up.”

Skip gazed at him in admiration. “Lookit you—you reallyarean executive.”

Mason rolled his eyes.

Which was good, because he had it all out of his system when Hugh Goodman knocked on his door. A slightly built man with thick blond hair, high cheekbones, full lips, and just enough laugh lines in the corners of his green eyes to show he was over thirty, Hugh Goodman had a charming smile and a way of making you feel like you’d just pleased your fourth-grade teacher.

Mason had spent his morning typing up outlines and personnel requirements and a cost/benefit analysis, and he laid things out for Goodman in a short hour. When he was done, he sat back and waited for a reaction.