But it was still that same pond they’d swam in time and time again.
Neither of them spoke about the relic from their past. They ventured on to the shed. When they reached it, while Mason grabbed the boxes of screws, Chase noticed the four-wheeler in the corner—the one they’d ridden around in when they were kids. Once black with dark-blue streaks across it, the colors had since faded, and it looked like it was just varying shades of brown.
“What the fuck is this doing here?” Chase asked.
“We had to make space in the shed up by the dairy. We have new ATVs now.”
Chase’s expression saddened as he looked at the four-wheeler that, like their relationship, had been put away—shelved.
“I can’t imagine it even works anymore.”
“She does,” Mason assured him. “And I just put gas in before we brought it out here. Why? You want to take her out for a ride?”
Chase’s lips curled upward. It was clear that he wanted to give it a go just for old time’s sake.
CHASE APPROACHEDMASON BEFORE THE SOCCER GAME ATrecess.
He wanted to break the ice so things wouldn’t be awkward between them. Considering what had happened, he didn’t imagine Mason would be very nice to him, and he had every right not to be since Chase had been such a jerk the day before.
He wasn’t sure why he wanted to take Mason’s mother up on her offer.
Maybe because she was the first person who had ever been nice to him after he’d admitted to doing something wrong.
His own mom and stepdad wouldn’t have been lenient. When his mom found out about what had happened on the playground, she had yelled at him. His stepdad popped him on the head, explaining that they couldn’t afford to send him to private school if he became a problem kid, so he needed to straighten up his act unless he was planning on not going to school. That wasn’t an option, his stepdad noted, because they weren’t going to have him around the house all day.
They were that way about most things, and he assumed the only reason they allowed him to help out the Finleys was because they would have preferred him home even less than he already was—something he was fine with too.
“I’m going home with you today,” Chase told Mason, who wore a brown and white striped polo and khaki shorts. His hair was short and gelled over in a way that Chase really liked.
Mason’s face scrunched up, his forehead wrinkling. “What?”
“My mama signed a note, and I gave it to my teacher, so I get to go home with you today.”
“Okay.” Mason didn’t seem to understand, but Chase was fine with that. He assumed he’d be a little bothered after what happened. But Chase didn’t have any issue with Mason. And he really was sorry for what happened during the soccer game.
Chase had thought Mason had tripped him on purpose, but once he’d seen Mason’s expression as he defended himself, he could see his innocence, and he believed him—for no reason other than his word. He couldn’t explain why, but he could tell by how shocked Mason looked and how serious he was that Mason was being honest with him. And Chase felt awful for assuming the worst, possibly because that was all his parents ever seemed to do with him.
“Then I guess I’ll see you this afternoon, a’ight?” Chase asked.
“Sounds good to me.”
They divided into their usual soccer teams, and apart from the game, didn’t see each other again until that afternoon when Chase caught up with Mason in the hall. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Mason replied as they walked out to the car lanes together.
They waited until Mason’s mom pulled around in a brown pickup truck, the wheels covered in dirt. Mason opened the door, and Mrs. Finley said, “Well, well, look who’s coming home with us today.”
Mrs. Finley talked to them on the way to the dairy about an issue with some of the hoses they’d purchased for the cows and how his pa was getting into a fight with the guy who ran the Feed & Seed. When they got back to the Finleys’ place, Chase looked eagerly out the window at the farm.
His parents lived in a neighborhood, and though they had trees all around, he never got away except to go to the park down the road where he’d spend the day going through the woods and playing at the pond by himself. The dairy looked like a lot more fun, and even just knowing he could get away from his parents for a while sounded nice, especially since they would usually lock him out of the house after he got home—at least until it was time for dinner.
Mason’s mom parked next to the garage of the house and led him and Mason inside for a snack, chatting with him before she took them out to a building that she called the milking parlor. She introduced him to Mason’s dad and a few of the hired farmhands and then took them to the horse stable.
When Chase saw the first horse hanging its head out of one of the stalls, he was excited, but he didn’t approach or do anything because he didn’t want to be rude.
“Come on over,” Mrs. Finley said. “You can pet her all you like.”
Mason’s eyes narrowed, and he stood upright, clearly indicating that he didn’t want Chase to.
