“A hard job leaves its marks.”
I smiled at him. He didn’t change much in his reaction.
Of all the guys I’d known from my days as a teenager, he was the one who had seemed the most “Black Reaper” back then. Admittedly, I was learning a lot on the fly without asking questions because I wanted to treat all these guys as the kids I knew in my teenage years, not as some tough, macho MC. But there were also genuine questions as to whether I could really separate the two or if they were one intertwined identity.
“You were right to bring the car by when you did; the oil was running pretty damn low,” he said. “But I got it taken care of.”
“Good, thanks, Mason.”
“Yep, any questions?”
That was another part of Mason that had somewhat slipped my mind. Though none of the guys were exactly therapists or the vulnerable type, Mason was especially that way. Back in the day, I’d just seen him as a weirdo who couldn’t be bothered to even answer the question of how he was.
Now? I saw a kindred spirit. Not that he had gone through what I had, but that he’d gone through some dark stuff that he never talked about.
“How have you been, Mason?”
The question clearly jarred him, even though he quickly regained his composure. It seemed quite evident that he’d assumed I’d only have such questions for Connor. That probably was true in comparison to everyone else not named Brock.
For Mason, though, for whatever reason…
“I’ve been fine.”
“How’s your sister?”
For the first time since, well, probably ever, Mason…smiled?
It wasn’t much of a smile, and it was more like a kid caught in a lie who was struggling to remain in character. But I saw it. I’d gotten quite good at noticing the smaller things through the years.
“She’s with Garrett now,” he said. “Had a kid.”
“Oh, that’s not surprising,” I said. “I mean, Garrett was always the awkward nerdy type, right? Didn’t he have a long-term girlfriend way back when?”
Mason’s eyes went wide. He chuckled softly to himself, changing the tone of the laugh halfway through like he remembered I had a good reason for not knowing whatever it was he knew.
“You know how some people, when they grow up, become the exact opposite of what they were as a child?” Mason said. “Let’s just say if Garrett’s first word as a kid was ‘daddy’ or ‘mommy,’ his first word as an adult was ‘shot.’ And probably his second and third and so on.”
“Oh,” I said, not expecting that.
Clearly, there was a lot that I had missed in the last decade.
“Yeah,” he said. “But when the kid came, he got his ass in gear. Helped that I beat the shit out of him for lying to me about it, but hey, it happens.”
He looked at me. He had the same expression that Connor did earlier—the one that said he wanted to know more about me, not just out of polite conversation but out of genuine curiosity to learn more. But the look would not allow him.
Again, I couldn’t blame him.
“Well, you let us know if you need any help,” Mason said. “And I’m not just talking about car repairs.”
“I know,” I said with a soft smile.
But Mason did not reciprocate the. In fact, he almost looked like he regretted the words. Why?
I knew it had nothing to do with me. But there was clearly something unsettled and unfinished behind those eyes, something deeper, that left him regretting what he had said. If he’d made his offer in any other sort of words, I would have thought he was afraid to offer me help.
I wondered why.
“Thanks, Mason.”
