He smiled at David. “You need coffee or water or anything, get it now. Probably going to be here a minute.”
David took an empty chair across from him. “I think I’m good. Drink coffee, I’m just going to have to get up halfway through to pee.” Mason was in a white button-up shirt with these bright cyan pants that David had spent the entire day admiring. And not only because they hugged and lifted Mason’s ass. He could absolutely see himself buying a pair for himself. Those were statement pants. “So, how does this start, I guess?”
Chapter nineteen
Mason
Masontappedapenon the table a few times. He needed to get over himself. Blowing David hadn’t taken care of the infatuation, go figure. It was stronger than before, in fact, which made it that much more difficult to spend time around him without making a complete fool of himself. Whenever he was actually around David, it felt like they were ready to jump each other’s bones at any second, cameras be damned. Mason hadn’t felt likethatin years…maybe ever, if he was really honest about it.
The times when he wasn’t around David were distinctly different. That was when the doubts clawed their way up. Obviously, David was just being nice before. If there was something there at all, he would have paid Mason another visit. Even though Mason swore he caught David making eyes at him throughout the day, when he was alone, he reminded himselfthat guys who looked like David didn’t hook up with guys who looked like him. Not unless they were desperate to the get their rocks off.
Mason pulled himself out of his own thoughts. “So, I looked back through the old video we did for your aunt and uncle. You were sixteen and you came and visited them a lot, right?”
David nodded. “Yeah. Every summer, and lots of long weekends. Kept it up pretty regularly until I was twenty-two, so I got plenty of time to see the work you all did. And I still try to go see them at least a few times a year, so I know your work holds up.”
He kept visiting Keith and Whitney that whole time. He keeps coming to Pine Point. If anyone in Pine Point deserved to have people go out of their way for them, it was Keith and Whitney Twine. He was everyone’s favorite science teacher at the middle school and she sold cheap, delicious meals out of her kitchen. It wasn’t quite a Chinese restaurant, but it was a lot closer than a town that small should have had. Plus, she always made extra to feed folks who couldn’t afford anything else. It wasn’t so bad anymore, but back when they started the channel, Pine Point had been in rough shape. So he was glad that people outside of Pine Point appreciated them. They were good people. It was a big reason why they were one of the first jobs to get taken on, back when Mason was still in college and Evander was a goth.
“I have to ask, did you actually use the art studio area? Obviously you make art now, but we all had our doubts when Keith insisted their nephew would want a space in his room to draw and paint.”
David smiled softly, and his gaze went a little bit unfocused. “Yeah. It was actually really sweet when I found out that he’d made a point of that. You know, Whitney’s my mom’s sister, and I was always a lot closer with her than I was with Uncle Keith, so it really meant a lot. He even drove into Seattle and picked me upsome canvases and sketchbooks and the absolute worst pastels I’ve ever touched in my life. And I used the hell out of them.”
Mason saw a little mist in David’s eyes and wanted to hug him. If there hadn’t been cameras, he would have, but he knew he needed to maintain some level of professionalism, some distance. So he did his best change of subject maneuver. “Well since you used that…was Jake off-base when he insisted we give you a space for video games?”
David rolled his eyes and his smile widened. “I was a teenage boy. You bet your ass I used it. I guess I should thank Jake for that.”
Mason nodded, tapping his pen a couple times. “So is there a reason you don’t game now? Just lost interest?”
“Mobile games for me, mostly.” David’s face relaxed into some sense of normalcy. “I can play a round or two of some match-three game or puzzle game or something on my phone during bathroom breaks. They satisfy me, and then I can use my time at home to do other projects.”
Mason nodded again. “What about the rest of your aunt and uncle’s place? Obviously you spent a lot of time in their guest room, but you saw all of it.”
“I still dream about that shower they have in the downstairs bathroom.” David bobbled his head side-to-side. “Maybe not actually dream about it, but it’s not a coincidence I wanted those side-jets installed in the master bathroom.” He lowered his voice, though it probably wouldn’t do much good, since they were wired up. “As a horny teenage boy, a water jet going straight downstairs was a revelation.”
Mason’s breath caught and he felt the blush in his cheeks as a spark of heat. “Well, that wasn’t the intent, but glad we could help.” Either David was just that open about everything, or he was deliberately needling Mason. Probably the latter, but whether that needling was flirtation or mockery, Mason wasn’tcertain. He wanted to believe it was flirtation, and he felt a swell between his legs like it was, but maybe David was just having fun at his expense. It was clear that David could make him squirm, so maybe he took some kind of pleasure in simply having that power over Mason.
What am I thinking? That doesn’t sound like David.
Which was true…but could Mason say he really knew him?
He had to stop, had to refocus. “You started watching the channel after you found out about the renovation we did for them, right?”
“Well, I wanted to see the process. Plus, when they said it was a bunch of gay guys, I got even more interested. I was still in the closet, you know?” David’s face fell into something placid. Serious. “It wasn’t a super awesome fun time for me, trying to pretend that I liked girls, and I certainly wasn’t aware that was a big deal. But looking back, it was pretty obvious I wanted to see how gay guys did things. How they lived, how they worked, all that kind of stuff.”
All the other thoughts flew out of Mason’s head. He wasn’tthatmuch older than David. When they did the reno, David was sixteen, and the job wrapped up right before Mason’s twentieth birthday.
But at sixteen, someone three or four years older felt like a lot more of an adult.
“I’m glad our videos were there when you needed them.”
David nodded. “Me too. I watched them a lot.” His face got a little bit red. “Sometimes, I still do. Don’t tell anyone. They’re comfort content. I actually don’t rewatch the one with Aunt Whitney very much. My favorite’s probably the Herzog house.”
“Herzog. Wow.” Mason was more than a little taken aback by that. It wasn’t like Mason had intimate, immediate knowledge of everything that was going on with their old VideoHead channel. He could look stuff up and that would jog his memory.
But the Herzog job was pretty lodged in his memory, and not for great reasons. It was during a rough patch for Robinson, and Ozzy and Evander had been in one of their off-again stages, and Aras had just gotten dumped, so his normally razor-sharp personality had been coated in venom. It wasn’t their worst performing content, but it was definitely firmly in the bottom half. And since it was a big project, that was a solid seven videos that underperformed.
“Yeah.. I’ve seen the comments on it and people felt weird watching it.” David shrugged. “You all kept going. That’s what always stood out to me. There was a lot of tension, but you all still pushed through. You did the job. You made the art, and when it was done, you still smiled at each other. I always get kind of a warm feeling when I turn it back on.”
Mason couldn’t help but smile. “Well, that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about those videos.” It couldn’t be that David was just screwing with him. In that moment, even Mason’s worst anxieties couldn’t convince him that David was anything less than genuine.
