“Excuse me, what if I was busy, you two?”
“We have to talk.” Jake plopped down into the arm chair in the corner. “Because Bunny and I both have a suspicion we’d like to confirm.”
“Or deny.” Bunny sat on the edge of the bed and crossed her ankles. “Tell us if we’re off-base, but…well, the way you were acting this morning, we just have to wonder about things.”
Mason crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m so glad the two of you are speaking so clearly. Really helping me get the picture.”
“You have the hots for David, right?” Jake grinned, then cackled before keeping on. “Okay, I know your face. That’s a definite yes, even though you wish it wasn’t.”
“And it’s funny to you that I think someone’s cute?”
Jake immediately stopped smiling, so fast that Mason felt a wave of worry.
“Not funny.” Jake shook his head. “I was laughing because I’m happy. It seems like you’ve been pretty chaste and shut down, you know?”
Mason wanted to pull up some offense, but instead, he just sat down in the office chair with a sigh. “I’m still going to be just as chaste as before. But you really think I’ve been shut down?”
“Not shut down like, you’re horribly depressed or anything.” Bunny leaned forward. “But Jake and I both know that the channel fizzling out hit you harder than the rest of us.”
Mason suppressed a cringe. “I don’t know—”
“Drunk three-way call last year.” As soon as Bunny said it, the memory came back, but Mason didn’t get a chance to explain or dodge around it. She kept right on talking. “No one’s judging you for it. You’re the one who ended up with the shit gig of managing the channel without us, going through and sending us money. You feel however you want about that.”
Mason bit back his anxieties. These were his friends. His oldest friends. And, unlike some of the others, Jake and Bunny had at least tried to stay in contact. He’d heard from them at least once a month the past few year, usually more. It was not their fault at all that he felt weird. “I’m sorry. And yeah, I have eyes.” He smiled a little, and when he did, it felt good, so he let himself smile a little bit more. “I mean, the guy’s gorgeous. And, I don’t know, it’s like Eliza said. It’s kismet that someone who was involved in the projects for the channel is suddenlyhere. I guess I’m a little swept up in the whole thing.” And in his art. The finished stuff, and the finished living room, really had been striking. Mason didn’t bring that up, though. He could feel the rant brewing just underneath, and as much as managing the crew was his job, keeping the peace was also his job.No throwing red meat to the lions.
“Well, I think you have great taste.” Jake leaned back, somehow almost toppling the arm chair with the movement. He caught himself, pinwheeling his arms, but kept on going as though nothing had happened. “Not that I’m at all unhappy with Quinn. Just last night, we were on a video call, and…yeah, I’m happy.”
He grinned and Masonproperlysmiled at that. “I’m glad you’re happy.” He was. He absolutely was.I just wish I got to be happy too.“I figure I’ll appreciate the…decor on this job while it lasts.”
Bunny tutted her tongue. “Mason, really? Is there some drug that only my gay friends take that’s addling your brains?”
Mason and Jake looked at each other and, in unison, replied, “Poppers.”
She flipped them double birds before responding. “Well, the poppers seem to have made it so I’m the only one on this production with working brain cells. Every single person here was appreciating the decor, and every single person seems to be pairing off.” She threw her arms wide. “I’m not what you’d call superstitious, but if anyone wasevergoing to shoot their shot talking to a guy, there’s some kind of weird magic going on with this show.”
Mason tried not to let anything show on his face. The elephant in the room was so damned obvious to him: everyone else got to ask out the cute guys because everyone else was also cute. Like Mason said, he wasn’t blind. Jake didn’t have a paunchy belly.Aras didn’t have flabby arms. Ozzy didn’t have stretch marks or chubby cheeks.
“I think one of us should try to keep it professional.” He gestured lackadaisically toward Bunny. “Can’t let the token straight be the only one with a good head on her shoulders.”
Bunny clapped her hands to her cheeks in mock horror. “If that wasn’t entirely true, by god, I’d be offended.”
It was better to change the subject. He couldn’t hide his actual memories like he could a journal entry, but he at least didn’t have to linger on uncomfortable topics.
Chapter eight
David
Workwasnotparticularlystrenuous. He’d made good time on the Golden Supplements website, so he was on the auto-testing phase. As long as nothing went wrong, he would be in the clear for the most of the day.
And he had a sketchbook. He’d pulled several of them out while they were clearing the condo, but this one in particular was blank. Once he saw that, he’d gotten a bug up his butt and launched himself a new project. He could record the whole experience of this remodel, being on the show, in sketches. He could fill a sketchbook in two weeks, especially since he would be off work for the last week. He hadn’t been able to completely line his PTO up with the filming, but he’d done the best he could.
So during his mostly empty workday, he’d drawn his best recollection of the meeting that first day. He’d drawn the view of the Puget Sound from up on the observation deck, something hewas familiar enough with to do pretty well from memory. He’d gotten a portrait of Mason surrounded by boxes in the back of the moving truck, one of Eliza, talking with an older fellow who seemed to be in charge of the cameras, another one of Mason, standing in David’s doorway when he told him he needed to go off and find something else to do, thenanotherof Mason walking away from him.
David didn’t consider himselfparticularlyin touch with himself, but it didn’t take a genius therapist to see that the sketches were already focusing in on a particular subject. He couldn’t shake the thought of Mason out of his head. Even when he had to stop and scour the code for something that was throwing an error—turned out to be a colon instead of a semicolon—there was some niggling idea of Mason in the back of his head. Maybe sketching wasn’t the best medium. David knew he was good with gestural drawings, but there was so much more to Mason that needed capturing. He had some cameras, so he could try photography. He could try sculpting, and maybe that would capture the curves and fullness and presence of Mason.
He distinctly triednotto think about painting him. David was pretty sure that he and Mason wouldn’t see eye-to-eye on the type of painting. Still, David toyed with the idea even as he started to rough in the shapes to draw Robinson, the crew’s plumber.
Maybe he could find a way to broach the subject. Maybe David could be happy without painting him like the other men and hanging that nude of Mason above his bed.
