I hesitated. "Youarejoking, right? I mean, you don't seriously think that Mason would ever take a hammer to Brody?"
"Okay, maybe not a hammer," she said. "But I'm telling you, the look he gave Brody, it reallywasscary."
I could totally envision it. Still I couldn’t resist saying, "But that's hardly flipping out. I mean, the way you talked, I half expected to hear that Mason was yelling or something."
"Hah! You know Mason. He doesn'tneedto yell to be scary. And besides, it wasn'tjustthe look."
"It wasn't?"
"No. Because after he gives Brody the look, Brody says to him, 'What'sthatlook for?' And Mason says, 'You're whistling.' And Brody says, 'Yeah, so?' And Mason says, 'You need to stop.' And then–"
"Wait," I said. "Did Mason saywhy?"
"Why what?"
"Why Brody should stop whistling. I mean, did Brody ask?"
"Oh yeah. And you wanna know what Mason says?"
"What?"
"Hesaysthat it's pissing him off."
Huh."Well that's weird."
"Yeah. And it gets even weirder – because Chase comes along and catches the tail end of the argument. And youknowhow he is."
I did know, but it wasn't from being Willow's nanny.
Even before I'd started working for Mason, I'd spent countless hours watching theBlastremodeling show. Chase was a notorious trouble-maker. It's not that he came across as malicious, but hedidhave this way of pushing people's buttons.
And now on the phone, Arden was saying, "So you can probably guess what Chase does next."
I winced. "You don't mean—"
"Oh yeah," he said. "He starts whistling."
I couldn’t help it. I laughed.
But Arden wasn't laughing. "And Mason," she continued, "he looks like he's gonna pop. And for some stupid reason, this only makes Chase do it more."
I was still laughing. I wasn't even sure why. I mean, yeah, it was funny, but even to my own ears, my laughter had a sinister edge, like I was glad to see Mason tormented by his own brother.
This wasn't like me.
I was definitely losing it.
Through my laughter, I said, "But that's so childish."
"Yeah, tell me about it. Anyway, thenexttime Mason tells him to stop, Chase says, 'Oh yeah? Make me.' So…one thing leads to another, and before anyone knows what's happening, Mason takes a flying leap at Chase."
And just like that, I wasn't laughing anymore. "You're kidding."
"I wish," she said. "And of course, the whole thing is caught on camera."
Oh, God.I could totally envision it. "But what was Brody doing?"
"What else? He wastryingto separate them."
