13. Mason
Mason
Summers used to mean no responsibilities. They used to be full of late-night drives, road trips, surfing, and anything to pass the time until school started again.
Now I’m stuck in a suit and rolling my eyes at least ten times a day at the other kiss-ass interns I’m stuck around at my dad’s firm from sunup to sundown, working like a dog for a company I don’t even like.
I despise the ownership.
And I hate that I probably come off as the asshole, entitled CEO’s son, but I actually couldn’t care less what any of these people think about me. I won’t see them for the rest of the year, and most of them won’t make it past this internship to even be back next summer.
I spend most of my time here stuck shadowing brokers, building spreadsheets, and pretending to care about property portfolios.
The one positive is that I don’t have to see my dad most days. That was one of the things I feared the most with this internship—that I would be stuck around him all summer.
Luckily, he still spends most of his time traveling, and when he’s home, he’s usually just out schmoozing rich men into investing in his company.
Although he has been back home this week and has been popping into the office for the past few days, making my life hell, it’s not normally like that.
There are no more late-night parties, just late nights like tonight, where I’m stuck staring out of a floor-to-ceiling window when I should be paying attention to the screen in front of me.
At least I’m getting to see the twins. I wake up and take them to camp every morning—because I can’t stand when they have a driver take them, and every night when I come home and tug off my tie and jacket, they’re right there, greeting me with smiles because I’m the only one who pays them attention in this family.
I’m still staring out at the night sky when Brooke walks over to my desk. Most of the employees are gone since all the grunt work is left for us to do.
She sits up on the desk, pulling my attention over to her. I take the pen out of my mouth, and my hands move to her thighs as she pulls my chair closer to position me between her legs.
Brooke is another one of the summer interns here at the firm. Her dad also works with my dad and is pretty high up in the company. She was born into this life just like I was. The thing is, she wants to be here. She loves the real estate game.
We’re alike in a lot of ways—both grew up in private schools, both love to be the center of attention, neither of us cares what other people think, we’re both pretty strong-willed, and we both love talking shit about the other interns together.
We’re also different in a lot of ways—she likes her family, loves her parents, loves this career, and loves Florida. Those are things I can’t relate to.
She’s easy to talk to, though, and I don’t mind the attention. We’re not dating…but we’re not not dating. I don’t know what it is, but it feels like a good way to pass the time while I’m here.
She went from talking shit and grilling me when I first got here to coming on to me when we would get stuck working on late-night assignments together.
I started to take her out after work, and we’d just find anything to do that would make us feel like normal kids who weren’t stuck in an adult world that we were forced into.
It’s been nice to have someone to talk to when I don’t want to go home at the end of the day—even if there’s no spark.
She looks around the office and then bends down to kiss me. I can feel the need behind her kiss. I wish I felt it, too.
I don’t like thinking about that, though.
I don’t like going down the rabbit hole of wondering what’s wrong with me.
What is it about me that can attract a girl, but once I get my hands on them, there’s nothing.
Was it Delilah who broke me? Was it Jackie?
Was it my dad? Fuck…is it my dead mom? Do I have mommy issues? And daddy issues?
Shit.
I slide my hands down to Brooke’s knees and squeeze a little before her hands find mine, guiding them back up her thighs. She’s wearing a skirt, a blazer…and by the peepshow she’s giving, I assume no underwear.
Nothing.
I feel nothing. Not a boner, not a pulse, not even a spark of lust in my brain.
“Be good,” I tell her in a low, playful tone so that she doesn’t think I’m rejecting her.
“I need you to be a little less good, Mr. Sinclair,” she teases back.
“Let me finish up this spreadsheet, and then we can get out of here, okay?”
She nods and kisses me again before sliding off my desk, trailing her hand over my chest as she walks away.
I’m off my game. The last couple of days at work have been more stressful than normal. With my dad stopping in a lot this week, it’s been hell. He makes it a point not to tear anyone else down but me while he’s here.
It’s real fun.
“These numbers are off.”
“This projection doesn’t make sense.”
“God, Mason, pay attention—this is basic math.”
“Are you this shitty at your school work?”
“I’m not building a multi-million-dollar company for you to just end up running it into the ground, son.”
“There’s no way you’re this stupid.”
“Make sure you turn that shit personality of yours off when you’re talking to clients and work on being the kind of person who can make it around here.”
Every word feels like it’s meant to make me smaller.
And I don’t know why, but I keep trying…I keep trying harder, I keep pushing myself to do better…and for what? For his approval that I’ll never get? It definitely can’t be for some praise or love I’m looking for from him. I don’t think I’ll ever see that.
Brooke tries to help, tries to tell me ways I could impress him, or tells me how he’s just really stressed with a big deal he’s working on, as if he hasn’t been this way my entire life.
But I just let her keep whatever pretty image she has of him.
What’s the point in spilling to her all the ways he’s made himself feel bigger by stepping on me?
* * *
I’m standing in the break room this morning, talking to one of the brokers, when my dad walks in, shaking hands with him before the guy walks out.
“Straighten up when you talk to people, Mase. You look so unsure of yourself, like you don’t even belong here.”
I shrug him off. “I’m fine.”
“Then why do you always look like you don’t want to be here?”
“Maybe because I don’t,” I say before I can think better of it.
He looks up from the coffee maker. “Excuse me?”
I take a deep breath in, too annoyed by my lack of sleep and exhaustion to even care today.
“You forced me into this. I don’t want to run your firm. I never have. I don’t care about real estate, and you know that.”
“You’re not in a position to decide that. This was built to stay in the family.”
“I’m almost twenty, not twelve. I can make my own decisions.”
He sets down his coffee cup, looking annoyed at me. “Act like you’re an adult then. You’ve been given every opportunity—private schools, the best coaches, the best training camps, the name that has opened up so many doors for you. And still, you act like it’s a curse.”
“Because it is!” I snap. “You don’t care about me, you only care about your damn reputation! You don’t see me as your son, just a project. A pawn to keep some shitty legacy alive. You don’t care about what I want.”
His voice doesn’t rise, and that’s what makes it worse. There’s never any emotion behind his words. “You think anyone gets to be soft around here? You think being a man means waiting for someone to pat your head? Toughen up. The world doesn’t care how you feel.”
“I’m not asking the world to care!” I say. “I’m asking you to. For once.”
He stares at me like I’m speaking another language. Like I’m the weak link in his litter.
Then he just takes his black coffee and turns to walk away. “Get back to work…and please try to do something besides make me regret having you.”
I stand there, stuck as he walks out.
I can’t even wrap my head around what he just said, around someone being so heartless.
Hell, I look at my little brothers with more love than my dad has ever even glanced in my direction with.
I can’t imagine the feeling I’ll hopefully one day have for my own kids—if I could even find someone who would want that with me, someone I could want that with.
I don’t understand the hate he has for me. I don’t think I ever will.
I sit at my desk for an hour after that, willing the time to go by faster. I only have a few weeks left in this place.
I just have to make it that long. Suck it up, turn my feelings back off, and survive a little longer.
My phone buzzes on my desk, and I check it to see a text from Brooke.
Brooke: Do you have a fake ID?
I laugh quietly, wondering what she wants to get into.
Mason: I’m a 19-year-old college kid…of course I do
Brooke: Take me out for drinks tonight
Mason: I’ll be out of here by 9
We end up at some rooftop bar in the city.
She talks about her family, her plans after graduation, and the position she wants to work her way up to at the firm, pulling me into conversations as much as she can.
My head is fucked from today, and I don’t want to blow her off, but all I want to do right now is be home, in my bed, asleep, getting one day closer to being back in Texas, far away from here.
When I drive her home, she convinces me to come up and watch a movie with her, and I give in.
The movie is on, but nobody’s watching. Her mouth is on mine, and my hands are on her neck as she straddles me on the couch in her high-rise condo.
The make-out turns heavy until her lips are on my neck and her hands are on my zipper.
I gently stop her, pulling back. “I can’t.”
“Did I do something wrong, Mason?”
I shake my head, placing my hands on the sides of her arms. “No, it’s not you.”
“Do you even like me?”
“Of course I do,” I tell her. “You’re amazing, but you deserve more than just some summer fling. I’m leaving in a couple of weeks, Brooke.”
She leans down into the crook of my neck again and kisses me. “I was okay with the summer hook-up thing. I knew this wasn’t permanent.”
I angle my neck for her to get more access as I keep talking. “I don’t really have sex with anyone if I don’t think it’s going to last.”
She lifts her head to look at me. “I would have never taken you for a play-it-safe kinda guy.”
That makes me chuckle. “Yeah, you and everyone else.”
“Well, I’ll be here next summer if you change your mind. You know, if nobody snags me up first,” she teases.
We kiss again. It’s soft and slow and…sad. It feels like I’m failing as a guy, like I’m saying goodbye to yet another opportunity to have felt something for someone else, another strike confirming I’m the problem.
When I leave, the air outside feels hot and heavier than before. I walk to my car, sit in the driver’s seat, and just stare at the steering wheel for a while.
I’m surrounded by everything people are supposed to want—money, comfort, success, girls who throw themselves at you. And yet, I’ve never felt more hollow. I don’t want any of it.
When I get home, the twins are asleep on the couch, both curled up under a blanket. The TV’s still on, playing some cartoon they must’ve fallen asleep to because no one seemed to care enough to put them to bed.
I sit between them and pull the blanket over my legs, too.
Easton stirs, opens one eye, and mumbles, “You home, Mase?”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “I’m home.”
He smiles, half-asleep, and rests his head on my arm.
For the first time all day, something in me feels like it’s still beating.
I brush his dirty blonde hair back and stare up at the ceiling.
I wonder if this…just being here, loving them…is the only thing that’ll ever make me feel whole.