18. Callie
Chapter eighteen
“He wasn’t even married until after you were born.” Mum’s defeated voice fills my car speakers. I can tell she’s trying to be strong—it’s something I’ve never heard in her over the years my dad disappointed her and led her on.
“Do you think she knows about us?” I can’t help but ask. It’s not just Mum’s life that has been rocked by his lies, it’s mine and Caspian’s too.
Mum sighs before answering. “I’d like to hope she doesn’t, that she wouldn’t knowingly be with someone who was essentially living a double life.
At the same time, I know now how manipulative your father is truly capable of being.
Perhaps she was convincing herself she was seeing something that wasn’t there, too. ”
“I’m so sorry, Mum.” My heart aches for her. I’d already given up on my dad, but Mum never did.
“I’m sorry too, sweetheart. Sorry I wasn’t… braver.” Her voice cracks.
“I don’t blame you, Mum,” I say, injecting it with every ounce of ferocity I can. I won’t let her continue apologising for him.
The GPS on my phone tells me I’m only five minutes away from Mason’s house.
“I hate to say goodbye, but I’m almost at work.”
Mum sniffles through the line. “That’s okay. I’m so glad you picked up.”
“I’ll always pick up for you.”
“I love you, Callista.” My mouth quirks at the use of my full name. “I don’t say that enough.”
“It’s okay, Mum. I know you do. And I love you, too.”
I spend the remaining minutes of my drive taking deep breaths and hoping there’s no evidence of the heaviness left from my call with Mum.
Gravel crunches under my tyres once I hit the long driveway leading up to Mason’s house. Not only is he going to teach me more about building, but he’s letting me do it with his own house.
It’s not lost on me how lucky I am to have fallen into this job. Mason really looks after me. He’s so kind and generous. And, Jesus, really, really hot.
Time has slowed, simply to give me this moment to appreciate him in all his glory.
Leaning over a trestle table set up on the front porch, his brown hair hangs over his forehead, a tight white T-shirt stretches around his biceps, and that gold chain sways gently over his broad chest. A pencil is held between his lips, and his forearms look thick and golden where they’re braced against the table.
I pull to a stop beside Mason’s car. Monster truck is a more apt description. He moved from his spot in the time it took me to get out of the car, and now waits for me at the bottom of the porch stairs.
“Hey, Trouble.” His back is leaning against the post, one ankle crossed over the other, and his arms folded over his chest, the muscles bulging obscenely for seven in the morning.
A girl should have some warning, possibly a form of protection, before being thrust in the face with an image of Mason Heart waiting for her.
“Morning.” I smile.
“Ready for your first day as a tradie?”
I laugh, hoping to downplay the heat blooming on my cheeks. “Sure am. Put me to work.”
“First things first.” He grabs my waist and lifts me over the first step. “That stair’s still broken.”
I gasp, gripping his shoulders as all other nerve endings gather between my legs. “Maybe we should put that on our list to fix first,” I say, hoping he can’t hear the way he steals my breath.
“Nah.” He shakes his head, walking to the top of the porch. “I think we can manage it for a bit so we can get a few more pressing things done first.”
“I think you just like putting your hands on me, Heart.”
He grimaces, but it’s full of tease and temptation. “That sounds highly unprofessional, not at all like me.”
“Mmhmm, I think you’re the one who’s trouble.”
But I’ll give him credit—I did think he was a ruthless flirt when we first met.
After working together for a few weeks, I can see there’s a different side of him.
I’m certain it’s his natural charm and an entirely one-sided phenomenon that I can’t seem to keep my thoughts of him strictly professional.
I’m not dating, but maybe I need to find a way to get rid of the tension.
Then I might stop thirsting over my boss.
I tear my eyes from him, focusing on the papers spread out on the table in front of us.
“So these are the new plans that Tristan worked on?”
“Yep, this is what it’s going to be.” Mason shuffles through the pages. “This one is our demo plan. These are the walls we’re taking down and where the new ones will be built.”
His fingers glide over the paper, hovering over the red lines that mark the changes and the thin, black ones that show the new walls.
The wall beside the fireplace in the kitchen is marked red, showing how it will sit in the centre of the room with a walkway on either side, leading into a new dining room.
A big room extends to the right with windows all around it, so you can see the land from every angle.
Bifold doors are indicated on one side that open up to a new deck that the kitchen also overlooks.
The space is going to be nothing short of stunning.
“This is so cool.” My own finger traces the path, the exact one we walked the first time we came here, trying to visualise it in this new version.
“And then over here…” Mason draws his fingertip to the far left of the plan, and my finger follows, pulled like a magnet, dancing around his on the page. “This is the new primary suite.”
A long rectangular room stretches into the land, then hooks out on an angle, allowing a bank of windows to face perfectly east. There’s a wall at the end for a bed to rest against, meaning you get a front-row seat to every sunrise.
“Mason, this is going to be beautiful.”
“Mmm,” he says absently, making me look up, only to find his eyes on me.
He clears his throat. “It’s gonna take time and some hard work, so we better get started.
The electrician and plumber have already done their inspections, and the structural report came through late Friday arvo.
I’ve got support beams being delivered during the week, so we can frame up the load-bearing walls before we take anything out.
Today, we’re going to get started on stripping the tiles and cabinetry in the bathroom and kitchen. ”
“Straight to the good stuff. I like it.”
“Yep.” He nods, moving around the table to pick up a shopping bag. “But safety first.”
He pulls out some safety glasses and gloves, a dark pink, long-sleeved shirt with reflective silver bands along the sleeves and chest, a pair of navy blue shorts, and tan-coloured sneakers with pastel pink laces and a strip of darker pink along the heel.
“I grabbed a few sizes cos I wasn’t too sure.
” He holds up the shorts first, then grabs the gloves.
They’re attached to a clip, which he then fastens to a hook on one side of the shorts.
There are pockets on every side, functioning pockets for once.
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve put my hand in a pair of new jeans to find the pockets are fake.
Why are we doing this? In what world does a woman not need a pocket?
I pick up one of the shoes, yelping when I find it unexpectedly heavy.
“Those are steel-capped. I have other sizes in my car if you need, but I think these are right.” He pulls a pair of black socks from the bag, handing those to me next.
“I would have got all this over the weekend had I thought properly about it.” I chuckle. Obviously, I would have needed some form of protective gear on a work site. “Thank you so much for going to all this trouble.”
“It’s no trouble at all.” He helps me put everything back into the bag. “You can get changed in the bathroom upstairs, and I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”
Once I’m changed and back downstairs, I find Mason fiddling with a wireless speaker.
“They fit,” Mason says, beaming, as he sets the speaker on the fireplace mantle, music softly spilling out. Two drinks also sit on the mantle: an iced chocolate and a strawberry matcha.
“They do.” I glance at Mason’s shirt. He’s changed into a long-sleeved neon yellow with dark blue along the bottom.
“Time to show me what you’ve got.”
For the next few hours, Mason shows me how to unscrew all the doors of the kitchen cabinetry, then we use crowbars to gently pry away the frames.
The time passes easily as we fall into a comfortable rhythm, working around each other.
I learn that not only do I love working with my hands and watching transformation bloom from my fingertips, but also, Mason has a really nice singing voice, whether he’s singing a sweet melody to himself or belting out a rock ballad and using various tools as a microphone.
When one song comes on, he laughs telling me a story of how he and his grandpa always argue over the meaning of one song; his grandpa insists it’s about confidence and being the cream of the crop, while Mason’s certain it means a different kind of cream.
Another song comes on that always makes his stomach clench because it was playing in the hospital waiting room when his brother was in a car accident years ago.
He changes the station when I tell him I hate a particular song because it’s one my mother would play on repeat whenever my dad decided to show up at home, one that describes everything clearly now that the rain has gone, and it always makes me sad that she doesn’t see her own sunshine.
By the time we finish one wall of cabinetry, my hands are aching, my boobs are about to spring a leak, and my stomach is grumbling, but I can’t wipe the smile off my face.
“Perfect time for a break,” Mason says when his phone pings with a notification. We leave our tools in the kitchen, and I follow him to the front porch just as a delivery van pulls up.
“For Mason?” a young guy calls as he steps out of the car.
“That’s me.” Mason goes to greet him, accepts a paper takeout bag, then joins me back on the front porch.
“Can you grab those chairs, please?” He points his chin behind me, and I see two picnic chairs folded against the side of the house.