Rock Bay 2 - Letting Go (12 page)

when he pulled up to Mason’s place to pick him up. Mason was waiting outside, shuffling back and forth on his feet. Drew hoped the date went well. He kind of needed the date to go well after all the shit that had gone down with Brock and the fight. If he didn’t have Mason to look forward to, well, shit. That’s all he had to say about that. Mason looked adorable. He’d put on these jeans that were tight in all the ways Drew loved and a light sweater that was casual and the perfect color for his fair skin and chocolatey hair.

“Hi,” Mason said shyly when he got to the bottom of his front stairs. He looked a little cagey, like he wasn’t quite sure what to expect of Drew. Drew supposed that was fair, since they’d had a bit of a rough start, but he’d thought that, with all their phone calls, things had relaxed.

“Hi,” he answered back and opened Mason’s car door for him. Cheesy, maybe. But Drew wanted to be a gentleman. He wanted to impress Mason.

The quiet in the car once Drew got in and started the engine was awkward. It was
really
awkward, actually. Not like the sweet awkward from when they were trying to get to know each other on the phone, but almost like the hostile awkward of the night that Mason saw him with Brock. Drew wanted to know what had happened between their last phone call and now. Nothing about the air in the car felt like the flirtatious vibe that had been growing between them.

Mason shrugged. “There was a bowling alley at home. We all got pretty good at it since there wasn’t anything else to do in that damn hick town.”

Drew smiled.
“Is that a problem?” Mason’s voice was
instantly hostile.
“Um, no. I was just noticing that you don’t
seem to like small towns much, based on your
comment.”
“Oh.” Mason fell silent after that. Drew sat in
the driver’s seat, wondering what the hell he was
supposed to do. Where had they gone? What had
happened to the Mason who’d been excited to see

him? He tried to think of something else to say, but nothing came to mind. He thought he’d probably just jump out of the car if Mason reacted badly to anything else he said.

It was a
long
fifteen minutes later that they pulled into a spot at the bowling alley. Drew got out and went around to Mason’s side of the car to open his door again, but found Mason already standing.

Mason rolled his eyes. “I think I got it for myself, thanks.”
“Are you okay? I mean, you seem different tonight.” As soon as Drew said it, he realized it was probably the wrong thing to say. Who ever wants it pointed out to them that they’re acting like a pod person?

“I’m fine.” Mason walked around Drew and waited impatiently out in the aisle of the parking lot.

“Never mind,” Drew mumbled. He followed Mason into the bowling alley. Mason walked slightly ahead of him the whole time. They barely even connected glances. Drew wanted to reach out, maybe hold his hand, but so many of the little fantasies he’d had in his head over the past couple of days were dying pretty quickly. So was his interest in the date.

He thought he might salvage it by buying Mason some snacks or a beer while they were bowling, so while Mason was picking out a ball, he went over to the snack bar and got a few of his favorites. He hoped they were Mason’s as well.

Mason did mutter a terse thanks when he set the snacks down. Drew hoped that was a step in the right direction. But after that, he was quiet. They started to bowl, and Drew was as awful as he’d always been. He’d been hoping for some flirtatious instruction, maybe a few touches when Mason leaned close to give him a pointer. What he got was a lot of quiet. He could hear the balls crashing into the pins a few lanes down, the pipedin music, the conversation of the people in the main area up above the lanes. It was excruciating. Drew tried again.

“My day was great too. Thanks for asking.” He didn’t know what was up Mason’s ass, but if he was doing this just to be a jerk because Drew had been friends with Brock, then he really was a total asshole. How could he pretend to like Drew during all those phone calls?

“What the hell?” Mason looked at him like he’d gone insane.
“I could ask you the same thing.”

Mason stared at him for a few long moments, then turned back to the scoreboard. “Let’s just play the damn game.”

They bowled for a while; it felt like a damn eternity to Drew, who was still trying to figure out what the hell had gone wrong. He tried a few of the nachos and a mozzarella stick while he was watching Mason bowl. It really was too bad. Mason was beautiful. And on the phone they’d gotten along so well. But in person, he was all prickly and silent.

“Don’t you want any of the nachos or anything?” Drew asked. He didn’t know why he kept trying, other than the fact that he didn’t want to spend his whole night in silence.

“Oh, well I got them because I thought you might be hungry.”
Mason rolled his eyes. “You could’ve asked me what I wanted then, instead of assuming that whatever you picked out for me would be better than what I could’ve picked out myself.”
I didn’t….
Drew was hurt. Every damn nice gesture he tried with the little shit got shot down.
“Well, I apologize that my taste isn’t up to your standards. Perhaps next time, I’ll take that into consideration when I’m trying to do something nice.” It was bitchy. He knew it was. It just hurt that Mason wasn’t the guy Drew had hoped he would be. In fact, he was so opposite from whoever it was Drew had been talking to on the phone, he was starting to wonder if that was someone completely different with the same voice. It didn’t matter. No matter who Mason really was, it was clear that their date was turning quickly into the biggest disaster of his short, uneventful, dating life. And he’d fucking come out to Brock for this?
Fuck.
Nothing much changed after that. He said a few things to Mason, but whether it was hurt or just plain annoyance, everything that came out of his mouth got bitchier. Mason’s replies did as well. A success all around. He opened his mouth a hundred times to ask Mason again what was wrong. There had to be some logical explanation, he thought. Unless it was just that
he
wasn’t the guy Mason was expecting either. Maybe he was dorkier, less attractive when viewed from up close. It couldn’t have been his personality. Mason hadn’t given him enough time to act like a jerk— which he wasn’t planning to do anyway. Drew thought of the flowers that were sitting on his backseat. He’d been so nervous when he first pulled up that he’d forgotten to give them to Mason. By the end of the seventh frame, he was so damn annoyed that Mason was lucky he was getting a ride home, let alone flowers.

They finished their game, since it was paid for and everything, and sat in silence, removing their shoes and getting their wallets and keys.

“Ready?” Drew finally asked, after having sat there for a good minute, not wanting to talk.
“Yeah.” He couldn’t be sure, but Mason seemed a bit embarrassed, or quiet, or anything but the total asshole he’d been for the past hour.
Drew decided not to tempt fate. “Okay. I’ll go ahead and take you home.” He stood and led the way to the shoe return and waited in more silence until both he and Mason had their shoes on and were ready to go.

In the car, Drew turned on the radio, volume low, just so he wouldn’t have to listen to the deafening silence of his failed nonrelationship. It sucked that the whole damn thing hadn’t even gotten off the ground before it crashed so spectacularly. He pulled up to Mason’s apartment, and as much as he wanted to squeal to a stop and throw the door open, or maybe grill Mason to find the source of whatever the hell had gone wrong, his manners got the best of him. He got out and walked around to Mason’s side of the car. For whatever reason, Mason let him open the door that time. He swung his legs out slowly and stood. There was something different about his face. Drew almost opened his mouth to speak again.
No.
It was best to leave all that alone. He glanced in the backseat at the flowers. Flowers he wanted no part of. Before Mason turned to walk up the stairs, Drew opened up the back door and got them out. They were tulips, no longer in season but pretty, pale lavender and white.

“Here, I got these for you. I don’t want them,” Drew said, and nearly shoved the flowers into Mason’s surprised arms. “I’d love to say good night, but, well, night anyway. I’ll probably see you around.”

He didn’t wait for a reply. Whatever that reply might be, Drew was pretty sure he couldn’t handle it. Instead, he got back into his car and, with a small wave, pulled away.
File this night under one of the worst effing nights of my life.
Sure, no one had died, and he still had all of his limbs and his vital parts, but his heart was a little broken. All of the hope he’d felt since he and Mason laid eyes on each other was dead. Gone.

Drew was screwed. He had the potential for major fucking disaster at home after the whole coming out to Brock debacle, and not a damn thing to show for it other than one bad date and no boyfriend. He seriously considered moving to Portland. Or maybe Timbuktu. No one knew him there.

D
REW
had the worst headache he could remember having in years, and every time he thought about Saturday night the damn thing just got worse. What the hell had happened? They were so great on the phone, and then, all of a sudden, everything was awkward and uncomfortable, and he could’ve sworn that Mason was acting like he was some asshole instead of the guy he’d been flirting with for all those days in a row. Drew didn’t get it. They’d liked each other so, so much.

He pulled up in front of the dentist’s office where he did payroll and the quarterly taxes. It was Monday. Payroll collection day. He usually spent an hour or so driving around to his various payroll clients and picking up their information so he could process their checks by Friday. Drew walked in to get the usual folder that was left for him, but his slot was empty.

“Hey, Margie, do you know where Dr. Walker put the payroll stuff?”
Margie looked uncomfortable. “You might want to ask him, Drew. I think he’s in his office.”

Drew found the dentist in his office, sifting through paperwork. “Dr. Walker?” he asked hesitantly. Something about the whole scenario didn’t seem right.

Dr. Walker cleared his throat. “I actually wanted to discuss that with you. I’m thinking of bringing the payroll in house to save some money. You know, do it myself.”

Bullshit.
Drew knew a lie when he saw one. “I can give you a better rate if you’re having trouble making ends meet,” he offered. Part of him really needed to keep the business, but another part of him wanted to see how far the dentist would go. He played golf with Brock’s father. Drew knew exactly what this was about.

Don’t panic. It’s just one guy.
“Thank you, but no. My daughter Sylvia has been taking some accounting courses out at the community college. I’m going to have her start doing it.”
His daughter Sylvia spent most of her evenings in Lex and Tally’s shop with her friends,

ogling the two shop owners and discussing how much they’d like to be in the middle of that sandwich. Drew had heard them on more than one occasion.

Drew left the office, embarrassed and angry.
If I was in Seattle, I wouldn’t be processing payroll for small-time dentists. I’d be in charge of a company.
And it was true. He did things to keep open and busy in Rock Bay that a certified CPA would allocate to their employees in any other situation. For the millionth time, Drew thought it would be easier if he just left town. But he finally had friends that he liked, and a social life that was actually fun, and Mason…
shit
. He’d managed not to think of Mason for five whole minutes, while he was losing a client of course, and then Saturday night was back in his head. Humiliating and impossible to forget.

Drew’s second client of the day had payroll ready for him just like always, but the third was another variation on what had happened at the dentist’s office that morning. The only exception, as he left the grocery store minus one more client, was that he saw Mike Martin getting out of his ancient Volvo. Mike was an accountant up in Long Beach, not too far away. Drew had met him at a number of association dinners. Nice guy. He had the grace to look embarrassed when he noticed Drew standing there.

“Sorry, man. I couldn’t afford to turn down the work.”
“It’s okay.” It wasn’t okay, and Drew wanted to punch his competitor, but it really wasn’t Mike’s fault, and he did understand. “Nobody can really afford to turn down work these days.”

Mike nodded, straightened his tie, and headed in to the grocery store to meet with Clark Jensen, the owner.