Читать книгу What Are The Chances? - D. Graham R. - Страница 9

Mason drove a little faster than the speed limit, but it didn’t bother me because his car handled smoothly and clung to the curves of the highway. He kept looking at me, probably to make sure I wasn’t going to have a meltdown on him.

Eventually, he cleared his throat and said, “Uh, I heard you weren’t dating anyone right now, but if that’s not the case I—”

“I’m single.”

“So, there’s nothing going on between you and Trevor?”

“No.”

He glanced at me briefly before focusing back on the road. “I don’t want to get in the middle of anything.”

“Don’t worry. You’re not.”

He nodded but didn’t seem entirely convinced. “He said you’re uncomfortable driving on the highway. Does that have something to do with how your dad died?”

I took in a deep breath and stared out the side window at the rock face passing by, trying to decide how much I wanted to share with him. I took another breath and said, “Yeah. The car accident happened about a kilometre away from the Inn.”

Mason’s eyebrows angled with concern. Although it had gotten a little easier over the years to tell people about my dad, it was still painful to go into details about the accident, so I mastered avoidance techniques.

“Anyway, I just get a little weird about driving fast on the highway. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s understandable.” He eased the pressure off the accelerator and we slowed to the speed limit.

Neither of us spoke, and it made me hyper-aware of everything—the tremble in my hands, how loud I was breathing, how little I actually knew about him. To distract myself from the anxious thinking that was inevitably going to snowball, I racked my brain for something to talk about. Anything. “So, where have you been travelling for the last year?”

“Pretty much everywhere—Milan, Amsterdam, Istanbul, Tokyo, Berlin, London, Paris, and New York. My dad threw me into the deep end to see if I would sink or swim.”

“And?”

He laughed. “I’m doing more of a dog paddle, but he hasn’t fired me yet.”

“What do you do, exactly?”

“Basically, I find out what other people are willing to pay a lot of money for and get it for them.”

“Sounds interesting.”

“Not really. I’m either on an airplane, in meetings, or on the phone in a hotel room most of the time.”

I turned in the seat to face him. “You’ve been living out of hotels for a year?”

“You make it sound horrible.” He pointed at me to tease. “You technically live in a hotel.”

“Right.” I chuckled and shrugged to concede the point. “I guess it’s not so bad. Will you always have to travel that much?”

“For a while, but once I learn about every part of the business, I’ll probably just go on a couple of big trips a year. That’s what my dad does now.” He down-shifted through the curves in the road and the engine rumbled. I really wasn’t into fancy things, but it was undeniably an impressive car.

“Did your dad travel a lot when you were growing up?”

“Yeah. He was gone most of the time. One time, when I was about four, he tried to hug me after he’d been away for two months and I cried because I thought he was a stranger.” He chuckled, but there was something else in the tone of his voice that made it seem like it was a painful memory. “My mom likes to tell everyone that story. It’s her way of complaining that he wasn’t around.”

“Are you closer to your dad now that you work together?”

“It’s getting better.” He nodded pensively. “I think I’ve figured out how to impress him.”

“Has he figured out how to impress you?”

Mason licked his bottom lip and seemed uncomfortable with the question. He finally said, “I don’t know,” and accelerated to pass a row of slow-moving cars. The engine revved as we sped effortlessly along the twists of the highway. Once we had left the other traffic behind, the engine quieted and we slowed down. “Sorry,” he said.

At first I wondered why he apologized but then I realized I’d had my eyes clenched shut and my fingers clamping my knees. “Oh. No. I’m fine.” I relaxed and exhaled. “Actually, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked such personal questions about your dad. We hardly know each other.”

“Personal is good. You can ask me whatever you want. Seriously, I’m so tired of shallow conversations and superficial people. Tell me more about your dad. You must miss him.”

I nodded and sighed. “I do. Desperately. We were very close and I would do anything to have just one more day with him. You’re lucky you and your dad still have the opportunity to grow even closer.”

He concentrated on the winding road, gripping the steering wheel tightly. Even though he said he was okay with the deeper, personal conversation, he really didn’t seem to be. Eventually he asked, “What was it like to grow up in Britannia Beach?”

“Life in a tiny roadside village is not fascinating enough to be considered a conversation topic I don’t think.”

“Try me. Tell me something you used to do as a kid.”

“Um, let’s see.” I skipped over most of my good memories because they all included Trevor. I definitely didn’t want to go on about him to Mason. It took a while, but I eventually came up with one. “On hot summer days I used to set up a lemonade stand in the parking lot in front of the Inn. I made so much money from tourists going by on the highway that my dad opened up a bank account for me. I still have all the money. It’s part of my university fund.”

“How entrepreneurial of you.”

I gestured to showcase the features of his car. “Well, I didn’t make quite enough to afford a luxury McLaren.”

He laughed. “Neither did I. My dad gave me the car.” His eyes shifted sideways and met my gaze. “I think I would like to spend more time in Britannia Beach.”

“I’m pretty sure you’ll be begging for an airplane and a hotel room in a foreign country after a couple of hours.”

“Not if you’re here.”

I shoved his shoulder playfully. “Well, although that is obviously your attempt to be funny, I’m only going to be here for the rest of the summer.”

He shook his head. “I wasn’t trying to be funny.”

I rolled my eyes, but when his expression remained serious I realized he wasn’t joking. Not sure what to think of that, I tucked my hair behind my ears and focused on the scenery. We had already arrived in Squamish. A few minutes later, we pulled up in front of a two-storey house made of glass and cedar posts arranged in sharp, clean angles. It was an homage to a Fred Hollingsworth design that I had driven past to admire before. Mason pulled into the roundabout driveway and stopped in front of the house. He got out of the car and rushed around to flip my door up for me. Then he offered his hand to help me step out. “You can wait in the house out of the rain while I park the car. I’ll only be a minute.”

I ran to stand under the overhang by the front door and wrapped my bare arms around my body. I didn’t want to go inside because I didn’t even know whose house it was. Three girls who went to my school in Mason’s graduating class filed out of a cab and stumbled up the stone pathway towards the house. I smiled uncomfortably, hoping they would just walk by and ignore me. One of the girls, named Paige, smiled back, but the other two glared at me. The one named Corrine Andrews curled her lip up as if I was dirty or disgusting in some way. They went into the house without knocking and slammed the door shut behind them. They must have been drunk because they were way too loud and I could hear them through the door. “Who is that?”

“Isn’t she Trevor Maverty’s sister?”

“I thought his sister has Down syndrome?”

“Not that one. The sister who works at the Britannia Beach Inn.”

“Trevor only has one sister. The girl who works at the Inn is Derian Lafleur. Remember her? She hangs out with that vampire chick in your cousin’s band.”

“Oh yeah, I remember. That girl outside wasn’t Derian. Derian isn’t that pretty.”

Mason jogged towards me. He was soaking wet, but smiling. Obviously, my face was still locked in the same expression it had been while I was eavesdropping on the girls through the door because his smile faded. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I forced myself to be animated and sound convincing. “I think I’m just a little nervous to meet your friends.”

“They’re not so bad. I’ll protect you,” he joked as he squeezed his arm across my shoulders and led me into the house.

My palms got sweaty.