Page 47 of Love Lessons

Mason took a deep breath. “Okay, I get that—but promise me something.”

“What?”

He continued concentrating on his cutting, going around each point of the maple leaf with care. “Promise me you’ll enjoy yourself Saturday. I know you’ll be busy and stressing that night—but you have to at least allow yourself to have a little bit of fun while it’s happening.”

I slowly shook my head. “I don’t think I can promise that. My anxiety doesn’t allow me to have fun, sometimes.”

Mason’s eyes flitted up to mine, and there was something whimsical in the upturned corners of his lips as he said, “Does your anxiety allow you to enjoy caramel apples?”

I blinked. “Yes—but there won’t be any. I thought you knew that?”

He was full-on grinning now, cutting his leaf without saying a word.

“What?”

“Woodvale Methodist is going to be there, and they’re going to have your caramel apples, Ms. Devin.”

I tilted my head to the side and stared at him. “What are you talking about? They’re not one of my vendors.”

“Oh, but they’re one of my vendors,” he said, picking up another leaf to cut. “I got one of my mom’s church committees to agree to do it. They’re making them Friday night—it’s all taken care of.”

I couldn’t fully grasp what he was telling me. I stared at him with my mouth wide open for ten seconds—maybe more—trying to comprehend this… this gesture. “But—how? Where’d they get the apples? Are they—are they—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Mason interrupted. “Just give them a spot to set up, and that’s all you have to do.”

“But do they have receipts? I mean, I have to—”

“You don’t have to do a single thing.” He eyed my sloppy map, which was sitting in the center of my desk. “Just draw another rectangle on your little map there.”

“But—”

“Listen,” Mason said, a hint of authority in his voice. He leaned forward in his chair, holding his scissors between his knees. “If Owen Gardner can buy a couple of damn carnival rides, I can take care of a few apples. Okay?”

I wanted to tell him no.

I wanted to tell him that he was only wasting his time by doing this gesture for me because I couldn’t give him anything in return. I wanted to say I didn’t deserve it and to tell his mom and her church group to forget about it. But I made myself say, “Okay. Thank you.”

Mason smirked as he leaned back, returning to his leaf-cutting. “You’re welcome. And actually—there is one condition.”

“What’s that?”

He looked up at me in mock frustration. “I get to cut out these perfect little rounded leaves. You get all the annoyingly pointy maple ones.”

I laughed. “Deal.” We worked in silence for a while, cutting out leaves over the trash can between us. I muttered “a few apples” under my breath, which brought another smile to his lips. I would have loved to have told him that this act of his would have bought him a VIP ticket to my panties if he weren’t one of my students’ fathers, but I kept that thought to myself.

“Finley’s getting excited for the festival,” Mason said after a couple of minutes, cutting away at an orange leaf. “We actually have a paper-chain countdown for it. She has me make one for every holiday. Every event. It helps her grasp the concept of time a little bit better.”

“That’s so sweet,” I said, imagining the two of them doing crafts together at home. “So, if you don’t mind me asking, how has Finley been coping with everything?”

He glanced up at me with a hint of confusion in his eyes, as though he wasn’t sure what I could be referring to. Afraid I might have overstepped, I opened my mouth to apologize—but Mason said, “She’s fine.”

There was something about the confidence in his tone that filled me with doubt. I cut another leaf in silence, carefully considering a follow-up question. I hoped Mason would say more, but he didn’t.

And then I found myself mentioning something that had been in the back of my mind since the second I’d learned of Finley’s situation. “You know, when I was a kid, sometimes I would pretend to be okay when I wasn’t—just because I thought that’s what the adults around me needed to hear.”

Mason’s cutting slowed, and he glanced up toward my face. “But you weren’t okay?”

I took a deep breath, dropping a finished leaf onto my desk before picking up another. “No, not really. I could tell I was just upsetting my mom even more with all of my worries, so I just kept them to myself.”

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