Page 7 of Torn

“Hm. That’s convenient, isn’t it?”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

Mason waved a hand. “Forget it,” he muttered, looking at the oak tree across the pond. Then he glanced back at me. “Hey, listen, I feel bad for upsetting you before, so I’m gonna make you another deal. Okay?”

“What sort of deal?”

“When you turn eighteen, I’ll come and visit you again. We can hang out and skip rocks like we did today, and if we still like each other, we can keep hanging out.”

I smiled widely. “Promise?”

He winked. “I promise. I’ll come back for you.” He grinned and skimmed another stone across the sparkling pond. “I totally owe you, anyway, because you taught me such a valuable life skill.”

I giggled. Mason might not have agreed to be my boyfriend, but he was still a boy who was a friend of mine now. That was pretty cool. I felt proud of myself for being brave enough to bring up the subject with him, too. If I hadn’t, I would’ve wound up mooning over him for weeks, wondering what might’ve happened.

I couldn’t wait to tell Elena. I knew my father didn’t like her very much, because she was so smart and outgoing for a girl, but I still liked her. She was a good friend to me.

Mason looked at his watch and frowned. “We better head back.”

“Okay.”

We trudged around to the marquee and returned to Frank and Marie. They were talking to my parents now. My father must’ve finished his phone call.

“You’re welcome to stay a while longer,” he was saying as Mason and I approached. “It was a surprise to see you today, but a very nice one all the same.”

“Oh, we’d love to,” Marie replied. “But we really have to get going. Our flight back to the city is very soon.”

Mason looked at me and winked. I giggled. This drew the attention of the adults, and they all turned and smiled at us. “There you are,” Frank said in his friendly, booming voice. “We were just saying we need to get going. You ready, Mason?”

“Sure.” He patted me on the back. “It was good to meet you, kid. I’ll see you round.”

My father was studying my face now. I was careful not to look too excited when I replied to Mason, in case it made him suspicious about the time I’d spent with him. “Nice to meet you too.”

The Ashwoods went to their car, and I watched sadly as it headed down the driveway. When it was nothing but a speck on the horizon, I went and found Elena so I could share some dessert with her. We spoke between mouthfuls. As I predicted, she was over the moon to hear about my little adventure with Mason.

“You’re totally going to marry him one day,” she said, eyes shining.

I chewed on my bottom lip. I wasn’t actually sure if I’d ever see Mason again. Even though he’d promised to come back for me, he might forget. After all, my eighteenth birthday was a long way off.

“Who’s Jolie going to marry?”

I jumped with fright, but as soon as I realized it was my mother, I calmed down. She was nowhere near as strict as my father.

“We were talking about a boy Jolie knows,” Elena said tentatively.

Mom smiled. “Ah. We’re already at the boy stage, are we?” she said. She leaned down to give me a hug. “Best not to talk too loudly about that when your father is around, okay?”

“Okay.”

“He’s about to give a speech to the members. Let’s go and get a seat close to the front. He’ll want us there to support him.”

A pulpit had been set up on the far right end of the marquee. My father stood behind it, his hands resting on a copy of His Word. Mom sat on a white chair a few feet from the pulpit, and I sat on her lap.

Once the members of the congregation and all their children were present and waiting for my father’s speech with bated breath, he raised his hands in the air and let a bright smile spread across his handsome face. “What a wonderful day we’ve been blessed with!”

This was met with a resounding cheer and a smattering of applause.

“I hope you’ve all had a chance to sample some of the delicious dishes our lovely wives have cooked up for today,” he went on. He patted his stomach. “I certainly have. Now, we’ve got a lot of fun events planned for this afternoon, but before we begin, I wanted to say a few words. Serious words.”

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