Page 4 of Meeting Up with the Mason

I added, “Then you don’t need to vet me, and I have a track record of finishing the things I start. Plus, digging. Archaeology. It’s kind of a given.”

Dad cocked his head. “Think about whether you’re up for it. There’s lots of demolition, lots of flattening, lots of complaints when the pavers don’t line up right…?”

I forced a laugh. It came out sounding nervous—or maybe deranged. “She hasn’t bought the paving stones. I can encourage her to pick out really easy ones…?”

Dad punched in a couple of notes on his phone. “You’re talking three long days’ work, and I thought you had research to do.”

I folded my arms. “Repeat after me: ‘It’s much too nice a day to be indoors working on the thesis.’ It’s not like I won’t graduate on time because I took half a week to do something else. And this could be pizza money for late-night study sessions.”

Dad shoved the phone in his pocket. “You’ve got it bad. Sure, I’ll write up an estimate with you as the human sacrifice. All I can say is, she’d better be wicked cute.”

I grinned. “Trust me, she is.”

Chapter 3

Alyssa

Itexted Chip from the Stone Depot parking lot. “I’m here. You?”

He replied, “I’ve arrived. Let’s get this field trip started.”

I entered the store and headed right for the paving stone section. Another text. “I’m in position.”

In position in Savannah, that was. He was in position in Cape Cod. Thank goodness for national chains.

“Copy that,” he replied, followed by a second text. “I feel like this required synchronizing our watches and devising code phrases, like, ‘The fallen rocks have zoned.’”

I sent back, “We’re already synchronized to ‘Steve Jobs Standard Time’.”

He sent a thumbs up.

A moment after, MeetSpace alerted me to an incoming call. I tapped the screen, and Chip’s face appeared.

I hadn’t misremembered: that boy was cute. Wide-eyed, he looked like a guy with exactly zero confidence in what he was doing. “I hope both stores are laid out the same.”

“That’s the point of having a chain, right?” I looked around. “Just inside the patio section, the first thing I see are gray octagonal stones.”

Chip’s eyes swiveled, and momentarily he smiled in a way that lit up his whole face. “Success! Behind those are the same stones, but reddish?”

“Perfect!” Come to think of it, Chip himself looked pretty perfect, especially when he smiled. “What do you recommend?”

“Your old pavers are a dark gray.” Chip’s tone shifted into a deeper register as he transformed from “spy infiltrating the enemy’s stone storage center” to “junior contractor.” “That color does nothing for the property, and I imagine with that flat surface, they get slippery in the rain. Especially with those deathtrap steps, I’m going to advise against anything similar.” He flipped the camera around so I could see his version of the same burgundy stones in front of me. “These will stand about an inch off the ground, and I want you to touch them. Rough as they are, they’ll have a wicked grip when it rains or snows.”

I dutifully touched the stones. “Acknowledged.” I wished he’d flip the camera back around, but instead, he was heading to another display. “What color do you recommend?”

“The Eponymous A.J. MacElroy suggests a neutral color, possibly lighter, so it stands out against the lawn.”

I stopped in front of something that looked like tiles. “How about these?”

Chip aimed his camera at them. “Nope. You want to avoid rubber and plastic.”

I said, “Why?”

Chip flipped the camera so I could see his face again. “Because they’re sham rocks.”

I stopped in place.

“Get it…? They’re not real.”

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