Pretend

Page 65

“Motherfucker!” Mason fisted his hands, tried to keep from hitting or breaking something. They were fucked and it was all his fault. He’d pulled Durango’s monthly paperwork. He’d been the one who was supposed to go over everything, yet he put it off, before finally leaving it for Isaac. Between Creekside and here, he just hadn’t made it the priority he should have.
“Shit!” This time he didn’t have the strength to hold himself back. Mason pushed to his feet. With one sweep of his hands, he shoved everything from the desk to the floor. Missing money was big. His parents had never had a problem like this before. He’d been the one to hire Bryce, and now the man had stolen from them.
He’d failed. He thought he could handle it all and he couldn’t. He let himself down. He let his family down. “I’ll go. I’ll fix it.”
“Mason.” The emotion in Isaac’s voice surprised him. The man was cutthroat. If someone fucked up, he had no problem telling them. Mason had fucked up.
“This was on me. I was so pissed at you guys for wanting this new restaurant and so busy trying to keep things going at the bar that I let the Durango worries go. I didn’t pay attention and I need to fix it.” He’d known for a while someone needed to make the trip to Durango, yet he’d put it off, figured everything was fine because he knew it would fall on him, or he’d be left with Denver and Boulder.
Isaac sighed. “How are you supposed to do that? You have your bar and shit going on here. I’ll handle it.”
Mason fell back into the chair again. He set his elbows on the table, his head bowed, and his hands latched behind his head. After exhaling a deep breath, he asked, “Does Dad know yet?” That’s what hurt. He’d failed his father. The man who built Alexander’s from nothing. The man who wanted nothing more than the son who didn’t even have his own blood to have his legacy.
“No. I wanted to talk to you first. You know as well as I do he’s not going to take this well.”
Durango was his baby. He’d worked all hours of the day there when Mason was an infant. He grew Alexander’s from the ground up from that establishment, for his family.
“I’ll talk to him. And I’ll go. Everything else can wait. I’m going to fix this.” Mason stood. “I need to go to Blackcreek. I have to talk with Gavin, and then I’ll be back. Don’t talk to Dad without me.” Without another word, he walked out.
***
Gavin knocked on Braden’s door. His friend had called him over a little while before. Apparently he had something he wanted to run past Gavin, which knowing Braden, could mean just about anything.
When his friend didn’t answer, he knocked again. Finally, the knob twisted and Braden pulled the door open. “Hey, man. How are things going?” Braden stood aside for Gavin to walk in.
“Good. How about you?” When Braden closed the door, Gavin followed him to their kitchen table and sat down.
“Keeping busy. Jess is playing with her cousins today and Wes is at work. I don’t really know what to do with myself.”
Gavin chuckled, not sure when he’d ever seen the man so grounded. Actually, that wasn’t true. He’d never seen it before Braden met Wes.
“Do you want a beer?” Braden asked.
“Nah. I’m good.” The fact that his friend continued to stall didn’t escape his attention. “Spit it out, Braden. What’s going on?”
“I hear the skepticism in your voice. I called you here for a good thing. Don’t start stressing out on me.”
It was then that Gavin realized his body was tense. He fought to relax, which pretty much became impossible when he realized something else about himself. He always assumed the worst. He’d automatically expected the worst when he got here.
“I’m not stressing out.”
Braden didn’t respond to that. “Listen, I had a conversation sort of fall into my lap. I was speaking with one of Jessie’s friend’s moms. She works for the school district, and she was telling me about this new music program they’ve been planning to start at the beginning of the new school year. It wouldn’t be at only one school. You’d spend certain days at the elementary school, middle school and high school, but it’s supposed to be a really great program. They didn’t have music before because of budget cuts, so now they’re starting over.”
Gavin got a pain in his chest thinking about the fact that they hadn’t had music. It was always one of the first things to go. Didn’t people realize how important music was?