By the time they’d all gotten dressed for the concert that night, Mason was wishing his friends had never come to Evonia in the first place. They’d goofed around all evening—nothing different from the way they used to hang out—but Mason found himself not interested in their antics at the moment.
He was picking up Brianna at her place that night—Cora too, since Nathan was already at the theater with his band to warm up. While offering to drive them had seemed like a good idea at the time, now Mason regretted it. His friends insisted on coming along to pick up the girls, and it was clear as soon as the car took off that the girls were not fans of Chase and Andre. They spent the entire car ride calling the girls “milady” and pretending to offer them champagne in horrible attempts at Evonian accents.
Mason rolled his eyes. The guys thought they were being hilarious, while Cora and Brianna clearly did not. He caught Brianna’s eye and tried to send her an apologetic look.
By the time they got to the theater, Mason was more than ready for the night to be over. Louisa introduced him to a few people, and every time he shook someone’s hand he could hear his friends snickering in the background. Normally her introductions didn’t bother him, but tonight Mason felt the back of his neck turn red each time.
Louisa was supposed to kick off the concert with a small welcome announcement. Their group had a row of seats in the balcony, and when she headed off to get onstage, Mason drifted over to his friends to bring them to their seats.
“Dude, you are such a puppet,” Andre teased when he reached them.
“What?”
“A puppet,” Chase said. “You’re here doing whatever these people tell you to do. It’s like we don’t even know you anymore.”
“That’s not true,” Mason insisted, although suddenly he found himself questioning it. He’d been enjoying himself these past few weeks here—hadn’t he?
“Look, I’m sure it’s weird with your mom,” added Chase. “But you don’t owe her anything, man.”
Mason struggled to think of a response. Suddenly it was hard to tell if he’d really been having fun here, or if he’d just been trying to convince himself that he’d forgiven Louisa and everything was fine.
The sound of laughter caught his attention, and he spotted Louisa down the hall chatting with Brianna. He couldn’t deny that he’d been doing a lot of this to get closer to Brianna, to impress her. Or at least, that’s how it had started.
“And that girl is hot,” said Andre. “But I don’t think she’s that into you. She seems more into your mom, actually.”
Chase laughed. Mason was too stunned to react. He knew Andre was just joking, but he couldn’t help but wonder . . . Has she been pretending to be interested in me just to get closer to Louisa?
After all, she’d known that Louisa was his mother from the start. His memories of the first night they met at the party, hanging out at the ice cream social, the time they spent together over the past few weeks were suddenly tainted. Had she really just wanted a shot at impressing Louisa? Something deep in Mason’s gut twisted. His mind raced as he struggled to piece together what had been real and what hadn’t.
Louisa stepped away from Brianna, who turned and smiled at him. Mason attempted to return the smile, but it didn’t feel quite natural anymore. His friends seemed to notice this.
“C’mon, man,” Chase said, “let’s get out of here.”
“What?” Mason turned back to them.
“Let’s ditch this thing,” Andre said. They moved down the hall leading to the front doors, gesturing for Mason to follow.
He hesitated, uncertain of what he should do. His friends and Louisa had worked so hard on this event. Part of him pointed out that he’d worked hard on it too. But Mason thought back to Brianna buddying up to Louisa, which caused prickling spitefulness to rise up in him. None of it was real, he told himself. The guys are right—this place, these people have just been messing with me.
Andre called to him, pulling him from his thoughts. Mason nodded and followed them.
“Mason?” Brianna called out. He could hear her chasing after him. He paused by the front door and stepped away from his friends.
“What are you doing?” Brianna asked, her eyes flicking over to them.
Aware that Andre and Chase were listening, Mason shoved his hands into his pockets. “What does it matter?” he asked. “You don’t need me anymore—you got what you wanted. I’m getting out of here.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My mom,” he said. “You said so yourself, you’ve always admired what she did with the foundation. You just needed an in with her.”
Brianna’s jaw dropped. “That’s not what this is has been about.”
“Whatever. It’s not like I was planning on staying for this thing anyway.”
She stepped closer to him and lowered her voice. “Mason,” she pleaded, “what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, except that I don’t want to waste my life sucking up to rich people. Unlike you, I guess.”
His friends tried to hide their snorts of laughter.
She shot a sharp glare at them before turning back to him. “I know that this whole ‘too cool to care about anything’ bit you have going on is just an act. I know you want to do more with your life.”
“You sound just like my parents,” he said, rolling his eyes. “So worried about whether or not I’ll go to college after high school.”
“It’s not about going to college—I don’t care what you want to do after high school. Get a job, explore the world, whatever. It’s just about doing something—having goals, wanting to contribute to the world.”
Mason didn’t know what to say to that. Not with his friends watching.
Brianna reached for one of his hands and held it in hers. “Please,” she said. “Don’t leave. This is important to me. I know it is to you too.”
“Oh, like you really know anything about me,” snapped Mason. Brianna yanked her hand from his and stormed back down the hall.
Mason sighed and took a step in her direction. He hadn’t meant to sound so harsh, and part of him truly wanted to stay. “Hold on, Bri—”
She whipped around, narrowing her eyes at him. “Don’t call me that.”
As she continued down the hall, his friends burst into laughter.
“Jeez, that girl is uptight,” Chase said. His friends laughed again, but Mason could only clench his jaw. He didn’t know what else to do besides follow his friends out the doors.
They stepped outside to hail a taxi. A car pulled up, and as they climbed in, Cora rushed outside. Mason rolled down the window by his seat.
“Mason!” she called breathlessly. “Where are you going? Nathan’s about to go on.”
Oh no, he thought to himself, having completely forgotten about his friend’s band. He hesitated once again. Before he could make a decision, the car was pulling away from the curb and taking them into the street. Mason mouthed an ‘I’m sorry’ to Cora, who simply watched him from the sidewalk.