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A smile slowly crept onto Mason’s face, and he shook his head. “Every single word I just told you was a lie.”
I let out a breathy giggle as I took my first sip. “What do you mean?”
He rolled his eyes at himself. “I bought it for you because mine was so good, I needed someone else to experience it with me.”
“Well,” I said, sensing a comforting warmth spreading through my body that wasn’t just from the coffee. “It is delicious. So… thank you.”
“Welcome. Wasn’t sure if you were a pumpkin spice girl, or...” He barely opened his mouth as he spoke, staring down at my desk.
I shrugged one shoulder. “Caramel macchiatos are my usual go-to from that place, but I’ll happily accept a PSL anytime.”
His eyes met mine again as he lightly tapped his fingers on the back of his iPad. “So. Wanna see your shirt design?”
I gasped. “Oh my gosh, of course.”
Mason made his way around to my side of the desk, grabbing the same chair he’d sat in on Monday and scooting it beside mine—closer this time. He flipped the cover off his iPad and tapped the screen a few times before turning it around to show me his design.
I gasped and took the iPad from his hands. I wasn’t sure he even intended to pass the device to me, but he had no choice. “Mason,” I said in a whisper, gazing down at the retro design—it was so detailed. With a warm mixture of reds, browns, and yellows, he’d managed to perfectly capture the essence of everything I’d described to him over the phone.
And there was the caramel apple, prominently situated on the edge of the design.
“Is it too much?” he asked, and I realized I’d been staring at it for a while, only uttering his name.
“What?” I looked up from the design at his worried face. “No, it’s perfect. I—I can’t believe you got this done in a day.”
He reached over to swipe right on the iPad. “There’s a blackline version, too, see? Wasn’t sure what your t-shirt budget was.”
“You did all of this by hand?”
“Apart from the lettering… yeah.” Mason leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his knees. And with a quick, subtle glance at my thighs, he said, “It’s what I do.”
I put his iPad down on my desk in front of me, but I still stared down at the design that exceeded every one of my expectations. “What is it you were doing, exactly, before you moved back here?” I lifted my chin to look at him to find he was already staring at my face.
He cleared his throat. “Uh—I was the in-house illustrator at a small publisher.”
“Any books I’d know?” I asked him.
“Doubt it,” he said with a soft chuckle. “It was a lot of non-fiction. Very niche stuff. Although—you know that HGTV show, Flipping Fabulous?”
“Oh, yeah!” I answered a little too enthusiastically, tucking my hair behind my ear. “They’re based out of Indy, right? I once made my ex take me up there and look for some of the houses they flipped on the show.”
Mason grinned. “Did you find any?”
“I sure did. I was sort of hoping I’d run into the couple from the show. But… no luck.”
There was a gleam in his eyes when he said, “I might have a connection there.” I lifted my eyebrows in question as he continued. “They’ve got a book coming out this fall, and I did the cover and all the interior illustrations for it last spring. A bunch of simple doodles of, like, porches and kitchen cabinets—but it was hands-down my favorite project I’ve ever worked on.”
“Did you get to meet them?”
“Sure did,” he said, crossing his arms against his chest. “Met with them multiple times to go over their designs. That publishing house was real big on the hands-on, face-to-face meetings—which is why they refused to allow me to work remotely when I left the city.”
My heart sank. It was clear Mason loved that job, and it was a shame he had to leave it behind. I tapped the screen of his iPad to make his shirt design reappear. Just as I opened my mouth to compliment him again, I heard the unmistakable sound of approaching five-year-olds—quickly followed by Ms. Sterling, the librarian, reminding them, “Your voices should still be at level one, guys.”
I walked to the door to greet my students, motioning for them to sit on the rug. Ms. Sterling hesitated in the hallway, waving at the last couple of stragglers as they made their way past us. “Hey,” she said, her voice low. “Sarah recruited me for your fall festival thing.”
Abigail Sterling was one of the new hires this year, replacing Mrs. Hawley, who had been the school’s librarian since the dawn of time. And she was Mrs. Hawley’s opposite in every way—coming into the building every morning carrying a tote bag that said “READ BANNED BOOKS” with a bisexual flag enamel pin on the strap. Her first order of business was to purchase more diverse books for the library—which Sarah enthusiastically approved.
Abigail tucked her fire-engine red hair behind her ears and continued, saying, “I was thinking of hosting a used book drive the same night… maybe?”
