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Mom says, “I think we’ve covered this, John.”
Meanwhile, Mason is still staring at the socks, and I’m slowly dying inside.
“Do you hate them?” I ask quickly.
I sound desperate. I hate sounding desperate. But I AM desperate. It’s my resting state when it comes to Mason.
Desperate for his approval, his affection, his attention.
Right now, I’m just desperate for him to say something about my gift, which is definitely the stupidest gift that has ever been gifted.
Mason lifts the socks in the air, studying them with a crease between his dark brows. “They have … corgis on them?”
See?Stupid.
“Corgis—like the dogs?” John asks. “Let me see.”
Mason holds them up, and John leans closer to his phone, giving us an up-close-and-personal with his pores.
The socks are blue with brown and white corgis all over them. More specifically, corgi butts. Their faces are looking back over their doggy shoulders (do you call them shoulders?) doing the smiling thing that corgis do so well. They always look like they’re ready for mischief.
“Why corgis?” Mason asks.
I swallow. “You once told meCorgiville Fairwas your favorite book when you were a kid.”
Mason tilts his head, studying me. “When did we talk about that?”
It was one night during my sophomore year of college when John came down with the flu. I brought soup over to apartment, Mason brought medicine, and the three of us watchedHomeward Bound..
Well—just Mason and I watched, because John fell asleep in what we named his Quarantine Chair. Somewhere in the middle of the movie, out of nowhere, Mason said that corgis were his favorite dogs.
I’m not going to say all that. OBVIOUSLY. Because who keeps a record of all those details? Only people with long term, very serious crushes.
“I don’t remember,” I lie. “Maybe I made it up?”
“No,” he says quietly. “You’re right. Thank you.”
But he doesn’t say anything else. No smile. No other words. He doesn’t put the socks on. He simply nods once, then carefully puts them right back in the box while my stomach does a freefall down into a flaming pit of doom.
“I can’t believe you got him socks,” John says from the phone. If he were here, I’d throw a pillow at his face.
“There’s a gift card too,” I say quickly. “Underneath the tissue paper. And a gift receipt just in case you want to return the socks.”
Mason still says nothing. I’m not sure what I expected—for him to suddenly tell me how he’s always wanted a pair of corgi socks and that this is the most thoughtful gift ever and he loves me?
I mean, sure. That would have been nice.
In my dreams.
“This one’s for you.”
Mason’s voice startles me as he holds out a gift bag to me. It’s the kind of gift bag the store gives people who don’t want to actually wrap gifts. It’s larger and heavier than I might expect. Usually, Mason’s a gift card kind of guy too. The fact that he got me an actual gift makes me unreasonably pleased.
I try to tame my smile because even on a video call from Spain, my brother might notice. “Oh, cool,” I say with forced casualness to belie my inner, secret squealing. “Thanks.”
Because I’m not a savage like Mason, I waste no time pulling out what’s inside. A shoebox.
I blink at it, confused. “You got me … shoes?”
