Summer Lessons Read online

  “This it, Skip!” Richie called, waving the bag in the air.

  Skipper smiled benevolently at him like he’d done something amazing. “Yeah, Richie—that’s it. Bring it back, ’kay?”

  “That’s so revolting,” Cooper muttered, shaking his head at Richie, and Mason would have taken offense, but Skipper grinned.

  “His energy, or the fact that he actually knows how to help a guy?”

  “His energy,” Cooper replied, laconic. Cooper was sort of a big country boy who had played defense for the same reason Mason subbed it—he just didn’t move that fast. Skip laughed, and Mason realized that he was new to this little group, and unless he could come back and play, he’d be just a footnote in its history.

  At that moment they all heard the loud rattle and backfire of an engine that hadn’t been serviced in years, and Terry came putting down the field.

  Richie got back with the gym bags—Mason’s too, which he handed to Dane—and Skip pulled out an ace bandage and an ice pack, making busy while Terry wended his way around the squishier parts of the field. He came to a stop at the boundary line for their particular pitch.

  Mason breathed shallowly through his nose for a moment while Skipper, with absurdly gentle movements, wrapped the ice pack to his ankle, taking his shoe off and putting it in Mason’s bag when he was done.

  “We own a Lexus,” Dane said, coming out of what appeared to be a trance as he’d fixated on Skipper wrapping Mason’s ankle. “Mason, he’s just going to take you away in that thing when we came in a Lexus SUV. What in the hell?”

  “Here, Skipper, help me up. I need to get some of the mud off so it doesn’t wreck his upholstery.”

  “Yeah,” Carpenter said, getting on Mason’s other side and offering a solid shoulder. “That’s the problem with Jefferson’s car. Too much mud on the upholstery.”

  Richie smirked and smacked Carpenter playfully on the arm and then fussed around Mason with a towel he’d grabbed from the sidelines. “You’re really okay,” he said, rubbing the rough cloth over Mason’s forehead and cheeks. “It’s mostly on your face and stomach—you won’t leave no assprints, so don’t worry none, okay?”

  Mason nodded gratefully and then held on tight to Skip and Carpenter as they helped him hop toward the side of the field where Terry was headed.

  “But…,” Dane muttered unhappily, “Mason—we have a Lexus!”

  “Let it go, Dane,” Carpenter told him gently. “It’s not the fucking car.”

  “I am totally missing something,” Owens muttered.

  “Or missing out on something.” Galvan smirked back. Mason glanced at them in time to see them locking surprised glances, and then Carpenter accidentally bumped his ankle and his vision went too black to see.

  By the time the team had escorted him, en masse, to the car, he was pretty sure he was going to cry in a totally unmanly way, but he managed to control himself as they slid him in, and Dane thrust his gym bag on his lap. Terry had scooted the seat way back and thrown all of the trash behind the seat, so if Mason could ignore the smell of feet and the fact that his ankle was at a rather cramped angle for something that seemed to be growing exponentially, the ride wouldn’t be that bad.

  “Call Sutter Urgent Care,” Dane told him, sorting through Mason’s gym bag until he found his phone. “Here. Call them and tell them you’re coming. They’ll have a wheelchair out for you and someone to help you in it.”

  “I can help him,” Terry said, nodding. “I’ll make sure he’s okay.”

  Dane’s eyes got big, and he obviously tried not to sweep the car’s interior with his gaze. “He’ll want a wheelchair when he gets there,” he said diplomatically and then he glared at Mason like it was Mason’s fault Dane was a snob and loved the Lexus.

  “Wait!” Skipper held out his hand, and out of nowhere Riche smacked another ice pack into it. He crouched at Mason’s feet and wrapped it around from the other angle, which also served to prop Mason’s foot up more comfortably.

  Mason’s gratitude made his eyes water. “Thanks, Schipperke,” he rasped, and was rewarded with a hard squeeze on his shoulder.

  “Give us updates. Jefferson, you let us know if you need to go and he needs a ride home, okay?”

  “We have a Lexus,” Dane repeated, like nobody had heard him the first time, and then Carpenter shut the door and Terry put the car into gear.

  The uneven field jostled the car unmercifully, and for the first five minutes, Mason concentrated on keeping his ankle still so he didn’t throw up. Eventually the car hit solid pavement and Mason opened his eyes. “Left,” he murmured. “You know where Sutter is?” The closest hospitals were in Roseville, not far from each other.

  “Yeah. Skipper’s got Kaiser.”

  Still, it took Mason a minute to process what those two things had to do with each other. “Money,” he grunted. “Sorry.” All of Tesko employees got to choose, but Kaiser was cheaper. And, of course, if Skipper had been born in Kaiser—possibly on welfare, if his childhood had been as bleak as he’d said—he would have kept his number for life. Sutter was pricier, but the reputation for service was better. Great. He even had bourgeoisie health insurance.

  “No, don’t be—I wasn’t trying to be shitty. I’m glad it’s the good kind—you could be waiting at Kaiser for a while.”

  That reminded him! He grabbed the phone and called urgent care, reporting his ETA as fifteen minutes. When he hung up, he leaned his head back and sighed.

  “This is so embarrassing. You know it’s probably a minor sprain—you totally would have hopped up and scored a goal or something.” Mason tried not to picture himself going right over and flat on his face. “God—way to make an impression!”

  Terry’s schoolboy giggle didn’t exactly surprise him. “Yeah, it was pretty epic. We’ll be giving you shit for that for years. Like, every time you come down the field, someone’ll yell ‘Timber!’—it’ll be great!”

  For years? Oh hell. “Yeah, if I wanted to relive fifth grade again.”

  “No, no—see, when you get to be a grown-up, it’s good to do that. When you’re a kid, you don’t know how to own that shit, but now? You just make a whistling sound like a tree falling, and you’ll be in!”

  Mason chuckled in spite of himself. “I never thought I’d be using my fifth-grade social skills to make friends as an adult.”

  “Why are you?” Terry asked.

  The question caught him by surprise, but he didn’t have to think about it long. “Right before Dane and I moved to Sacramento, I had, like, a major breakup.”

  “Bummer. Did you cheat?”

  Mason let out a harsh bark of laughter. “Of course not. No, he did. With my boss. It was weird. I mean, I was the one who was sort of fucked over—or fucked under, I guess. But they ended up with all the friends in the split.” Mason shrugged, trying to remember the last time he’d really missed Ira. “It’s just as well. He thought I was an idiot, and he liked to talk down to me. I… I hate it when I think I’m a rich douche bag who might be just like him.”

  “No,” Terry said, merging onto the freeway with the practiced ease of someone who knew this stretch of road well. “No, you’re great. You’re nice and you treat me like a human. Don’t worry—once we start calling you Timber and you laugh with us, you’ll be in!”

  “That’s comforting,” Mason said, thinking it was true. “Maybe you can come golfing with me, Carpenter, Dane, and we can think of a good nickname for you.”

  Terry laughed. “Squirrel!”

  “Where?” Mason didn’t want to look—a squirrel on the freeway was just too tragic.

  “No, me, dumbass. I’m the squirrel. That could be my nickname.”

  “Only if you get to climb the tree every now and then,” Mason said, liking the dirty pun.

  Terry did too, because he laughed. “Lots of times. This squirrel wants to climb that tree up his ass lots of times.”

  “Just—” Mason winced as the car hit a bump. “—not tonight.”
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  “Yeah.”

  They were quiet until the hospital. A nurse was waiting outside with a wheelchair, and Mason got taken away to fill out paperwork. Terry met him upstairs at X-Ray, where the wait was supposed to be a good hour, and Mason smiled at him gamely from his semidoze against the back wall.

  “You found a parking space?”

  “Ugh. Yeah. Took forever.”

  Oh. Oh no. He was on such a short leash. “You, uh, could always leave if you have to, and call Dane or Skip.”

  Terry scowled. “Is that what you want? Would you rather have your brother or Skip here with you?”

  “No.” Mason closed his eyes and thought wistfully about warm cookies and milk and comfort things. “No, I’d rather have you.”

  The hand on his shoulder was a surprise—but a nice one. “That’s why I volunteered,” Terry said. “Even if your brother was probably right. Your car would have been more comfortable.”

  Mason smiled but kept his eyes closed. They’d given him some pain meds, and the world was so lovely and floaty that he didn’t want to see self-recrimination or try to deal with the convoluted squirrel path of Terry’s brain.

  “It’s enough that you’re here.” Until Terry grabbed his hand, he didn’t realize he’d said that out loud.

  “That’s nice,” Terry murmured. “One of the nicest things ever, and you’re hurt too. I’ll stay as long as you need me.”

  Longer than a doctor’s visit, Terry. I’ll need you for a nice long time.

  About fifteen minutes into the wait, Terry’s pocket buzzed, and he pulled out his phone. Mason had already texted Skip and Dane the pertinent info, so this could only be the big bad she-wolf herself.

  “Yeah, Mom. I told you, I’m staying with my friend. Because he’s hurt and he needs me, that’s why. No, you might want to take the bus, then. I can’t take you to Carol’s. I can’t. No, I told you that two hours ago—if she offered to give you a ride, you should have taken her up on it. No. I showed you how to use the bus last month. The stop’s a block and a half away. You should go. Because I’m not coming home tonight, probably. Because he’s still in X-Ray, that’s why. Because he’s my friend and he needs me, Mom. I’m sorry if that bothers you, but it’s true. I gotta go. No, don’t call back. I’ll block your calls if you don’t behave. Bye.”

  With a grunt, Terry shoved the phone back in his pocket and then took in Mason’s wide-eyed gaze. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to get so loud.”

  “You did that?” Mason asked, his heart pounding with what could only be wonder. “For me?”

  Terry smiled fondly, not a squirrel or a flippant kid or a flight risk—not for this moment. “Yeah, Mason. I’m….” He looked away. “You deserve a nice guy.”

  “I do, right?” Mason smiled back at him. “I’ve got one.”

  At that point the nurse called his name, and he was taken in for X-rays that hurt him possibly more than the original injury. He got to go sit in the doctor’s office after that, and Terry sat with him as he was shown how to wrap the foot and told to ice it every day, because it was a sprain but it was a bad sprain, and he probably wouldn’t be able to play soccer for another month.

  “Or golf?” Mason asked plaintively.

  “Or golf,” the doctor confirmed. “The good news is you can probably walk short distances—like from your car to the office—in about two weeks. Can you live with that?”

  Mason regarded the doctor—a genial man about his own age—with deep suspicion. “What if I said no?”

  He was rewarded with a laugh. “I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Hayes. Sometimes hurts just take time to heal. But don’t worry—when it’s gone, it should be gone forever, so you’ll be okay.”

  Mason nodded and tried not to pout, but he apparently fooled nobody.

  “Don’t be a baby,” Terry told him after he’d been loaded in the car in front of the hospital. “Do what the doctor says—go home, levitate it, ice it—”

  “Levitate it?” Mason had an odd vision of his legs just rising up for no reason.

  “Isn’t that the word he used? And do I go left or right here?”

  “Left. And I think he said elevate, but I can’t be sure. I thought I was the one on all the pain medication. Where did that come from?”

  “Hunger,” Terry said sourly, steering with muscle like the wheel was stiff. “It’s almost four in the afternoon!”

  Mason groaned. “That explains it. Okay—food on the way home. Your choice, I pay.”

  “Deal!”

  And then Mason remembered that conversation at X-Ray. “So, uh, do I get you all night? For real?”

  His eyes were closed against the sun through the windshield, but he heard the definite joy in the answer.

  “Yeah! Yeah—I mean, she’s already mad at me. It’d be stupid not to just do that. I’ll stay over.” His sigh gusted through the little car. “I just wish you were up to more… you know….”

  “Acrobatics?” Mason supplied. “Well, don’t worry. We can do plenty with me on my back, trust me.” He was tired and woozy from the pain meds, but if that’s what it took to get Terry to stay the night, he’d do it.

  Terry made a funny little sound—half laugh, half surprise.

  “Not necessary,” he said after a moment. “Tell you what—I’ll take you home, get some takeout—”

  “Wait!” Mason checked his phone as it buzzed. “We can get something light on the way, but nothing huge. Dane’s making lasagna.” Aw, that was nice. “It’s my favorite—we just need a snack to get us through until six.”

  “Oh.” Terry sounded disappointed. “I can’t do anything for you, really. I’m sorry.”

  Mason blinked and tried to come out of his wooziness. “You can get me home. You can sit next to me on the couch and help me up to bed. Don’t worry, Terry—just being there counts.”

  They were at a light, so Terry glanced at him. “You say that like everybody thinks that,” he said quietly. “Life isn’t always as easy as just being there.”

  Mason grunted. “God, no. Trust me. I’ve been there my entire life—I’ve just never been the right person in that spot.”

  Terry made a wounded noise. “That’s bad,” he said unhappily. “If you’re not the right person, how am I even going to come close?”

  And in spite of the crappy day, Mason’s heart twisted. “Come to my house, eat my brother’s lasagna, and sit next to me on the couch,” he said simply. “I swear to God, that’s all I need.”

  Terry reached over and gently touched Mason’s thigh. “That much I can do,” he said.

  Mason was so happy, his eyes burned. Or maybe his painkillers were wearing off—he was really too tired to tell.

  THEY STOPPED for a soda and a snack, and then Mason got to sit in the recliner as master of the DVR while Dane recruited Terry to help in the kitchen. He pretended to watch a rerun of How I Met Your Mother when he was, in fact, listening to Dane try to tease some conversation out of Mason’s squirrely houseguest.

  “So, you service PIN machines?” Dane asked after he’d put Terry to work ripping up lettuce for the salad.

  “Yeah. It’s… well, boring. There’s not much to it, usually. You check if the network is up, you check if the machine is getting power, make sure the sensors aren’t gummed up. Biggest problem is that people are stupid.”

  Dane chuckled. “Define stupid.”

  “Like, ‘Help me, Mr. Jefferson, sir, my machine don’t work because it’s ten years old and nobody can read the numbers and it only has room for a four-digit PIN and most people have a longer one than that. And no, I don’t want to buy a new system, you must be working for the company, how many commissions do you get, boy, and gee, can you blow me while we’re bitching at you ’cause you look pretty cute in them jeans!’”

  Mason grimaced from his throne, and he heard Dane making sympathetic noises in the kitchen.

  “Yeah, you’re right. People are stupid. I work the emergency clinic two days a week now as part of my in
ternship. We get these cats so infested with fleas they’re sick with it, and people yelling at us for putting pesticides on their animals and how it’s going to make them sicker. It’s like, ‘Well, you could have given your cat some flea treatment a month ago, but you didn’t, did you, so stop yelling at us now!’”

  “Ugh,” Terry muttered. “Yeah, that’s irritating. I mean, most of the time when a doctor tells you something, it’s pretty important. I don’t know why people suddenly think they know better when it’s an animal.”

  Dane grunted. “’Cause sometimes the doctor is an outdated idiot. Don’t trust all the people in the white coats, Jefferson—but don’t blow off someone who’s making sense either.”

  Terry’s pained grunt came in loud and clear. “God, I hate it when people tell me that. I’m not that smart—sometimes I just need someone to tell me what to do!”

  Mason’s eyes flew open, and he remembered with feverish clarity their time in bed, and how much he’d hungered to have someone direct him, tell him it would be okay, just trust.

  “Don’t we all!” Dane laughed. “And it’s a good thing you’re dating my brother, then—he’s a bossy asshole on the best of days.”

  It was on the tip of Mason’s tongue to holler “I am not!” from the living room when he heard Terry stammer.

  “Dating? We’re not… wait—we’re just playing sports together and… I mean, dating, don’t you have to go on…. What’s it called what we’re doing, anyway?”

  Oh dear.

  “Dating, Jefferson. You have chosen dates and times to meet and engage in both platonic and nonplatonic activities. That’s dating.”

  Terry’s skeptical grunt echoed through the living room. “Why in the hell would your brother want to date me when he can fuck me for free?”

  The sound of breaking glassware followed, and for a panicked moment Mason thought his brother had dropped the lasagna. He jerked upright, moved his swollen ankle injudiciously, and let out a sound like Snoopy getting hit in the balls.

  “Alggghhh….”

  “Just a glass!” Dane hollered. “Don’t panic, we still have food!”