Summer Lessons Read online

  Mason was sort of depressed that Terry had been able to use Mason’s cord to charge it when he saw the look on Terry’s face when he answered.

  “Yeah, Mom. No, won’t be gone all day. Be home in a couple of hours. Helping my friend with his house—painting his guest bedroom, actually.” Terry listened for a moment and grunted like she’d reached out and smacked him. “Because they’re nice and they made dinner for me. No, I don’t feel taken advantage of. Not here at any rate. No—I’ll come home when we’re done. Because. Because they’re helping me do something next week. No, it’s not expensive, and if it is, I’ll pay. Because. Because. Because it needs to be done. Because I said so, Mom, and I’m paying rent. Yeah, that does too give me the right to talk to you like that—I’m trying to get friends to help us fix our house. Please, Mom, don’t be awful about it. Well that’s fine. You go where you gotta go when it’s happening. No, I’m totally serious. We don’t need you there to supervise. We’ve got Mason. Yeah, he’ll still be hurt—that’s why he’s supervising. You know what? I’m done. I’ll be home around one. Bye.”

  He shoved the phone in his pocket and met Mason’s look of sympathy with something so naked and pitiful that Mason held out his arms.

  To his surprise, Terry rushed into them. “You must think I’m dumb,” he mumbled against Mason’s chest.

  “No!” Mason held him tight, not even arguing that the chair was probably going to collapse under their weight. “I think she’s awful, but that’s not your fault.”

  Terry held him tighter. “It’s so embarrassing,” he said, the admission obviously costing him. “I hate that she gets to do that. She calls me up and I’ve got to go running.”

  “You didn’t this weekend,” Mason pointed out, wanting so much for that to become the norm.

  Terry looked up from his chest and smiled. Tears spiked his lashes into a star, and his face was blotchy from rubbing up against Mason’s chest. “That’s right,” he said proudly. “I didn’t.”

  “Nope. And you made plans for next weekend.”

  Terry shrugged. “Yeah, but I’ve made breaks for it before,” he warned. “She bitched about Disneyland for a year.”

  Mason hated to suggest it, but oh! He felt good in Mason’s arms. “Moving out?”

  “Yeah.” The word came out as a sigh. An agreement. A prayer. “I wanna. I keep thinking, you know. You put this idea in my head. We get the house fixed up so it’s not embarrassing. Make it so someone else would want to live there with her. Or she could sell it. And then I can get an apartment or something.” He closed his eyes for a second, smiling. “Go to soccer, stay out with you. Go out to beers with my friends after work. Not having to worry. Or explain myself to her.”

  He looked up at Mason, his eyes big and trusting. “I could spend an entire day in bed with you.”

  Mason’s groin started to tingle, and he groaned. “Really? You mention that now?”

  Terry laughed a little and stepped back, wiping his eyes on his shoulder.

  “Yeah—this weekend sucked without sex. You think your ankle’ll be up to it next weekend?”

  “As long as we stay on the bed, I think it’s okay.”

  Terry backed away and turned toward the wall he’d been taping. “Sex on a bed is pretty sweet,” he agreed. “First time I got it up the butt, I was in a car, and lube was not to be found. Telling you, having shit handy—and a bathroom—that’s living right there.”

  Mason could either be appalled or he could laugh. He laughed, because Terry was going to clean out his mother’s backyard next weekend, and he was going to work to be free.

  And he wanted to keep having sex in a bed.

  “DID WE have ourselves some adventures, sir?”

  Mrs. Bradford, as always, looked impeccable—even as she raked Mason over with her eyes, taking in the bandage and the crutches and the scuff on the cheek that he’d gotten when he’d toppled into the mud puddle.

  “We played soccer with Schipperke’s team,” Mason replied, taking her clipboard from her to see what he needed to sign. “Results were… mixed.”

  “I don’t have the MBA, sir,” she said, voice like toast. “You’ll have to explain to me the difference between ‘mixed’ and ‘disastrous.’”

  Mason pursed his lips. “Well, disastrous would have been if I’d sprained my ankle and he’d left me to rot. Mixed is when I sprain my ankle and he rides to my rescue in his dying vehicle, and then stays the night and helps my brother paint the guest room in the morning.”

  “Hm,” she considered. “Given what I know of your love life, Mr. Hayes, why is this not a triumph along the lines of the stage play Hamilton?”

  Mason gave her a side-eyed glare that bothered her not at all. “Because. He’s still attached to his mother. And when he becomes unattached to his mother, he’s going to need to figure out why he’s so attached to me. I don’t want to be his father figure, Mrs. Bradford. For one thing, that’s icky. For another, it’s….” He thought about the terrifying, exciting freefall of sex and desire he felt with Terry, and his face fell. “Heartbreaking,” he finished weakly.

  “Ah,” Mrs. Bradford said softly. “So I don’t believe any platitudes about loving something and setting it free would help here?”

  Mason sighed. “Well, since it’s not love and he’s not free yet, they might be a bit premature.”

  “I shall file them handily away, sir.”

  “How very forward-thinking of you, Mrs. Bradford. So tell me, on a scale of one to ten, one being comatose and ten being a day in the park with a Frisbee, how awful are my appointments today?”

  “I would rate your day a solid 1.5, Mr. Hayes. But given that you are not likely to be throwing a Frisbee for the next week—”

  “Month,” Mason corrected.

  “Good Lord—from soccer? Well, fine. Given that playing in the park on a sunny day is not an option in any sense of the word, how about I bring you some coffee and you can feel productive and proud of your work ethic.”

  Not. Promising.

  “Sounds awesome! Bring on the day!”

  “Yessir.”

  “But, uh, Mrs. Bradford?”

  “Yessir?”

  “Could we maybe invite Schipperke and his friend Carpenter in for lunch so I don’t get tempted to gnaw on my wrist?”

  “I’ll order Thai food.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Bradford. Carry on.”

  “SO,” SKIPPER said, dumping his rice on his plate like Mason had showed him last time, “we’re doing a work party at Jefferson’s on Sunday? Well, beats the hell out of ripping out my kitchen linoleum and painting the whole damned thing. Richie’s over the moon.”

  “Right?” Carpenter took some pad thai and then started adding red curry. “Working on someone else’s place is always so much better than working on your own. ’Cause when you’re done, you’re like, ‘Oh, hey! I helped do this!’ and then you go home! But when you work on your own place, you’re like, ‘Oh, look—I have sixty zillion other things to do to make it all work like I want it to!’ So, yeah. Other people’s houses are the best.”

  Mason had never thought about that. “Well, I’m just glad he helped Dane paint over ogre-barf green this weekend.”

  Carpenter looked up. “What color did you decide on? He showed me that shit last week—I gotta tell you, I’ve never seen green look so bad!”

  “We went with navy,” Mason told him. “It’s hard to fuck that up, and hey, it’s a guest room and guests can’t afford to be picky and say, ‘You know, navy is as boring as hell and I don’t want to live here anymore.’”

  “True that,” Skipper said.

  “Yeah, but you and Richie still need to get to the kitchen,” Carpenter said. “It looks like the seventies changed a diaper in there.”

  Mason almost snorted curried rice up his nose, and then, given the color, was just as glad he hadn’t.

  “Which is why we eat in the living room,” Skip said. “And that reminds me.” He looked up at Mason.
“Tell your little brother that we’re doing pizza and video games this Friday, my house. You’re welcome too, but Dane’s a genius at it.”

  “You guys play over the… the whatsit? The PS4?” Mason felt old.

  “Yeah, Mace, the PS4,” Carpenter said seriously. “You know, maybe you want to bring Jefferson.”

  For a moment Mason thought about it—hanging out at Skip’s, watching Terry be young and excited about video games someplace he was a little more comfy in than Mason’s house. Then—

  “If Terry can get away from his mother Friday night, I’d just as soon stay at my place and get laid,” he said frankly, and then wished for a bunker to hide in, or an emergency call, or the president of Tesko to run in saying, “Mason Hayes, help us, you’re the only executive who can!” because that was exactly the sort of thing that didn’t get him invited to dinner parties. Ever.

  He winced and looked at his two lunch companions.

  Who kept eating their lunch.

  “Dude, sounds totally legit to me,” Carpenter said, nodding sagely.

  “Can’t blame you a bit,” Skipper agreed. “Carpenter didn’t even see me on the weekends when Richie and I were dating.”

  “Yeah I did. You roped me into your weird soccer cult, remember?” Carpenter didn’t look put out much as he munched steadily through his brown rice and pad thai.

  Skip smiled. “Yeah, but you like it. I’m just saying—getting laid sort of trumps hanging out and playing video games, and if it doesn’t, I think you’re doing shit wrong.” He nodded soberly, and Mason took another bite of lunch.

  All things considered, he was starting to wonder if he’d been hanging out with the wrong people his entire life. Either way, he was sort of glad he’d discovered the right people now.

  MASON KEPT on a good face, but fact was, his ankle was killing him by the end of Monday. It hadn’t let up by Thursday, so Dane made him stay home during practice. They were both surprised when they heard Terry’s car in the driveway.

  Terry knocked on the door, carrying a tray of coffees with cookies to go with them.

  “Not homemade,” he apologized as Dane let him in and gestured him to the front room.

  “But very appreciated,” Mason told him. Coffee was going to keep him up until the small hours of the morning and make his Friday a living hell, but Mason didn’t give a shit. They’d been texting desultorily that week, and Mason was getting disheartened.

  God, he was starting to live for Terry’s pretty brown eyes and unpredictable smile, but he wasn’t sure—not really—whether Terry liked him just as much.

  Coffee and cookies at eight o’clock at night just might mean he did.

  “You got sad,” Terry said bluntly, sitting down next to him on the couch and handing him his coffee and cookie. “In text. You got sad. Needed to make sure you were okay.”

  “I’ll be in my room,” Dane announced, grabbing his own coffee and cookies. “I need to study. And watch old Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan movies. It’s a moral imperative.” He swanned out, and Terry settled back into the couch and sort of muscled himself under Mason’s arm.

  Mason took the hint and leaned back, arm around his shoulders, savoring his heat.

  “I miss you during the week,” he confessed, balancing his cookie. Terry took it from him, opened the cellophane wrapper, and fed him a bite. With a wash of coffee to swallow it down, it was perfect.

  “I’m starting to miss you too,” Terry said moodily, feeding him another bite of cookie. “I don’t remember missing someone before. It chafes like jeans when it’s too hot.”

  “Not comfortable,” Mason agreed when he washed down that bite too.

  “I cover stores in your area tomorrow for service,” he said abruptly. “How ’bout I bring you lunch tomorrow at one. Good?”

  Mason couldn’t have stopped his smile if he’d tried. “It’ll get me through the day,” he said.

  “It’s only sandwiches. I’ll text you when I’m in line, okay?”

  Mason clutched him a little tighter, relieved when he didn’t wriggle to get away. For some reason Mason had been expecting a squirrel. He was surprised when he got a man instead.

  “Mason?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t I get a kiss for bringing you dessert?”

  Mason smiled into his harlequin face and some of the fear in his heart reknit itself into hope. Leaning carefully, he put his coffee down while Terry put the rest of the cookie down on the table in front of them. “God, yes.”

  Sweet. His mouth tasted like coffee and cookies, and as Mason kissed him harder, longer, languorously, the two of them melting into the couch and mindful of Mason’s ankle, Mason was continuously recognizing the difference. Not a squirrel. Not a child. A man. Terry’s hands on his chest knew what they were doing, and his kisses—slow and drugging—made Mason sob for breath.

  Terry shoved his hands under Mason’s shirt and rubbed him, simply feeding his skin hunger, until Mason ground up against him in frustration—and accidentally tweaked his ankle and let out an unmanly yelp.

  “Oh!” Terry sat up. “Oh no!”

  “We have to stop?” Mason whined, only partly because his ankle hurt.

  “Yes, dammit. A bed—you said a bed would work, and this isn’t.” Terry scowled at him, and his pocket buzzed, and he sighed. “I have to go anyway.” He leaned forward and kissed Mason on the forehead. “I just needed to see you. It was good seeing you. Not enough, but good.” He pulled back and Mason read his eyes again: begging for it to be enough.

  “Can you stay the night Saturday?” Mason pleaded.

  Terry grinned shyly. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I can, if I can leave early Sunday to get my mom to her friend’s before you all come over.”

  Mason’s stomach uncoiled a tiny bit more. “We can do that,” he promised.

  Terry took his mouth then, hard and brief, a man’s kiss, before tearing off for the door.

  Mason was left staring at the door long after he’d let himself out, harboring an almost forlorn hope that someday, Terry would unleash that same tiger who’d just kissed him stupid, and Mason would finally get to bottom.

  “ARE YOU sure he’s coming, sir?” Mrs. Bradford asked.

  Mason looked at his phone and nodded, trying not to yawn. Dane had apparently found the YouTube channel of his dreams this past week, because he’d woken Mason up every night giggling at his computer.

  Okay, time to make a decision. His phone said There by 1:00. It was 1:05, and Mrs. Bradford was about to go out to lunch herself. She knew Mason ate at his desk sometimes, and since he hadn’t brought anything, she was offering to bring him back something just in case.

  He was just about to tell her to get him a sandwich that he could take home if he didn’t eat it when he got a text from Skipper.

  Jefferson’s downstairs—security thinks he’s lost.

  Oh shit.

  I’m omw—tell him I’m coming.

  WAIT! He’s embarrassed. Just tell security to lead him up here.

  Oh hell. Mason picked up the in-house extension and talked to the security guy downstairs. Mike sounded dubious, but he agreed to escort the guy with the takeout up to the fifth floor of the building and to Mason’s office.

  “He’s on his way,” Mason said happily, and Mrs. Bradford raised her eyebrows.

  “Mike’s not a very good security guard,” she said bluntly. “He is, in fact, the reason people make fun of them.”

  True on both counts. Out of shape, lazy, and clearly happier playing with his phone than actually making sure everyone who got through the front doors of Tesko belonged there, Mike Buford was not an exemplary employee by any stretch of the imagination.

  “And your point is?” Mason asked hesitantly. He knew where this was going.

  “Why wouldn’t he let your friend in the door?”

  A knock sounded, and Mason stood up and hopped one-footed to the door, gesturing Terry inside. He was wearing cargo shorts and a tank top (it was forty-two degrees
outside) with a baseball hat on backward, and tennis shoes.

  He grimaced apologetically at Mason and then looked around the office. “Oh geez,” he said, taking in the wood paneling and the cream-colored carpets. Mason’s furniture was standard Tesko issue—pine with sort of a salmon-and-green color for the cushions—but Mason had gotten to order from the catalog, and he’d chosen the most comfortable chairs he could. The desks were a nice warm camel color, and the varnish was the deep expensive kind that resisted cracking.

  Mason liked his office, but he didn’t think much about it.

  Apparently Terry couldn’t think of anything else.

  “Thanks, Mike,” Mason said quietly, waving off Mike’s attempt to explain why he’d detained a friend of one of the VPs. “Terry, this is Mrs. Bradford. She should actually be making all the big money, because without her, I couldn’t do my job. Mrs. Bradford, Terry Jefferson.”

  Terry turned around from his contemplation of a seascape—one that Mason had actually chosen—and smiled at Mrs. Bradford tentatively.

  “Uh, nice to meet you?” Oh hells. He was really nervous—and so uncertain.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said, inclining her head regally. “Mr. Hayes, since you seem to be eating, I’ll take myself out to my own lunch hour.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Bradford—enjoy.”

  “Mr. Bradford is meeting me,” she said, and for Lillian Bradford, her expression was almost girlish.

  She left and closed the door, and Terry looked around disconsolately. “This is really nice,” he muttered. “They almost didn’t let me in through the door.”

  Mason grimaced at him. “You’re cold,” he said at last, and used his hand to balance on the chair in front of his desk while he hopped closer. Terry bridged the gap, and Mason rubbed Terry’s arms with his palms. “Why don’t you ever wear a sweater?”

  Terry smiled hesitantly at him. “I just never remember,” he said after a moment. “I remember yours most often, but it needed to be washed, and I forgot to get it out of the dryer.”