Summer Lessons Read online

  Mason wrapped his arms around Terry’s shoulders and pulled him against Mason’s chest. “I’ll keep you warm,” he said, and then he remembered his gym bag in the far corner of the room. He’d had to have Skip go get it out of his locker in the company gym that morning because he didn’t want to just leave it there over another weekend. “Or better yet—here, help me balance; I left the damned crutch back at the table.” He held out his hand, but Terry rolled his eyes.

  “You sit and eat, I’ll fetch and carry.” He helped Mason into the closest chair—not the one behind the desk—and then went to grab the bag.

  “Just unzip it—there’s a sweatshirt in the top,” he said, setting up the sandwiches, chips, and sodas on napkins. “These look good. Where are they from again?”

  “Mr. Pickles.” Terry came back wearing Mason’s green track jacket zipped up to his neck. It was too big and did nothing to change the criminal waif vibe that had so freaked out Mike Buford, but at least he was warm. “Are you happy now?” he asked, leaning over Mason’s shoulder to switch the sandwiches. “I got you the teriyaki chicken, and I’ve got the pastrami with cream cheese.”

  Mason closed his eyes and shuddered. That sounded heavenly. “Probably a good idea,” he conceded. “I’m going to be fat at the end of the month.”

  Terry dragged another chair so they were sitting knee to knee. He unwrapped his sandwich while studying Mason’s face curiously. “That wouldn’t be so bad,” he said after a moment. “Your chin won’t disappear. I’d still do ya.” He grinned then and took a bite of his sandwich.

  Mason bit his lip, a little shy because from Terry that was damned near poetry. “Well good,” he said after a moment of feeling dumb. “Because my ankle will be up to some really rocking sex by the time the month is done.”

  Terry’s eyes went to half-mast—in slow motion. It was like watching a squirrel turn into a napping panther. “I really want to get you into a bed again,” he said, voice all breath.

  Mason swallowed. I will not give him a blow job in my office. I like this job and I want to keep it. “Yeah. Uh, so tomorrow night? After the game and beer and pizza?”

  “Yeah?” The jungle cat went away, and Terry looked around the office furtively. “I, uh… doesn’t take a genius to figure you have better choices than beer and pizza.”

  Heat crept up Mason’s face. “The furniture is really ugly.”

  Terry bounced. “But comfy!” he said, but his acknowledgment that this wasn’t his usual lunch digs was still there.

  Mason turned and took a bite of his sandwich. “This is pretty good,” he said. “I’ve never heard of this place.”

  “It’s local.” Terry unwrapped his own sandwich uncertainly, but Mason didn’t know what to tell him. It was just an office. Nothing about it was as awesome as having someone who would bring him lunch for no other reason than awkward conversation.

  “I don’t know any of the good local places,” he admitted. “In the Bay Area, I knew all the cool places to eat. I… I knew where to bring a date to impress him, and I used to read all these magazines for new places to try.”

  Terry looked more disheartened with every word. “I… I like my basic places. Mr. Pickles. I get a number fifteen every time.”

  Mason nodded. “Yeah. See, me and Dane—we’ve been getting used to it here. And… we like it. I mean, once in a while, I wouldn’t mind going down to San Francisco to do something fun, but… most of the time, living your life, if I’m having fun doing the basic stuff, then that’s all I really want.”

  The rigid set of Terry’s shoulders relaxed, and he picked up his sandwich and took a bite. “I could probably use some horizon expanding,” he admitted when he’d swallowed. “I mean… my whole life has been in this town.”

  “I’ve never been with someone who liked to travel,” Mason said. “Ira’s idea of a good time was a cruise.”

  “That’s traveling!” Terry laughed.

  “That’s traveling snail style,” Mason muttered. “You’re taking the whole world with you. I sort of want to backpack through Europe one day. I mean, I speak some French—”

  “I speak Spanish pretty good,” Terry said brightly.

  Mason looked at him adoringly. “That’s amazing. I only speak a little bit of French from school. I was never very good at it.”

  “Well, I took it in high school, but I work with a lot of guys who speak it. It’s probably not, you know, Spain Spanish, but I can get us to the bathrooms, right?”

  “Totally necessary,” Mason agreed, taking a chip. “That’s what I know too. So we’re set. Trip to Europe, a definite possibility.” His mouth went dry as he suddenly thought of a more attainable goal. “After you come home with me on Saturday and spend the night.”

  Terry turned his head sideways from his sandwich. “Would you really take me to Europe? I’m not….” His gaze swiveled around the office again. “Uh, European.”

  Mason reached out with a napkin and got a dollop of cream cheese from the corner of Terry’s mouth. Terry caught hold of his hand and met his eyes.

  “I think we could be European together,” Mason said through a dry throat.

  “I’m not rich, Mason,” Terry said after a charged moment. “I thought it was just money, but the more we do this, the more I’m getting it. It’s the good health insurance and an office that looks too good to let me in it and a secretary who looks like she’d peck my eyes out if I moved wrong. I… you were nice. You were funny. You were a big, goofy moron on the soccer field and I just….” He dropped Mason’s hand. “I wanted you. I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  “I did,” Mason told him, his heart crumbling. “I knew what you were doing. You think I’m funny. Nobody thinks I’m funny, Terry. I’ve got a long, disappointing history of guys who begged me to shut up before they had to admit they knew me. You think I’m nice. I… I know a lot of guys who wouldn’t even put that on their list of things to care about. I wanted you too. I mean….” Oh, how embarrassing, to talk about talking about sex. “I want to talk about sex all the time. I want to have sex—with you!—all the time. And… nobody—I mean nobody—I’ve ever met actually made that a priority. You gave me a blow job when I was recovering from a doctor’s visit. It was exactly what I needed. Not one guy has ever given me exactly what I needed without stealing my wallet when he was done.”

  Terry’s eyes widened. “True story?”

  “Sadly yes. But you’re missing the point.”

  “The point is if I can’t get away from my mother to make love in a bed, I’m not much of a catch,” Terry said practically. “So yeah. I’ll stay the night. I’ll leave early to clear her out, and then you and the soccer team can come and help me with my stupid bullshit house thing.”

  Mason’s heart stopped crumbling and started beating again. “That is the best plan I’ve ever heard.”

  Terry took a swig of his soda. “I can see why you needed to move here,” he said after a minute. “Those people where you lived, they were probably all right folks. But they weren’t yours.”

  “No,” Mason said, blinking rapidly. “You’re my people.”

  “Yup. Wanna bite? I promise I won’t kick you outta bed for being fat.” He held out his sandwich, and Mason took a salty dreamy bite of heaven.

  “Mm….”

  “Here. Let’s trade halves. I got you my second-favorite one, so that’ll work.”

  They did, and when their gourmet lunch was once again situated on white butcher paper, Mason grinned at him. “Best lunch ever,” he said, meaning it.

  Terry glanced at him shyly and looked away. “Yeah. I should bring you lunch more often. Fridays good?”

  “Fridays great.”

  Oh God. Fridays great. He had a standing lunch date. For a brief shining sandwich, Mason was as happy as he’d been as a kid, when all of sex loomed ahead of him and the grown-up world held untold promise of glory.

  Sexy Saturday

  “DANE, YOU need to get up,” Mason said patient
ly.

  “Ma-son!” Dane huddled deeper into the blankets.

  “Dane, man, we’re going to miss the game. It starts at ten.”

  “Go without me,” Dane whined, pulling the covers over his head. “Nobody will miss me.”

  Mason scowled. Uh-oh. “Carpenter will miss you,” he said, hating himself for using Carpenter when he might be rancid bait.

  “Carpenter can’t be there,” Dane mumbled. “His sister is in town, and he has to go spend the day with her kids.”

  Ah. “Well, Skip and Richie are your friends too.” Which should concern Mason—Dane didn’t seem to be making friends at Davis. His first two quarters had produced good grades, but it felt like Dane was making a sojourn of penance every time he left the house.

  Dane turned his head fractionally on the pillow. “They’re probably not talking to me,” he confessed, eyes closed against something he was imagining from the video game gathering the night before. Mason had spent the night on his bed, watching old movies while reading porn. He didn’t know how the movies ended, but the evening had ended just fine.

  “What did you say?” Mason asked, curious. So far he’d discovered his new peer group was pretty hard to offend.

  Dane groaned and covered his face with his hands. “I told Skip that when he went back to school and got his real degree, he’d know how much bullshit there was in the school system.”

  Mason winced. Tacky, yes, but not irreparable. Mason had said way worse things. “What did Skip say?”

  “That he was afraid of the cost, not the bullshit,” Dane muttered, hands still over his eyes. “God, was I a dick?”

  Mason thought about it. “No. Not a dick. He’s not going to hate you for one thing.”

  “Yes, he will.”

  “No, he won’t.”

  “Yes, he will! He’s Carpenter’s best buddy, and now I’ve pissed him off and Carpenter will never speak to me again!”

  Mason remembered these discussions from when Dane was in high school—the impossible pile of mental crap that Dane had obsessed over and cycled around in his head and cried over when it never seemed to stop. For years Mason and his family wrote this off as just Dane, hypersensitive Dane, spazzing out about stupid shit until he couldn’t think.

  It hadn’t been until that trip to the psych ward, Dane lying in a fetal curl, sobbing about how he’d ruined his life by refusing a movie invitation, that it had hit Mason—and their parents: this was how Dane’s brain worked.

  The blessing was Dane—happy, joyous, brilliant, enthusiastic Dane.

  The drawback was Dane obsessing over the smallest perceived imperfection until he lost his ability to function.

  Not on Mason’s watch.

  “He will too speak to you again,” Mason said brusquely. “And you know what? It’s only eight o’clock. You should call him up and have him bring his niece and nephew to watch him play—”

  “He didn’t want them to see him hauling his fat ass around the field!” Dane said, eyes open now—and bright and red-rimmed.

  Augh!

  “He’ll be there,” Mason promised rashly. “He’ll fucking be there. Now get your ass out of bed and shower. I’m going next and you know I’ll take all the hot water when I do.”

  Fucking ankle. It made a trip across the hall feel like a trek through the goddamned Sahara, without a friendly camel.

  “Really?” Dane asked hesitantly, sitting up.

  “Dane,” Mason vowed, lowering his voice and trying not to yell. “I will get Carpenter to the field if you do two things for me.”

  “Shower and make coffee?” Dane asked hopefully, looking away.

  “Shower and tell me if you’ve been remembering your meds.”

  Dane’s grimace told Mason plenty.

  “Why not?” Mason asked, keeping his voice even.

  “’Cause I don’t want to be a fucking freak who can’t function without them!” Dane shouted.

  “You’re not a fucking freak, you’re my baby brother!” Mason shouted back, feeling his eyes burn. Dammit, he’d seen it happening. Dane being moody, Dane being manic, Dane giggling to himself until the wee hours of the night over something on YouTube.

  This was the other side.

  “Dane, I’m going to call Carpenter right now. If you’re not out of bed by the time I get back, I’m throwing you over my shoulder and chucking you in the goddamned shower!”

  “You can’t do that!” Dane said, sitting up in bed but keeping the covers over his ears. He looked like a nun. “You’ve got a sprained ankle! You can hardly walk!”

  “Well it won’t be a picnic for either of us!” Mason snarled, but inside, he was relieved. If Dane was worried about him, it meant Mason might be able to get him out of bed—and get him to take his meds. The next couple of days were going to be rough, though. The whole thing was about keeping the levels of medication in Dane’s bloodstream even. Dane knew that, but school had been taking most of his attention, and sometimes, dammit, someone forgot.

  Or got proud and didn’t want to accept help anymore. Even from the medicine that sustained his reality.

  “Fine,” Dane snapped back, throwing the covers back. He was fully clothed from the night before, which was not a good sign.

  “Fine!” Mason yelled, scrubbing his face with his hand. “I’ll be back in ten minutes to check on you, and Carpenter will be on his way to the game!”

  “He will not, because he hates me,” Dane groused, but there didn’t seem to be any passion behind it, so Mason one-crutched his way to his bedroom for his phone.

  He sat down for a blessed second while he hit the number and was not surprised when Carpenter sounded as out of it as Dane had.

  “Mason?” he grumbled. “Why?”

  “Look, can your niece and nephew come and watch you play soccer?” Mason asked abruptly. “Please? Dane forgot his fucking meds and you’re my carrot on the stick.”

  “What?” But he sounded awake now. “Why would he—”

  “You’ll have to ask him. But he needs to get up and take his meds and try not to overdose on the self-loathing today. And he needs to see you because he loves you.” Oh shit.

  “Loves me how?” Carpenter asked, but not like he was suspicious or the earth moved or he was afraid.

  “Does it matter?” Mason asked, suddenly defeated. “Does it matter how he loves you? No. What matters is that you’re the one person in the world he will get out of bed for today.”

  Of course Mason saw the flaw in this logic. Dane needed to get out of bed for himself—that was the ultimate in goals. But that wasn’t going to happen until he got his levels back.

  “No, it doesn’t matter,” Carpenter said, not sounding muzzy. “Course I’ll be there if he needs it. That’s what you do.”

  Oh God. He didn’t say “that’s what friends do,” but he didn’t say “that’s what you do when you love someone” either. Goddammit, Carpenter, specificity was more than gravity!

  “Okay,” Mason replied, giving up. “Good. And while we’re on what you do for someone, you need to not bitch about fat, okay?”

  “What?”

  Mason hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Don’t say things about how ugly you are running around fat. It depresses him, Carpenter. You’re the best friend he’s had since grade school. I don’t know why—you two were love at first sight, I was there. But when you bitch about your weight, it fucking weighs him down. So bring your niece and nephew, and I’ll watch them from the gimpy corner, and you go run your heart out.”

  “Wow,” Carpenter said wonderingly. “It’s like hearing my mom, but I don’t resent you nearly as much.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Mason said with a grunt. “See you on the field.”

  He pushed himself up from the bed and decided to let his hot water depletion wake them both up. The less he had to hop, the better.

  THEY GOT to the field an hour later, showered, dressed warmly, caffeinated, fed, and, thank the gods, drugged
. Mason had taken his pain pill, Dane had taken his medication, and they were able to greet the team with high fives and smiles when they came to the sidelines after warming up. Terry grinned shyly at Mason as they all huddled in a circle, and Mason winked back.

  Terry was wearing Mason’s hooded sweatshirt today, his hands hidden in the overlong sleeves. The stocking cap from their day golfing was tucked snugly around his ears, and Mason’s heart gave a poignant throb. Mason could take care of Terry. He seemed to have fucked up with Dane, but Terry, at least, was warm and happy with the world today.

  The guys shed their sweatshirts, and Terry came over to hand his to Mason. “You’re sitting down, right?” he asked, glancing over to where Dane was setting up two camp chairs next to two tow-headed children on tiny Disney pop-up stools. Carpenter had run over there after the break and was apparently introducing everybody.

  “Yeah.” Mason nodded. “Kids. I’m not great at them, but they’re Dane’s favorite people.”

  Terry grinned at him, and Mason pulled a grin out of his toes to give back.

  Terry’s face fell. “What’s wrong?” he asked, puzzled, voice dropping.

  Oh. Oh no. Mason wasn’t prepared for that. “This morning was… rough,” he said quietly. “Dane forgot his meds for a couple of days. The next week is going to be a bumpy ride.”

  Terry nodded thoughtfully. “Can I still… do you still want me to come over?” he asked, his eyes shadowed.

  Mason’s jaw was tight and so was his throat. “Oh God, yes,” he said, wanting to hold somebody so badly. “Dane and Carpenter are going to spend the whole day with the kids. I think Dane might even be going over to meet Carpenter’s parents. We have the place to ourselves.”

  Terry cackled, running backward to join his team. “You could put a rock band in the living room and still have your place to ourselves.” He turned around and trotted forward then, leaving Mason to make his slow way to the chairs.