Summer Lessons

by Amy Lane

  “Yes, sir,” Mrs. Bradford said, apparently charmed. “I’d love that. And my husband would too. Should we bring wine?”

  “That would be excellent—or beer, if Mr. Bradford prefers.”

  Her smile was damned near girlish. “Sixish?”

  “Sixish it shall be.” Which meant he had to get his game on, because last time they’d eaten at nearly eight. “Alfresco—and we have a pool.” He paused. “And, uh, you’ll be the only girl. I mean woman. I mean double x chromosome. And, uh, Mr. Bradford shall be the only straight male.”

  “Oh Mason,” she said, sounding a little teary. “We’d love to come. Anything to hear you sounding like yourself again.”

  He omitted mentioning the dinner party to Hugh (Hot Hugh, Hugh of Hotness) because he’d feel guilty for not inviting him.

  And he left the house Saturday morning at the same time Dane and Carpenter were leaving for soccer—timed on purpose. He told himself he’d get a workout fighting the crowds at Whole Foods.

  The kid with the man-bun and the blue eyes who was stocking the meat counter winked at him and gave him extra pork tenderloin for the regular price.

  The kid with the brown eyes and short blond hair who was spraying off the produce aisle produced cilantro, basil, garlic, and limes from boxes that hadn’t been unloaded yet, and patted him on the ass as he’d walked away.

  The actual adult behind the counter (he had gray hair and kind eyes and looked surprisingly fit) blatantly asked him if he’d want one more for dinner.

  By the time Mason got home with his groceries and a plan for burritos that should knock Mrs. Bradford’s socks off, he was starting to see Dane’s point about gay-nip.

  Which actually fortified him for the postgame breakdown.

  Dane and Carpenter showed up at one, and Mason put them on housecleaning duty after their shower. Richie and Skipper showed up an hour later, Ponyboy in tow, and they got patio sweep and pool cleaning. When it dawned on Skip that they were usually the company and they were being asked to help spiff up the place to impress someone, he had the gall to ask if Mason had a date.

  “No!” he protested. “My secretary, Mrs. Bradford. You know her. She’s bringing her husband.”

  Skip smiled then—the smile that showed all his teeth. “Richie, did you hear that? You’ll get to meet Mrs. B—she’s the one who ran me down the cold medicine and who gave us Easter eggs with chocolate in them. She’s coming for dinner.”

  Richie popped his head inside the kitchen from the patio. “Seriously? Aw, man—Skip, can I run out and get flowers? That’s what you get for women, right? I mean mother-like women? ’Cause we owe her.”

  Skip nodded seriously. “Yeah—you go take care of that. Something pretty. Maybe a vase too.”

  Richie grunted and popped back out again, moving with purpose. Mason watched him go, remembering that long-ago conversation with Skipper about a mom who hadn’t mommed.

  And wondered if Terry might not want to meet Mrs. Bradford socially someday.

  For a whole five minutes, he hadn’t thought about Terry. It had been nice.

  “Jefferson likes her too,” Skip said mildly.

  Mason grunted and went back to adding beer and cilantro to the simmering tenderloin. “That obvious?”

  “I’ve just gotten used to that look on your face.”

  Fantastic. “It’s comfortable. I’ll keep it.” How was he today? Is he sleeping with that Rudy kid yet? Did he kiss Rudy’s cheek? Did Rudy treasure it like he should have?

  “I think Terry misses you, if that’s any consolation.”

  “And you would know this how?” Because it might be.

  “Well, he came running down the field, that Rudy kid at his heels, and he couldn’t stop looking for you. That look on his face when he realized Dane was in your spot—it’s the same as your look a minute ago when you thought he might like to see Mrs. Bradford at dinner. So that’s something.”

  “How’d he play?” Mason asked. He knew they’d lost heinously, but he hadn’t asked for details.

  “Like shit. You were real good at feeding him the ball in the midfield—Dane tries, and he’s not bad, you’d be surprised, but you guys had a rhythm, there’s no denying it.”

  Mason took a breath and braced himself to ask the hard question, but Skipper jumped on it first.

  “And I don’t think he’s sleeping with that Rudy kid either.”

  Oh thank God. “What makes you say that?”

  “For one thing, Rudy hogs the ball a lot, and Jefferson looks at him like he hates him and can’t shake him every time he does it. I don’t know—I can’t imagine him looking at someone he’s banging that way. But he knows we don’t like the guy, and that’s important too.”

  “How does he know that?” Mason tried very hard to leech the glee out of his voice. Failed. He’d lost his entire social Rolodex when Ira had moved out. God, it was good when someone had your back.

  Skipper’s chuckle was damned evil. “Well, for starters, your brother never kicked to him, and he played midfield. Dane would kick to Jefferson or Menendez but never that Rudy kid, who—by the way—screamed, ‘Me, goddammit!’ at least six times.”

  “Heh heh heh heh….” He couldn’t help it. Well, he was a petty man. Now Skipper knew.

  “And if that didn’t give him the hint, Richie slide-tackled him when he didn’t pass the ball.”

  Mason was in the middle of taking a drink of water, and he had to cover his mouth or he would have sputtered into the tenderloin.

  “He what?”

  “Yeah—I thought it was pretty funny. Rudy was screaming for a yellow card, and the ref looked at me and shrugged. Said he couldn’t yellow card a guy for cleating his own player, which may or may not be horseshit, but Rudy was screaming at him the whole game anyway, so I don’t blame him one bit.”

  Mason couldn’t help it. He felt his first real smile in three weeks break over his face. “That’s pretty… uh, that’s a shame. Poor Rudy. Was he bleeding?”

  Skipper’s grin went positively demonic. “Yup. I told him to go wash it off in the bathroom. He must have sulked there for the rest of the game, because I sure didn’t play him.”

  “Schipperke?”

  “Yes, boss?”

  “Thanks.”

  “Any time. We miss you, though. Come back when you’re ready.”

  Mason made eye contact. “I guarantee it.”

  THE REST of the dinner was a success. Mrs. Bradford and her husband arrived at six, as planned, and Richie presented her with the flowers that they used as a centerpiece.

  Mrs. Bradford was delighted and promised to have the boys over to her house that summer. The way the two of them melted around her made Mason feel like he’d done a good thing, when the truth was, he’d just been gathering the people who made him happy.

  Where Mason had feared things might be awkward, the Bradfords shared stories from the military. Some were bawdy and some were boggling, but they were always entertaining, and Skip and Richie could often return with stories of Richie’s job at the auto parts store or Skip dealing with executives at Tesko.

  “Oh!” Skip said, taking a swig of beer. “That reminds me—your buddy Hot Hugh—”

  Mrs. Bradford burst into laughter.

  “Not my buddy,” Mason corrected. “He just seems to be the thing that wouldn’t leave.”

  “Well, that thing that wouldn’t leave offered me and Carpenter a way out of the IT pool. Did you have anything to do with that?”

  Carpenter’s dry laugh suggested he had no doubts. “I didn’t put ‘MBA’ on my application, Skipper. That was all Mason.”

  Mason shrugged and tugged at the label of his beer bottle. “See, all those things we were doing, with the education program and the lower-tier benefits and upward mobility, they needed someone to help monitor them and make them happen. Also, we needed someone to present them to new employees. So I figured that the executive part would be right up Carpenter’s alley, because it wasn’t do
uchey and he could be proud of it, and the teacher part would free Skip up to take classes for his BA and maybe his teaching degree.”

  “Really?” Dane said, licking the last of the cake off his fork. He and Carpenter had made the cake—double chocolate with chocolate frosting—and everyone agreed it had been worth breaking a diet for. “That’s what you were doing?”

  “Well, I was thinking about them when I started the program—it was only logical.”

  Dane shook his head. “Ladies and gentlemen, my brother.”

  Everybody applauded, and Mason managed two whole and unfettered smiles in the space of the same day.

  SO IT was a good day—but it wasn’t better. Not by a long shot.

  Mason still got updates about Terry from Skipper after every game. One week he came to the game with his hair cut short and dyed blond. One week a friend who was not Rudy came to watch him.

  One week he’d cut off the blond and brought no friend at all.

  The next week he had to thread dental floss through the reopened holes in his ears when he took off his jewelry for the game.

  The week after that, he had a new car and new soccer shorts for the first time in six years.

  Mason fed greedily on every detail and even celebrated their wins with a mostly happy heart, especially when he heard that all his and Skip’s coaching had come to fruition and Terry was starting to play the whole field and not just squirrel-with-a-ball.

  Saturday-night dinner got to be a thing—the dog was such a fixture that Dane started talking about getting one.

  Mason was still expecting the karma police to land on his doorstep about Ponyboy’s habit of dumping ginormous poops in the backyards of the people who lived on the other side of the ravine.

  One Saturday morning in July, Mason went out extra early to the Whole Foods. He assumed people were coming over to sit in the pool and pray for heat relief, because the day before had been 112, and this day promised to be worse. Skip had canceled the soccer game that morning, and basically a pool, shade, and air-conditioning were everybody’s best friend.

  When he got home with bags full of chips and soda and lunch meat, ice, and beer (because who wanted to barbecue), a man he didn’t know was standing in the shade of his porch.

  Tall, lean, and tan, he looked vaguely familiar, and Mason thought he might have seen him gardening in front of one of those houses he shared a yard with.

  Wonderful. Hello, karma police.

  “Heya, let me help you out with those!”

  “Uh, okay. That’s nice of you.”

  “Not a problem. What’s the matter, you’ve never heard of good neighbors?”

  The guy had gray eyes contrasting with that tan, and a few strands of silver in his dark hair, and when he smiled and winked, the effect was indeed appealing.

  “I, uh… I’m feeling guilty. My friend’s dog must have crapped in your yard sixty to eighty times. I was sure you’d be on my porch with a bag of dog shit and a restraining order.”

  Nice-neighbor-man blinked slowly, and Mason thought, Oh excellent—good to know that part of my personality isn’t dead. Maybe my libido will come back in another year too.

  “Well, that red-headed kid has taken care of most of the land mines—no worries.”

  Oh! “Richie? Good. He’s the dog’s owner, actually. Him and Skip.” Mason fumbled and managed to unlock his front door while juggling bags. Neighbor-man had his own armloads, so Mason had no choice but to let him in.

  “Yeah—they seem nice. I mentioned that you seemed to have people over on Saturday a lot, and they asked me if I wanted to come by. I’m—”

  “Single and gay?” Mason hazarded.

  The stranger dropped his bags abruptly on the ground. “I was going to say Stuart Conrad, but yeah. Yeah, I am both single and gay, now that you mention it.”

  Of course he was. “Well, you’re very welcome to stay and chill,” Mason said politely. “Skip and Richie will be here in an hour with the dog, so, you know, you’ll know people. Feel free to use the pool, and I’ll just set up in here and—”

  “Hey!” Stuart said, laughing. “This sounds like a whole lot of nice ‘no.’”

  Mason managed a smile. “It is. I’m sorry. You really are welcome, but I’m sort of… well, I don’t know if I’m taken still, because he might not come back. But he might. And until I’m not hoping anymore, that’s just not fair.”

  “Well, that’s disappointing,” Stuart said frankly. “For one thing, I’m lazy, and you’re right in my backyard.”

  He smiled charmingly, and Mason shrugged. “I’m not great at doing things easy.”

  “Fair enough—but I’m going to help you set up. I’d feel like a bum if I didn’t.”

  Mason accepted the help graciously, but inside he was feeling a bit off-balance. He’d gotten a rhythm in these past weeks, an easiness with company, with being the grown-up at the party, and this guy was in his space. It wasn’t until Stuart came in asking for a vacuum cleaner to get the living room that Mason realized how protective he was of that space. He directed Stuart to the laundry room and tried to pinpoint the moment this house had become home, and the soccer team had become family, and his space had become his space.

  He still hadn’t figured it out when people started to arrive.

  Skip and Richie were at the beginning of the second wave, and Mason dragged them upstairs on the pretext of getting towels from the linen closet, mostly so he could chew them out.

  “Are you kidding me?” he hissed, gesturing vaguely down the stairs. “I’ve got stock boys groping my ass randomly and you have to bring home Hot Neighbor? For what? So I can tell him no and he can go find a stock boy?”

  “Make sure it’s the stock boy from the meat department,” Skip said laconically. “That would kill two gays with one bone.”

  Richie doubled over laughing and Mason sputtered.

  And then managed a chuckle.

  “You could always introduce him to Hot Hugh,” Richie said helpfully.

  “So what? I could have Hot Hugh and Smooth Stuart? It sounds like a radio news show.”

  “Don’t forget Gorgeous George,” Dane said, scampering up the stairs like a mutant lemur. “’Cause I invited him too.”

  Mason stared at him blankly. “You used my phone?”

  “Duh. Anyway, he’s downstairs, helping with the ice chest. And Carpenter invited Hot Hugh, so you can’t blame me for him.”

  And then all the cars wrecked inside Mason’s brain and he stood there gaping. “Why?” he said after a moment. “Why would you do this? I thought you all loved me.”

  Skip and Richie met eyes, and Skip spilled. “He’s coming today. He’s bringing a friend, but no one he’s serious about. He asked Richie if that would hurt you, and Richie said—”

  “I said no, not at all, why would that hurt you when you’ve had guys throwing themselves at you for the last two months? Because I know he’s, like, permanently socially handicapped by his mother, but any idiot could see that setting him free was like ripping your heart out of your chest and he shouldn’t have even asked to bring a friend. So we wanted a… a….”

  “Phalanx,” Dane said passionately. “We wanted a legion of hot suitors wandering your home, asking everybody if they’d seen you. I don’t give a shit if these guys are viable dates or not—I just want them all to be saying your name.”

  “You couldn’t have raided Whole Foods for the twenty-year-olds?” Mason asked, thinking of three very nice guys who were going to feel sort of used.

  “These guys will be okay,” Dane said. “You’ve told them all no—except Stuart, but, you know, he’s new.”

  “No, I turned him down when he walked through the door. You know this is all going to backfire radically when they end up over at Smooth Stuart’s house making the human caterpillar in his hot tub, right?”

  The three conspirators shrugged. “But Jefferson doesn’t need to know that,” Skip said, unconcerned. “He just needs to know you’re wanted,
and not even you can wait forever.”

  “It’s only been two months,” Mason sighed. “I was planning on at least a year.”

  They all gaped at him, horrified. Dane especially.

  “You weren’t going to get laid again for a year? God help us. That much sexual energy has to go somewhere, Mason—that’s not healthy.”

  Richie broke the shock by cackling. “Heh heh heh… yeah, if it bled off on us, we’d fuck each other raw. It’d be better if you guys made up.”

  “Thanks, Richie,” Skip said, fair skin flushed and rosy with embarrassment. “I’m so glad they know that.”

  “Well, we’re friends now. It’s only right.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Mason said, shaking his head. “How about you guys all go downstairs and talk about the kinetics of sexual energy, and I’ll hide up here?”

  From three guys he didn’t care about and one guy he did.

  “Not on your life,” Dane said, grabbing his arm and dragging him down the hallway.

  “I was getting towels!”

  “Skip, Richie—”

  “Got it, Dane,” Skip said, voice mild. “Be careful. He might bruise, and then Jefferson would kick your ass.”

  “Terry doesn’t care about me,” Mason snapped for Dane’s ears only. “He’s supposed to be out living independently and learning how to date.”

  “I think that’s a great idea. How about if he lives independently and learns how to date you!” Dane snapped. “Because right now, I’m going to start slipping lithium into your oatmeal.”

  Mason glared at him, outraged, because from Dane that could be kidding or not kidding. Then he was down the stairs and thrust into his own living room.

  Where Hugh had been welcomed by the guys with open arms, and George was standing talking to Galvan and Owens from the team, looking happy as a clam.

  “We need to know women,” Mason muttered. “This looks like Fire Island circa 1980.”

  “Good thing George brought his sister and her kids,” Dane supplied easily. “And Carpenter got his niece and nephew, and Singh brought his family again. Voilà! Women.”