by Amy Lane
Mason sighed. Okay—you pretend you’re not here either.
Fine.
“SO YOUR house is going to be empty?” Jefferson asked as they walked out to their cars.
“Sure,” Mason lied, and Jefferson looked at him sideways. Mason blushed. Again. God, adulthood was not what it said in the brochures. “My brother is asleep in his room. He’s still recovering from finals.”
Jefferson stopped dead, worrying at his lower lip, and Mason turned toward him, wrapping his arms around Jefferson’s shoulders protectively, the way he’d wanted to do since they’d met up that morning.
“Don’t worry,” he murmured in Jefferson’s ear. “Dane won’t say anything. He just wants to sleep in.”
Jefferson leaned against his chest, rubbing his cheek on Mason’s shirt. “It… I mean, I am sort of revved up from the game.”
“It’ll be like having sex in a dorm room,” Mason promised. “Everyone would just as soon pretend it didn’t happen.”
Jefferson shrugged, still not meeting his eyes. “Tech school,” he said indifferently. “It’s where I met Skipper. I monitor the machines in a string of quickie marts. I’m sort of their tech guy.” He smiled briefly. “Not a dorm room, Mason.”
He shot a look from under his streaked hair, the kind of look that made Mason’s heart sore and a little achy, and Mason caught his chin in front of an IHOP in Carmichael and kissed him.
Jefferson tried to make the kiss greedy, to take everything, like they were going to go at it in the middle of the day behind an IHOP.
Mason pulled back and kept it sweet, ending with a kiss against Jefferson’s temple.
“So, like that?” Jefferson asked, his voice a little broken.
“Yeah,” Mason said. “Like that. C’mon. I’ll drive you and bring you back to your car.”
Jefferson shook his head. “Okay. I guess if you were going to steal away with my body, you’d at least make sure Skipper had another player for the team.”
Mason grinned and kissed him briefly on the lips before backing up and trying not to get the shit beat out of them in a not-exactly-gay-friendly little suburb.
“Anything but pissing Skipper off,” he said gravely.
Jefferson nodded like it was completely reasonable, and they got into Mason’s car.
Jefferson talked nonstop as Mason drove—mostly about the things he saw as they passed.
“Dude, did you see that? That squirrel was like… suicidal! What makes them do that? They run in, they run out, they run in—”
“No peripheral vision,” Mason said. “They can’t see to the side, so suddenly they’re like, ‘Oh! Car!’”
“I did not know that! Why do cats get stuck in trees?” He was looking at Mason like he held the secrets of the universe, and Mason was suddenly afraid his well of useless facts was as shallow as a saucer of milk.
“Because their claws curve to help them climb up!” he said triumphantly.
“Oh wow! Again, I did not know that! So, why does hummus taste so good?”
“Tahini oil and lemon juice?”
“Excellent!”
“Are you going to make your own now?” Mason asked, trying to maybe pin him down on a subject.
“How would you do that?”
“Cooked chickpeas, tahini oil, lemon juice, garlic if you like it—”
“Really? So, like, I could buy that shit?”
“Yeah, although specialty stores have—”
“Okay. So I can make hummus. Like in a blender. That’s awesome. ’Cause it tastes great on the bread Skip makes, but I don’t like to ask Skipper to make it, right? But if I go, ‘Hey, Skipper, I’ll make the hummus if you make the bread,’ then I’ve got something to bring to the table, right?”
“Right,” Mason said, bemused. “Why don’t you get Skipper’s bread recipe, and then you could make your own?”
“Because bread is Skipper’s thing, you understand?”
They were at a stoplight when he said this, and Mason turned to look at him. “Thing?”
“It’s green, Mace.”
He turned back to the road and stepped on the gas. “Green? I mean thing?”
“Yeah. Like, Skipper likes to take care of us, but he doesn’t have many mom tricks. So, like, he keeps extra sweatshirts in his car, and power bars and Gatorade during games, and for holidays he gives out bread. But it’s like all he’s got. So, you know, I just bought chips and whatever, and it was good. I didn’t have anything to give him for the bread, and I couldn’t take away his thing, right?”
It made a twisted sort of sense—sort of. “But… but my ex used to spend hours swapping recipes and looking stuff up on the Internet and trying new stuff out. Why couldn’t you do that?”
Silence.
Mason turned right down Fair Oaks Boulevard and made his way toward Eastwood Street.
Silence.
Unnerving silence.
“What?” Mason said at last, glancing at him.
“I just… I mean, you know. Never thought of that.”
Mason shrugged. “I, uh—I mean, I guess we both saw our parents do it.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why were they exchanging recipes?”
Jesus Christ, were you raised by wolves?
Mason took a deep breath and tried not to alienate the guy who’d just sat through the world’s worst golf lesson in order to suck Mason’s cock.
“Because it’s a social thing,” Mason said. “You know—like sharing sports tips, but, uhm, food.”
“Oh.” Jefferson gazed off into space. “Oh wow.” And then he turned what was probably a blinding smile on Mason. “Oh wow. Do you think Skipper collects recipes?”
“If he doesn’t, he might like to. Some of the other guys might collect them. I mean, everybody eats, right?”
“Yes!” Jefferson punctuated this sentiment with a pound against the dashboard and then sank back into his seat. “But not everybody cooks. I shop and cook, and I’m really bored, and my mom doesn’t know anything but hot dogs and spaghetti. I keep trying to bring stuff home, but like, Chipotle is way too advanced and cutting-edge for Mom, you know?”
“Uhm, yeah. So, uh, what’s your mom’s… uh, what does she do for a living?” Okay, that sounded neutral, right? And not at all like “How did your mother completely destroy all functionality in her baby boy?”
“Nothing,” Jefferson said, unperturbed. “She was really young when she had me, and my dad split, no alimony, and so she did the welfare thing. And then I got a job and I could support her.”
Mason was in his neighborhood going 10 miles an hour, which was a good thing or he might have wrecked the car. He tried really hard to imagine Janette Payton Hayes sitting static, doing nothing until her sons supported her. The image didn’t compute.
“She… I mean, it’s not ideal, but she didn’t get a job?” His mom had degrees in marketing and finance. She’d made enough money to semiretire in her thirties so she could have children.
And it was just occurring to Mason that sometimes you had to know such a thing was possible before you did it yourself.
“Why would she get a job?” Jefferson asked, sounding blank. “She was raising me.”
For a moment Mason’s future was poised on a knife-edge: absolutely lose his shit about how wolves would have done a better job at raising Jefferson than his mother apparently had and lose any chance of having sex for maybe the next year, or….
Or be quiet and see where this went. Be quiet and bring him sweatshirts when he forgot. Be quiet and stock his car with granola bars for game days and start looking up recipes and cooking websites and maybe giving him some advice about always having rice and noodles on hand, and a can of mushroom soup for when things went wrong.
Be quiet and accept Jefferson for who he was and the limitations in his life, and maybe, week by week, show him how to reach for more.
Oh, Mason had never been good at being quiet. For better or worse,
he’d ventured into life with an open mouth, full speed ahead.
“My mother had a job,” Mason said, shrugging like a capable, independent mother wasn’t the thing that had kept his life—and Dane’s—from hurtling into chaos. “I just can’t imagine her asking me to support her. You must be very strong.”
“Really?” Jefferson sounded entranced. “You think I’m strong?”
Mason swallowed. “You have no idea.”
And they were home. He pulled into his driveway feeling an absurd affection for the new home, for the great oak trees that hovered over the fenced poolyard and could be seen from the street, and for the unfenced property behind the pool that featured a creek that fed into the river.
It was beautiful here. He’d been happy about the archways and the shapes of the doors and the swimming pool, but now, with Jefferson right next to him, looking for things to wonder at, he was so very glad he had something with which to inspire wonder.
“This is pretty awesome,” Jefferson said, voice breathy.
“You like?” Mason felt his chest swell. “Uh, I mean, rich douche bags live here.”
Jefferson’s laugh rippled along Mason’s spine; it was a child’s laugh, unabashedly delighted. “That’s okay—I know one of those guys. He’s not bad.”
The compliment did more than ripple Mason’s spine—it penetrated through to his chest and his stomach.
“Well, let’s see if he’s got any tricks up his sleeve,” Mason said smugly, and he led the way.
Dane had been downstairs to make coffee and toast a bagel—as evidenced by the mess on the counter—but he was blessedly absent as Mason pulled Jefferson through the house and up the stairs.
“Nice!” Jefferson said, his voice subdued. He tugged on Mason’s hand so he could look around at the hardwood floors and the stenciling up near the ceiling in the hallway. “Did you do the painting?”
“Well, yeah. We redecorated Dane’s room, and we added the stencils because, you know—sort of boring off-white without it.”
“I thought it was ecru,” Jefferson said smugly, and Mason grinned at him and pulled him forward into a kiss.
Slow.
This kiss was a little slower. Mason had time to explore his mouth, to nuzzle his cheek, to cup his jaw and go deeper.
Jefferson sighed, relaxing completely against him. Mason slid his hands along that compact, muscular waistline and palmed the smooth skin at his back before shoving up his shirt to touch it all. Jefferson’s gasp in his mouth told him he wasn’t used to being touched all over, and Jefferson’s hands down the back of his slacks told him he wasn’t patient about new discoveries.
“Shh….” He kept kissing but walked them, one step at a time, to his partially open door. He backed into the room, Jefferson returning kiss for kiss, and as soon as they’d cleared the door, he groaned and shoved his hands under Jefferson’s thighs, hoisting him up so he could wrap strong legs around Mason’s hips.
“Condoms?” Jefferson panted.
“We’re not even undressed!”
“But… but now!”
Mason turned around and lowered Jefferson slowly to the coverlet, then secured his wrists over his head with one hand.
“But wait,” he said firmly, and then took his hand away and glared meaningfully.
Jefferson grinned and clasped his hands, a solemn promise to keep them where they were supposed to be.
“This is not kinky,” Mason growled.
“Suuure it’s not.” Oh, his eyes were squirrel-bright, mischievous as a pixie’s, and Mason wondered—not for the first time—who had the upper hand here.
He peeled Jefferson’s sweatshirt off, and Jefferson parted his hands and helped him, and then Mason dealt with the T-shirt as well.
The man underneath was pale, with brown hair starting on the chest. He was muscular, but not defined like a gym rat. No, all of this muscle came from a guy who ran around the soccer field or the track or his own damned head until he was ready to drop from exhaustion.
His ribs showed under his skin, and Mason wondered if he’d take a bagel for sustenance on the way home.
Suddenly Jefferson broke character, holding his hands in front of his chest.
“Not a model.” He blushed.
Mason pulled his hands away and firmly placed them over his head again.
“Quiet,” he instructed. “I’m looking. You’re….” His voice failed. He wanted to say beautiful—would Jefferson accept beautiful? “You’re awesome,” he said, his eyes burning.
He couldn’t remember ever having to be so careful with a lover in his bed.
“You think so?” That smile—God. For all his precociousness, he was incredibly… innocent, right here. “I mean, not scrawny or—”
“Perfect,” Mason muttered, lowering his head so he could taste that chattering mouth. Mm… he did so love total surrender.
He kissed, and more, and more, until Jefferson flailed his hands a little. Mason pulled back and put them firmly where they belonged.
“But I want to touch you!” he whined.
“Oh, yeah. Hold on. Right there.” Mason stepped back and shucked his shirts—sweat, polo, and tank—and then undid his belt and toed off his shoes and socks before letting his slacks fall down with the thump of his belt and phone and wallet.
Then he went to work on Jefferson’s shorts.
“I don’t get to look?” Jefferson complained. “You spent, like, forever scoping me out!”
“You complain a lot,” Mason judged. “I think maybe you should just hang out and experience.” The cargo shorts had no belt, and the only things in them to thump were the phone and the wallet. Mason stopped for a moment to admire the laundered white of Jefferson’s boxers against the pale peach of his skin, and to cup his calves and circle his ankles, appreciating the slick, coarse hair under his palms.
Jefferson groaned and pointed his toes. “That’s nice,” he hissed. “Mm… I like that!”
Mason smiled, even though Jefferson’s eyes were closed and he couldn’t see it. He kept rubbing, calves, shins, and then upper thighs.
Jefferson blinked at him, startled and, judging by the way he arched his back, extremely turned on.
“That’s… uhm—” Mason kissed the inside of his knee. “Oh! Wow, so you wanna—” Mason dragged his tongue up to the hem of his boxers. “Yeah, damn, you might wanna—” And coyly poked his tongue in the leg hole. “Take those off!” Jefferson hissed, arching his back.
“You’re bossy,” Mason murmured against the crease of his thigh. The swell of flesh under Jefferson’s boxers was taking definite, pleasing shape against the fabric, and Mason nuzzled it before sucking at the little dark spot of pre.
“You’re slow!” Jefferson gasped, and then Mason engulfed his cockhead through the cloth, and he braced his feet against the mattress and arched into Mason’s mouth. Mason chuckled with his mouth full, and Jefferson moved his hands up and down so much, Mason grabbed them and moved up so he could pin them meaningfully to the bed.
“Jefferson,” he said softly into a bare ear. “Terry.”
“What?” Terry’s body had relaxed under his, and Mason tried to radiate warmth and protectiveness, since he’d never mastered raw animal sex appeal.
“We have time.” Gently, he licked the shell of Terry’s ear, then caught the lobe between his teeth and nipped. “Your turn to receive.”
He kissed down Terry’s jaw and stopped to nibble, enjoying Terry’s moan very much. When Terry started to fidget, he moved on to a pebbling pink nipple. He explored the flat of it with his tongue and then nibbled daintily with his teeth and then, as Terry started to thrash around, he pulled it hard into his mouth.
Terry jerked, knotting his hands in Mason’s hair, hissing. “I’m going to come from that alone!”
Mason gave another suck and let it pop out of his mouth. “That can happen? Really? Let me try the other one!”
He pushed over a little and started to play, enjoying the salt of Terry’s
skin and the peculiar pink taste of that specialized bit of it while Terry tried to protest over his head.
“But… no—if I come now, we’ll miss the—oh God, Mason, aren’t you gonna touch my… oh… oh… cock!”
Mason felt that fine, compact body tremble beneath him, and he shoved his hand under the waistband of Terry’s shorts and squeezed. The hot, silky spill over his fist rewarded him, and he grinned, moving down to strip off Terry’s boxers while he was still quivering. Tenderly he wiped the come off Terry’s cock and then off his own hand, placing a little kiss on the head when he was done.
“Good?” he asked, pleased.
“Yeah, but you never—”
Mason engulfed his cock in one big, sweeping swallow and cleaned it off in a long pull back, shuddering in ecstasy when Terry began to knead rough fingers in his hair.
He repeated the motion slowly, with pressure on the shaft and teasing on the head, and Terry let out a long, breaking groan from the pit of his balls and then, blessing of blessings, surrendered again.
His legs flopped open, splaying indecently, and his rough kneading turned gentle, accepting. The taut, quivering muscles in his stomach stopped shaking, and his cock began to harden again.
Mason wrapped his fingers around it, impressed by the girth, and then pulled back and teased the bell delicately with his tongue. Terry let out breath and murmured, “Oh, God, Mason—what you’re doing to me….”
Yes. “What would you like me to do to you?” Mason rested his weight on his elbow and turned excited eyes up to meet Terry’s. “Anything… uhm….” He wet his finger in his mouth and then slid it slowly, firmly, down between Terry’s brown-furred testicles, behind them, into his crease.
Terry lifted his legs and spread his thighs, using his hands to spread his cheeks apart, as wanton and as needy as anything Mason had seen, including in porn.
“That,” he demanded. “Can we do that?”
Mason laughed softly and took advantage of his position by licking across one buttcheek straight to the dead center of the target.
“Maaaasoooon….”
He just kept licking.
Terry lost his mind, writhing, moaning, begging, but Mason wanted him that way. Wanted to show him what time and a bed could do.
