Summer Lessons

by Amy Lane

  When they crawled into bed that night, Terry didn’t move on him, didn’t try to arouse him, just lay quietly in his arms for a minute.

  “How you doing?” he asked into the darkness.

  Mason closed his eyes and did an internal assessment.

  “The only thing holding me together right now is you,” he said honestly.

  Terry hmphed. “That’s probably bullshit,” he declared. Then he kissed Mason just hard enough for tongues to get involved. He pulled back and said, “But it was a nice thing to say. Thanks, Mace.” He touched Mason’s cheek. “I hope you feel better in the morning.”

  Mason did—and he knew the truth.

  It hadn’t been bullshit at all, and it made him a little achy inside. Terry had the strength to hold Mason together when he needed it. Now he just needed to find the strength to do the same thing for himself.

  The Short Months

  DANE IMPROVED. Not overnight, but slowly and steadily, with a lot of help from Carpenter. Terry helped Mason when he could—but that fragile sense of togetherness was just not in a place to get stronger.

  By the middle of April, they had established a rhythm. It wasn’t a great rhythm, but there was just enough music and sex in it to keep Mason from begging for more.

  Practice on Thursday, if they didn’t have a game that day, where they agreed on the lunch that Terry brought him the next day. On those days Terry started wearing jeans without holes and one of two polo shirts, as well as tennis shoes and Mason’s sweater. Mike didn’t stop him at the gate anymore, and Mrs. Bradford simply assumed that Mason’s lunch would be walking in the door sometime between twelve thirty and one thirty, the bearer sporting a bemused smile that never went away.

  There was always a game on Saturday unless they were between seasons. Mason couldn’t figure out what an actual soccer season was in this league—it seemed to be about six weeks, with a week in between, but he couldn’t be sure. His ankle held, though, and that was good. As much as he enjoyed watching Terry play, it was a lot more fun to be involved—even if he was still a big gawky old guy who let more goals through than he kicked back into play.

  Terry came home with him Saturday night. That was nonnegotiable. Terry turned off his phone as soon as he came to the game and didn’t turn it on again until he and Mason left the next day to work on the house while Julie was at church or with friends or torturing small animals and the occasional child. (Mason couldn’t be sure about that last one, but he was pretty sure all bad things came from Terry’s mother, and not complaining about that during their weekends together was becoming more and more difficult.)

  By mid-April, the floors of Terry’s house were sound and laid with hardwood; the bathrooms were recaulked, resealed, retiled, and repainted; the siding was repainted; the roof was retarred; and the driveway cement repaired. Every room in the house had a new coat of paint and had endured a hearty scrubbing of all the dirt in all the corners; some even had new curtains.

  Whether or not they’d all been able to make it to help with the weekend makeover, Carpenter and Skipper ate lunch in Mason’s office every Monday, where they rehashed their weekends and talked about what else needed to be done before Terry could make his bid for freedom.

  It was at one of these luncheons that Carpenter stated the obvious.

  “So, like, our last chore is going to be to move Terry out of his mom’s house. Does he have an apartment picked yet?”

  Mason put down his fork. They were eating hamburgers from Chili’s today, Skipper’s treat, and Mason’s had been dripping in wing sauce. He’d needed a fork and a knife if he wasn’t going to completely destroy the shirt he was wearing.

  “Uh, no,” he said, feeling stupid. He’d known this was coming. Known this was coming. But the last thing they needed to do was fix and seal the eaves, and that was their job this Sunday.

  It was time to set Terry free.

  “Don’t look so depressed!” Carpenter said, although he looked depressed enough for the both of them. Dane’s mood swings were finally getting better—but it was a rough road. Carpenter had been taking him to his therapy and psychiatry appointments every week. Mason wasn’t sure what their relationship was at this point, but given that Dane had no filter about his personal life and he had no words about what he and Carpenter were, Mason would put actual money down on Dane not knowing either.

  But Carpenter had lost at least fifty pounds over the past six months, and Mason bet that thirty of them were stress and worry over a guy he wasn’t dating.

  Sort of like Mason’s worry was over a guy he wasn’t dating either.

  “I… I don’t know what’s going to happen after he gets an apartment,” Mason confessed, feeling foolish. Having these people as friends the past four months had become one of the biggest blessings. The foolishness came from his own hang-ups, about being older, about having more experience, about having an education.

  The fact was, Skip and Carpenter couldn’t have given a shit about Mason’s supposed privileges—they treated him like a human. When Mason sounded like a peevish child or a sex-happy high school student, they just nodded like that was all okay.

  No judgments here.

  Mason was a fan.

  “What do you mean, what will happen?” Skip asked, squinting. He’d gotten a veggie burger for himself, and Mason thought he’d ask for the same next time. He was still trying hard to lose the fifteen pounds he’d gained when he’d hurt himself.

  “Why’s he going to want to hang out with me anymore?” Mason asked, trying to leech the self-pity out of the words. “I mean, I’m great now when he’s looking for two nights a week, but he’s going to realize he can go out for a beer after work, and that he doesn’t have to be home any time he doesn’t want to.” He gestured with his fork. “Maybe he wants a cat. We’ll have to work to accommodate the cat. But it’s going to take over his life. He won’t have time to call me because of the cat, and then he’ll forget to call me, and right now we’ve got a rhythm.”

  “You’ve got a rhythm with a cat?” Carpenter asked, obviously not keeping up.

  “No!” Mason stabbed viciously at his burger and broke off a tine of the plastic. “I’ve got a rhythm with Terry. I think it’s the only reason he remembers to come over. It’s Friday, so we do lunch. It’s Thursday, so we do practice. It’s Saturday, so we do each other. I mean I don’t blame him—living with that woman has fucked him over. All he can think of is the next thing that will get him out of the house and get her off his back. She’s such a vicious noise in his head that he doesn’t have time for his own thoughts.”

  “Oh my God, you’re right,” Carpenter said, entranced. “I’ve been trying to figure him out since November, but I think you’ve got it!”

  “I’m totally impressed,” Skipper said, equally wide-eyed. “I just thought he was a fuckin’ squirrel.”

  “He is, and that’s why,” Mason said, his stomach roiling. “I’m over it—I like his squirrelly-ness—but it’s gonna fuck me in the end.”

  “But Mason—”

  He couldn’t listen to Carpenter right now. His worry was too busy gushing out of his brain. “So right now the only reason that squirrel comes back to me is because I’m in the right spot in the maze. He’s got the maze set up, he’s got treats set up so he can get through it—I’m his weekend treat. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I’m what he lives for.”

  “That’s fair,” Skipper conceded. “So then what’s the prob—”

  Oh! Couldn’t they see? Mason waved his maimed fork around some more. “What’s going to happen when that’s all gone, right? No maze, no rhythm, no reason to call Mason, Mason and Terry are no longer a thing!”

  He gestured so hard his fork flew out of his fingers. Carpenter ducked, and it hit the wall behind him. Mason grabbed a napkin and soaked it in water from his bottle before getting up to wipe off the splat.

  “So I have to help him do that,” he said into the rather stunned silence.

  “But… why?”
Skipper asked, voice pulsing a little like Mason’s heart.

  The napkin started disintegrating, and Mason gave it up, throwing the pieces into the trash can by the door and hoping the custodian wouldn’t hate him for the mess.

  “Because,” he said, staring blindly at the napkin muck against the ecru paint. “Because I want him happy and free. It’s no good if I say, ‘Oh, here you are, happy and free, but here’s that minicage you built when you were miserable. Let’s stay here.’”

  He sighed and stalked back to his seat.

  Carpenter handed him a new set of plasticware, and Mason broke it out in the sudden silence and tried to start again.

  “He’ll come back when the dust settles,” Skipper said sincerely. “You’ll still be the best part of his life.”

  “But you’re right,” Carpenter added.

  Mason looked up and met his eyes and recognized the sympathy of one soul to another. It was the same look they exchanged when Carpenter was talking a moody, bitchy, hurtful Dane into the car, one insult and carrot on the stick at a time.

  “I’m right?” He hated being right.

  “He’s got to figure out what life is like when nobody expects anything from him. It’s… I mean, you want a grown-up. Grown-up relationships are choices. You can’t choose your parents—but you can choose your friends and….” Underneath Carpenter’s scruffy beard, Mason might have seen a flush. “Lovers,” he said hastily, like the word was sacred. “Boyfriends. Significant others. Whatever.”

  “Is it really a choice?” Mason asked, looking at him with meaning. “Because I used to think so. I’d meet a guy, date a guy, take the relationship in increments. But this didn’t feel like I chose it. It felt like… like I’d been waiting for this one person to wander into my life and make me feel good. And once he showed up, there was no choice at all.”

  Carpenter leveled a tortured look at him, and Mason returned it. Yeah, Mason didn’t know the answer to Carpenter and Dane either—but he knew love when he saw it. Whatever it was they were doing, Carpenter needed to own up to that.

  “I hear that,” Skipper said unexpectedly. “But that’s good.”

  Mason and Carpenter both stared at him. Skip smiled sunnily back.

  “Why good?” Carpenter asked, like he was dying for the answer.

  The look Skip sent him was so compassionate, Mason thought he must have more inside information about Carpenter and Dane than Mason did.

  “Because you know what you have to do,” Skip said, shrugging. “You don’t have a choice. Whatever your person needs, you have to be there. ̓Cause he’s—yes, he, Clay, you’re fooling fuckin’ nobody—the one person who makes you happy. If you can do the thing, whatever the thing is, to return the favor, that’s your job, right?”

  So simple.

  All those long talks Mason had had with Todd about the nature of love and politics, all those long talks with Ira about how to make a modern relationship work, and Skip had pretty much nailed it.

  This person made Mason happy. Mason needed to return the favor.

  “That’s really wise,” Mason said, feeling hollow and sad.

  “Fuckin’ brilliant,” Clay snapped, but his voice was breaking, so he wasn’t really mad.

  Skip looked at him. Just looked at him. “Clay, what’s so hard to admit? Your parents are liberal. I’m your best work friend and I’m gay, and you never gave a shit. Dane is your best friend in the world, and you’re so damned in love with him it almost stops my heart. Why would it be so hard to just kiss him? Just fucking kiss him and see if the stubble bothers you?”

  Carpenter scowled. “I have kissed him, and it was awesome. Do you think it bothers me that I’m attracted? That’s not it at all!”

  “Then what in the hell is it?” Skipper demanded, while Mason tried to file every word of this conversation to feed to Dane like dinner. A thing that would nourish his soul.

  “You wouldn’t get it,” Carpenter muttered, throwing the last of his burger into the to-go box and starting clean up. “Look at the two of you. You’d never get—”

  “So help me, Carpenter, if you are talking about the weight, I am going to kick you in the fucking balls.” Skip stood up, furious. “I don’t want to hear another goddamned word about your goddamned weight and why you don’t deserve jack because you’re a fat asshole who can’t get his life together. You deserve fucking everything. You think I don’t understand? You think I wasn’t a fat kid with pimples? I leaned up, and so have you—and even if you hadn’t, do you think I’d love you any less? Hell no. You’re a fucking good person. I was a fucking good person. Jesus, Clay—you’re breaking my fucking heart. Just give it a chance!”

  Silence crashed the emotional tsunami, and for a moment Mason could only stare at Skipper, stunned all over again about the fineness of the man.

  But he’d seen this in Terry, in his painful attempts to protect his friends and his lover from his mother’s vitriol, too, in his tentative steps toward freedom. In that moment Mason realized why he’d fallen in love with Terry, and why it was irrevocable.

  And then he realized that he’d fallen in love.

  “I can’t,” Carpenter said, naked tears in his voice.

  “Why not?” Mason asked, heart torn for him.

  “Because I think the only thing holding him together right now is our friendship. You have to be strong inside to have a lover, and….” Carpenter met Mason’s gaze almost tearfully. “He’s not ready yet. I’d do it all, Mason. I’d come out, tell my parents, go to Pride Week in rainbow body paint and a thong—but he’s still broken inside. I need to wait until he can deal.”

  Mason had to snap his mouth shut. “That is not what I expected you to say at all.”

  Skip nodded. “Yeah, gotta tell you, I am gobsmacked. You could have told me!”

  Carpenter just shook his head, then stood up and started throwing trash away. “It was….” He smiled softly. “Private. Inside me. But then Dane started crashing and….”

  “And all your love hurt,” Mason said, with feeling.

  “You know what it’s like too.” Carpenter shrugged. “It is—”

  “If you say ‘It is what it is’ I’ll vomit,” Skip muttered. “’Cause what it is sucks. It’s not ‘what it is’—it’s ‘a situation ripe for improvement.’”

  Carpenter let out the first cackle of laughter, but Mason was not far behind.

  “Oh my God,” Mason chuckled. “You need to be in management.”

  Skipper’s skin was fair, and the two red crescents on his cheeks showed up brightly. “I was thinking about teaching,” he said apologetically. “I used to think an office building meant I’m a grown-up, but I’m really sort of over this one.”

  Oh. Oh wow. “You’ll be amazing,” Mason said. “When would you do that?”

  Skip shrugged. “A couple of years. Apply for school, save money, that sort of thing.”

  Good. Mason knew that a change in job didn’t mean a loss of a friend, but he was glad everything wasn’t going to change immediately. He’d just gotten used to having friends at work who didn’t terrify him with their judgment.

  With a sigh, he started to help Carpenter with cleanup. “So, long-term,” he said, with a sort of resigned determination.

  “Yeah,” Skip said, looking carefully at the two of them. “Long-term. As in, don’t give up. As in, if it’s important, it’ll happen.”

  “Jesus, Skip, you sound all wise and shit,” Carpenter chided, but he didn’t sound like he was about to cry, and the moment lightened.

  “Yeah, well, Richie and I knew each other for six years before we figured out what love was. I don’t know what you two are bitching about. If it’s worth anything, it’s worth a little bit of a wait.”

  Mason reminded himself of those words when he went to help Terry with the last bit of work.

  Terry’s mom was there—had been there for the past month of Sundays—reading magazines, watching television, and generally sitting and glaring while her son
and his friends fixed her house from a ramshackle hovel into something she could be proud of.

  It had only been in the past couple of weeks that Mason had realized that Terry wasn’t doing it for her.

  He was doing it for himself, so that when he left, he could leave her with a good conscience, in a place where she couldn’t blame him for her life when he walked out. His whole life, she had told him that he owed her—he owed her for his life, for his clothes, for his food.

  She’d inherited the house—he’d never owed her for that. Fixing it was his payback for all that other shit.

  His indentured servitude was over.

  Mason was so proud he could burst.

  “So,” he said as they were putting the boards and the sealant away in the garage, “have you scoped out apartments yet?”

  Terry shrugged. “One’s pretty much the same as the others,” he said, not sounding excited. “They’re all shaped like shoeboxes. They’re all small.”

  Mason blinked at him. For the past month he’d been talking about nothing but getting an apartment. This was how he felt now?

  “Well, yeah,” he said. “But some of them are closer to my house than others.”

  Terry straightened up from his crouch at the paint cabinet and turned, a faint smile on his face. “That’s important?” he tested. “You know, that I’m close?”

  Mason smiled even though his heart felt about at his knees. “It’s probably the apartment’s most important feature,” he said honestly. “That you can stop by and say hi and….”

  A grin split Terry’s face. “I can run home and get clean clothes on my way to work in the morning?”

  And a little part of Mason breathed easy for the first time in months. “Yes,” he said, trying to hold on to his dignity. “That’s really important.”