Page 104 of Summer Lessons
“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 singleandgay, 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 becomehisspace.
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 alegionof 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 themallno—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 evenyoucan wait forever.”
“It’s only been two months,” Mason sighed. “I was planning on at least a year.”