Page 14 of Summer Lessons

“You need to stop somewhere?”

“I’m feeling like a highly caffeinated milkshake. Next Starbucks you see.”

Awesome. He was going to be side-seat granny driving all the way to San Mateo. But that was okay, because Mason had aplay datewith a guy who could get him hard with just alaugh.

Even if Jefferson was straight, it was the most exciting thing to happen to Mason since Skipper didn’t sue him for suggesting gay porn as a perfectly appropriate office activity.

“HOW AREyou doing, son? Have you met anybody?” Mason’s father, Roger, wasthemost dad-looking dad Mason had ever met. He looked like Ferris Buehler’s father, or the dad inAmerican Pie. Not that those two dads looked alike, but Roger Hayes gave off that same “dorky dad doing his best” vibe. He was tall, with silvered brown hair, a thin, handsome face, and a kind smile. Mason’s mother had sat next to Mason at the principal’s meetings and the teacher’s meetings and the meetings with baffled parents—and Mason’s dad had listened to the breakdown and then taken Mason and Dane out to eat and asked them whatelsethey’d seen that day.

It had been the “what else they’d seen” that Mason had lived for.

If Dad could focus on the other 95 percent of the day besides the part that Mason had fucked up, then Mason could believe there was more to his life than just his fuckups.

It was that simple.

It’s what had gotten Mason through 95 percent of his life, actually.

So Dad’s gentle probing into Mason’s love life wasn’t a bad thing, really—Mason just didn’t know how to answer.

“Have I met anybody? Well, I had a terrible crush on a guy from work,” he admitted. “But he’s sort of taken.”

“That’s not promising,” Roger said. “Not gonna lie.”

Mason’s smile stretched his cheeks. His dad could say things like that—“not gonna lie”—in spite of being born and raised on the peninsula in a conservative neighborhood. He could blend in anywhere, unlike Mason, who had needed to channel Fred MacMurray just so he could talk to Skip on the phone without going “Nurk!”

“Well, the good news is that he’s a friend now, and his boyfriend isn’t going to stage a hit, and his best friend is now Dane’s best friend too.”

“Wow—he may not be happiness, but he sounds like a carrier.”

Dad.“He is.” Mason let out a breath, and some of his carefully nurtured optimism about Jefferson faded, and some of his worry about Dane surfaced. “But, you know, Dane’s getting his hopes up about the friend, and I….” God. Dane had been such a gleeful baby. And when his moods were balanced, he was a pretty gleeful adult. But Mason had been there through some of his dark times—had carried him kicking and screaming to the doctor’s once after a bad breakup, when he’d holed up inside his dorm and stopped eating.

Mason would do anything to make sure his brother didn’t get his heart broken.

“You worry,” Roger said, making himself comfortable in the recliner next to the couch where Mason was sitting. They were pretending to watchJurassic Parkon television, because it was a better alternative than football, which nobody in Mason’s family followed. Dane and Janette were in the kitchen, doing the actual cooking. Mason and Rogerlikedfood—they were fans, in fact—but they were not actual participants in the food-making sport. If it hadn’t been for Dane, Mason would have survived on chicken sandwiches for the past five months.

“You don’t?” Mason said, his voice throbbing with anxiety for his little brother.

“No, I do.” Roger laced his fingers around his knees and stretched. “I just… I’m getting a bit old, Mason. There comes a time when you have to have faith in your children, even if they’ve got problems.”

“You’re not old,” Mason said automatically, but he could do math too—if he was thirty-six, that made his dad not in his sixties anymore.

“Okay, I’m not old.” Roger smiled at him gently. “But Idohave faith in you.”

“It’s just easier to do that when I keep my mouth shut,” Mason said glumly.

Roger’s smile turned wicked. “Why would you want to do that when your words always give us the most delightful surprises?”

Mason’s eyes burned. “Thanks, Dad.”

“Has Samuel L. Jackson been eaten by the fucking velociraptor yet?”

“Nope—but the gamekeeper who looks like the velociraptor has.”

“Spielberg did that inJawstoo—it’s a handy trick.”

Mason nodded and smiled at his dad, but he really couldn’t talk right now. He was too busy getting excited that some guy who thought he was a rich douche bag wanted to play golf.

Break for Balls