Page 24 of Summer Lessons

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but… you’re sort of getting a stiffie, and I’m trying to concentrate.”

The wash of heat made Mason’s sweatshirt stick at the collar. “Yeah. Course. Go ahead.”

Jefferson got back into position and then paused and looked over his shoulder. “Uh, it wasn’t unpleasant,” he said with a helpful smile.

Mason flushed again and concentrated hard as Jefferson made another vastly improved swing.

IN THEend they finished nine holes just a breath away from the party behind them, and between thirty and three hundred strokes over par.

Mason had given up keeping score on the second hole. He let Jefferson drive them back after the ninth hole while he completely made up numbers so he could submit their scorecards to the club.

“Why’s it so important that people know what my score was anyway?” Jefferson asked as Mason decided that five over par at every hole didnotlook suspicious.

“Well, there’s leagues, and people looking to play with a partner and stuff. And mostly just tradition, so you can look up another golfer’s handicap and—”

“Oh,” Jefferson said, suddenly completely okay with fake scorecards. “So like seeding.”

“Like what?”

“Like a seeding tournament, where all the teams in the league get together and then you know which teams will be matched.”

“Yes—yes, exactly.”

“But we were awful.”

“Well, I’m not writing that we’re prodigies!” Mason laughed. “Besides, if you ever want to play again, I’m setting us up so we’re even.”

“So… like, you’d play again?”

Mason smiled a little, thinking about how amenable Jefferson’d been after the run-in with the jerk who used the f-word. “Yeah. Once you decided to learn, it went really well.” Andbam, his flush was back. “And… you know. Coaching you from, uhm, behind was pleasant.”

Jefferson cast him a grin that was all teeth and then steered the cart into the parking queue. “Excellent! Pancakes first or pancakes later?”

Oh God. Public sex. “Pancakes first,” Mason said grimly. This way he could at least be sure that Jefferson ate.

IHOP was not exactly haute cuisine, but there was literally no way to screw up strawberry pancakes. Jefferson made his chocolate banana, and they spent their meal talking about other foods that should be dessert but that got served as entrees. Mason was pretty sure honey-walnut shrimp was the number-one entry, but Jefferson said he couldn’t see eating seafood for dessert—there was something fundamentally wrong with that—and went with Ritz crackers and Dr Pepper.

“You eat that for lunch?” Mason was appalled. “Like, don’t you leaven it with soup or anything like that?”

“WellnowI do,” Jefferson laughed. “But when I was a kid, there wasn’t always soup. Sometimes there was just crackers and soda. I mean, food stamps, you know? They only go so far.”

Mason blinked at him. “No,” he said. “I didn’t know that.”

He saw the wash of heat up Jefferson’s cheeks. It left a faint red crescent at the razor edge of each cheekbone. “You’ve probably had cash all your life,” he mumbled. “Sorry—embarrassing story.” He tried to mask his mortification in a cup of coffee.

Mason’s brain shorted out again and he blurted, “I got kicked out of school for asking to see my boyfriend’s penis.”

Jefferson spit out his coffee. “You didwhat?”

“We were necking under the bleachers, he was feeling me up, and I thought I’d be a gentleman. He decked me.”

Jefferson stopped mopping up coffee from the front of his borrowed sweatshirt. “What an asshole.” He frowned, the expression looking about as fierce as a Chihuahua licking your hand. “Why did he do that?”

Mason sighed, remembering the half-strangled apology the kid had gotten out when Mason and his mother had left the principal’s office that day. “He didn’t want to admit he was gay. It was one thing to make out with me, but if I asked about it and he did it, that meant something entirely different.”

Jefferson slow blinked and set down his wad of napkins. “I don’t… my mom would fucking kill me,” he said, looking back up at Mason with that plea in his eyes.

“Fine,” Mason agreed rashly. “But… can we go somewhere besides the car? My house is in Fair Oaks. It’s about ten minutes away from Skip’s. I swear, nobody will be there.”