Page 5 of Summer Lessons

“Mmm,” Todd breathed. “You are making it so very hard to resist.” He smiled coyly from under blond lashes.

Mason bit his lip, his stomach exploding into a nest of butterflies. “And isn’t a pole in the hole worth a cock in the bush?”

Under his hand, the promising steel of young lust wilted into revulsion.

Which was exactly how Todd looked at him as he pulled away and wandered dispiritedly down the path to his own dorm.

Mason moaned and banged his head softly against the brick wall. “I’m never going to get laid.”

When he got back into his dorm room, his cell phone tinkled in his pocket, so excruciatingly loud his roommate grumbled and fell out of bed. God, one day he’d figure out how to fix the settings. Face hot, he stumbled into the hallway and flipped open his phone.

“Hi, sweetheart—just wanted to see if you’re driving home over spring break.”

“Hi, Mom,” he said, both mortified and relieved to talk to his mother. Yeah, she’d seen every embarrassing moment in his life in living color, but yeah—she’d always managed to make them better. “Uh, okay. Sure.” Since he and Todd would obviously not be hooking up for the sex of a lifetime.

“So.” She cleared her throat delicately. “Will you be bringing any, uh, friends home?”

“No, Mom. Still a virgin.”

His mother’s sigh of disappointment gusted through the earpiece. “That’s too bad, sweetheart. Your father and I are rooting for you!”

He let out a helpless chuckle and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Good news is, at least I’m not using the word ‘penis’ anymore.”

He recognized her vodka-and-Kool-Aid voice. “No?”

“Nope. I scared this one away talking about the president.”

“Well, your father and I think he’s a dick too, if that helps.”

Mason couldn’t help it. He laughed. “It helps. You help, Mom.”

“Well, that’s my pleasure, hon. We look forward to seeing you.”

“Love you,” he said, knowing his voice pulsed with homesickness and not caring.

“Love you too.”

She hung up, and he leaned against his door, still chuckling. Well, yes, sex would have been nice, but you couldn’t beat family.

And later that semester, when Masonfinallylost his virginity to Todd Slezcyk, he thought that sex was woefully overrated. He still loved his family, though—and his mother, bless her soul, told him to keep trying. Eventually the sex thing would live up to all the condom commercials.

Seven years ago

MASON LOOKEDat his watch and sighed. Gordon was late.

Gordon wasn’t his first boyfriend, or even his second or third—but hewasthe first boyfriend Mason could see himself spending the rest of his life with.

And Mason was going to ask him to move in at dinner tonight.

He’d had reservations for a month—a lovely table in a restaurant by the bay. He’d recently bought a house in Walnut Creek and had been making the hour-long commute into the city every day. Gordon had been leaving his San Francisco apartment to come stay at Mason’s house nearly every weekend for the past seven months, and while they seemed to agree on everything from politics to books to movies, those weekends were….

Well, boring.

Blowjobs on Friday night. Butt sex on Saturday—Mason always topped. Snuggles Sunday morning.

Mason wasn’t complaining, per se, but he was hoping that if they actuallylivedtogether, they would discover, perhaps, the joys of Sixty-nine Monday, Blindfold Tuesday, and Mason-Gets-to-Bottom Every-Other-Thursday. He loved Gordon as a friend and liked him as a lover, and maybe if they took this up another notch, he could love him as both.

He was in the middle of a glass of champagne and visions of Sex-Toy Saturday when his phone rang.