Page 52 of Summer Lessons

And he wanted to keep having sex in a bed.

“DID WEhave ourselves some adventures, sir?”

Mrs. Bradford, as always, looked impeccable—even as she raked Mason over with her eyes, taking in the bandage and the crutches and the scuff on the cheek that he’d gotten when he’d toppled into the mud puddle.

“We played soccer with Schipperke’s team,” Mason replied, taking her clipboard from her to see what he needed to sign. “Results were… mixed.”

“I don’t have the MBA, sir,” she said, voice like toast. “You’ll have to explain to me the difference between ‘mixed’ and ‘disastrous.’”

Mason pursed his lips. “Well, disastrous would have been if I’d sprained my ankle and he’d left me to rot. Mixed is when I sprain my ankle and he rides to my rescue in his dying vehicle, and then stays the night and helps my brother paint the guest room in the morning.”

“Hm,” she considered. “Given what I know of your love life, Mr. Hayes, why is this not a triumph along the lines of the stage playHamilton?”

Mason gave her a side-eyed glare that bothered her not at all. “Because. He’s still attached to his mother. And when he becomesunattachedto his mother, he’s going to need to figure out why he’s so attached tome. I don’t want to be his father figure, Mrs. Bradford. For one thing, that’s icky. For another, it’s….” He thought about the terrifying, exciting freefall of sex and desire he felt with Terry, and his face fell. “Heartbreaking,” he finished weakly.

“Ah,” Mrs. Bradford said softly. “So I don’t believe any platitudes about loving something and setting it free would help here?”

Mason sighed. “Well, since it’s not love and he’s not free yet, they might be a bit premature.”

“I shall file them handily away, sir.”

“How very forward-thinking of you, Mrs. Bradford. So tell me, on a scale of one to ten, one being comatose and ten being a day in the park with a Frisbee, how awful are my appointments today?”

“I would rate your day a solid 1.5, Mr. Hayes. But given that you are not likely to be throwing a Frisbee for the next week—”

“Month,” Mason corrected.

“Good Lord—fromsoccer? Well, fine. Given that playing in the park on a sunny day is not an option in any sense of the word, how about I bring you some coffee and you can feel productive and proud of your work ethic.”

Not. Promising.

“Sounds awesome! Bring on the day!”

“Yessir.”

“But, uh, Mrs. Bradford?”

“Yessir?”

“Could we maybe invite Schipperke and his friend Carpenter in for lunch so I don’t get tempted to gnaw on my wrist?”

“I’ll order Thai food.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Bradford. Carry on.”

“SO,” SKIPPERsaid, dumping his rice on his plate like Mason had showed him last time, “we’re doing a work party at Jefferson’s on Sunday? Well, beats the hell out of ripping out my kitchen linoleum and painting the whole damned thing. Richie’s over the moon.”

“Right?” Carpenter took some pad thai and then started adding red curry. “Working on someone else’s place is always so much better than working on your own. ’Cause when you’re done, you’re like, ‘Oh, hey! I helped do this!’ and then you go home! But when you work on your own place, you’re like, ‘Oh, look—I have sixty zillion other things to do to make it all work like I want it to!’ So, yeah. Other people’s houses are the best.”

Mason had never thought about that. “Well, I’m just glad he helped Dane paint over ogre-barf green this weekend.”

Carpenter looked up. “What color did you decide on? He showed me that shit last week—I gotta tell you, I’ve never seen green look so bad!”

“We went with navy,” Mason told him. “It’s hard to fuck that up, and hey, it’s a guest room and guests can’t afford to be picky and say, ‘You know, navy is as boring as hell and I don’t want to live here anymore.’”

“True that,” Skipper said.

“Yeah, but you and Richie still need to get to the kitchen,” Carpenter said. “It looks like the seventies changed a diaper in there.”