Page 77 of Summer Lessons
“I hear that,” Skipper said unexpectedly. “But that’s good.”
Mason and Carpenter both stared at him. Skip smiled sunnily back.
“Why good?” Carpenter asked, like he was dying for the answer.
The look Skip sent him was so compassionate, Mason thought he must have more inside information about Carpenter and Dane than Mason did.
“Because you know what you have to do,” Skip said, shrugging. “You don’t have a choice. Whatever your person needs, you have to be there. ?Cause he’s—yes,he, Clay, you’re fooling fuckin’nobody—the one person who makes you happy. If you can do the thing, whatever the thing is, to return the favor, that’s yourjob, right?”
So simple.
All those long talks Mason had had with Todd about the nature of love and politics, all those long talks with Ira about how to make a modern relationship work, and Skip had pretty much nailed it.
This person made Mason happy. Mason needed to return the favor.
“That’s really wise,” Mason said, feeling hollow and sad.
“Fuckin’ brilliant,” Clay snapped, but his voice was breaking, so he wasn’t really mad.
Skip looked at him. Just looked at him. “Clay, what’s so hard to admit? Your parents are liberal. I’m your best work friend and I’m gay, and you never gave a shit. Dane is your best friend in the world, and you’re so damned in love with him it almost stops my heart. Why would it be so hard to just kiss him? Just fucking kiss him and see if the stubble bothers you?”
Carpenter scowled. “Ihavekissed him, and it was awesome. Do you think it bothers me that I’m attracted? That’s not it at all!”
“Then what in the hell is it?” Skipper demanded, while Mason tried to file every word of this conversation to feed to Dane like dinner. A thing that would nourish his soul.
“You wouldn’t get it,” Carpenter muttered, throwing the last of his burger into the to-go box and starting clean up. “Look at the two of you. You’d never get—”
“So help me, Carpenter, if you are talking about the weight, I am going to kick you in the fucking balls.” Skip stood up, furious. “I don’t want to hear another goddamned word about your goddamned weight and why you don’t deserve jack because you’re a fat asshole who can’t get his life together. You deserve fuckingeverything. You think I don’t understand? You think I wasn’t a fat kid with pimples? I leaned up, and so have you—and even if you hadn’t, do you think I’d love you any less? Hell no. You’re a fucking good person.Iwas a fucking good person.Jesus, Clay—you’re breaking my fucking heart. Just give it a chance!”
Silence crashed the emotional tsunami, and for a moment Mason could only stare at Skipper, stunned all over again about the fineness of the man.
But he’d seen this in Terry, in his painful attempts to protect his friends and his lover from his mother’s vitriol, too, in his tentative steps toward freedom. In that moment Mason realized why he’d fallen in love with Terry, and why it was irrevocable.
And then he realized that he’d fallen in love.
“I can’t,” Carpenter said, naked tears in his voice.
“Why not?” Mason asked, heart torn for him.
“Because I think the only thing holding him together right now is our friendship. You have to be strong inside to have a lover, and….” Carpenter met Mason’s gaze almost tearfully. “He’s not ready yet. I’d do it all, Mason. I’d come out, tell my parents, go to Pride Week in rainbow body paint and a thong—but he’s still broken inside. I need to wait until he can deal.”
Mason had to snap his mouth shut. “That is not what I expected you to say at all.”
Skip nodded. “Yeah, gotta tell you, I am gobsmacked. You could have told me!”
Carpenter just shook his head, then stood up and started throwing trash away. “It was….” He smiled softly. “Private. Inside me. But then Dane started crashing and….”
“And all your love hurt,” Mason said, with feeling.
“You know what it’s like too.” Carpenter shrugged. “It is—”
“If you say ‘It is what it is’ I’ll vomit,” Skip muttered. “’Cause what it is sucks. It’s not ‘what it is’—it’s ‘a situation ripe for improvement.’”
Carpenter let out the first cackle of laughter, but Mason was not far behind.
“Oh my God,” Mason chuckled. “You need to be in management.”
Skipper’s skin was fair, and the two red crescents on his cheeks showed up brightly. “I was thinking about teaching,” he said apologetically. “I used to think an office building meant I’m a grown-up, but I’m really sort of over this one.”