Mason
I have no idea what it is I am doing, and that has made me feel more alive than I ever have felt before. A cute gay man is sitting beside me… or in front of me, almost every day. I don’t think he likes me that much, but I think his walls fall down a little more every day.
We have spent the last two nights talking about the Italian renaissance and the painters that have lasted the test of time. It’s heady and numbing and exciting all at the same time. Somehow, he has made it interesting, and I feel like I am slowly making sense of all the painter’s names and famous paintings that we are studying.
I study him more than I do the books.
When he gets frustrated with me, he bites his bottom lip. I don’t know if its to stop himself from saying what he’s thinking or just his way of thinking himself, but it has become something I look forward to.
I want to ask him how he got the little crescent scar on his cheek. I have pondered the smooth ridges of it for hours, and I want to reach out and touch it so badly it hurts me.
I don’t, of course.
Sometimes he catches me looking at him, and his eyes narrow as if he is trying to decide what it means. It’s becoming to mean something, that’s for sure. I’m just not sure what yet.
“What?” he asks, an annoyed look upon his face.
“Nothing… I guess. I was just… It’s nothing.” I found myself caught off guard. I sounded like a moron. “I guess I was just wondering what you were like when you weren’t so serious. I mean, the first time we talked was… serious, and then the tutoring, I mean… I just wondered what it would take to make you smile?”
“You want me to smile?” He frowned. I was failing. Yes! I wanted to shout loudly. I really want to see you smile so bad. I want to see what you look like when your face lights up. I want to hear what your life sounds like and what it does to me when I hear it. Yes. I want these things very much, and honestly, they are confusing the shit out of me!
Instead, I managed a, “Yeah. It would be nice to see what you look like when you don’t want to strangle me.”
“I don’t want to strangle you, Mason. I just want you to learn the difference between Manet and Monet.” He leaned in and rested his chin in his hands. “This is a job. Do you smile at the other players when you’re on the football field?”
I laughed. “Sometimes. A smile can be just as alarming as a growl.”
He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Oh, of that, I am sure. You do seem to smile a lot.”
“Why not. A smile doesn’t cost anything and actually takes fewer muscles than a frown does,” I thought maybe he would be impressed with me knowing that. All I got was a glare. “Tell me something about yourself, Calvin. What is it you like to do when you’re not getting in scuffles or telling of Moray jocks?”
“Nope. Not doing that chummy thing with you, Mason. You don’t get that. This is a job,” He glared at me and sat up straighter in his chair. “You wanted me to be your tutor, and here I am. I will get you through this so you can keep your scholarship and stay on the team. Hell, it’s my school duty, cause the team needs you. But we aren’t friends, Mason. You don’t need to know my deepest darkest desires.”
“Dude,” I groaned. “Damn, don’t even try to be friendly. You know we are going to spend a lot of time together, and it might be a little more pleasant if we were at least affable to each other.”
“I think you're affable enough for both of us. And I can’t believe your ass just said affable,” he grinned. There it was, an honest to goodness burst of happiness. It lit up his face, and I basked in this one small moment between us. Why couldn’t I just tell him that I was starting to think about him… In that way? Even the thought of it caused me to have a panic attack. Hell, if he acted the way I was afraid he would if I told him, he might go to war with me.
In the last three days, I hadn’t won any brownie points with him, that’s for sure. But I was trying, and I hoped he could see that.
“Okay, there’s your smile. It was a small one, but you got it. Can we move on?”
“You’re like… really handsome when you… uh… smile,’ I fumbled. I wasn’t as smooth as I usually was whenever I was around him. He kept me on my toes.
He blushed, and my smile spread slowly across my face. His mouth fell open as he stared at me, trying to understand what was going on with me. “You are… a strange man, Mason McKendrick. Just as soon as I start to have you figured out, you do some other weird kind of shit.”
“Is it bad that I think I like you, Calvin. I mean, you seem like a pretty cool dude. You're smart as shit, and you stand up for your friends when you need to… I mean, you might be one of the most uptight humans I’ve ever met, but even that intrigues me. I would love to see you let it all go.” I said it slowly, covering up what I really wanted to say. That I thought he was hot and I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to be the one that made him laugh. I wanted to see him come undone, underneath me as I put him under my control, making him shiver and moan with every stroke and touch I gave him.
I realized that the look on my face was exactly that, so I stuck my tongue out at him and crossed my eyes. Jesus, I was a fucking dork.
“You are allowed to like me,” he said as he shook his head, disbelieving what he heard. “What’s your angle, Mason? You seem like the kind of guy who always has one. I bet you can’t stand when someone doesn’t like you, do you? Is that why you want me to like you?”
“Dude… I am used to people not liking me,” I lied. I’ve been popular my entire life, and everyone fell over themselves to be my friend. Shit… Was that what this was?
“Really? I don’t believe that for a second.”
The alarm on his phone beeped, and he picked it up and turned it off. He slid it into his pocket.
“Times up, thirty-two.” He said as he closed the book and fumbled with his papers, sliding them into a folder. “Pretty good job today. Tomorrow we will work on the paper together. Have you started it like I asked you to?”
