PrivateTim

This is my second time through Bloodlines, Carullo is destined to have many happy endings with this clan 🤣😁 Because this story transitioned from the old GA site to this one, you can't tell how long it was to write the story, but it was certainly over the course of many months of hard labor by Mark and his team. I am truly grateful for this labor of love that has been ongoing for at least 20 years now as we wait for the 79th chapter of Gap Year, not to mention all the effort and time of the Bridgemont series too. I am truly amazed Mark can keep all these people in his head straight. The most fun thing about the serialization of the stories for me, as an avid reader, especially with a mix of fiction, historical fiction and real histories, is to interact with the author and get to discuss the characters. I don't know to what extent Mark changes direction in a story or character based on feedback, but I know he takes the feedback serious. I would love to have been able to interact with Patrick O Brian as he wrote his version of the Bridgemont series or Alexander McCall Smith in his many series that I have enjoyed. So it is a privilege to have that opportunity with Mark, Jeremy, Sharon and all those who make these wonderful stories happen and make them so real that we actually shed tears over them. Even though we have not moved far in CAP time, just 5 years from the end of this story to where Gap Year is now so much has happened with Matt, Wade and now Will and JJ, now that they are old enough to narrate. I'll say again how grateful I am to Mark for bringing such pleasure to me and his many devoted readers.

It is great that Matt is in a good place with his parents and that his parents have his back too. I wonder if they've had any financial discussions, given Matt new credit cards, etc. I like also that Senator Danfield is reaching out to Wade. If Wade is feeling all alone, I think eventually he'll figure out how alone his father feels.

One of the top ten chapters in CAP, past and present. It all rings so true with what we know about that kind of behavior. I know Wade will forgive him, because he is smart enough to know that hanging on to hate and bitterness harms the person who harbors the feeling, not the person they are directed at.

How would Whist even know Brian? I know college GLB clubs have drama and thrive on it, but it's like this is North and South Korea having a meeting.

I like the tension is the Club. I remember having a neighbor I went to high school with; she was all into Save The Whales, No Nukes, blah blah blah, but when she finished eating at school, instead of throwing away her own garbage, she'd get up and walk away. She wanted to end worldwide pollution, but wouldn't take the simplest of jobs to end pollution in our own school.

Professor Whist always sounded like a character from Clue to me as in Professor Whist with a candlestick in the ballroom. I am glad Matt's parents have some round to reconciliation.

Nice to see the start of the JP and Wade connection. People talk about Matt being a lot like Brad, but I think Matt is Stef minus the fashion sense.

I've always thought Stanfurd's football players were fags, so it's nice to have Carullo confirm it 🤣 Actually, I really like John and I am so glad he has stayed in the CAP universe.

Second time through, so I can't say anything that isn't spoiler, other than I love Elizabeth Danfield. She has taught her boy well. Here is a picture of her from the Stanford Daily, the day she visited Wade.

"I figured I'd just leave it alone for a while. But when he did that, when he voted to impeach, he took off the gloves.” I am so disappointed in Team Arbour. How did no one catch that Bill Clinton was indeed impeached. Impeachment is handled by the House of Representatives. They impeached Bill Clinton on December 19, 1998. The Senate holds the actual trial to vote on Removal from Office. If the impeached president is found guilty of the impeachment charges by a two thirds majority, he is removed. The vote in the Senate never approached the needed 67 votes and the Republican Senator from Virginia voted Not Guilty on perjury and Guilty on obstruction of justice.

I think Matt was a dickhead this entire chapter. Since when is an 18 year old a good judge of what another 18 year old, victim of incestual sex abuse needs to "heal"? I am betting most psychiatrists/psychologists would not recommend a threeway/fourway gay sexual encounter as the first line of therapy, four days after the exposure of the abuse. That seems like a fucked up 18 year old wanting his cake and wanting to eat it too. I also think the country club scene was petty, middle schoolish (not mature enough to be sophomoric) and bad for the gay community in reinforcing all kinds of stereotypes. The kind of things he and Lou were doing would have been inappropriate if a straight couple were doing it. Matt and Lou could have had a nice dinner, held hands and and lots of other subtle clues, including introducing Lou to Chad as his boyfriend and still set tongues wagging.

The impeachment did not fail, Bill Clinton was impeached by the House. What failed was removal from office in the U.S. Senate, where you needed 67 votes for removal from office and they never got close to that. They couldn't get more than 50 votes for removal, even though Clinton was guilty, the majority didn't think lying to a grand jury was reason enough to remove a president from office. Matt was brave, but Matt was also holding a Royal Flush against a man with a pair of Jacks. I think part his dialogue was fueled by his own rage at his parents for how they had treated him. I'm sorry Beau didn't go to CA. He is a character I would have liked to see more of, but I understand there are already too many characters and Mary Ellen was the one more interesting for other storylines.

I don't remember what I thought the first time I read this book, but I did know there was a reason Wade was being controlled by his family. I wonder if JP or Brad or Stef will jump into the conversation with the Senator. I know Elizabeth has to know what is happening, will she be part of the conversation?

Dun duh duh! The plot thickens. Family traditions and family secrets are about to unravel. I am not surprised Matt's parents cut him off, but I think they would have threatened to do so first as a way to force him back to OH.

I am not sure if I've ever mentioned before what a douchebag I think Matt is and how much I dislike him. He doesn't want his parents to know he is gay, but he let JP invite them for Thanksgiving in CA to a dinner table where there is going to be 10-12 gay men and Matt has slept with all of them; 3 in the last 24 hours. The smart thing would have been to go home to Shaker Heights for three days (W-Fri) then fly back Saturday morning.

“Dude, I don't want to break your heart. I have a boyfriend. I just want to fuck you.” This is why I have disliked Matt for years. It remains to be seen if he settles down into fatherhood with Wade, but in his years at Stanford, his last few months at Shaker Heights, and the few he spent in Chicago, he has been totally self absorbed and hedonistic. My circle of friends as a young bi man gravitated with young guys like Wade and older guys (20+) who'd lived through the worst of AIDS and we eschewed the predators (which is what I few Matt as) and porn boys.

I really need to go back and read the earliest stories. I'd never consider Will to be the child of "hired help" since he was Brad's natural son and Brad was a Schluter. It doesn't really matter that Brad's mother had an affair, Brad was still a Schluter and raised at Escorial. He became a permanent member of the family March 13, 1968 when he was 6 and his mother committed suicide, leaving Brad in JP and Isidore's custody. Will was not one of these kids that popped up years later ala Marcel or Matt, he was acknowledged from Day 1 as the grandson of Stef and JP. Weirdly, even though Brad was a Schluter, he was raised by JP and Isidore, as their child with Claire, Billy and Ace as his siblings. I don't remember Janice's relation to JP, or if it was merely because Brad was Billy's son. "Uncle" Stef eventually morphed into Brad's other father, but by the time Will rolled around, Stef and JP were firmly established as the grandfathers.

This should be covered by a spoiler drop down. There may be new readers who are reading CAP in order. You know like this: **Spoiler Alert** Matt is a dickhead all four years. Will turns into a spoiled douche.

“I only want you,” I said honestly. “You're all I need.” 48 hours later. "Fuck yeah Carullo, drill me stud!" And people wonder why I don't like the Hayes boys.....

Wade is hardly the first gay man who figured he could remain in the closet forever. When I was a sophomore in college I started playing sand volleyball with some guys from the campus GLB club. One of the guys brought his grandfather one week. He had just come out of the closet a couple of months before. For 40+ years of marriage, 3 kids, 6 grandkids no one ever had a clue. He and his wife never divorced and continued to live together. I am sure there were lots of guys like him.

Yeah, that whole "Honesty is the best policy" thing only applies in certain situations. Matt is just a mess. He has no plan, no idea, no direction.

Matt is such a fucking loser. He has developed a sexual compulsion. Boy needs help. He had what, one gay lover in Ohio? Now six months later he is at what, a dozen? Two dozen? And not in healthy situations.

Matt is so stupid, how did he ever get into Stanford?

The trouble wit so many young people is that they don't think the whole thing through. Sometimes they are trying to hurt someone ("boy they'll feel guilty and really miss me"), but don't think through they won't be there to "enjoy" the pain they cause and all too soon, people will move on. The others who want their pain to stop don't think through that the pain is temporary and that "this too shall pass" is really true. Teen suicide rates dropped through 2007, then started to rise. The only proximate cause I can come up with is the rise of Social Media.

I don't know that Matt's mother meant that Matthew Shepard deserved to be beaten because he hit on a guy just that he set the chain of events in motion by not using discretion. I think Matt so far has demonstrated very poor judgment in some of his sexual situations, including when he was in Wyoming. In several instances he blundered ahead with sex where he could have been putting himself in danger. Matt during his time at Stanford will not be my favorite CAP character. Matt the Volcano is a very apt description. I am surprised he isn't in therapy already for anger issues. Surely they would have manifested themselves in his life in Shaker Heights. It was one thing to tell Cole that Amber had hit on him, not the other way round, but it was quite another to toss the Marc Holden card out there. I think about how differently Wade would have handled it if he were Cole's roommate and in a similar situation.