Mark Arbour

I try to surprise you guys from time to time. :-)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

LOL. If you were out, you may end up with your own fantasy. :-) Leather pants...I think that's more of a specialty item.

My ears would have been pressed up against the door. Hell, I'd have been looking through the peep hole. I wonder if they have those at Escorial?

Your, uh, divining rod is working pretty well. ;-)

If I had to label them, I'd peg Will as versatile, leaning bottom; and I'd peg Wade as versatile. I agree with Jeremy, too, in that with guys like that who are versatile, how they have sex is going to depend a lot on the other guy's preference. So when Wade is with Brad, who is a versatile top, he'll grab his ankles. When he's with a guy like Kevin, he'll top.

Wow. Two awesome words in one review: Bong and Maelstrom. I haven't really decided what role Noah will play in Will's life, but he's definitely got the makings of a good friend.

I'm betting that's one of Will's reactions! LOL! I'm glad you think Will's doing well with Tony. I wanted to contrast him, and illustrate how much he's matured in such a short time, compared to his attitude towards guys in Poor Man's Son.

I'm glad you liked the Brad-Wade hookup. You know, in real life, when you have a chance to experience the fantasy, the reality is often such a let down. In this case, for Wade, it wasn't. I wonder if that was a good thing.

LOL. Well, that would have been a bit cliched, and I get crap from my team if I repeat myself. Besides, as messed up as Robbie is right now, he'd probably bludgeon one of them.

I think that Brad and Wade can have sex and it's OK, from a non-incestuous standpoint. Now whether their relationship can handle it, now that may be different.

One of the more interesting things I've learned here at GA (and perhaps in real life) is that just because a guy is on the bottom doesn't mean he's not in control.

The chapter made you think of eruptions. Heh heh, heh.

Well, it's not really a cliff-hanger, other than you know that Wade and/or Brad is going to have to explain this to Will. But it kind of is. Kind of. ;-)

It was about time for an orgy of sorts. :-)

December 15, 2000 Escorial, CA Will I took a shower and thought about Tony. It seemed like I spent more time thinking about him than anyone else, I thought wryly. He was doing the same thing to me that he’d done when we first fucked; as soon as he blew, his whole goal was to get the fuck away from me as fast as he could. Only one thing had changed recently, and that was this girl he was with. He must really like her. I felt sorry for him. He liked her, and wanted to be with her,

I can totally see this, but with shorter hair.

Isn't it ironic that the agreement ending the NHL lockout was reached at 4:20?

Thanks for the great review! You make some really good points about the differences between how Brad and Robbie are treated by the family. I think the biggest difference is how they react. When Brad was dealing with Will over the issue with Pat, Brad got a lot of crap from Stef and from Will himself, but he didn't really get a full-bore family assault. When he went to deal with Will's emancipation, he did, and he ultimately yielded. Robbie has gotten a much stronger version of that, where to a person the family has looked him in the eye and told him he's fucking up. He's chosen to totally ignore them. I think that's the big difference. If I were Stef or JP, I would be willing to tolerate someone who disagreed with me on a course of action (that didn't involve me too directly) but not if everyone else was opposed to it. That's why, with Robbie, Stef began to question Robbie's overall judgment levels. He probably was worried that if Robbie's mind was working that way, he may just be close to leading Anders-Hayes back into the abyss of 1999. Robbie's track record that year warrants, IMHO, legitimate concerns about that.

I think that it's pretty natural for a guy who's 14-17 to have a 'best friend' or at least a couple of really good friends. That means that any parallel to Be Rad is inevitable. Whether that friend is bisexual, gay, or straight, or whether that guy is involved with Will in a relationship, remains to be seen.

An excellent point. It's a bit premature to write Ryan off at the ripe old age of 14.

Great discussion on the financial aspects of the story. You all makes some very good points. For obvious reasons, I didn't delve into the capital structure of Anders-Hayes (or whether they had any debt, which brings on a whole new level of oversight). There are probably fewer than ten of us who find that stuff interesting. Some points to address: 1. While Stef called a board meeting to get an update on the company's performance, that doesn't mean he was oblivious to it before then, nor that they haven't had other meetings. I'm betting the articles of incorporation require an annual meeting of shareholders (and the board) but that it meets more often than that. It's been a year since Brad acquired Marcel's stock, so it makes sense that they'd have a summative meeting at this point to see how Robbie had turned things around. 2. A board meeting and a shareholder meeting are very different, and I took some poetic license with this one. Just because WIll has voting control over half of Stef's stock wouldn't give him an entre into a board meeting. In any event, it would have been wise for Robbie and his attorney to cave on that point, since no good would come from antagonizing the two men there who ARE board members. 3. The value of Robbie's shares ($40 million) was asserted by Wade when he was losing it with Robbie on Will's return. It is likely that he was just pulling a number out of his ass (something that was easily relevant to the $400,000 check that Stef wrote Robbie for the damage Will caused) than any valuation based on factual evidence. 4. Tim is right, in that most companies in the US have discarded their defined benefit plans. If the soap box was still open, we could have an interesting discussion on whether that's good or bad. 5. A privately held company like Anders-Hayes has a lot more freedom in how they conduct their corporate affairs. That's why it's very risky to invest in these types of ventures. I think, though, that Anders-Hayes would probably be more transparent than most if they have indeed established a profit sharing plan, as Robbie mentioned in Millennium. Transparency is really a requirement for those to be effective.

Thanks for such a great review! I think that it is not unusual for people who are successful in business to be failures in their family life. It really doesn't surprise me that Robbie would struggle with one or the other. Stef sent him a series of strong messages, and a core one was that he better keep his head out of his ass at work even if he can't do it when he's dealing with his sons.

It gives you something to log onto GA for, what with the Soap Box closed, so you can't swipe at the liberals here. ;-) Glad I can help! I think that Will understands where Tony is better than Tony does. That probably will help him guide his relationship along the lines you mentioned. I think that Alistair will be swayed by JJ's whining, primarily because he's a good friend to JJ. I see him as a steadfast and loyal guy, and I can see that he'd forego his lustful urgings so as not to hurt a friend. I have such a hard time relating to him (j/k).

Everyone makes bad decisions: good point. I think that Stef is giving Will a glimpse into the world beyond his safe shell at Escorial or Malibu, and a peek at what goes on to support the lifestyle he enjoys.