Millennium - 60. Chapter 60

February 11, 2000

 

“I’ve got a phone call to make,” I told them. Robbie gave me a slight nod to acknowledge my exit, while the others ignored me. I went to the back of the plane where there was a small desk and called Cody. The line clicked a lot until it finally rang his number. I was actually kind of surprised when he answered; I figured he’d be busy.

“Hey there hot stuff,” he said as soon as he realized it was me. He sounded like his typical sexy self.

“Hey there. I need two favors,” I responded, getting right to the point. I didn’t know how long the link from the plane to the ground would last.

“Alright, name them.”

“It seems I’m getting married.”

“So I hear,” he said, laughing. “I can’t wait to kiss the bride.”

“Robbie’s the bride,” I joked.

“The bride gets to kiss all the guys,” Cody reminded me.

“Good point,” I said, pondering that. “I’m officially the bride.” We both started laughing at that. I saw Robbie look back to see me laughing and enjoying myself. He smiled, he wasn’t jealous at all. What a cool gesture! “I need a third man for my wedding party, and besides Jack, you’re the hottest guy I know.”

“Duh,” he said, making me laugh even harder. There was a pause. “You really want me to be one of your groomsmen?”

“Yeah. You’re one of my best friends, you know I love you, and the other two are Jack and Claire. I want my threesome to be way hotter than Robbie’s threesome.”

He chuckled at that. “Who’s our competition?”

“Jeanine, Matt, and Ace,” I told him.

“They’ll look like Pee Wee Hermans next to us,” he joked, then got serious. “This is really an honor, Brad.”

“No, the honor is mine. I appreciate you standing up with me.” There was a pause on both ends of the line as we pondered the strong emotional attachment between us.

“What’s the other favor?” Cody asked, breaking the silence.

“We’re supposed to pick a song that describes how we feel about our partner. I wanted to have my choice for Robbie performed live. You think you can help me swing that?”

“Which song?” he asked. I told him. “I’ll give it a try.”

“What was all that about?” Robbie asked when I got back to my seat.

“I asked Cody to be one of my groomsmen, and I was working on my song for you.”

He looked a little worried. “Guess I better get going on that too.”

“Ha!” I snorted. “Now you’re behind.”

“What do you think I should pick?” he asked me, joking around.

“Don’t bother me,” I teased. “I’m busy writing vows.” We spent the rest of the plane ride talking to the three kids and prepping them for what they’d see and who they’d meet. Gathan spent a lot of time talking to JP about Stanford. I think he’d written it off as someplace way too patrician for a poor kid like himself, and now he was starting to realize that what mattered there was brains and effort, not your bankroll. Well, at least not completely, I thought cynically.

We landed and Rafael was there to meet us and whisk us up to Escorial. JP made him drive us through Stanford on the way. As Gathan checked out the campus, I watched his wide-eyed expression. When we got to Escorial, I left Gathan, Zach, and Ella in JP’s capable hands and began to work frantically on my wedding.

“I need to talk to Jacob,” I told Robbie.

“Why?” he asked. I realized that I was about to be very overbearing, and take charge of this whole thing, so I reigned my impulsiveness in.

“Actually, I need to talk to you, then Jacob,” I said, toning it down. He chuckled, acknowledging my effort, since he’d seen right through me.

“Alright,” he said as he smiled at me indulgently. “What needs to be changed?”

“I’d like to have an area on either side of the church that’s hidden by a curtain, where we can have the people or DJ performing our song hidden until it’s time to be played.”

“You’re making me nervous with this. I’m worried that your song will be a big deal, and make mine look like shit.”

I kissed him. “Then you better get to work to make sure yours is fucking awesome.”

I got ready to leave and he stopped me. “Where are you going?”

“I have to go line up my other two groom’s people,” I said. “You’ve talked to yours already, right?”

He gave me a frustrated look. “I figured that since I was planning this, you’d be way behind me, playing catch-up.”

“You figured wrong,” I joked, smiling at him. “See you in an hour or two.”

I left the kids with JP, Robbie, and Stef, and hopped into my Ferrari for the short drive down to see Claire. I was lucky to find both her and Jack home.

“Why aren’t you at work?” I teased him as I gave him a hug.

“I came home for an afternoon interlude,” he said, then winked at Claire, making her blush and me laugh.

“It’s good to see you,” Claire said, giving me a hug. “Are you here for a reason, or just to check up on Jack’s libido?”

“I’m getting married,” I told them.

“We know all about that,” Claire said in her smarmy voice, the one she’d used when she was a kid and knew something the rest of us didn’t.

“Alright smart-ass, if you know everything, tell me who’s going to be in my wedding party?”

“I didn’t say I knew everything,” she said in a slightly bitchy tone.

“You sound just like Dad when you snap like that,” I joked. Jack cracked up.

“You used to be my favorite brother.”

“You still like me enough to be one of my groomsmen?” I asked.

“You want me to be in your wedding party? I’m a woman,” Claire objected.

“You certainly are,” Jack said.

“You’ve been hanging around with these Palo Alto Republicans so long now you’ve become a sexist,” I said, almost pissing her off.

“Very funny. Yes, I will be in your wedding party, although I’m not sure why,” she said, pretending to be petulant.

“I’ll tell you why. I need the three hottest people I know in my party, that’s why.”

“Thank you,” she said. Sometimes she could be just a bit vain.

“That’s where you come in,” I told Jack.

“I’m not a woman,” he joked.

“Don’t I know it. I need a best man. You up for the job?” I watched him digest those words, and saw him react almost like I did all those years ago when he’d asked me to be his best man. He looked at me knowingly, both of us remembering what a good time that had been, and how that experience had only further solidified our bond.

“I am,” he said simply and sincerely, which was a contrast from his normal playful demeanor.

“Awesome. Then let me tell you about the plans,” I said, and filled them in on the song and ran my vows by them.

“What am I supposed to wear?” Claire asked, a completely predictable question from her.

“I don’t know. You and Jeanine are the only two women in the wedding party.”

“I’ll call her,” Claire said.

“I don’t know if Robbie’s even talked to her yet.” That might be embarrassing.

“We’ll come up for dinner tonight and talk about it,” Claire said.

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” I said.

“A surprise at a dinner at Escorial,” Jack said deadpan. “Who would think that would ever happen?”

“Shut up Jack,” she said. “What’s going on?”

I laughed and told her all about the meeting in Claremont and Robbie’s long lost relatives.

“We’ll bring the kids. They’ll be able to help them feel more comfortable,” Jack said. I finished up our conversation, and then headed back up the hill to see how everyone was doing.

I walked into Escorial and was surprised to find the place almost deserted. I wandered around until I finally found Wade in the kitchen. “What are you doing here?”

“Robbie called Matt, and we came up here to meet his new cousins,” Wade said with his smooth Virginia drawl. “They took them to campus for a tour, but since I’ve seen it a few times, I decided to stay here and get some work done.” He pointed at his backpack.

“And eat,” I joked. Wade had an appetite that rivaled Matt’s and Robbie’s.

“And eat,” he agreed, grinning slightly.

“I’ve got a better idea. It’s a nice day, for winter. Let’s go for a ride.”

Wade liked to ride even more than I did. “I’m all over that,” he said, and followed me out to the stables. In no time at all, we’d saddled up the horses and were tearing across the 20 acres JP still owned. We wandered down into Stanford lands, walking the horses to let them rest as we talked.

“We’re going to DC for those hearings on the 24^th,” I told him.

“I’m going to try and go with you,” Wade told me.

“I don’t want to put you in a bad position with this whole thing. I mean, you’ve had enough family shit to deal with without putting this into the mix,” I said sincerely.

“You’ve given my father, my parents,” he corrected, “everything they’ve asked for. I’m going to make sure they deliver on their end.”

“This whole thing confuses me. I know your mother hates my wicked stepmother. Why is this such a hard decision for her?”

“I’ve thought about that a lot,” Wade said. “Alexandra’s got something on my mother.”

“What?” I asked.

“I don’t know what it is, but I’m going to find out,” Wade said. His voice conveyed how determined he was.

“How do you know this?”

“It’s the only explanation. My mother wouldn’t put up with Alexandra’s crap just for the money. She doesn’t need money from anyone, at least not enough to compromise herself to someone like that. No, there’s something there, and that bitch is squeezing my mother.”

“Good luck,” I told him. “If I can help, you know you just have to ask.”

“There’s an upside to this,” Wade said with a smile. “If we can figure out how to extract my mother from her clutches, we’ll have one of the best politicians in the country in our corner.”

“That might be useful,” I joked. “You coming to my wedding?”

“You know?”

“Yeah. I’m pretty pissed at myself that I didn’t guess that he was doing this before now.”

Wade laughed. “Now you sound like me. That’s what I would have said.”

“I want you to know that if I’d been able to pick a fourth person for my wedding party, it would have been you.”

He stopped his horse and looked at me strangely. He just stared at me, surprised, for a long time before he spoke. “Thank you. That means a lot, probably more than you know.”

“That’s because you still don’t get that we’ve adopted you into our family,” I said sincerely. “Although sometimes I’m not sure that’s much of a privilege.”

“Based on the one I came from, it’s a major privilege,” he said, sort of joking. He got an evil look on his face, and I guessed what he’d do just in time to kick my horse to a full cantor and keep up with him as he raced back toward the house.

We left the stable hands to cool down the horses while we went walking into the house, laughing and exhilarated. We found a group of people in the Great Hall eying us strangely.

“Hey sexy,” I said as I walked up to Matt and gave him a nice hug and a kiss.

“You’re out of breath,” he observed to us with a playful look.

“I took Wade for a ride,” I said, emphasizing the double entendre.

“Not the one I wanted though,” Wade groused.

“You sleep with Gathan yet?” I asked him.

“He tried,” Gathan answered, being cocky.

“Dude, if I’d tried you’d be grabbing your ankles right now,” Matt said.

“I’m holding out for him,” Gathan said, gesturing to Wade. It was funny to see that irritate Matt. He was so incredibly handsome and sexy that it wasn’t often anyone turned him down, so Gathan’s quasi-rejection must have irked him.

I quickly changed the subject by asking Matt a question. “Robbie talk to you about the wedding?”

“Yeah. I’m in it,” he said proudly.

“You are, but you have to be with all the ugly people,” I joked.

“Very funny,” Robbie said.

“First he won’t sleep with me,” Matt said, pointing to Gathan, “and now you pawn me off with the ugly people. I’m feeling unloved.”

I laughed, but Wade went up and wrapped himself around Matt. “I’ll show you that’s not true at all.” They gazed at each other, showing all of us how deep the love was that they shared. “But not until after dinner.”

Dinner that night turned out to be a lot of fun. Gathan seemed to realize that he’d missed the mark with Matt, that he’d read him wrong, and he poured on the charm, flirting with him shamelessly to get back into his good graces. Matt wasn’t the kind of guy to carry a grudge, so he returned the attention eagerly. Zach seemed to get along well with John, but that wasn’t a big surprise, since John had a lot of the same sterling qualities that his father had.

“I’m flying down with you tomorrow,” Claire announced at dinner. “Marie is coming along and we’re going to see if we can’t figure out something for us to wear to the wedding.”

“You’re going shopping?” Stef asked, dying to go along.

“Yes, but not to any of those horribly grotesque places you frequent,” Claire said, baiting him.

“That is true. You would be much more at home at Walmart,” Stef said, slamming her back.

“You will have to come along with us, just to see real fashion,” Claire said. Stef grinned at her. “I hope your parents don’t mind if we get you a few things to wear to the wedding?” she asked Ella.

Robbie looked at me, and I looked back at him, both of us worried. Then our minds seemed to link as we both thought about trying to stop both Claire and Stef from spending money on her, until I just shrugged and Robbie shook his head.

I looked over at Claire. She had Marie on one side, and Ella on the other. As I looked at them, I noticed something I hadn’t seen before: I noticed a lot of similarities between Ella and Claire. It was funny how when I’d first met Ella, I’d immediately thought of Claire. Now that they were together, in front of me, the similarities seemed much more pronounced. It was nothing that the average person would have noticed, but Claire was my sister, and I’d grown up watching her face change, so I picked up on the little things. It was strange, but seeing Ella next to Claire was almost enough to make me think that they were related. Then the tumblers in my brain began to roll together. I wondered if Fred Hayes was in jail when Ella was conceived. It might be interesting to do some investigation into that.

I felt eyes on me, and turned to find JP staring at me as intently as I was staring at Claire and Ella. I was just about to ask him some very pointed questions about Ella when he pre-empted me. “Bradley, I wonder if you would have a few minutes to spare for me after dinner.” He obviously wanted to talk or argue alone.

“Sure,” I said pleasantly.

The strangest reaction to our new guests came from an area I least expected: Frank. He’d been friendly and warm, which I’d expected, but he was clearly bothered by the kids being there. Robbie picked up on it too, and pulled him aside after dinner. I’d find out what that was about later on.

I followed JP into his office and he closed the door behind us. “She is Rich’s daughter,” he said before I even had a chance to grill him and worm it out of him. So Rich was the father: Rich, the cousin who had boned Bitty and the same one who’d fucked a bunch of whores at Jack’s bachelor party. What an asshole.

“How long have you known that?” I demanded.

He eyed me coolly. “For quite a while. You’ll remember how Rich was also sleeping with Bitty. This was before that.”

I thought I should be pissed because he hadn’t told me, but he really had no obligation to tell me everything. Still, he’d kept a lot of people in the dark. “Does Ella know?”

“I don’t know,” JP said. “I don’t know if we should tell her.”

“I don’t think it’s fair to keep something like that from her. I think you need to consider telling her,” I told him.

He sighed. “I would prefer to wait at least until the weekend is over. That is not asking too much?”

“We’ll talk about it next week,” I told him, caving to his request. It had been a secret all this time, a few more days or weeks wouldn’t matter.

“In the meantime, please keep it to yourself,” he admonished.

“I’m going to tell Robbie, but I’ll pass on your request,” I said, staring at him boldly. This was not the time for me to start keeping secrets like this from Robbie. JP’s irritated expression told me that he didn’t agree with that approach.

“Thank you,” JP said, with a total lack of sincerity. Let him think what he wanted, I decided. I was embracing this partnership of equals, and I wasn’t going to screw it up over the Cramptons and their inability to keep their dicks in their pants, or at least to use a fucking condom if they didn’t.

I just nodded at him and left his study. I was about to head to my room when I felt a cool hand on my arm. “Bradley, I wanted to tell you how happy I am for you,” my mother said.

“Thank you, Mother,” I replied sincerely.

“I think the way you modified the ceremony was perfect. Thank you for letting me walk down the aisle with Frank.” How typical of my mother, to turn what was a difficult decision for me into one I could feel really good about it.

“Thank you for being so understanding,” I told her. “Did Stef tell you about my trip to Connecticut?”

“No, he has been too busy plotting to torture JP for dragging him back to Claremont,” she joked.

I told her all about my meeting with Jordan, and about the box of memorabilia I’d gotten from him. I told her about all of the memories I’d suddenly recalled, and described the events that had led up to my arrival here at Escorial.

“That must have been so horrible for you,” she said sympathetically, referring to my recollections.

“Actually, it’s very liberating. I remembered how miserable I’d been before I got here, and how after that, after you and Stef and JP took me under your wings, my life became really good.”

A look of realization swept across her face, and then she started crying, really crying, and that was something very rare for my mother. I put my arm around her, trying to comfort her, even though I didn’t understand why she was so upset. “Do you remember the lunch we had after you and Billy had your fight at school?”

I recoiled at that, at going back to that time when I’d fought with my younger brother, when I’d hurt him badly, and then never had a chance to apologize before he was killed in that car accident. “I try not to think about that,” I said honestly.

“I am sorry to bring back yet more unhappy memories. Until this moment, I did not understand what you were saying to me then, and how much that must have hurt you.” She was referring to our fight in the café, where I’d told her that she was rejecting me, and that she was the only mother I’d ever really had.

“It is in the past,” I said, rebelling against exposing those still-raw wounds.

“Yet it is still with us,” she said. “I know that all of us would do things differently if we could go back, but we cannot. I do not want you to carry that burden forward, the guilt you still have, and I do not want to feel that way either.”

“I was so stupid,” I said, “and so selfish.” I felt all the anguish over Billy’s death come surging back, overwhelming all of my defenses, until tears were pouring out of my eyes.

“So was he,” she said, and I just stared at her, stunned. She’d never before said that, assigned any of the responsibility for our fight and Billy’s death to Billy. I’d always taken all the blame, and just gone on the assumption that the most I could ask or expect from her was forgiveness.

“You don’t think it was all my fault?” I asked her, sounding more like an eight-year-old boy than a man.

“I know it was not,” she affirmed. “You have forgiven Billy, but you have not forgiven yourself. I have not done that either. I look at JP and see the guilt he carries over Jeff’s death. It haunts him, even to this day, and it is as if no matter how much he tries to atone for it, it is never enough. Why do you think he is doing all of these things for Claremont?”

“I think he’s trying to make up for leaving, for abandoning his heritage,” I told her.

“That is part of it, but Jeff is there in all of this. He was yet one more young man that Claremont had not prepared for the world. Your father dragged Jeff out of there, and blamed himself when Jeff imploded. I watched him with Robbie’s cousins tonight and saw genuine fear on his face. He is worried that they will meet the same fate.”

“You mean he has taken the lives, the success of all of Claremont’s youth onto his shoulders?” I asked her.

“I think part of him has,” she said, “at least on a macro level.”

I smiled at her. “We have to make sure we don’t get as messed up as he is.” That made her laugh, and I think it was the contrast between our prior macabre conversation and that which made our laughter almost become hysterical. After we calmed ourselves down, I gave her a big hug, one that she returned warmly.

“I love you Brad, and I am very proud of you.”

“I love you too, Mother,” I said sincerely. I felt closer to her at that moment than I’d felt in a very long time, possibly closer than ever. And somehow, that helped us both ease the guilt of Billy’s death, perhaps not forever, perhaps not to eliminate it, but to make the sadness duller, and not a sharp pain.

“I am so glad you and Robbie worked things out,” she told me. “There are some people who are soul mates and who will never be happy unless they are together. You two are people like that.”

“He hurt me really bad,” I told her, and I was surprised to find how much that still bothered me. “But he loves me, and I know that. He’s a good man, and he makes me happy. Most of the time.”

“He is not so unlike his father,” she said. “He is dealing with the same burden Robbie is.”

“Which burden?”

“Gathan is Frank’s great-nephew. He does not even know any of them, any of his nieces and nephews, and has made no effort to do so. He is just like Robbie in that regard. So when Gathan calls Robbie out for deserting the family, because Frank is from the prior generation, that accusation is even stronger and more potent when directed at him.”

“You know what I think?” I asked her with my evil smile.

“What?” she asked cautiously.

“I think that you and I are going to be spending a lot more time together, only it will be in Claremont.”

She stared at me, digesting that with a shocked and horrified look on her face, then nodded somberly. “Merde.”

I got back to our room to find Robbie lying on his back with his arms back behind his head, staring at the ceiling. His biceps bulged when he did that, and it seemed to stretch his body out making him seem even taller. I jumped on the bed and rolled onto him, grinning at him like an idiot. He didn’t grin back, and that erased my good mood. He realized that, and tried to make amends. “I’m sorry. I’m just pensive after talking to my father.”

“My mother says he feels guiltier than you did about not doing anything for those kids. We had a big discussion over which of you is guiltier, and carries more baggage because of it.” He looked at me, kind of wanting to be pissed at me, but I smiled at him and tilted my head, and he relented, rolling his eyes at me.

“I think he’s worse. I wanted to slap him; he was whining,” Robbie said, and then looked at me with this really annoyed expression. “No wonder you hate it when I whine.”

“I was thinking about that recently,” I told him. He said nothing, just waited for the next statement that he knew was coming. “It’s been a long time since you’ve whined. I think your whining stopped about the same time I stopped being a domineering asshole.”

“You’re not a domineering asshole,” he said. “You can be dominant sometimes, though, and I like that.” God he made me horny. I wanted to fuck him, but I needed to tell him about Ella.

“I got some more interesting news this evening about your cousins, or one of them.”

“Which one? What news?” he demanded, all upset. He’d gotten pretty protective of them awfully fast.

“Ella. She’s not a Hayes.”

“What? What the fuck are you talking about?”

I eyed him, reminding him to calm down. “Fred Hayes was in jail when she was conceived, or at least that’s my guess. I’ll find out for sure.”

“So who’s her father?”

I sighed. “Rich Crampton.”

“What a douche,” Robbie said. I agreed. I’d never been very fond of Rich, and this just made it that much worse.