Poor Man's Son - 44. Chapter 43

September 6, 2000

Holmby Hills, CA

Will

Like an idiot, I’d forgotten that our schedules rotated every day, so that meant English wasn’t always my first class. I’m not sure what the benefit of that was; it just made me kind of disoriented.

“I’ll pick you up today,” Pat said as we drove up to the school.

“Dude, I’m sorry I was so fucking bitchy yesterday. If you want Michael to do it, I can live with that. That guy just bugs me.” He grinned, trying to stop from laughing out loud. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“What?” I demanded.

“He’s a little uptight,” he said, referring to Michael.

“Ya think?” We both started laughing. “Dude, if you start keeping track of every time I take a piss, I’m gonna make your life a living hell.”

“And that would be different than now, how?” he joked.

“I told you that you made a shitty career choice,” I said, smiling at him.

“So what’s on our agenda after school?”

“I have to go see my mother, and I need to put in my volunteer hours at the Mission. I think I’ll do those first, so I can see her when JJ’s not around.”

“I’ll pick you up out here when school’s out,” he said as he pulled up front. I hopped out and nodded at him, then turned to see Alistair Crownbeam getting out of a limo. He would.

“Good morning, William,” he said as he strode past me.

“It’s ‘Will’,” I corrected.

“I prefer to use proper names,” he said.

“I pegged you for a dude with better manners than that,” I said, almost flirting with him. He stopped and looked at me strangely. “It’s rude to call people something they don’t want to be called.”

“Use of a proper name is not rude,” he asserted.

“If you say so, Mr. Crownbeam,” I said, winking at him. It was funny to watch him grimace a bit. We had class together, so we started walking in that direction.

“Jeremy informed me that you speak French,” he said in that language. It took me a few minutes to realize he was talking about JJ. His pace and vocabulary suggested he was nowhere near being fluent in French.

“But of course,” I said, keeping my verbal pace slow. “I speak French, and I kiss that way too.” I watched that freak him out, and that made me smile. I’d found his weakness. All I had to do was flirt with him and he got all freaked out.

“I’m sure you do,” he allowed, switching back to English. He was so puffed up; so self-important. It was hilarious and cute all at the same time. “I understand you are Stefan Schluter’s grandson, and your father is the chairman of Triton.”

“That is correct,” I said, mimicking his style. “And my step-father is Robert Hayes. I can probably drum up a balance sheet and genealogical chart for you.”

“You’re making fun of me,” he accused.

“No I’m not.”

“Yes you are.” He was pouting like JJ now.

“No, I’m not,” I said firmly. “I was teasing you.”

“What’s the difference?”

“If I didn’t like you, I’d be making fun of you. Since I do, I’m teasing you,” I said. He got that freaked out look again, but I just winked at him as I breezed past him and strode to the back of the class and sat down. Alistair sat in front.

I got my stuff out for class, along with the homework assignment I’d had to complete. That was one thing about this place I didn’t like. It looked there would be a lot of fucking work. I’d plowed through it pretty easily last night; it had only taken me an hour and a half. Still, that was just our first day, so I was pretty sure it would get a lot tougher.

Grafton came in and started walking toward the back of the room before he looked around. That meant he either had to obviously change his mind and sit somewhere else, or he’d have to sit near me. Too funny. I smirked at him, just to make it worse. “They let you back in?”

“Had to. They’re afraid of my parents,” he said, acting cocky. That was a bunch of crap. I’d found out that he came from a fairly well-off family, and lived in Westwood. They weren’t rich, or at least not rich like my parents, or Alistair’s.

“I’m sure,” I said, mocking him and pissing him off. He took out a folder and some paper, but didn’t have his homework visible. “No homework?”

“Fuck you,” he said.

“Keep it up and you’ll get to go home again,” I taunted.

“You gonna run and tell on me too?”

“It’s tempting.” The teacher came in and started class, taking roll again. I guess that’s how they learned our names. Class was alright, but we weren’t moving fast enough for me, and I got a little bored. I occupied my spare time by stealing glances at Ryan. He really was hot. It’s a shame he was such a dick.

I was pretty focused on school, and that made the day flow by pretty fast. I met Jason in the cafeteria and got lunch, and then we headed out to the fire road where we’d eaten yesterday and sat down with Devon and Lance, acting like we’d been eating with them forever.

“So what are you doing for your birthday?” Jason asked. I usually got to go somewhere cool, or do something fun, and he usually got to go along, so that’s why he was so curious.

“Dude, I had this whole plan to go down to K38 in Baja and surf. I was plotting to get Stef’s boat to do the run and everything.”

“Sounds awesome. Wait a minute. Was?”

“Yeah,” I said sadly. “My mom’s trying to have this baby, and until she does, shit like that is off the table.”

“That blows.”

“No shit. My dad will make it up to me though. I know he will,” I told Jason confidently. I mean, he hadn’t said anything, but I knew he’d do something for my birthday. He always did. I allowed my mind to wander off and wonder if that would still be the case when my new sister popped into the world. Would I be less important to him then? I tried not to let myself explore that depressing train of thought, and focused on eating instead.

We’d just started chowing down when Ryan and Mike Crawford came up, scowling. “You joining us?” I asked with a smirk.

Ryan gave me a dirty look and put his tray down next to Lance, who was sitting beside me. Before he could say anything, three really hot girls came up to our area. I knew two of them, Felicity and Mariah, but the third I’d never met. She was really cute, with hair the same color as Stef’s: a strawberry blond. Our eyes met and that embarrassed me, so I looked away. I felt my face warm up, and knew I was blushing. When I turned back to look at her again, she was standing right next to me.

“I’m Raine,” she said. That was kind of a cool name.

“Will,” I said, and stood up to be polite.

“You’re such a gentleman,” she said, teasing me.

“Why thank you, Madame,” I said formally, with a bow.

“I hear you don’t like me,” she said, pouting.

“Have a seat,” I said. They all sat down with us, and as a special bonus for Jason, Felicity sat next to him. He’d had a crush on her for months now. “Who says I don’t like you?”

“He’s not your type,” Ryan said, talking over Lance’s body. “You don’t have a dick.”

I hid how much that pissed me off. “You have a dick, and I don’t like you,” I told him. Everyone cracked up at that, everyone except Ryan, who just smoldered. After that, we had a blast. I really enjoyed flirting with the girls. I think it was more fun because I wasn’t after anything, so I could relax, plus I was good at it. Jason and I walked to our next class at a brisk pace to avoid being late.

“Dude, it’s a shame you don’t like women. You’re so good at talking to them,” he said.

“I learned how to do that from the master.”

“Darius,” he said, nodding.

“Yep.” He would have been proud of me.

Pat picked me up after school. JJ walked out at about the same time I did and got into the car with Michael, pausing to give me a dirty look. “He’s still pissed off at you,” Pat observed.

“Like I give a shit.” JJ could get in these snippy moods, and when he did, you only had two choices. Ignore him until he got over it, or suck up to him majorly to cajole him out of it. No way was I sucking up to him.

“We still going to the Mission?” I nodded, all that it took with Pat, and he drove us in silence over to Hollywood. He went in with me, although I didn’t know if that was because he was watching out for me, or if it was because he was just interested in it. I found Max there, and gave him a big hug.

“What do you have for me to do today?” I asked.

“We have an interesting job for you. I want you to help one of the boys out with his math homework.” I was good at math, so that shouldn’t be a problem. “Come on.”

He led me to the library, a room they’d set up for the guys to study, and up to a table where a guy that I’d never met before sat. “Chris, this is Will. He’s going to try to help you with your homework,” Max said.

I stuck my hand out, and he went to shake it, but Max cleared his throat. Chris rolled his eyes and stood up, and damn, did that change the whole situation. This was one big boy. He had to be at least 6’4”, and he was really hulking, like a football player. He shook my hand, and his grip was strong like it should be, but more than that, his hands were rough, like he’d been working with them, doing manual labor. “Hey,” I said shyly. I’d been looking pretty much at his chest, because that was what was in front of me, but when he spoke I looked up and met his gaze. This guy was really cute. He had dark brown hair and green eyes, just like me, and that was weird, because both were about the same color as mine. But he had facial features that were unique, and those made him sexy as hell. His nose was big and kind of crooked, like it had been broken and not set quite right. It dominated his face, sticking out really far, a feature that was accentuated by his eyes, which seemed to be sunken in more than normal, and that just made the affect more extreme. Not only that, they were set pretty close together; any closer and he’d look cross-eyed.

“Hey,” he said. “I can probably figure this stuff out. You don’t have to waste your time.”

“Either I help you, or I do some shitty job,” I said, smiling. “I’d rather help you.” He smiled back at me, a really engaging smile which was somehow more charming because his teeth were pretty crooked.

“I’m having trouble with algebra,” he said as we sat down. “If I don’t get my grade up in there, I can’t play on the team.”

“Team?”

“Wrestling,” he said. I let homoerotic visions of that fleet briefly through my mind until he pulled out his book and showed me what he was struggling with. It was pretty simple stuff for me, but he had a really tough time with it. It wasn’t like he was dumb; he just didn’t have an aptitude for math. We worked on it for a long time, and finally got it done.

“You did well,” I said as I got up to leave.

“You made it easy,” he said, shooting that smile at me again. “You gonna be around?”

“Yeah, I will,” I said. I shook his hand again and wandered off to find Pat. He had been working with the guys on painting a stair rail, so I had to wait for him to clean up, but finally we were off, heading to the hospital.

“What did you do today?”

“Helped a jock with his math homework.”

“Who was he?”

“Some dude named Chris,” I said, and realized that I hadn’t learned anything else about the guy.

“He’s a nice kid,” Pat said. “He’s new.”

“What’s his story?”

“Don’t know. Doesn’t talk about it,” Pat said. “You might not want to push him too hard about it.”

“I’m not going to push him about it at all,” I snapped, showing how much his comment irritated me. It’s not like I normally butted into other people’s business. Or did I? He didn’t say anything else; he just drove me over to the hospital. We walked down the sterile corridors, questing for my mom’s room. The numbering system didn’t make any sense to me at all, but presumably it did to the staff.

When I walked into her room, my mom smiled. She seemed genuinely glad to see me. “And how was school?”

“Good. I like it there.” I looked over at Tiffany, who was sitting back as if scientifically observing my interaction with my mother. Like she could get off that easy. “You hanging out here, hoping you’ll end up going into labor too?”

“I’ll go into labor when I’m ready, and not a moment before,” she said with her arrogant tone, the one that cracked me up.

“You’ll go into labor when he’s ready for it, and not a moment before,” I corrected, pointing at her stomach. “You’re fat. Fatter than Robbie.”

“He still weighs more than me.”

“How much do you weigh?”

“Never mind,” she said, giving me a dirty look.

“Are you and JJ getting along now?” Mom asked, changing the topic in a direction I had no desire to go.

“He’s in one of his bitchy moods. I’m staying away from him until he works out of it.”

“He’s not the only one who gets in bitchy moods,” she said. And we were doing it again.

I stood up and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Sleep well.” Maybe if I did that, just got up and left when she started playing these bullshit games, she’d ultimately get the message.

September 11, 2000

Redwood City, CA

Gathan

I stood there in the lobby of the Ice Oasis, pondering my situation. This should have been a really fun time in my life. I was living in a mansion with a bunch of guys from my hockey team, school hadn’t started yet so I really didn’t have much to do, and the only real responsibility I had was to come to these practices at the rink. It should have been, but it wasn’t. I was fucking miserable. I’d been lonely all weekend, depressed since Kristin wasn’t around. When I’d called her on Saturday, she’d been out with friends. I’d heard deep voices in the background, voices of guys, and the jealousy had ripped through my body like a jolt of electricity. I told her I loved her, and she told me that she loved me, but there was no denying the distance between us, and not just the physical distance, but the emotional distance. I noticed that I was talking less about what was going on in my mind, and I sensed she was doing the same. She was supposed to come out and see me next weekend, but she still hadn’t finalized her reservations. I had a sneaking suspicion she’d end up cancelling. The whole situation was driving me batshit insane.

It’s not like things here were any better. Matt was such a dick to me on the ice that I had a hard time being civil to him when we weren’t playing. It’s not like he tried to be nice to me either. It was like his whole demeanor, every gesture and word, was designed to tell me that I wasn’t welcome here, in ‘his’ world. Of course, that made things tense around Escorial. I felt bad about that, even though I was only partly responsible, so my reaction was to be gone a lot. I went running, or for drives in my truck. Brad had even let me borrow his Ferrari a few times, probably in a vain effort to cheer me up. It only worked while I was driving it; once I was done, the bad mood returned.

The guy I spent the most time hanging out with, remarkably enough, was Wade. I didn’t get why a guy like that would even give me the time of day. I mean, I knew he was gay, and I’m not stupid: I know I’m pretty hot. That self-assessment, and the arrogance that made it, made me chuckle to myself. Wade was everything I wasn’t. Wade was from one of the most respected, aristocratic families in the country, with enough money that he could keep up with the Schluters if he wanted to. I was from a white trash family in a po-dunk city in the middle of Ohio. He was refined and well-mannered; I was boorish and crass. He was calm and composed; I was a hot-headed basket case. We didn’t really seem to have anything in common at all, there was no real reason for us to be friends, yet we were.

I guess our big bond was politics, which was a huge passion for both of us. With this being an election year, both of us should be going absolutely apeshit over it. Only this year it seemed kind of boring and unimportant. Both of us were fixated on regional issues. For me, it was the politics around Claremont, and maybe Ohio. For Wade, it was all about Virginia, and his father’s re-election. The big national race, the contest to see who would be president, seemed pretty mundane. It felt like there was this moderate Republican, another George Bush, running against a moderate Democrat, Al Gore, and there just wasn’t that big of a difference when you got right down to it. It wasn’t anything to get passionate over. The economy was doing well; the country was at peace, there was a budget surplus, so the only things to really argue about were things that weren’t going to change much anyway. If George Bush got elected, would that mean the repeal of Roe vs. Wade? If Al Gore got elected, would that mean that gay men could get married? Nothing was going to change, so why get excited about it.

If I weren’t with Kristin, I’d be tempted to try and fuck Wade. Damn he was hot. Guys like Matt and I had testosterone oozing out of our skin. It’s like we’re always horny and ready to go. Wade didn’t seem like that at all. It’s not that he was asexual; it’s just that it didn’t seem to dominate his life like it did for other guys. I doubted he jacked off as often as I did. He seemed like the kind of guy who had total control over his hormones, and strangely enough, that made him that much more attractive. There was definitely chemistry between us. Shit, I’d been attracted to him ever since I met him. But he was with Matt, and I was with Kristin, so neither one of us was going to act on it.

That was another thing that kind of freaked me out. Wade didn’t seem like he slept with anyone but Matt, but Matt made no secret of the fact that he’d fuck damn near anyone. How did Wade put up with that bullshit? I didn’t get that. He seemed totally OK with Matt sneaking off to fuck another guy. Shit, I’m about to lose my mind when Kristin is out hanging with friends, and here Matt has his dick up some other guy’s ass and Wade seems totally cool with it.

I felt someone slap me on the back. “Space cadet,” Cole said with a smile. “Let’s get ready.”

“Fine,” I said reluctantly and followed Cole back to the locker room. Matt was there, dressed out and being all organized. I managed to ignore him. I wondered if he was just purposely trying to keep me on edge. I made a mental note not to let him do that, not to let him win. Getting on hockey gear is a pain in the ass, but I’d done it so many times, for me it was rote. I didn’t even think about it, I just automatically put all the shit on in order. I numbly followed Cole out onto the ice and skated around, warming up.

The coach called us over and made us do a bunch of drills, acting as if that were the secret to turning us into a West Coast hockey powerhouse of a team. Never mind that none of us was really putting all of our effort into them, and never mind the fact that we’d all done these same drills since we were midgets; instead, we all acted as if it were really meaningful and important, and shined the coach on, letting him believe that he was molding us as no other coach had molded us before.

As usual, we ended up forming two ‘teams’ to scrimmage against each other, and as usual, Matt and I were on opposite teams. I’m not sure who engineered that or why, but I couldn’t remember ever playing on his team. He started off right away, doing his usual bullshit, trying to exploit my every weakness. I get that, I get that we’re supposed to do that, but with him it just seemed personal.

Our teams were tied up and we had the puck in their zone, but Klip made a bad pass to Konrad, and that ended up turning the puck over. Some guy named Kramer, who looked like a psycho with his almost-white hair, snagged it and passed it to Matt, who went charging full bore toward our goal. Another rookie defenseman, a nice enough guy named Chitworth, was out of position, so it was just me between Matt and the goal. I saw him grinning; it was obvious even through his mouth guard. He was relishing yet another opportunity to try and lay me out.

He was really flying by the time he hit our blue line, and that’s where I intercepted him. I had a choice: I could either go for the body or the puck, and the smart move was to go for the body. Only he knew that too, and he was ready for me. He hit me hard, and I would have held him if it wasn’t for the nasty slash he gave me. This guy pulled out all the dirty tricks. He glanced off of me, barely slowing at the impact, and tore toward the goal. I grinned as I thought about the decision in front of me. As I turned to chase him, I flipped my stick up and caught him just at the ankles, then pulled back roughly. He lost his footing and landed on the ice on his stomach, and then the momentum took his whole body into the net, pulling the thing off its pins. Matt and the net crashed into the board in one tangled mess. I was trying not to smile too hard.

He jumped up and skated over to me, really pissed off. “What the fuck was that?” He was screaming at me.

“It’s called tripping,” I said, all but laughing in his face. He stood there, his nostrils flared, ready to go. Drop your gloves, I kept thinking. It was as if I were taunting him with my mind.

“You’re playing dirty.”

“Oh right,” I said dismissively. “It’s OK for you to slash like a fucking cougar, but tripping is not allowed.”

“You pulled a penalty. You’d be on the bench for two minutes and the other team would have a power play if this had been a game!” He was still yelling at me.

I matched his volume. “Fuckin’ right! And it was the right decision. Better to pull a penalty than let the other team score.”

“He’s right,” Cole said. I hadn’t noticed his presence there until he spoke. “You would have scored.” He made that last comment to soften the blow, to make up for taking my side in the argument.

“That’s enough for today!” the coach yelled. We skated off the ice, with Matt and me both glaring at each other. It was almost inevitable that at one of these practices, we’d end up fighting. He’d probably win, unless he really pissed me off.