9.11 - 1. Chapter 1

June 13, 2001

“Catch me if you can,” Wade said playfully as he slapped his riding crop on Gunpowder’s flank, causing the stallion to break into a canter, then a fast gallop. I didn’t need to urge my own horse on. Charger was competitive, almost as competitive as my brother JJ, so as soon as Gunpowder cut loose, he was right with him. It would have taken a major effort on my part to restrain him, assuming that was my wish, which it wasn’t. The horses tore across our land, then down into public and Stanford University land, negotiating the rough terrain with ease. It was summer here in Palo Alto, and the sun had already turned the green landscape to that distinct shade of gold you find in California.

I stole a glance at Wade, noticing how handsome he was, and what a good rider he was. Wade was good at everything. He was smart, attractive, and came from a Virginia family with the bluest of blood. His father was a senator, and his grandmother, Nana, was a spitfire, who lived with us most of the time. We had adopted Wade into our family, and he’d adopted me as his little brother, which made sense since he was six years older than me. After we’d gone pretty far, he pulled his horse back, and I did the same, regaining control of Charger. “So you leave today?”

“I do,” he confirmed as we turned to head back, only this time at a walk so we could talk. “I’m leaving this afternoon and taking Riley and Tiffany to see Matt’s parents, and then we’re going on to see my parents. Nana’s going with us.” Riley was his son, only ten months old, and a cute little guy.

I nodded. “Are you talking to your mother?”

“We talk, but our conversations aren’t always pleasant,” he joked. “I’m mostly going to see my father, but we’ll see how things go. What about you? School’s out. What are your plans?”

“I’m planning to head over to Hawaii to surf for a couple of weeks, and then I’m supposed to go to Claremont for the 4^th of July,” I told him. Claremont, Ohio was where my family originated, and we were more or less obligated to put in an appearance on the 4^th of July, their most important festival. “Tony invited me to go on a float trip with him the weekend after that, so I’ll just head from Claremont to St. Louis. Then we have our Bastille Day party here.”

“You’re going to go see Tony?” he asked, digging. “I thought you guys weren’t talking.”

“We’re talking, we’re just not fucking. Very much,” I joked, getting a chuckle from him. “He’s with Dana, and I hate that bitch, so we don’t see each other very often.”

“So what’s with this trip?”

I shrugged. It was obvious to me that Tony was gay, but he was a total closet case, so he was dating this bitch from hell. She had to just be a beard for him. The smart thing to do would be to just cut him out of my life, but he was a friend, and the sexual chemistry between us was incredible. “He promised me last summer that he’d take me on a float trip with his friends. He makes it sound like he’s just honoring his commitment to take me, since I showed him all around the Bay Area when he was visiting.”

“But you don’t think so?”

“No, I think he wants to do something with just me.” I could read Tony pretty well, and I knew that even though he was with Dana, he missed me. “Plus he wants to fuck me. I’m hot.”

Wade chuckled. “This much is true.”

“He promised me that Dana wouldn’t be there, so I told him I’d go.”

“You seem to be spending all of your time with guys who are in other relationships,” he noted. If anyone else had said that to me, I’d be pissed off, but I found that talking to Wade was as helpful as talking to my shrink. Besides, he was right.

“Like I said, I haven’t been with Tony all that much, and the last time was a couple of months ago. The only other guys I’ve been with are Kyle and Jeff.” He cringed a little bit when I mentioned Jeff. I guess it still weirded him out that I was sleeping with the same guy he’d slept with, even though Wade and Jeff were barely friends at this point.

“Isn’t Kyle dating that other muscle-head?”

“Erik,” I said, to give Kyle’s boyfriend a name. “They’re together.”

“But you’re sleeping with Kyle anyway?”

“According to my world order, I’m in control of myself. I have to honor the commitments I make, but it’s not up to me to make sure other people honor theirs. So if Kyle comes on to me, and I go for it, it’s not my problem, it’s his.”

“I wonder how Erik feels about that,” he said. That annoyed me, since I didn’t see where it was my duty to worry about Erik’s feelings.

“I don’t know. We’re not friends, we just know each other. Why? You think I should avoid Kyle?”

It was his turn to shrug. “It’s your call. It’s really Kyle’s issue.”

“Marie has been busting my balls about it for the past couple of months, because she knows Erik pretty well,” I groused. “We had a pretty big fight about it.”

“Are you guys OK now?”

“We’re OK, but we’re both still pissed off underneath the happy veneer. She told me I was a slut with no morals, and I told her to mind her own fucking business. She told me that if it was anyone else, she’d have told Erik about Kyle and me fucking around behind his back. I told her that I’m not just anyone else; I’m family, so she couldn’t say anything. So that’s the big piece of shit in the middle of the room.”

“That sucks. You guys were good friends,” he said.

“Well, there’s also her deal with Noah.”

“What happened there?” he asked.

“He’s got a major crush on Marie. There was this dance at the end of the semester, and he finally got up the nerve to ask her. Instead of telling him that she didn’t want to go with him because she wanted to just be friends, she told him she wasn’t going to be in town. Then she went with this junior, Kevin Meeney.”

“Shit,” Wade said sympathetically. “Did Noah find out?”

“Yeah, and he totally avoids her now. So our cool group of friends has kind of fragmented now that he can’t stand to be around her.”

“He’s that pissed off at her?” Wade asked.

“He’s not pissed off at her, he’s hurt. He’s not a real emotional dude, so he avoids her so he won’t freak out.”

“That sucks. With all that drama, you still glad you moved up here?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “I get to see my dad more than I did when I was in Malibu, I get to hang with JJ and Darius, and I’ve got some good friends at Menlo. I feel like I’m my own person, and I’m in charge of my own life.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” he said with his amazing grin. “It’s been good having you here. I think Nana appreciates you being around most of all.”

Nana and I rode together at least three times a week. “She’s really taught me how to be a better rider.”

“Maybe you can teach her how to surf,” Wade joked, cracking me up. “Or how to play water polo.”

“I’m not playing water polo,” I said firmly.

“I thought you were playing with that club,” he said, confused. “I heard you’re good.”

“I am good,” I said, being cocky, but it was true. “I’m getting a lot of crap because I won’t play for Menlo.”

“So why don’t you?”

“I don’t like it,” I said. He didn’t ask me why, he just waited for me to go on, so I did. “It brings out my competitive streak. I’m way better than Noah and my other friend, Austin. I know that sounds like I’m being all conceited, but I am. When we’re playing, I get so into it that I end up getting really pissed at them for playing so shitty. I so don’t want to be that guy. My choices are to surf or ride when I can and be friends with them, or to play water polo and get pissed off and ruin our friendship. I’d rather be friends with them.”

“Team sports aren’t for everyone,” he said, tossing out that platitude.

“Yeah, but I feel guilty about it. I’ll bet if you were good at something like that, you’d stick it out.”

“Actually, you’re wrong about that,” he said with a grimace.

“Really? What sport were you good at that you didn’t play?”

He didn’t talk for a bit. “When I was younger, I was a really good polo player. Really good.”

“I can see that,” I said, more to urge him on than anything. “You’re an amazing rider.”

He seemed to space out on me. “I had a pretty shitty childhood. Some people latch on to dogs or shit, but for me, it was my horse. His name was Midnight, because he was all black. I spent most of my free time riding him. I was twelve, and we were playing in a big match. It was a rough match, and Midnight ended up getting hurt. The vet couldn’t do anything for him, and we had to put him down.” He wiped a tear away, which was extraordinary: Wade rarely cried.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. I felt so bad for him.

“I swore after that that I’d give up polo. I’d never risk losing another friend like that. And I did.” We rode on in silence for a bit. “So I get where you’re coming from.”

“Dude, I had no idea you’d been through that. That kind of shit is tough to handle anytime, but when you’re twelve? Damn.”

“I haven’t talked about it since it happened,” he said.

“You haven’t told Matt about it?”

“Nope,” he said. I felt so honored by that, that he’d trust me with something so personal about himself, so personal that not even his partner knew. “How’s JJ doing?”

“Pretty good,” I told him. I understood that he needed to change the subject, but that was a weird choice for him, since he and JJ weren’t very close. “Part of him hasn’t changed: he’s still intensely competitive and totally focused on skating, and he’s still a total diva.”

Wade chuckled. “Yeah, I noticed that.”

“But where he used to be so fucking bitchy and petulant, now he’s got this mellowness about things that don’t involve skating. It almost makes him seem hollow at times.” I was a little worried that he was sad underneath his pleasant façade, but not worried enough to say something and risk sparking an argument with him.

“So you guys are cool?”

I nodded. “Yeah. We do best when it’s just the two of us, but we’re doing fine. He’s still really pissed off at my mother.”

“Because she moved to Malibu without him?” Wade asked.

“Yeah, and she’s pretty much absorbed in her own life, and in Maddy. I think she’s just doing it because she knows that if she gets involved in JJ’s skating career again, it could really fuck her up, and since that’s all that’s really important to him, she has to avoid him.” She’d done what the shrink had recommended when she’d gotten out of the hospital, and she’d taken Maddy and moved back to Malibu, leaving JJ here.

“I heard he was thinking of moving back to Malibu,” Wade said, and this time he really was sad, because if JJ went to Malibu, Tiffany would go with him to coach him, and she’d take Riley with her.

“He’s thinking about it, but I don’t think they’ve made a decision yet. There’s a good rink, with lots of skaters there. Here, it’s like he’s all alone. There’s just not a lot of ice skating talent.”

“You may be without both of your brothers next year,” he noted wryly. “Is Darius alright?”

“He’s pretty fucked up, but he hides it well.” Ella had decided to go to college in New York City, where she could model and major in fashion design. “Ella pretty much told him that she was moving to New York by herself. He’s not used to being dumped, but I think he’ll be alright once he starts at UCLA.” He was transferring there starting this fall.

“What’s he doing this summer?”

“Hanging out with friends and fucking anything that moves,” I joked, getting a laugh from Wade. “Pretty much like he was before he met Ella.”

“You talk to Tiffany about your mother?” he asked.

“Why? Is there something I should ask her about?”

“They had a long phone conversation,” Wade said. “Sounds like they’re trying to be friends.”

“But not lovers?” I couldn’t see Tiffany going back to my mother after all that had happened, but you never knew with lesbians.

“Not as far as I know,” he said. “Tiffany seemed pretty happy with where they were at.”

“I’m glad,” I said, and meant it. “Especially if Tiffany ends up back in Malibu.” We rode on, getting closer to Escorial. “You don’t like my mother, do you?”

“She makes me nervous,” Wade said honestly.

“She makes me nervous too,” I agreed, “even though we’re doing better.”

“Based on where you two were last December, I’m not sure that ‘better’ is all that good,” he said, teasing me.

I sighed, something I did a lot when the topic of my mother came up. “I try really hard to be nice to her, and she does the same thing, only the problem is that it doesn’t really come naturally, it’s forced. I’m worried that we’re just a little bit of stress away from an explosion.”

“That’s a good way to sum it up,” he said, drawing a similar analogy to how he felt about her.

“JJ is pissed at her, so it’s tougher for them to be civil. She does alright with me and Dad, and a little better with Robbie. But Darius is closest to her, except for Maddy. If I find our conversation getting tense, I try to redirect it toward Maddy, since we both think she’s pretty awesome.”

We got back to the paddock and handed the horses off to the stable hands. “Thanks for riding with me.”

“Dude, I love spending time with you,” I said. He gave me a hug, one that was stunted only because Wade wasn’t big on affection, but was more meaningful because he wasn’t.

I headed down to our ultra-cool gym and decided that riding had been my aerobic exercise, so I focused on just lifting weights. This latest growth spurt I’d gone through had pushed me up to almost 6’1”, making me freakishly tall for my age, but I’d actually compounded that by building up some pretty good muscle tone. I pulled off my shirt and admired myself in the mirror, even as I made sure no one else was around to see me looking so vain. I had some pretty big guns, nicely defined pecs, and pretty cut abs. The whole effect made me look a lot older than I was. When I went to parties at Stanford with Matt, Wade, or their friends, I didn’t look out of place at all. Not bad for a dude who wasn’t quite 15, I thought with a smile. I worked my arms until I felt like they were noodles, and then kicked back in the steam room for ten minutes. I went back to my room to take a shower, luxuriating in the hot water and the aromatherapy fragrance. Today I picked lilac, which seemed kind of girly, but I liked it.

I took some pains with my appearance, since tonight was Wednesday and that meant that Kyle was coming over. Kyle and I had been hooking up a couple of times a week since January. Wade was about the most organized guy I know, probably even a little more anal than my grandfather, JP Crampton, whom we affectionately called Grand. Kyle wasn’t as organized as they were, but he was pretty damn close. So I was on his schedule for Wednesday and Sunday nights. He’d come over and we’d fuck, hang out, fuck again, and then he’d stick around until at least midnight. When we first started hooking up, he’d just blow and go, but I’d put my foot down and demanded that he at least show me some courtesy by sticking around. The end result of that extra time had resulted in us getting closer as friends, but it hadn’t expanded either of our feelings into a more romantic mode. Kyle was a good fuck, and the more we did it, the better it got, but he still didn’t take me to another planet like Tony did. Thinking of Tony made me frown, then smile, then frown again, typical reactions for my roller-coaster relationship with him. I sighed. With Tony pretty much out of the picture, and Jeff out of town, Kyle was about my best option for simple carnal relief. I’d rationalized that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Kyle was the one in a committed relationship, not me. The thing that let me keep my self-respect, and not feel like a home wrecker in this whole thing, was that I didn’t pursue him. Beyond setting some rules about him treating me decently, he was the one who approached me. I’d been a willing participant, but I hadn’t been the initiator.

Dinner was at seven, and we were required to be punctual. I went up to find that it was a small crowd tonight: me, Stef and Grand (my two grandfathers), Grandmaman, and Frank Hayes (her boyfriend). “And what did you do today?” Stef asked.

“I went riding with Wade, and then I worked out,” I said. “Tough duty.”

“Enjoy your summer,” Grandmaman said smoothly. She was so classy, with her residual French accent making her seem just that much more cultured.

“I plan to,” I said, and winked at Stef. “It’s Wednesday night.”

“Ah, so that must mean that Kyle is coming over,” Stef said, with a smooth French accent similar to Grandmaman’s. Both of them had lived in the US for years now, so even though their accents were audible, they were much more muted than you’d expect from a person who had more recently lived in France.

“He’s predictable,” I joked.

“We did not get to see Wade, Matt, and Nana before they left,” Stef said, sounding disappointed.

“They seem to be doing pretty well,” I told him.

“Your father will be back tomorrow,” Stef told me. “I am not sure if he is coming here or going back to Malibu.” My father was the Chairman of Triton Electronics, and they were headquartered in Connecticut. He had to make a pilgrimage there about once a month for business, and this had been his week.

“Is Mom coming back with him?” She was in New Jersey at some class reunion. She’d taken Maddy with her.

“I am not sure what her plans are,” Stef said.

“I’m going to go to Hawaii for a couple of weeks before the 4^th of July festival in Claremont, and then I’m going to spend a weekend in St. Louis with Tony,” I told him. The end result of the endless battles I’d had with my father last year had been my legal emancipation and that gave me the right to run my own life without seeking permission from anyone. But Stef and I were tight, and I knew he worried about me, so I tried to keep him informed about my plans.

“You will be back here for the Bastille Day party?” Grandmaman asked. She usually coordinated that with Aunt Claire; it was our family’s big social event of the year. Anyone who was anyone in the San Francisco Peninsula was invited.

“I will,” I said, more of a promise. “I was thinking of heading to Europe for a while after that.”

Stef raised an eyebrow at that, thinking of our trip last year, where I’d had some pretty interesting experiences. I’d been abducted and molested in Paris by guys who hated my dad and Robbie, but I’d met this awesome guy in Rome named Berto. I was hoping I’d get to see him. “Is not Berto coming over to visit this summer?”

“That was the plan, but it doesn’t sound like that’s going to work out. He seems pretty busy,” I told Stef.

“And who is going with you?” he asked.

“I’m not sure if I’m taking anyone,” I told him. Before he could object, I stopped him. “If I don’t, we can set up a security guy to drive for me when I arrive.”

“That may work,” he said, giving me a dour look.

“You can always go with me,” I said. “We can hit the clubs together.” Grand snickered at that. Last year I’d entered a stripping contest at this gay club in Rome and I’d gotten a little too excited and ended up blasting my load during my performance. I hadn’t known Stef was there until it was over, and I found myself staring at him, trying not to be too embarrassed that I had my own cum all over my body.

“I will check my schedule. Perhaps I can meet you over there.”

“That would be the bomb!” I said enthusiastically. “You can come too,” I said to Grand.

“Your idea of entertainment and mine do not appear to intersect,” he said, sounding like the academic that he was.

“I’ll bet they do,” I said, teasing him. He just shook his head, while Stef and Grandmaman giggled.

I finished dinner and went down to my room to wait for Kyle. He usually showed up between 8 and 8:15, but it was already 8:30 and he wasn’t there. Finally, the phone in my room buzzed.

“Mr. Will, there is a young man here to see you,” one of the guards said. They liked to call me Mr. Will. I thought it sounded pretty ridiculous.

“I’ll be right up,” I said. That was pretty unusual. Normally, Kyle would just park in back and come down to my room. Maybe he wanted to go out or something. I strode confidently up to the Great Hall to meet him, only when I got there, Kyle wasn’t waiting for me, Erik was. “’Sup?” I asked casually.

Erik is really handsome, and he’s a big dude. Both he and Kyle were into lifting weights. But when he turned to look at me, all I really saw were muscles and rage. “How long have you been fucking around with my boyfriend?” he demanded loudly.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked just as loudly.

“Don’t deny it! Don’t lie to me,” he spat, getting into my face.

“Who told you that?” I asked.

“Everyone’s fucking talking about it, everybody in the whole fucking city knows about it!” He pushed me back, away from him.

“Dude, you have a lot of nerve coming over to my house and accusing me of sleeping with Kyle. You should be talking to him about this, not me,” I said, matching his demeanor. I figured that the best way to deal with this was to act aggressively. I was wrong. The next thing I knew I’d taken his fist right in my nose.

“Fucking asshole!” he shouted. He threw one wicked punch. The pain seared through my face, even as I stumbled backward. I collided with one of the medieval suits of armor that adorned the room and ended up crashing to the floor with it. Erik stood over me, and I instinctively covered my nose, which was throbbing. “You fucking slept with my boyfriend!”

He kicked me, and now the pain moved from my nose to my ribs. I cocooned myself, going fetal, trying to protect myself as best I could, pretending that I was a fucking turtle. He kicked me again, but then I heard shouting. I looked up to see two of our guards tackle him. He fought back, but a third one joined them, and they were pissed off at him for hurting me, and for disrupting their world. They were working him over pretty roughly when Grand walked into the room. He had an aura of calmness that seemed to inveigle the entire group. “And just what is going on here?”

“Your asshole grandson slept with my boyfriend,” Erik shouted.

“I will thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head,” Grand snapped, and that seemed to chill Erik out pretty quickly. “So you came up here and assaulted my grandson in my own house?” Erik didn’t answer his question. “You may remove him for the time being,” he told the guards. They hauled him away, leaving me sitting on the floor like an idiot.

I made to get up, but felt really dizzy, so I sat back down with a thud. Stef miraculously appeared. “What happened to you?” He began rapping orders out to the staff, and in no time at all, they were handing me Kleenexes, which seemed kind of odd until I looked down at my hands and saw blood. And then I passed out.

I woke up later on but kept my eyes shut, wanting to digest where I was and what was going on before I opened them. I heard beeping noises, and felt like I had all kinds of shit crammed up my nose, so I deduced that I must be at a hospital. I opened my eyes and found Stef sitting there with me. “Where am I?”

“You are at Stanford, at the hospital,” he said. “You lost a lot of blood, and passed out. How do you feel?”

“Like I have a whole roll of Kleenex stuffed up my nose,” I said, sounding like my sinuses were plugged up with a cold.

“Your nose is broken, but they have reset it. Perhaps it will not be so big when the swelling goes down,” he teased.

“You mean I may end up looking hotter?” I joked.

“That may be doing you a disservice if you use your handsome appearance to get involved in more love triangles,” he said disapprovingly.

Stef had a reputation for being a slut, and had probably been with more men than, well, anyone. Which is why I refused to put up with any attitude from him about it. “You’re suggesting this is my fault?”

“I am not assessing blame, I am merely noting that you put yourself into a high-risk situation,” he said.

“I see. So Erik is innocent. His boyfriend decides to sleep with me, and it’s OK for him to break my nose?” I wasn’t being nice about this.

“I do not see how your actions could justify physical violence of any sort,” he said, giving me a pabulum answer. “But that young man was quite big. It is perhaps not wise to provoke someone so large.”

“What happened to him?” I asked.

“We sent him home,” Stef said.

“You let him go?” I asked. “The dude came into our house and broke my nose, and you let him go?”

“What would you have us do?” Stef demanded. He was getting annoyed with me. Just then, Grand came into the room with my Uncle Jack.

“And how are you?” Jack asked.

“I think that’s my question for you,” I said, forcing my bitchy mood into the background. Jack was a doctor.

“You have a broken nose which was reset and should mend just fine, provided it doesn’t get hit again,” he said.

“I’m not sure if that will happen or not. It’s evidently quite alright for guys to come traipsing into Escorial and to beat the shit out of me with impunity,” I said, even as I looked at Stef. I used big words to get Grand’s attention. “I’m not sure who’s lined up waiting for me to get home.”

Jack ignored my tirade. “You got kicked in the ribs, but all you got was some bruising on your left side. So other than your nose, and your blood loss, you should be fine.”

“How long until I can go in the water?” I asked.

“I’d avoid surfing for at least a month, while six weeks would be better,” he said.

“Six weeks?!” I demanded. “I was planning to go to Hawaii this weekend.”

“You can go to Hawaii, but you can’t surf,” he said firmly. “If you do, you could end up with complications.”

“I’m supposed to go on a float trip in three weeks,” I said.

“We’ll see how you heal up, but you may be able to make that if you don’t submerge your head,” he said.

“When can I get out of here?”

“We’re working on that right now,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said, finally calming down. “Did anyone talk to my dad yet?”

“I told him what happened, and told him that you would call him when you were released,” Stef said. He sensed that I was about to lay into him about Erik, so he stopped me. “Before you go off on one of your rants, I want you to consider that we did not want to do anything about Erik without consulting you first.”

That made total sense, and took the wind completely out of my sails. “Shit. And I had the perfect rant all worked up and everything,” I said, smiling at him. “I’m sorry about that. This whole thing just pisses me off.”

He smiled and patted my arm. “I assumed that you were not at your best.”

Jack and Grand came back in to discharge me and seemed pretty surprised to find that I was in a good mood. They wheeled me out of the hospital and into the waiting limo, and lugged me back up to Escorial. “Thanks for coming to the hospital, and for taking care of me,” I told Stef and Grand when we got home.

“You’re welcome,” Grand said.

“I’m going to give my dad a call, then get some sleep.” It was a beautiful night, and even though my head hurt and I was still a little mazy, I didn’t want to go inside. Instead, I walked to the gazebo Grand had built and sat there, the lights of the Bay Area flickering at me, as I dialed my father.

“Are you alright?” he asked as soon as he answered. He was worried about me.

“I have a broken nose, but I’ll be fine,” I said. “I can’t surf for a month, at least.”

“What happened?”

I sighed. “Erik Delgado came up and rearranged my face, his payback to me for sleeping with Kyle.”

“I hope sex with Kyle was worth it,” he said, and it took me a second to get that he was joking. That made me laugh pretty hard until my throbbing head made me stop.

“You know, now that you mention it, it was,” I said, adopting a whole new attitude about this thing. “When do you get back?”

“I’m flying back to Malibu with your mother. I was thinking that you and JJ could come down for the weekend.”

“I’ll ask him,” I said.

“Darius should be around, and Pop would like to see you too,” he said.

“I’ll talk to JJ and I’ll call you back tomorrow.”

“Sounds good. Go get some rest and take care of yourself,” he said, then hung up. I wandered through the house and down to my room. I was surprised to find Kyle there waiting for me.

“Are you alright?” he asked, almost panicking. He was really cute. “What happened?”

“Erik came up and accused me of sleeping with you, and then he punched me in the face and kicked me in the ribs,” I told him.

“I heard about that, I meant what’s wrong with you.”

“He broke my nose, and I’ve got a couple of bruises,” I said.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, and moved in to hug me, but gently, so he didn’t hurt my tender sides.

“Did you talk to him?” I asked.

“We talked,” he said, assuming that would be enough. I broke off the hug and sat in one of the chairs, which forced him to sit apart from me, and put some space between us. “He was really hurt.”

“So what did you say?” All of this activity was getting pretty painful, so I popped a pain pill while he was putting his words together.

“I told him I was sorry, and that this was all pretty new to me, and that it was tough to be with him, only him, after just coming out.”

Which was pretty much what we’d talked about in January, I thought cynically. I’d put those words in his mouth, more or less. “Go on.”

“He doesn’t see it that way,” Kyle said.

“That’s because he really loves you,” I said. Kyle nodded. “So where does that leave us?” I already knew, I just wanted to hear what he said.

“He made me promise not to see you, but I told him we were friends, and I couldn’t do that. So he made me promise we wouldn’t fuck.”

“So you came over here to blow me off after your boyfriend kicks my ass?” I asked, the outrage in my voice real.

“If we still hook up, we just have to be more careful so people don’t talk about it.”

“Is that how he found out?” I asked.

Kyle nodded. “He admitted that he overheard Marie and John talking about it.”

“My cousins?!” I demanded, really pissed. Kyle nodded. We sat there for a bit, saying nothing until I broke the silence. “Look Kyle, it’s been fun, and I like you, but it’s over.”

He stared at me, stunned that I’d turn down having sex with him. I guess he figured he was so hot, I’d find him irresistible. I did, previously. I didn’t, anymore. But he had his pride, and he wasn’t about to get faced over this. “It has been fun. I’m sorry you got hurt. You change your mind, give me a call.” He tried to kiss me, and I let him, but I kept it low-keyed, because the connection between us when we kissed was just too intense, and my hormones may have overloaded my brain. I walked him up to the Great Hall and ushered him out, then I closed the door on Kyle, and on our time together.