9.11 - 15. Chapter 15

July 11, 2001

I sat back in the Gulfstream V’s comfortable seat and watched Mason’s BMW drive away, even as the engines wound up and we started to move. “That wasn’t Tony,” Dad joked.

“That’s pretty perceptive of you,” I teased. “So what’s your plan?”

“I thought I’d go to Hawaii with you,” Dad said. “I figured we can surf tomorrow, and then I can head back to Malibu on Friday.”

“That’s awesome!” I said enthusiastically. “You’ll only get one day on the beach though.”

“I can’t come back?”

“You can come back,” I agreed. I was totally stoked now. I was still on a high from Mason, but surfing with my dad had made me damn near euphoric. “I figured you’d want to stop in Paly on your way back.” He liked to do that, to see Stef so they could discuss what was going on with Triton and strategize while things were still fresh in his mind.

“Stef’s really busy planning the party. He’s so engrossed in it; I think I’d just be a distraction.” There was more to it than that, because he’d gotten a little depressed when I mentioned Paly, but I decided not to probe into things.

“It’s a big win for me,” I said, trying to get him to be upbeat again.

“Well, and this way I can help you get situated in Hawaii,” he said. “Scott says he thinks he found a driver for you.”

I eyed him carefully. I wasn’t about to let those two saddle me with a dude I didn’t like. “I like to pick my own staff.”

“Alright, but at least keep an open mind. We’ll see how this guy seems,” Dad said, only even he seemed nervous about him.

“You don’t sound very enthusiastic about this dude,” I said, then smiled. “I’m guessing that means I’ll like him.”

He rolled his eyes at me. “He’s young, only seventeen. His name is Kai Keolani, and he was working at the surf shop, but Scott ended up with too much help, and had to lay him off. He figured this guy could basically just surf with you and drive you around.”

“You think Scott is fucking this guy?” I asked, wondering if that’s what he was doing, finding a job for his boy toy.

“He’s only seventeen,” Dad said, as if that would stop Scott. I simply raised my eyebrows to challenge that, and he looked at me wryly. “I don’t think so.”

“I’ll give the dude a chance,” I said, not wanting to be a pain in the ass for nothing.

The phone rang, and Dad answered it. “Hey Stef,” he said. I pulled out my laptop, pretending not to listen to his conversation, when in fact I was totally eavesdropping. “I’m going to Hawaii with Will. We can catch up on stuff after the party.” He paused for a bit, listening to Stef talk. “I’m not avoiding coming up there. I’m coming up for the party. If I didn’t want to be there, I wouldn’t come to the party.” He paused again, and then spoke quickly, as if he was interrupting Stef. “I said I’d be at the party. I haven’t missed one yet. Just relax. We can talk afterward.” Another pause and I could see the grimace on his face reflected in the window as he turned away from me. “I really don’t want to go into this now.” I could feel him getting more and more agitated as Stef must have continued to ramble on. “Look, she’s doing the same thing to Will that she did to me. I just don’t want to be around her, alright?” He paused again, to let Stef talk. “I’ll see you on the 14^th,” he said, and hung up.

I felt his eyes on me, so I turned to look at him. “You OK?” I asked.

“Evidently I was supposed to go to Escorial,” he groused.

“Who is she, and what is she doing to me that she also did to you?” I asked.

“You were listening in?” he asked, pretending as if I were being rude.

“Duh. You are sitting next to me in an airplane talking loudly,” I replied. “If you didn’t want me to listen in, you should have taken the call in the bedroom.” There was a separate sleeping compartment in the back.

He sighed. “It bothers me that Grandmaman has treated you with such disregard.”

“It bothers me too,” I told him, “but it will bother me even more if it causes you problems with her.”

“When I had those fights with Billy in high school, she took his side, became his advocate, and didn’t really think about me and my situation at all. It was like I wasn’t important; like I didn’t really matter.”

“I’m sorry about this,” I said, feeling bad that my issues had dredged up all these past memories and problems.

“It’s not your fault,” he told me. “It’s hers.”

“I thought you said she figured it out, and talked to you about this.”

“She said she did, and then she does the same thing to you,” he snapped, letting me see how much this bugged him.

“And I look a lot like you, and I sometimes act like you too,” I said, filling in the blanks. When Grandmaman didn’t give a shit about me when she was planning the guest list, to my father, it must have seemed as if she were doing it to him.

“She told me that she was sorry, and that she understood why I was so upset,” he said, biting back tears. “If that was true, how can she do the same thing to you?”

“Maybe she doesn’t see us as one person. Maybe when she looks at me, she doesn’t see you,” I said. I smiled, to try and get him out of his sad place. “Maybe it’s not all about you.”

He actually chuckled at that. “Maybe not.” He paused for a bit, to collect himself. “I just don’t want to deal with it while I’m pissed off. I’ll deal with it after I cool down.”

“That’s a pretty calm and deliberate strategy,” I said. “Who are you, and what have you done with my dad?”

He laughed. “I’m trying to do better.”

“Me too,” I said. Normally I avoided bringing up my own issues, but this time, I figured he could use something different to think about. “I didn’t even kill anyone this weekend.”

“So what happened?”

“Everything was going great after I left Claremont,” I told him. “Then again, just leaving Claremont can be pretty great.”

“Sometimes I agree with you, just don’t say that in front of Grand or Robbie,” he said, acting like we were co-conspirators, and cracking me up.

“I got to hang out with Stef in Chicago and shop, and then he took me to a gay bar.” I knew that would fire him up.

“How did you get into a gay bar?” he demanded.

“I’m hot,” I said. He wrinkled his mouth up in this expression he gets when he’s frustrated and he doesn’t really believe me.

“What did you do at this gay bar?”

I shrugged. “Ate some food, danced to some tunes, and met some hot dudes.” He gave me an annoyed look, so I laughed at him. “I stayed out of trouble.”

“That’s good to hear,” he lied.

“I got to St. Louis and had an amazing day with Tony. Then that night, Dana showed up. He was going to totally blow me off for her, but then he figured it out, and broke up with her. And sent her home.”

“Well, at least he figured it out in the end,” Dad said.

“So we went on this float trip, and had amazing sex, like we usually do,” I said, grinning. “Then the next morning he got up early to blow one of his friends. I wake up; he’s gone, up in the bathrooms sucking this dude’s dick.”

“I didn’t think you had any commitments.”

“The only commitment we had was that when we were together, we weren’t going to get with other people. So he got with someone else while we were together.” I sighed. “It’s this dude that’s a good friend of his, but I think he’s way more into Tony than Tony is into him.”

“So this guy was jealous, and used Tony’s libido to wedge you two apart,” Dad concluded.

“Maybe. Only here’s the thing. Tony told me that he’d never be like his father. He said he’d honor his commitments. He said he was a man of his word. How’s that fit into this?”

Dad thought for a bit, which I appreciated. “It doesn’t.” I sat there feeling validated, while he paused for a second, probably to gather his words. “You knew that Tony was going to be high-risk. You knew going out with him was like getting on a roller coaster. So you’re surprised?”

“Yeah, I am. I thought I’d have to deal with a lot of bullshit about him coming out, and I was OK with that, but I thought that I could trust him. Now I know I can’t.”

“So what are you going to do about him?”

“I told him we were fuck buddies, and that was it,” I said. “And you know what, Dad? I’m feeling good about that. I’m not freaking out, I’m not pining away, I’m not even thinking about fucking him.” Well, I wasn’t, until I said that, and then I was, and my hormones started to rage.

“You’re over him?”

“What is ‘over’?”

“Do you want to be with him? Would you fly back to St. Louis to hang out with him? Would you go back to Rome with him?”

I thought about Tony. For the first time since I’d left, I put my emotions and libido aside and really thought about Tony. I sat there silently as I did, and Dad gave me time to think it through. “I still care about him. I think that if he was around, and I was horny, it would be fun to fuck him. But I wouldn’t go out of my way to be with him, or to meet him somewhere.”

“So you’re friends with benefits?”

“I think when I’m done being pissed off at him, we can be friends. With benefits.”

“I was into a guy like that,” he said. “I knew that he was going to be erratic, and probably drive me fucking crazy. But I loved him enough to go along on the ride.”

“Who was he?” I asked curiously.

“Robbie,” he said, kind of stunning me. “I knew he was my soul mate. I knew we belonged together. And I knew that being with him was going to be one wild-ass ride, with some amazing highs and some amazing lows.”

“Did you ever regret making that choice?”

He smiled. “Duh. You saw me lose my mind a couple of years ago. You should have seen me when I was younger, and had less control of my temper.”

I really laughed at that. “Dude, less control?”

“Whatever,” he said. Whenever he said that, it always made me giggle, because it was totally a term that my brothers and I would use, and he’d obviously picked up on it from us.

“So what does this have to do with Tony?” I asked.

“Because I think that when you have sex with someone like that, and it’s really good, it can cloud your mind and your feelings. And if you go down that road and have a relationship with Tony, I’m pretty sure that’s what’s going to happen. You’re getting on the relationship equivalent of Space Mountain.” That was a pretty good analogy, since when you rode Space Mountain, you rode in the dark. You couldn’t even see the curves and hills coming.

“Right now I’m trying to decide if I can even stand the guy. I’m sure as hell not thinking he’s my soul mate,” I said sharply.

“You got really pissed off at me last year when I was trying to explain this to you, probably because I did a really bad job of saying it. I think you being friends with Tony is good for him. I think you getting too involved with him is bad for you.”

“That’s a lot better than telling me I don’t think about other people at all, and that I need to let this guy shit on me,” I said bitterly, telling both of us how mad I’d been at him on my birthday last year when they’d busted my balls about Tony.

“I said I didn’t do a very good job of explaining it,” he said, and tilted his head in a playful way.

“See, we agree on some things,” I said, getting an irritated look from him, which made me laugh.

“So who’s this Mason guy?”

I smiled. “He was dating this obnoxious girl, and we ended up hooking up on the float trip.”

“Was this after Tony blew the other guy?” he asked, just to make sure I was being relatively fair.

“Yeah, this was after that,” I said, then got back on track. “So we ended up in a canoe together, and were flirting, and he said that if I went to his house with him at the lake, he’d let me fuck him.”

I watched him try not to let that bother him. “He was pretty handsome,” Dad finally allowed.

“Are you kidding me? That dude is hot as hell!” I said.

“Fine,” he agreed.

“So if you were in my situation, would you have gone to the Lake with him?” I asked.

He gave me a dirty look. “Maybe.” I raised my eyebrow to challenge that. “Alright, fine, I would have gone to the lake and fucked his brains out.”

That made me laugh so hard I almost cried. “Yep, that’s what I did.”

“It looked like a nice lake.”

“I had a blast. They had a kick ass boat, so we went water-skiing. And they also had some Waverunners, so we took those out too.” I’d really had a good time. “You should try it. Didn’t take me long to get good at it. I think surfing helped.”

“Maybe I will,” he mused.

July 12, 2001

The alarm went off and I hit the snooze button. Three times. Slowly, consciousness returned to my sleepy brain, until I remembered that I was in Hawaii, and then I was wide awake. I jumped out of bed and took a quick shower, jacking off while thinking about fucking Mason. That dude had turned me into a total top. I threw on some shorts and walked over to the kitchen.

“Morning,” I said to my dad pleasantly.

“I was about to come wake you up,” he said. I didn’t say anything; I just started making myself some breakfast. In this case, I decided to eat a bowl or two of cereal.

“Welcome to Maui,” Scott Slater said cheerfully as he walked into the room. “You ready to surf?” He was a handsome dude, although he looked a little artificial to me, kind of like a movie star. He’d had plastic surgery to change his identity, though, so maybe that’s why I thought that. Didn’t matter. For an older dude, he was hot.

“I’m ready to surf,” I said. “Did you just get here?”

“I stayed out last night,” he said, winking at me. “I’m a big boy. I can do that.”

“I’m a big boy too,” I said, flirting with him. He was sexy in a creepy kind of way. He’s like a teacher you have a crush on, but he’d be the teacher that would actually follow through on the crush and fuck your brains out.

“So who were you with?” Dad asked.

“An old friend of Robbie’s,” Scott said. I think he said that to bug my dad, but it didn’t.

“Keenan?”

“So you remember him,” Scott said, surprised at Dad’s reaction.

“I remember him,” Dad said. “He still hustling?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t pay him,” Scott said. Then they both seemed to realize I was in the room and got all uncomfortable, which annoyed me.

“If you didn’t pay him, he must be ugly as fuck,” I said to Scott.

“Somebody is cranky this morning,” he teased, annoying me and making me laugh at the same time. I decided that if my dad would have chosen this dude to be with back when he was in high school, his life would have been a way bigger roller coaster ride than it had been with Robbie. “You ready to go?”

“I’m ready to go,” I said. Dad nodded. We got our boards and loaded up the Jeep, then headed up to my favorite surfing beach: Hookipa. It was on the north side of the island, so it was a decent drive from our villa. It took about an hour to get there.

“Looks like you got lucky,” Scott said to my dad. “Waves are the bomb today! Check out the action at H’Kopo!” H’Kopo was the northern break at Hookipa, and when it was active, it was the most challenging, with big waves and big currents. We all got huge smiles on our faces and hurried to get ready, and then to get down to the water.

Dad and Scott were dicking around with their boards, but I was too impatient to wait for them. To get to the waves at Hookipa, you have to get beyond the reefs. There were a few paths, gaps in the reef, you could take to do that, and that tended to make it an even bigger challenge. Once you got beyond that, you were home free, as long as you knew how to surf and how to swim. There were usually at least a few people on the headlands watching surfers, and the lazier crowd lay on the beach, which was relatively tranquil due to the reef. I had just started paddling out when I looked up and saw a surfer catching one awesome wave. I froze as I watched this dude just rip the wave up. He did a beautiful aerial, and then landed in a tailslide, carved up the wave, and finished with a backside 360. He landed about ten yards from me, so he was just climbing on his board and shaking the water out of his hair as I paddled up next to him.

“Dude, that was awesome!” I said.

He looked at me strangely, with a little contempt. “Thanks,” he said insincerely, and focused on getting back out to the waves. I could have let that piss me off, but I got his deal. He didn’t know me, so he didn’t know if my comment meant anything. For all he knew, I could be some rookie who would say that about anyone who could even stand on a board. On the other hand, I’d made it out this far, through the gap in the reef, so that should tell him I wasn’t a complete beginner.

I was way ahead of my dad and Scott, who were just getting into the water. Me and stud-surfer got out to where the waves were forming, and did what surfers spent most of their time doing: we waited. He looked over at me with almost a scowl, which was kind of a shame, because when he didn’t have that look, he was really hot. He reminded me of Ryan and how he’d been when we’d first met, and that made me chuckle to myself. This guy looked Hawaiian, so maybe that was it; maybe he was one of those dudes who were all mad about outsiders invading their beaches. He had a slightly flattened nose, a pear-shaped face, and eyes that were distinctly Hawaiian in shape. He had longer, curly hair that looked like it could almost be in dreadlocks, but not quite that nasty, and wore a leather necklace with small shells on it. He was pretty thin, and pretty lithe; he sure as hell wasn’t a big body builder type. I’d only seen him on his board, but I estimated, based on how he hung over it, he was probably a little shorter than six feet tall. And best of all, he had this beautiful dark skin.

I made eye contact with him and he was all but sneering at me, having totally busted me checking him out. “Don’t get in my way,” he snapped.

“Bite me,” I said, and gave him my smart-ass expression.

“What the fuck did you say to me?” he demanded loudly.

“I said, ‘bite me’,” I repeated. Only the water was changing, and it was like we both realized that at the same time. And there, forming up, was one massive wave. We totally ignored each other now, getting ready, paddling in front of it. The wave peaked where I was, so according to the basic rules of surfing, I had the right of way. I was upright and starting down the face, when the hot Hawaiian asshole picks it up and drops in on me. I was so pissed I was seeing red, especially since I knew he’d done it on purpose. I did a sharp turn back up the wave, almost losing my balance, but I held on, did another turn, and this time I was dropping in on him. Only he didn’t have any room to maneuver like I’d had. I slid down next to him and used the force of the wave, and my motion, along with my left hand, to push him out of my way. I knocked him off balance, and smiled as I saw him plunge into the wave. Now he was behind me and forgotten as I worked that wave, pulling out all the tricks I knew. Sometimes waves work against you, begrudging you any fun, but this was a cool wave, one that seemed to enjoy surfing as much as I did. And in the end, instead of wiping me out, it just sort of scooted me into the water, in a nice smooth landing.

I was paddling back again when I saw the Hawaiian dude pausing to wait for me. “I told you to stay the fuck away from me!” he yelled.

“I had the peak, douchebag,” I yelled back. “Nice drop in.” He glared at me and paddled off to a slightly different area, about fifty feet away. I was just fine with that. I met up with my dad and Scott, and we really had a good time. I kept stealing glances over at that dude, and as big of an asshole as he was, he was also one awesome surfer. I noticed that he stuck pretty much to himself. Some surfers clustered together, like the three of us, but he was out here on his own. I nicknamed him ‘the lone wolf’ in my own mind.

“We’ve got until 11am, and after that the windsurfers come out,” Scott told us. “If there are more than ten surfers out here, they stay away.”

“Cool,” I said, noting that in my mental encyclopedia of interesting facts about my favorite beach.

I really poured it on, determined to impress not just my dad and Scott, but also the lone wolf. Only every time I glanced over at him, he wasn’t even looking at me. That was really annoying. It was hard to impress people when they wouldn’t even look at you. I noticed a couple of friends joined him later on. We surfed all morning and well into the afternoon. There were enough of us to keep the windsurfers away, even after 11. Dad and I caught the same wave, a big one that pushed us damn near to the shore. “Lunchtime?” Dad asked.

I felt the conflict inside, between wanting to surf and wanting to eat, but the cereal I’d had earlier had long since burned off. “Lunchtime,” I agreed.

“I’ll go get Scott,” he said, and paddled out to where Scott was. I headed through the surf and onto the beach, undid my lanyard, and was about to carry my board back up to the Jeep when two dudes came walking up to me. One was Lone Wolf, and the other guy with him was older and bigger. Much bigger.

“Let’s see if you’re so tough now that you’re on dry land, asshole,” Lone Wolf said.

“Let’s see if I’m tough? You’re the one who had to bring a friend with you. Bet you wouldn’t have even had the balls to walk over here on your own,” I said, taunting him.

“Dude, I’m just watching and laughing,” the big guy said. That kind of surprised me, and it surprised Lone Wolf too. I figured he was here to gang up on me, but he was acting like a dude who was just keeping an eye on things; the kind of dude who would break up a fight pretty quickly after it started.

“Way to have my back,” Lone Wolf said to him.

“I’m not fighting your fights, dude. You want to start shit, you finish it. I’m just making sure no one else jumps in.” The big dude had a real easy, almost lackadaisical air about him. “Besides, he’s a good surfer.”

“Right,” Lone Wolf said with his sneer.

“Thanks,” I said to the big guy, then turned back to Lone Wolf. “Why don’t you just turn the fuck around, and walk the fuck away.”

“Right. This is my beach,” he said, all self-righteously.

“Bullshit,” I said. “It’s a public beach.”

“It’s a Hawaiian beach, and we’re Hawaiians,” he said.

“No, it’s a beach on Hawaii, and you’re a racist piece of shit,” I snapped. Lone Wolf was just about to come at me, and I was so ready to take this asshole out. He was about my size, but I had a little bit of height on him, and probably an extra ten or twenty pounds. If the big dude wasn’t in this thing, the odds were on my side, albeit just barely.

The big dude laughed, and that prompted Lone Wolf to walk up to me and get right in my face. If he hadn’t done that, he’d have ended up being faced. It was hard not to appreciate how handsome he really was. “Fuck you,” he said, and pushed his chest against mine. The feel of his skin against mine was erotic as hell, but this wasn’t about sex, so I kept my eye on the ball. I was just about to push him away and introduce him to my right hook, when I heard Scott speak up.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he demanded.

“This racist, bigoted piece of shit says I can’t surf here because I’m not Hawaiian,” I said, spitting the words out right in his face.

“Will,” my dad said firmly. Just him saying my name had an amazingly calming effect on me.

“Asshole,” I said to Lone Wolf, even as I grabbed my board and walked away from him.

“Nice going, Kai,” Scott said. “There goes your summer job.”

I turned around and looked at my dad, and we both started laughing, even as we walked back to the Jeep with our surfboards. That was the dude Scott was going to get to drive me around and surf with me? Like I’d spend any time with that asshole. He probably spent all of his time railing against us mainlanders. I shook my head and kept on walking, but my dad kept looking back at the big guy.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“That’s Keenan,” Dad said.

“How do you know him?” He didn’t answer. “Scott said he was friends with Robbie. Was Pop fucking around with him?”

Dad looked at me, as if trying to decide if he should explain this to me, which spiked my anger meter, because it was like he was trying to figure out, once again, if I was mature enough to hear about whatever the fuck kinky shit they’d gotten into. That and I was still pissed off from my encounter with Lone Wolf, or Kai, now that he had a real name. I just shook my head at him and finished walking back toward the Jeep. “Will!” Dad said, but I ignored him and kept on walking. This was such bullshit. “What did I do now?” he demanded as he got to the Jeep.

I looked at him with the same look he’d given me, as if trying to decide whether to tell him why he was so fucking annoying. We just stood there, saying nothing, until Scott got to the Jeep. That prompted us to put our boards away and ignore each other. “We probably should head back,” Scott said.

“Why the fuck do we have a house in Kapalua when the best surfing is over here?” I demanded, being bitchy. “There’s no surf over there, and we have to drive an hour to get anywhere good.”

“It’s close to good restaurants,” Dad said lamely. Right there on the headland, near this kick ass beach, was a monster house, with lots of land around it. It was right on the point, with easy access to this beach, or to Lanes and Mama’s beaches, which could also sport some major waves. We drove by it and there was a ‘for sale’ sign out front. They were ignoring me so they didn’t notice as I jotted down the realtor’s phone number.

“I’m sorry that dude was fucking with you,” Scott said to me.

“He’s an asshole,” I told him. “It’s not his fucking beach.”

“He’s cocky,” Scott corrected.

“So why’s he hanging out with a hustler, and why does my dad keep looking at Keenan like he wants to fuck him?” I asked Scott. Scott laughed at that.

“Kai and Keenan are friends. They grew up together,” he said. “I don’t know why your dad wants to fuck him. You’ll have to ask him that.”

“I don’t want to fuck him,” Dad snapped, all pissed off now.

“He’ll tell you later when I’m not around,” I told Scott, giving Dad a dirty look. “Think he wants to make some extra money?” That really bugged my dad, just like I knew it would. I stopped for a minute and recognized that both of us could push each other’s buttons really easily. I pondered that as we drove on in silence. When we got to Lahaina, I reached up and put my hand on Dad’s shoulder. “I’m sorry for being a dick. I was just pissed off at that dude.”

He turned to look at me, totally shocked. “Yeah, I wasn’t very happy about him either.” We stopped in Lahaina at this good restaurant where we could eat outside dressed like we were. “When Robbie and I were having our problems, I flew over here to see him and caught him fucking Keenan.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Actually, that didn’t bother me. That guy is pretty hot, and I could tell that for Robbie, it was just a fuck. I was in the bathroom watching them, waiting for Carson to show up, since I’d seen that little asshole driving toward the house.”

“I wonder if voyeurism is genetic?” Scott asked, totally freaking me out, worrying me that he’d tell my dad I watched him jack-off last time I’d been here.

Dad thankfully ignored him. “Carson came in and started ranting and raving, so Robbie asked Keenan to leave. He came into the bathroom and busted me spying. I paid him and he left.”

“What happened then?”

“I came out and threw Carson out of the house,” Dad said. That must have been a pretty wild scene.

“Maybe I should call him,” I joked. “That dude in Missouri turned me into a total top.”

“Damn,” Scott said, acting all disappointed. Dad just glared at both of us, which just made both of us laugh.