9.11 - 42. Chapter 42

September 14, 2001

9:00am: Charlottesville, VA

“Thank you again for your hospitality, and for your support,” Grand said to Wade formally. He said this as we stood on the ramp at the airport, waiting to board Stef’s plane.

“I will be at Escorial in a little more than a week, and you can return the favor,” Wade said. “We’ll see you in New Jersey on the 19^th.”

Wade stood by the stairs and gave us man hugs as we prepared to climb them. When he got to me, he was more enthusiastic, giving me a real hug. “Thanks,” I said, to acknowledge that he did that to make me feel special, and to show that I appreciated it.

“Happy birthday,” he said. I smiled, but there was nothing happy about my birthday this year. Yesterday we’d had a party for Maddy’s and Riley’s first birthdays, doing our best to be festive, but it was really hard. I didn’t want to do anything for my birthday; I just wanted to go home. I guess I was going to get that wish.

We climbed into the plane and adjusted the captain’s chairs so the five of us were in a circle. Dad, Darius, Stef, Grand, and I were flying back to Palo Alto. We were bringing Maddy and her nurse with us, so they boarded first and went to the back where an area had been set up for Maddy.

JJ and Tiffany were going back to Malibu on Dad’s plane, while Riley was staying here with Wade. JJ was adamant that he needed to get back on the ice, having been on vacation for over a week, since the end of his competition. I got the feeling that he just needed to skate to center himself, and to try and deal with this. He seemed surprised that no one gave him shit, but the group therapy that Nana had set up was helping us to do better at figuring each other out. Or at least I hoped it was. Skating for him was like surfing for me, only probably even more intense. I got where he was coming from.

“This may take a while,” the pilot said. “Air traffic has been pretty chaotic.”

“Just do your best,” Stef said, since we were in his Falcon, and that meant he was in charge. “And now, let us review this schedule you have set up,” he said to Darius.

“We all fly to New Jersey on the 18^th,” Darius said. “That gives us time to iron out any details over Mom and Hank’s memorial service. That happens on the 20^th.”

Darius had taken over planning their services, dealing with our grandparents on my mother’s side, and with Hank’s family. His big objective was to make sure they had their memorial together. Hank’s family had been much easier to work with, according to Darius, but that didn’t surprise me. “Where is it going to be?” I asked.

“In New Jersey,” Darius said. “At some church in New Brunswick.” New Brunswick was the city my grandparents called home, and was also the city Mom and Hank had lived in when they’d first met.

“Mom’s having a church service?” I asked skeptically.

“I know,” Darius said with frustration, since Mom wasn’t very religious. “That’s what everyone else wanted to do, and it makes things easier. I don’t think Mom would have given a shit, as long as she and Hank were being remembered together.”

“That’s probably true,” I agreed. I really didn’t want to think about it too much, and was really glad that Darius had jumped in to handle things. “What are we supposed to do while we’re there?”

“We’re supposed to hang out there with Grandma and Grandpa,” Darius said.

“They’re assholes,” I said. “I’ll be nice to them at the ceremony, and that’s it.”

“Well the plane isn’t leaving to go back to DC until the 22^nd, since Wade’s father’s funeral is on the 23^rd, so you’re stuck there until the 22^nd,” Darius said.

“Aren’t Wade and Matt coming to the ceremony?” I asked.

“They are,” Dad responded.

“Then I’ll just go back with them,” I stated firmly. I was not going to spend any more time than I had to around my New Jersey grandparents.

“They’re going to a memorial service in New Jersey on the 21^st, so they won’t be going back until the 22^nd either,” Darius said, happy that he’d blocked my river.

“Whatever,” I said, caving to the inevitable. The plane finally took off, and I heard Maddy cry as her ears popped. I needed to make sure she got her lungs looked at, even though they sounded fine from up here.

“We fly back on the 23^rd, after Senator Danfield’s funeral,” Grand said.

“Then we’re having a memorial for Robbie in LA on the 28^th,” Dad said. “You’re still going to help me plan it, right?” he asked Stef.

“Of course,” Stef said, and smiled at him. I studied my father carefully, because I was most worried about him. The counseling sessions we’d had the last few days had really helped. I still felt my emotions fly out of control once or twice a day at least, usually the anger that Baxter had told us about, but knowing about it helped me understand and deal with it. That and I’d use the denial to block out the pain when it became too much for me. Darius and JJ were doing the same thing, and it was cool, because we actually talked about it. Ever since that meeting, we’d been more open with each other. But Dad had been having a tougher time, really struggling to keep himself together. I got what Robbie had said to me in the tower, about how we would need to be strong for Dad.

“When are you going back to LA?” I asked Darius.

“Not for a while,” he said. I gave him an odd look, since classes would start soon. “I dropped my classes for this term. I’ll start next quarter.”

I glanced at Grand, who didn’t seem upset about it, so I followed his lead. “That makes sense,” I said. “You’ll be pretty busy.”

“I talked to Mom’s lawyer,” he said. “She made me the executor of her estate.”

“Does that mean you have to raise Maddy?” I asked, giving him shit.

“No,” he said, rolling his eyes. “According to the lawyers, she can’t appoint a guardian for Maddy, but she can tell the court what she wants them to do. They usually go with that.”

“Who did she appoint?” I asked, with no small amount of apprehension. If Mom had picked her parents, we were in for one big battle.

“Hank was the first person,” Darius said sadly, but he was only being respectful. I was the one who’d gotten closest to Hank, and had bonded with her the best. My sadness over her loss was very real, and intense. “Grandmaman was second, followed by Tiffany.”

“She appointed Tiffany as Madison’s guardian?” Stef asked, surprised. “What did Tiffany say about that?”

“She actually appointed Grandmaman, since she’s next in line,” Darius corrected. “I haven’t talked to either one of them about it yet. I just found out yesterday, and I wanted to think about it first.”

“You’re going to tell her, right?” I asked Darius.

“Of course I’m going to tell her, dumbass,” Darius snapped. “But I think that things can calm down a bit first. I’ll tell her on the 19^th when I see her, or I’ll tell her before that if Grandmaman doesn’t want the job.”

“I think the chances of that happening, of Isidore declining the task, are miniscule,” Grand said with a slight smile. He truly loved Grandmaman, and it was so easy to see that in his expression when he talked about her.

“What happens to your stuff in the dorms?” I asked.

“Stays there until next quarter,” he said. “I called my roommate and told him what happened, and he was cool with keeping an eye on things.”

“Probably happy to have his own room,” I noted.

“Probably,” Darius agreed. “When are you going back to school?”

“I’m going on Monday,” I said. I’d tried to keep up with my assignments, but it was tough since I hadn’t planned that far in advance. “I need to get a handle on what’s due next week, and to talk to my teachers.”

“Going to be a lot different than it was,” Darius said.

“Why?”

He shrugged. “That press release hit, so you’re famous. It’s going to make you sort of like a celebrity. Brace yourself. Everyone’s going to ask how you’re doing, all the fucking time.” Great. I’d just gotten all this attention over the wart thing, only now they’d all be looking at me as this wounded puppy, and there would be all this syrupy sympathy directed my way.

“Can I just say ‘shitty’ and ignore them?” I asked petulantly.

“Dude, if you weren’t such an idiot, you’d use it. Your teachers will actually like you, and you may be able to get straight dudes to fuck you,” Darius joked, cracking me up.

“My teachers already like me,” I said.

“That’s because you’re such a fucking dork,” he said.

“Whatever,” I said. “And straight dudes already like to fuck me. That’s because I’m hot.”

“Whatever,” he said, mimicking me, and making me laugh. I glanced at Dad nervously, expecting him to be freaking out over our conversation, but he just sat there, staring into space like a zombie.

“There’s only one dude I want to get into my bed right now,” I said. I stood up and held out my hand to my father. “You look tired. Let’s crash.”

“Dude, don’t perve on him,” Darius joked. Dad gave him an annoyed look, then took my hand and followed me back to the bedroom.

“I can’t sleep,” he admitted to me as he lay down on his back.

“You’ve got an appointment to deal with that tomorrow,” I said as I lay next to him.

“What do you mean?” he snapped, his anger surging forward.

“Uncle Jack set up an appointment for you to talk to someone and get meds to help you sleep,” I said firmly.

“I’m not going to see a psychiatrist...” he began to argue.

“Yeah, you are,” I said, even more firmly. “Tomorrow.”

“We’ll see about that,” he grumbled.

“I’m supposed to take care of you, remember?” I asked him. He looked at me and remembered Robbie’s words, and then a tear fell out of his right eye. He nodded, but I lay on my back and pulled him to me, letting him lay his head on my chest while I held him tightly.

He cried softly for a while, and so did I. “I hate fucking crying,” he said.

“Me too,” I agreed. We drifted off to sleep like that, using the flight to restore our psyches to the degree possible.

I woke up to see Stef’s smiling face as he shook me. “We will be landing in twenty minutes.”

“Thanks,” I said. I elbowed Dad gently, and then extricated myself from his grip to go to the bathroom and freshen up. Maddy was crying when I came out of the bathroom, so I stopped to try and cheer her up, but it wasn’t really working.

12:30pm: Escorial

The limousine drove up to this place that had been my home, off and on, for most of my life. I should be happy to be here, I should be relieved to be back in a familiar place, but I wasn’t. Losing Robbie was like a gaping wound, and I felt like my soul was pouring out of it. Whenever I thought of him, pain seared through my body. I kept asking myself if this was what my life would be like from now on, where everything I did reminded me of him, and every time I thought of him, I’d have to fight back tears. I felt like I was trapped in a torture chamber.

Baxter had talked about denial, and how some people use that to ease the pain. Denial was just a fancy word for not thinking about his death, and I’d tried that. I focused on trying to do whatever I could to make the world know how courageously he’d died, and to doing what I could for my sons and my family, but every time I paused, every time my mind was idle, visions of Robbie would flash into my head. I felt my eyes tearing again, so I opened them wide and looked out the window as we drove up the long driveway, forcing my mind to evaluate whether the staff was trimming all the bushes correctly or not so I didn’t think about Robbie.

I felt eyes on me and glanced over to see Will looking at me with concern. He could read me so well, which was really irritating, since I couldn’t read him worth a shit. “You know what I want for my birthday?” he asked me.

“What?” I asked with dread.

“When we’re done with the funerals and memorials, like sometime in early October, I want you to go over to Maui and surf with me,” he said.

“It’s a shame we can’t go before then,” I said. I would love to be in the water right now, fighting the ocean. Suddenly, I craved it more than anything, and that craving sparked an idea. “Santa Cruz.”

“Dude, tomorrow?” Will asked, all excited. “We can stay over, and come back on Sunday night.”

“You have plans this evening,” Grand informed me. “And it would be nice if you were home Sunday in time for dinner.”

“I can work with that,” Will said to Grand, and looked at me expectantly.

“Let’s try to do that,” I agreed. I saw Darius looking out the window, avoiding our conversation. “Why don’t you go with us?” I asked.

“What am I supposed to do while you guys are surfing?” he asked.

“Track down Moonglow,” Will said, getting a chuckle from Darius.

“Moonglow?” I asked.

“Some chick who so wants me. We met her at a party in the Hills,” Darius said, then pondered the situation. “Maybe I will go with you guys.” We all chuckled at him. The car stopped and we all got out, and I braced myself to see my family. I should have felt happy anticipation, but instead I was dreading it.

The big doors to Escorial opened and my mother came out, with Frank in tow. Stef was the first out of the limo, of course, followed by Dad. I lingered, letting Will and Darius go next, as well as Maddy, and then followed along after them. “I am so glad you are safe and sound,” Mother said. The relief in her voice, and in her expression, was really sweet, but it just reminded me again of what I’d lost. And then I ran into someone who was in as much pain as I was. Not that the others weren’t struggling with this. I knew that Will, Darius, and JJ were all very upset over losing three-fourths of their parents, yet they were grappling with it so much better than I was. But when I found myself face to face with Frank, I found someone who was conceivably worse off than me.

We stood there, staring at each other, his eyes drilling into my eyes, with mine returning the intense gaze. “You did a nice job on the article,” he said to me, finally breaking the silence.

“Thank you,” I said. “He was a hero, and I want the world to know that.”

“I’d rather have him be less of a hero and alive,” Frank said.

“Maybe,” I said.

“What do you mean, ‘maybe’?” he demanded loudly. I briefly thought about how useful those sessions in Virginia had been, and how I could so much more easily understand his anger.

“If he wouldn’t have gone back up for Jeanine and Hank, he would never have been able to live with himself,” I told Frank honestly. “He would be in even more pain that you and I are in.”

“Better to be in pain, and to be alive,” he said.

“You think so?” I asked him, and felt myself losing it. “You really think so? I feel like absolute shit. Every waking minute is fucking agony for me. When I wake up, I feel tired, because I must torture myself in my sleep. If I thought I would feel this way forever, if I thought this was how it was always going to be, I wouldn’t go on.”

“You’re way ahead of me on this,” Frank growled. “I’m not there yet. I’m convinced that this is how it is, and this is how my life is going to be.”

“Only we can’t let Robbie down like that,” I said. “You and I both know that he’d be pissed off at us if we did that. If we let the pain win.”

“Well he can’t be pissed off now, can he?” he asked acidly.

I felt myself suddenly get a little stronger as he pissed me off. “I don’t believe that his spirit is floating around out there watching me, and that doesn’t really matter anyway. I’m just saying that I have to honor his memory. I have obligations, and so do you. You have three grandsons, and I’m their only parent. I could use some fucking help. Shit, I did a crappy job when he was around to talk me off the ledge. How the fuck will I handle things without him?” I’d gotten a little unhinged at the end of my tirade.

He stared at me, his eyes steely. “You’ll do better now, because you have to.”

“And so will you,” I said, matching his gaze. Only I was looking in his eyes, and it was like looking into Robbie’s: Those beautiful lavender-blue eyes of theirs. And then the pain was back, pain as I remembered him and how much I loved him, and the agony from knowing that I’d never get to see him again. Never. Never. A tear fell out of my eye, followed by another, but I couldn’t stop them this time. “I really miss him,” I said to him plaintively.

“Me too,” Frank said. Then he enveloped me in one of his hugs, and when he was like this, really putting his all into it, it was like Robbie was hugging me. I let my mind wander, and let myself pretend that it was Robbie holding me, and even as Frank murmured ‘it will be alright’ in my ear, I heard Robbie saying it.

I let him go and nodded at him, then headed straight for my room, feeling as if I’d just hugged a ghost. I fell on my bed, crammed my face in the pillow, and just sobbed. I’m not sure how long I did that, but I stopped when I felt a hand on my back. “I set it up so you go see the psychiatrist in the morning, then we drive over to Santa Cruz,” Will said. I could tell he was bracing for an argument from me, but he wouldn’t get one. This was hell. If there was a doctor who could help me, I was all for it.

“That’s fine. Just wake me up an hour before we have to leave,” I said to him, wiping my eyes.

“Do you want to stay with me tonight?” he asked.

It was like he was worried I was suicidal or something, the way he asked, and that pissed me off. “I will be just fine on my own,” I snapped. Then I realized that I’d gone off on him for no reason, and I apologized.

“It’s alright,” he said calmly. I looked at him, and he suddenly seemed so mature, almost serene. Was his armor that thick? Or was he dealing with this that much better than I was? “Get some rest.”

He got up to leave but I grabbed his arm and held him there. “I feel like I’m a drowning man, and I’m afraid that if I grab onto you to save me, I’ll end up drowning both of us.”

“I don’t think it works like that, Dad,” he said. “I think that if we tackle this thing together, it makes us stronger.” I let his arm go, and he leaned in and gave me a nice hug, then walked out. I re-immersed myself in my pillow, and my tears.

I must have actually dozed off, because it startled me when I felt someone climbing into bed with me. At first I thought it was Will, but the body was much heavier, and when he lay on top of me and tried to jam something hard into my ass, I figured it wasn’t him. I turned my head sideways and saw Cody looking at me, more blue eyes, but his were different from Robbie’s. “What are you doing?” I asked, being bitchy.

“You need me,” he said simply. He arched his body up to give me a chance to turn over onto my back, then he lay back down on top of me. I wanted to argue with him, to tell him I was just fine, but I wasn’t.

“It hurts so badly,” I said to him, almost a sob, and then I did sob, breaking down with him like I had with Will. He moved so I was on my side, then he was on his back and he pulled me to him, and held me tightly, making me feel safe, and loved. Cody did love me, and I loved Cody, but not like I loved Robbie. I felt my mind fly off, feeling guilty about that, about using him now when I needed him, then I pulled myself back in. I would do the same thing for him. We understood each other.

“I know,” he said. “I know.”

“We were fighting when he died. Well, not fighting, bickering.”

“You were fighting with him when he was in the tower?” he asked.

“No, before that,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I had a conversation with him when he was trying to get out of the building, and he was talking to me when it collapsed on him.” I buried my face in his chest to blot up the tears.

“Did you bitch at him then?” Cody asked me, a little playfully.

“No. It was really sweet,” I said.

“I talked to Robbie about what an ass you were being,” he told me. That got him a dirty look, but my scowl just made him laugh. “You know what he told me?”

“That he hated me?” I asked, knowing he didn’t.

“No. He said he wasn’t letting this bullshit bother him, because he knew Will would explain it to you one way or another, and then you’d be fine. He knew you so well.”

“He did. But he spent four of our last six nights away from home,” I told him. “That’s time we could have had together.” He looked really nervous because he knew where Robbie had been staying. “You know where he was?”

“I know,” Cody admitted. “It’s just like when Greg died, and I don’t want to deal with that.”

“You mean how after Greg died, and Stef found out that Greg had been fucking around on him with Zach?” I asked. Greg had totally cut out sex with Stef, but he’d been banging this young dude at work, totally cheating on Stef.

“Yeah. I don’t… Shit. I don’t want to talk about this,” Cody said, really upset.

“It’s OK,” I said. “I know about it.”

“What?”

“He was with Alex Danvers, the guy he had me appoint to succeed him as CEO,” I said to him.

“And you were OK with that?” he asked me, stunned.

I smiled weakly. “He came to me a couple of months ago and told me that he was really attracted to him, and asked me if I’d be OK with him fucking around with Alex. I know the guy, and he’s very attractive, and he’s very sexy, and Robbie just wanted a fling.”

He looked at me carefully, as if trying to decide if I was bullshitting him, so I let him look into my eyes and try to read my mind, trying to give him enough of me to think I was telling the truth. “I’m just kind of surprised.”

I sighed. “After that nightmare with Carson, I told him that if there was someone he wanted to do, I’d rather he do it and tell me about it than let the lust just fester in his brain.” I paused, because it had bothered me, but I didn’t want Cody to see that. “He said that when he hit on Alex, Alex wouldn’t do anything without me being cool with it. Alex even called me first.” That was the one thing that had made it palatable; the way Alex had treated me. He’d treated me with respect.

“That’s why he’s the CEO of Anders-Hayes,” Cody said with a sly grin, “and not dead in a gutter.”

“That’s why,” I agreed, grinning back. And then, like a predator moving in for the kill, he grabbed the back of my head and pulled me into a lip lock.

“I want you,” he said in that sexy, guttural way of his. I just nodded, and started ripping my clothes off. He took me on one fun ride, and the whole time I was getting my brains fucked out, for the first time since September 11, I didn’t hurt.

5:15pm

I was having one awesome dream. I drifted along in a state of slumber as I felt a mouth slowly going up and down on my cock, stopping at each stroke to really lick the head, and suck on it harder. Then the mouth went down again, and now my dick was buried in a throat. I moaned and thrust up into the eager mouth, even as I felt my body reach that point of no return. And then two things hit me in quick succession. The first was that I was about to blow my load all over the place, which freaked me out, since I figured that I was having a dream and that meant I’d blast all over my sheets. That was followed closely by my second realization, and that was that this wasn’t a dream, and that someone really was sucking my dick, and doing a really good job at it.

“Ahhh!” I shouted, as I blasted rope after rope of cum down the gullet of whoever was blowing me. It was only after I finished my orgasm that I fully opened my eyes and looked down to see John smiling up at me. I all but grabbed him and pulled him to me, kissing him passionately, so passionately that I ended up tasting some of my own load.

“Dude, I am so glad you’re alive,” he said. A tear fell down his cheek.

“Dude, you made me glad to be alive,” I said, flirting with him, and making him chuckle. “That was really nice, but you didn’t have to do that.”

He shrugged. “Sometimes I’m in the mood to do it. This was one of those times.”

“Whenever the mood hits, come find me,” I said. I reached down and grabbed his hard cock through his jeans. “Can I return the favor?”

“If you want to,” he said, and gave me his adorable smile.

“Fuck yeah, I want to,” I said. He stripped down and lay on the bed, and I started working his cock like I’d done in the past. I knew that I had to take my time or he’d blow pretty quickly, so I did, and took that opportunity to use my hand to play with his balls. He wasn’t really into that, so I moved lower, and when I got to his taint, he got much more responsive. By the time my fingers stroked his hole, he went nuts.

I stopped blowing him and hoisted his hips in the air, splaying his legs apart, and exposing his perfect little hole. Before he could even think about what I was doing, I dove in and started rimming him. “Oh yeah!” he said. I worked his hole, rimming him, and then probing him with my tongue, then rimming him, letting his moans fuel me. I could tell he was into it, but I could also tell he was ready to blow, so I reached around and stroked his cock just a couple of times before he started to shoot his own load. “Fuck!” he shouted, and blasted his wad all over his chest, not that I saw it, because I was too into the feeling of his ass spasming around my tongue.

I let him collapse back onto the bed onto his back, and then licked his cum off his abdomen and chest. “You taste good,” I said.

“So I hear,” he said, raising his eyebrows. I got what he was doing with that comment. He was trying to make sure I knew this was fun for him, but that was it. I laughed, to validate his comment. After we were done laughing, we got serious again.

“Dude, that was a great welcome home. Thanks. You’re my best friend,” I told him sincerely.

“You’re my best friend too,” he said nervously.

“This isn’t like it was in France,” I said. “I know you like chicks. This is just two guys having fun.” His smile told me I’d nailed that just perfectly.

“Since I’m on lockdown, maybe you can help me out from time to time,” he grumbled.

“I’ll help you out anytime you want,” I said, winking at him.

“I’m staying here tonight,” he said. “Maybe longer if Marie doesn’t pull her head out of her ass.”

“What’s going on with her?” I asked.

“It’s hella weird,” he said. “She’s pretty much locked herself in her room since the attacks, not saying shit to anyone. Not even my dad.”

“Yeah, and she’s his favorite kid,” I said, teasing him.

“Not right now,” he said. “Anyway, I gotta go take a shower. I’ll see you at dinner. Everyone will be there.”

“They will,” I agreed, only it just seemed stressful, not festive.

“Happy birthday,” he said, then put on his clothes and left me alone. I took a long shower, so glad to be back in my own room, and then got ready for dinner. I dressed nicer than I usually would, since I knew this would be a big deal. We were the survivors, and everyone wanted to see us. That just made me feel guilty, as if by me surviving, someone else had to die.

I was ready by 6:15, so I went down to check on my father. I knocked on the door but there was no answer, so I opened it up and walked in, only to find my father on his back, with Cody on top of him, pinning my father’s legs back as he fucked him with a really hard but steady rhythm. I paused to admire Cody’s amazing body, especially his cute ass, and then turned to walk away, locking the door behind me as I went. What was with these people and not locking the doors? I sighed, and then walked up to the Great Hall. Maybe Cody could cheer my father up. Shit, if he fucked me like that, he’d probably cheer me up too.

I found Darius there, staring at the painting my father had done after his brother had been killed. “Hey,” I said, and put my arm around his shoulder. He smiled back at me briefly.

“His life has been pretty fucked up,” Darius said, referring to Dad.

“It has,” I agreed, as I let my arm fall off his shoulder. That had been more than enough physical intimacy for Darius.

“Look, I don’t want you to get all pissed off at me, so I’m going to say this, and hope that you won’t,” he said.

“Go on,” I said apprehensively.

“Dude, you two have got to stop this bullshit fighting. You can’t do that anymore, especially now.” He said it earnestly, but cautiously.

“I know,” I said. “And it’s OK that you brought it up.”

“I guess in some ways I’m just as guilty as he is, of not giving you credit for growing up as much as you have,” he said.

“Sometimes I don’t act all that mature,” I admitted. “I think that both Dad and I get what you’re saying. We’ll probably bitch at each other once in a while, but I don’t see us fighting like that again.”

“I’m not saying you have to be a pussy and not stick up for what you think is right,” he said hastily.

“No, I get it. You’re saying that if it’s a big deal, I should make it an issue. But if it’s just some bullshit, I need to blow it off.” He blinked at me. “I actually figured that out before all this happened.”

“What happened?”

“I found out that Dad really can’t overturn my emancipation. So now I feel pretty much in control of myself and my situation, and I know he can’t really threaten it. Since I’m not threatened, I don’t freak out about what he says,” I told him.

“Dude, sometimes you are just too intense about shit,” he said, shaking his head at me.

“Whatever,” I said, but he grinned at me, and I grinned back. While I was looking at him, I saw another person walk into the Great Hall, and that turned my grin into a smile. “I’ll catch up with you later,” I said to Darius, and headed toward this new visitor.

“Yeah right,” he said, giving me shit.

I hadn’t seen Jeff Grimes for a while, since the beginning of the summer. He’d been taking classes in LA, and it seemed that when I was there, he was in Hawaii, and when I was in Hawaii, he was somewhere else. I’d almost forgotten how strong my feelings for him were, and how important he was to me, but seeing him here, looking as amazing as he always did, brought that all back. He actually looked a little like Robbie: his blond hair and eyes were almost the same color as Robbie’s. And he had an amazing body like Robbie’s, the kind that was so soft on the surface but so hard underneath. I walked up to him and didn’t say anything; I just hugged him, all but wrapping myself around him.

Somehow seeing him, feeling his strong arms pulling me in and hugging me back, let loose a trigger in me, and I completely lost control. One minute I was happy to see him, and the next minute, I’ve got my face buried in his neck, sobbing like the biggest pussy around. He just held me and stroked my back, and it wasn’t until I pulled away from him that I saw he was crying too. “You scared the shit out of me,” he said.

I nodded, and then smiled, even as I wiped my tears away, then his. “Are you my birthday present?” I asked, flirting.

“I am,” he confirmed. “Want to unwrap me?”

“Fuck yeah,” I said, and just the thought of being with him had made me hard as a rock. “But we have to eat first.”

“After dinner, then,” he said, in his sexy voice.

“I am so glad you’re here,” I told him. “You don’t know how happy I am to see you.”

“Sure I do,” he said, being cocky, and making me laugh.

“Tomorrow we go to Santa Cruz,” I said. “You’re coming with me.”

“I am?”

“You are,” I said firmly. He looked over at the big grandfather clock, and it read 6:45.

“Come on,” he said. He dragged me into the powder room off the Great Hall, locked the door, and for the next seven and a half minutes he performed some amazing sexual healing on me. We barely had time to straighten out our appearances and get our breathing back under control when we heard the clock start to chime the seven o’clock hour in.

We walked out of the bathroom and headed into the crowded dining room.