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9.11 - 53. Chapter 53
September 29, 2001
Malibu, CA
“You sure you don’t mind me sleeping here?” John asked.
“No,” I said. “I like having you here.” I felt myself blushing, even as I said that.
“Dude, Ryan and Shiloh remind me of Darius and Ella,” he said, making me chuckle. We’d hung out at the Santa Monica Pier with them tonight.
“Will and Zach are almost as bad,” I grumbled. They’d been totally into each other, and while it probably looked like they were just buds to the rest of the world, it was obvious to the rest of us that they were fucking.
“I cannot believe Will is with him,” John said, shaking his head. “That dude is bad news.”
“I told you that he’d show Will his dragon, and Will would melt,” I joked, making him laugh.
“His dragon wasn’t all that big,” John teased.
“No shit,” I agreed, making us laugh some more. We lay in bed, bullshitting for awhile, mostly making fun of Will and Zach, until John yawned.
“Night,” he said, and rolled over on his side, facing away from me.
“Night,” I said, and did the same thing. It was like the same thing we’d done Friday night, in that he waited for a little bit, then rolled over and spooned up behind me. It was really sweet, and I really appreciated having him here.
Only tonight, something was different. I could feel it in the way he held me, in the way his hand gently stroked my chest instead of just sitting there. He sighed and moved closer to me, so I could feel something poking me in the ass. It was his hard dick; it wasn’t in my crack, but it was jabbed against my cheek. I could feel how horny he was, and that excited and terrified me. His hands moved ever so slowly across my chest until I felt his fingers flit across my nipple. My body reacted on its own, as I moaned and moved back into him.
My moan had encouraged him, and now I felt his lips on my neck, and his nose was nuzzling behind my ear. I moaned again, but more intensely, and now I was putty in his hands. Or hand, I should say, as he slid his hand seductively down my abdomen, teasing my belly button and making me giggle, then lower, until it found my hard dick poking out of my boxers. “Nice,” he said, and began to slowly and sensuously stroke me.
Almost as soon as he started, he brought me off. “Aaahhh!” I said loudly, in what sounded like a scream to me, but probably wasn’t, as I blew my load in his hand. I lay there panting and shaking, totally overwhelmed with the pleasure he’d given me.
He rolled away from me and lay on his back, then pulled off his boxers. He spread his legs wide and used my cum to lubricate his shaft as he stroked his own cock. I rolled over onto my side and stared at him, amazed at how cute he was. I wanted to reach out and touch him, but I couldn’t. It was like my body wouldn’t let me. “Ungh!” he cried, and blasted his own load all over his chest. I just stared, transfixed at the sight of him in ecstasy.
He smiled at me sheepishly, then got up and went to the bathroom. I heard the sink running, and then the faucet turned off. He came sauntering out, all cleaned up, and smiled at me. “Thanks for helping me out.”
“Dude, thank you,” I said. I rolled back over onto my back and thought about what had just happened. That was the first sexual encounter I’d had with another dude that wasn’t forced on me. I liked it. I liked it a lot. But then the memories of those other times flooded back, and as hard as I tried to stop the tears, I couldn’t. I rolled over further, so I was back on my side facing away from him again.
He must have seen me crying, or heard me. “Are you OK?”
“I’m fine,” I said, but it was a lie, since I was crying and my voice cracked.
“I’m sorry about that. I thought it was fun,” he said, all upset.
“It was,” I objected.
“I should probably go,” he said, misinterpreting my emotional state and thinking I was upset with him. He started to get out of bed but I rolled over and grabbed his hand, squeezing way too hard.
“No!” I said, probably more of a shout. He gave me a worried look. “I need you to stay here.” I had to sound freakishly desperate at that point. I probably was.
“You sure?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “I just remembered something that made me sad. It wasn’t you.”
“It’s cool,” he said. “You have a lot of shit to deal with.”
I nodded, and then let him hug me. I fell asleep like that, in his arms, and I felt safe and loved; but when I woke up in the morning, he was already up, and that made me sad, wondering if by freaking out, I’d damaged our friendship.
September 30, 2001
Malibu, CA
I lay on my back while Zach all but hopped up and down on my cock, his ass massaging it like one of those massage chairs. “Fuck!” I yelled, as I blasted my load into the condom, yet one more amazing orgasm this guy had given me. He didn’t stop for a minute, but just kept on going, determined to get off before my dick got too sensitive.
I smiled at him as his eyes rolled back in his head and his dick got even bigger, so big it was red and pulsing. I reached up and grabbed it, stroking it a few times, and he lost it, shooting his seed out with such a force that the first few blasts splattered all over my face, while the rest of it made a small lake on my chest. He sat on my dick, panting, trying to catch his breath. “That was good,” he said with a smile, cracking me up.
“Good?” I asked playfully, as I pushed him off me. “Fucking great, you mean.”
“Maybe,” he said, as I shook my head. I got up and headed to the elevator, and felt his footsteps behind me. His body pressed against mine as we descended to the lower level. “You’ve been fucking amazing this weekend.”
“So have you,” I said, even as I giggled like a girl. We walked into the bathroom and straight into the shower. It was a fun shower, where I got to enjoy myself by washing his studly body. When we’d first hooked up, he’d been all withdrawn, with all these rules about not wanting to kiss me, and not wanting to show any sign of affection at all, but I’d cured him of that pretty quickly. Now he was genuinely intimate, leaning in to kiss me a few times as we bathed. It was almost like he’d learned to relax. I snickered to myself, thinking of how I’d had to teach Tony and Kyle to do that, too. I was getting pretty good at training men.
We got out of the shower and got dressed, then spent some time in front of the mirror making sure we looked good. “Dude, you are so hot,” he said, as he nibbled on the back of my neck.
“So are you,” I said lamely, even as I started to get hard all over again. “What’s on your agenda for the day?” I asked, to change the subject so I didn’t end up fucking him again.
“We’re flying out after breakfast,” he grumbled.
“Bummer. We’re heading out soon too,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure exactly what our schedule was. I wanted to get back to Paly and get organized since I had school tomorrow.
“Thanks for showing me a good time this weekend,” he said.
“Thanks for showing me you’re not a complete asshole,” I joked. Only he didn’t laugh, and then I felt bad. “Dude, I was joking.”
He shrugged, and made to leave, but I stopped him. “I don’t let my guard down with many people, but I let it down with you.” He said that in an almost belligerent way, like he was pissed at me.
“Yeah, you did, and it was awesome,” I said. “But don’t go getting all moody on me.” I led him over to the couch and sat down with him.
“I’m hungry,” he bitched, to avoid talking to me.
“What do you want me to say to you? That I like you?”
“Do you?” he asked, and shot me his playful grin. It hid the insecurities behind the mask, the fear that I didn’t.
“Yeah, I do.” Now the grin got more genuine. “I like you enough to invite you out to visit sometime.”
“You mean you’re gonna fly me out here just so you can fuck me?” he asked, acting like the wolf that he was.
“Yeah,” I said. He leaned in and kissed me.
“I’ll bet I take you up on it,” he said, leering at me.
“You’ve got all kinds of money now, so you can pay to fly your own bad self out here,” I teased.
“I don’t have shit,” he groused.
“You’ve got a million bucks in a trust.”
“Yeah, but I won’t see a dime of it until I’m twenty-five,” he said. I stared at him, challenging that with my eyes. “My mom and dad think that if I have zero cash I won’t get into any trouble.”
“Did you have cash before?” I asked.
“Duh,” he said, to emphasize how stupid that theory was. “And then when Gathan’s in charge, I won’t get shit for sure. He hates my guts.”
“Why does he hate you?” I asked, because it seemed like he did.
“Because I’m the only one in the family who’s even close to giving him any competition. You’ve seen my brother and my cousins. They’re total dorks. They have looks, or brains, or they’re athletic, but not all three. Only Gathan and I have that going on.”
“You’re saying he’s jealous of you?” That didn’t really seem like Gathan, but then again, he was pretty high-testosterone.
“I’m his only rival, so he has to slap me down. He’s done it all my life, and he’ll do it again with this trust. That’s why I was so pissed off when I heard he was the one taking over. It’s like they’re all saying he won. And he’ll be able to hang this over my head until I’m thirty fucking years old. That’s a fucking eternity.”
“Yeah, but you did fuck up pretty bad these past six months,” I said.
“You think he never fucked up? He just managed to hide it better than I did.” He got all pensive. “He’s not as extreme as me, so he didn’t take things as far as I did. But he still fucked up.”
“We all do,” I said, a stupid platitude. “Maybe he’ll do better. Besides, my dad will keep him in line until he takes over.”
“He’s got your whole family trained to be his bitch, just like he did with my parents,” he spat. He must have seen me get all pissed off and defensive at that, so he explained, or tried to. “He comes off like this Mr. Goody Two Shoes responsible dude, and then they all love him and think he’s the bomb, and then he can fuck the rest of us over for the fun of it.”
“I haven’t seen Gathan do that,” I said. “Maybe he’s different now.”
“Yeah, and maybe a cow just flew out of my ass,” he snapped.
“Want me to check?” I flirted, making him chuckle, and bringing him out of his bad mood.
“Let’s eat, and see if we have time for one more fuck before I leave.”
“You’re on,” I said, and we raced out of my room and down the stairs. They’d set up a buffet this morning, since there were so many of us. We filled up our plates with food and carried them into the dining room and sat there eating, ignoring the other people around us. We went back for seconds, stuffing food into our mouths until we were full.
“You ready to go?” Wally asked Zach.
“I just gotta get my stuff together. I’ll be ready in fifteen minutes,” he said.
“Then go do it,” Wally said gruffly.
“I’ll help you,” I said. He’d already packed up. We ran back up to my room and in no time at all, I had a condom on and I was plowing his sweet ass again. Fifteen minutes later found us in the foyer, looking flushed, with Zach toting his bag over his shoulder. “Take care of yourself,” I said. I gave him a big hug, one which he returned.
“You too,” he said. I watched him carefully, and his eyes were actually watery as he strode out to the limo, as if he was anxious to get to the car before the others noticed. I said goodbye to Wally, Clara, and the rest of their brood, then made to walk up the stairs to my room.
“We are planning to have lunch at one, and then we are heading back,” Stef said.
“Sounds good,” I said. I went back upstairs, changed my sheets, and took a long nap. My alarm woke me up at noon, but I hit the snooze button and just lay there, smiling at how much I’d enjoyed Zach. The second time the alarm went off, I hit it and went down to the bathroom to spiff up my hair. I managed to make it down to lunch at 1:02, which didn’t worry me too much, since the schedule in Malibu was never as rigid as the schedule at Escorial.
“I was worried I was going to have to send someone up to roust you,” Stef said with a smile.
“Is that an atomic clock?” I asked, looking at the timepiece that said I was late and challenging its accuracy.
“It is not,” he said. “But we are leaving at 1:45, as determined by that clock, so you would be wise to eat with some alacrity.” I almost laughed at him for using big words like that. It showed how close he and Grand really were, the way they picked up on each other’s vocabulary. Stef would use big words from time to time, and Grand would sometimes state his sentences in a slightly backward way, like Stef did. It was cute.
“I’ll make it,” I said. I sat down and grabbed a couple of sandwiches and started eating, and only after I’d gulped one down did I bother to look around the table. I was getting some pretty unpleasant looks from John and JJ and from Gathan too. It was funny, because if we’d stared at JJ like that, he’d ultimately get all annoyed and lash out at us, but I wasn’t going to give them that satisfaction. Grand was reading something intently, while Darius was trying to ignore everyone. Instead of dealing with them, I focused on my father. “So we still going to Hawaii next weekend?”
“That’s my plan,” he said. He was doing better than he had been, but that wasn’t saying much. He was still down, but in a hollow, lifeless kind of way. It was like he was just going through the motions.
“Awesome!” I said enthusiastically, trying to prop him up. I was glad he was going, because surfing definitely seemed to be good for him. It was almost a shame we weren’t staying here in Malibu next to the waves, but if we did, he’d be reminded of Robbie, and that would be really hard on him. I’d have to think of something else besides surfing to drag his mind away from his pain.
“I was wondering if you would mind if we joined you?” Stef asked.
“You don’t have to ask,” I said pleasantly. “Who are ‘we’?”
“JP and I,” he said. Grand looked up from his journal briefly and nodded, then resumed reading it. “Unless the rest of you want to go as well?”
“I’ve got to catch up on my homework,” Gathan said. That made sense, even though he seemed kind of bitchy about it.
“Will Zach be there?” JJ asked snidely.
“I don’t know,” I said calmly, ignoring his taunt. “I haven’t invited him. Yet.”
“Your house should be complete when we get there,” Stef said, to move us beyond JJ’s bitchiness.
“That’s what I heard,” I said. Malcolm had called me and told me they’d have it done this week. I think they’d moved up their timetable to do that for me, to try and help me get over the nightmare that was 9-11. That wouldn’t do it, but it was really thoughtful anyway.
“Well if Zach’s going to be there, I’m not going,” JJ said, in his smarmiest way. I could read him perfectly, as well as I could read Zach. He was in one of his shit-disturbing moods, and he was determined to bug me about Zach until he started an argument.
“Then don’t go,” I said to him simply, knowing that would annoy him more than anything. It really got to him when he was trying to bug someone and it didn’t work.
“So are you with him now?” Gathan asked me.
So now he was jumping on the bandwagon of people trying to piss me off? What the fuck was wrong with these people. “With who?”
“With Zach,” he said in a nasty way, and then kind of exploded. “You don’t know how dangerous he is. He set Kristen up that night I busted her blowing that dude. He’s evil.”
“How do you know he set her up?” I asked, wondering if he had proof.
“It was pretty obvious,” he said dismissively, like I should believe his conclusions without him having to tell me why.
“Explain it to me,” I said, glaring at him. I noticed that Grand appeared to be tuned out of our conversation, but I knew he was listening. Stef had that expression on his face that said he was amused, because he enjoyed a little controversy, as long as it didn’t get out of hand. My dad looked on nervously, while Darius looked annoyed, probably because he didn’t like Gathan all that much, and because he didn’t want to hear about my sex life. JJ, on the other hand, was happy as could be, now that he’d engineered the perfect situation. He’d gotten Gathan to fight the battle for him, only since he didn’t like Gathan, he’d be thrilled that all my anger would be directed at Gathan and not him.
Just as I’d pretty much analyzed the battlefield, John decided to step in. He and JJ had been all into each other this weekend, so it figured he’d bust my balls too. “So now you’re going to defend him?”
“Defend him from what?” And with that, they’d managed to piss me off. “Who the fuck are you people to question me anyway? Who gave you the right to decide who I decide to sleep with?”
“We’re just worried about you,” Gathan said sheepishly, and the others looked away, avoiding my eyes since they knew they’d managed to really fire me up.
“I can take care of myself,” I said. “But for the record, he was nice to me, I was nice to him, and we had a great time together.”
“I think what they are trying to do is explain that they’ve had bad experiences with him in the past, and they don’t want you to get hurt,” Dad said nervously, knowing he was walking into an argument that he shouldn’t. But he was pretty wounded, so I let his comment slide. If he’d have said that to me a month ago, I’d have focused totally on him and just let him have it. That momentarily freaked me out, but I put it aside, telling myself I’d think about our twisted relationship later.
“I’ve had bad experiences with him in the past too,” I said as I looked straight at John. That was enough to shut him up, so I turned back to the others. “So I should just write him off, and not give him another chance? That’s it? Is that how you all operate? One mistake, and that’s it, you’re done?”
“Look, I grew up with him, and I know him,” Gathan said. “What did he ask you for? What did he hit you up for?” He asked me that with a knowing look, as if he was sure Zach was milking me for some cash. He was patronizing me, and he was seriously fueling my temper.
I looked at Gathan intensely, so he could see how annoyed I was with him. “He didn’t ask me for anything. Not a goddam thing.”
“He will,” Gathan said, being smarmy. “You watch. He will.”
“He probably will,” I said. “So what?”
“He’ll take advantage of you,” he said.
“He’ll take advantage of me? Seriously? How’s he going to do that?” I asked him.
“He’ll start out by being really nice to you, then he’ll ask you for shit, and when you don’t give him what he wants, he’ll work you and work you until you do,” he said. I blinked at him, so amazed that he thought that would work with me.
“You know what really pisses me off about this?” I asked loudly, loudly enough to get a slightly annoyed look from Grand. “You guys are all assuming that I’m too stupid to figure him out. You think he’s smarter than me, and that I’m some vulnerable princess in his hands.”
“You’re definitely no princess,” Darius said, chuckling, and I actually smiled briefly at that.
“That’s not what I’m saying...” Gathan started.
I cut him off. “Here’s the deal. Let me lay this out for you assholes. I’m just as smart as you are,” I said, glaring at him, “and I’m probably smarter than you are,” I said, glaring at John, “and I know I’m smarter than you are,” I said, glaring at JJ, and really pissing him off. “So you three can just bite me.”
“Fine,” Gathan said. “Fine. If you don’t want me to care about you, that’s just fine.”
“Look at you, throwing that emotional blackmail shit at me. Did you do that to Zach? Maybe that’s why he was such a dick to you.” I knew that would really get him going, and it did. I looked at my father. “You set up a trust for Zach, and you’re going to put him in charge of it? How is that fair? He won’t use that money to help Zach. He’ll keep it from him and use it like a weapon.”
“I will not!” Gathan said.
“Oh no? You think he’s scum. Why would you cut him a check to help him out?” I asked.
“I’m hoping that maybe he’ll change,” he said all self-righteously.
“Well maybe he already has, and you just haven’t given him a chance to show you that he has,” I said.
“I trust Gathan’s judgment,” Dad said.
“He certainly is good at judging,” I agreed, but not how he meant it. “Takes after Robbie’s mom. Must be a Hayes family trait.” I hadn’t meant to say that, to insert Robbie into this and to take us to that extremely sad place.
“You really think he’s changed? You really think that?” Gathan demanded, and he did it loudly enough that Grand cleared his throat.
“I do,” I said.
“Since when?” he asked me, being a smartass. “Since when did he have this big epiphany?” I raised my eyebrow to mock him for using such a big word.
“Who are his heroes?” I asked. “Who did he look up to?”
That stopped him cold, because he knew, and he didn’t want to name them. Only we were all looking at him, so he didn’t really have a choice. He sat there silently, not answering me, until it became uncomfortable. “The car is here to take us to the plane,” Stef said, trying to save him.
“I’m not going anywhere until he answers my question,” I said firmly, throwing down the gauntlet.
“Jeff and Robbie,” Gathan mumbled. Zach had lain there after one of our orgasms and told me all about Jeff Hayes and what a great football player he was, but with Robbie it was less about football and more about his overall success in life.
“I don’t know about you, asshole, but if one of the guys I admired the most, if one of my heroes died, it would pretty much change how I looked at things,” I spat at him. And then we all got somber again, as we realized that when Robbie died, we’d all indeed lost one of our heroes.
“You act like he cares about you, he doesn’t,” Gathan insisted. “He doesn’t have feelings for anyone but himself.”
“I know he’s totally into himself, and I know that he probably doesn’t really give a shit about me.” I didn’t really believe that; I knew he did care about people in a weird, stunted way. “But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that he has feelings. So why should I step on them? Why should I try to kick him in the balls, just to hurt him? How is that the right thing to do?”
“You haven’t seen how he works,” Gathan said.
“Yeah, I have,” I said, and stared at John, making him feel like shit again, since I sensed he was getting ready to jump back into this fray. That neutered him, so I turned my attention back to Gathan. “Dude, are you going to carry a grudge forever? You’re never going to give him a chance?”
“Whatever,” Gathan said, to try and end the conversation, and to more or less admit defeat.
“So when he asks you for money from his trust, what are you going to say?” I asked, since he’d dodged that point.
“It’s up to Wally and Clara,” Dad said. “That’s how I set it up.” He suddenly seemed to realize that he’d inserted himself into this nightmare dynamic that was the Hayes family.
“Has he asked them, or you, for money yet?” I demanded. Dad didn’t say anything, but he did glance at Gathan, which threatened to really set me off. “Has he?”
“He asked us for money to buy a car,” Dad said, as if that was the worst possible thing he could ever do.
“And what did you say?”
“If they buy him a car, he’ll get into all kinds of trouble,” Gathan said. “Just like he did in Claremont.”
“He didn’t have a car in Claremont, and he got in trouble there,” I said logically. I saw Grand trying not to smile at my reasoning.
“He’s in a good environment there, where his host family can keep an eye on him,” Gathan said.
“Sounds like he’s in jail,” I said dourly.
“It’s not like that,” Gathan said.
“Regardless, he’s not in Claremont now, he’s back east,” I said. “Maybe since he’s not living at home, he needs a way to get around.” Did none of these brain trusts ever stop to think about that?
“Wally and Clara think he’s doing just fine,” Dad said, as if Wally and Clara Hayes were the brightest beacons on the planet. Like being Claremont’s best sanitation engineer made Wally an expert on teen psychology.
I looked at Stef. “I’m going to go get in the limo. Is Gathan going with us, or is he going to the airport on his high horse?” I glanced at JJ to notice he was enjoying this immensely.
“Ha ha ha,” Gathan said sarcastically. “How’d you get around the fact that he grabs his ankles like a pro, and then claims he’s not gay?”
“How do you know he does that?” I challenged. Was Gathan fucking around with Zach? It sure seemed like it, at least from the way he was freaking out. I tried to ignore how hot that would be.
“Let’s go,” Dad said, now totally frustrated by our conversation. We all headed out to the limo and piled in.
“In the end, you’ll see I’m right about him,” Gathan said all self-righteously.
“But for right now, I just think you’re a douchebag,” I said to him. Darius and JJ both tried to hide their smiles.
October 1, 2001
Escorial
I came into the dining room just as the clock struck 7:00. I was a little out of breath, which made Stef raise an eyebrow. “And what have you been doing?”
“It’s a surprise,” I said, smiling.
“For whom?” Grand asked.
“For Dad,” I said, looking at him.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I’ll show you after dinner,” I promised. “Where are Wade and Matt?”
“They had a late hockey practice and went out to eat with all the goons,” Tiffany said.
“That’s why we can’t get any ice time in the evenings,” JJ said, being snippy.
“So after dinner, I have to see this surprise, then we have to review those deals,” Dad said to Stef.
“I think they can wait until tomorrow,” Stef said.
“I’d like to get them out of the way. Tomorrow we’ll be engrossed in planning the big move,” he said.
“Move?” I asked curiously.
“With the continuing downturn in IPO activity here in the Valley, we were able to acquire new headquarters at a bargain price,” Stef said.
“You didn’t tell us about this?” I asked, pretty shocked.
He shrugged. “It did not seem like something we should really emphasize.” In other words, with all the crap we’d been through with 9-11, moving into new offices was a bit too festive.
“When is moving day?” I asked.
“We are in the midst of building out the space,” Stef said. “That is where we reorganize the internal walls and offices to suit our organization.”
“Where is this new building?” Darius asked.
“On Sand Hill Road,” Dad said. “Pretty much all the venture capital firms are there, but we’ve always had our headquarters in Los Altos. This puts us in the center of things, and it’s closer to home.” I noted how he referred to Escorial as ‘home’.
“We probably should have made this move a long time ago,” Stef said, “but we were so comfortable in our other building.”
“Will you be there tomorrow?” I asked him.
“For some of the day,” he said. “Why?”
“I want to stop by and see it after school,” I told him.
“Call me when you are on your way,” he said simply.
“Perhaps I will join you as well,” Grand said. I looked at him carefully, and it seemed that he was as surprised by this as I was. They hadn’t even told Grand?
“So when did this deal go down?” I asked.
“We were able to snap up the building and close on it during the first week of September,” Dad said. “It was a good deal, so we bought the building, but we hadn’t decided if we were moving there or not until recently.”
“Recently?” I asked.
“Until last week,” he said.
“You seem reluctant to explain your reasoning,” Grand said, letting Dad and Stef know that these flippant replies weren’t going to work.
Dad sighed. “The NASDAQ is in the toilet, but Stef thinks it’s hit the bottom, or it’s near there. We think that after the initial 9-11 attack aftermath, the markets will rebound. We want to build up the firm, to be ready for new opportunities.” He and Stef both looked sheepish, as if somehow they were predators, trying to cash in on the horror that was the terror attacks.
“Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do in business? Spot opportunities and take advantage of them?” I asked.
“Rape and pillage, you mean,” Tiffany said in her smarmy way.
“Right,” Dad said, but I’d given him and Stef a pass to not be down about this.
“I will look forward to seeing your new halls of capitalism,” Grand pronounced, making us chuckle.
Dinner was nice after that, but as soon as we were done, Dad was all over me. “So what’s this surprise?” He was so funny, and so predictable. He hated secrets that he didn’t know. Stef and I shared a meaningful smile.
“An early birthday present,” I said. I led them down the hall, Grand, Dad, and Stef, and they picked up on where I was going pretty quickly. We got to the door to the attic and I opened it, leading them up the stairs.
Dad walked in and looked around curiously, since not much had really changed since the days when it had been modified into a studio for him. “What’s different?”
“You haven’t been up here for a while,” I said. “All your paint was old, and so was your canvas, so I replaced it. It’s all pretty much the same; it’s just that your supplies are new.”
Dad opened the drawers and looked at the new tubes of paint and smiled. “Thanks. That was a really thoughtful present.”
“I thought it might give you something to do in your spare time,” I said. And it might help him to heal some of his wounds. And with that, he ignored us, and started setting up a framed piece of canvas on the easel, then began to get his paint out and blend colors together. We left him there, leaving silently, and he didn’t seem to notice we were gone.
“That was a very good idea, and a very nice thing to do,” Stef said, smiling at me.
“There’s no ocean, so he needed something to do besides surfing,” I said nonchalantly. Grand patted my back as we walked down the hall, a very warm and validating gesture.
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Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
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