9.11 - 63. Chapter 63

October 27, 2001

New Jersey

Zach and I were lying in bed, panting after fucking yet again, when the phone rang. “Hello,” I said, trying to hide the fact that I was damn near hyperventilating.

“You sound out of breath,” Dad teased.

“Is it your mission in life to be a buzz-kill, or did you call for a reason?” I asked, annoyed at him for giving me shit about it. Zach was pretty paranoid about people knowing we fucked, and he hadn’t said anything about my dad, but like most things, I could almost sense his mood, and I could tell that it bugged him that my dad knew.

“I was heading down to meet Wally and Clara for breakfast,” he said, using his task-oriented voice. “I thought I’d see if you wanted to join us.” Food sounded good. Real good.

“We’ll get ready and meet you there,” I said, then hung up. “Food with the ’rents,” I said to Zach.

“Time for a quick shower?”

“A quick one,” I said. “We can do a longer one after breakfast if you want.”

“We have to get going after breakfast,” he said, and looked at the clock meaningfully.

“You have to go, not me,” I said, being lazy. But food was a big motivator, so I got up and followed him into the shower, admiring his cute little ass.

“Nope, you have to go too,” he said. “It’s part of your surprise.”

“That’s right,” I said, smiling, even as we washed off in the shower. “Every time you’re supposed to tell me about that surprise, you avoid the issue by forcing me to fuck you.”

“Forcing you?” he challenged.

“Well, in a way,” I joked, cracking him up. “So what’s the surprise?”

“I’ll show you,” he said. He got out of the shower and dried off, then walked over to his bag and pulled out a jersey. “Here.”

I took the jersey from him and looked at it. The front of it had his school markings on it. The Don Bosco Ironmen. I laughed. “The Ironmen?”

“Don’t you think I’m an ironman?” he asked, and gestured to his cock which had started to rise. I giggled. “Turn it around.”

I turned it around and it had SCHLUTER on the back, with the number, 00. “You got me a jersey?” I asked, totally enthused. What a cool present.

“You’re an honorary team member,” he said, grinning. “You get to sit on the sideline during the game.”

“Seriously?” I asked, stunned. “How the fuck did you swing that?”

“We needed a thousand bucks for updated jerseys with our names on them, so I took some of my cash and donated it, but I told them that you did it,” he said. I just stared at him, amazed on so many levels. It was too confusing to even think about. “I told the coach that I wanted to get a jersey for you for doing it, and when he found out who you were, he made you an honorary team member.”

“Who I was?” I asked, even more puzzled.

“He knows that dude’s family, the guy whose funeral you went to in Bayonne.”

“Joey Martinelli,” I said sadly, remembering him. He put his hand on my shoulder to bolster me. I pulled myself out of my funk and just looked at him, almost dazed. “Thanks. That was just an amazing thing to do.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, and kissed me.

“I’ll give you the thousand bucks,” I promised.

“No,” he insisted. “I got it covered. Least I could do after you bought me a fucking SUV, and figured out how to have it registered in Ohio.”

“In a lot of ways, what you did is a lot nicer than that,” I said. I felt myself getting choked up.

“Dude, the Durango cost more than a thousand bucks,” he insisted.

“Yeah, but I’m a little richer than you,” I said, smiling at him. But then a tear fell out of my eye. I had to get over being a big pussy.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, and wrapped his strong arms around me.

“My dad, my family, they do a lot of nice stuff for me, but it’s not that often that a friend does. It just means a lot,” I said, saying what I wanted to say in probably a totally wrong way, but he got it.

“I wanted you to know how important you are to me,” he said.

“You made your point,” I said, smiling. “Now let’s go eat.” I slipped the jersey over my sweatshirt and went downstairs. We found Dad with Wally and Clara, working on the last stages of their breakfast.

Dad looked at me and smiled. “Nice jersey.”

“You think it looks good from this angle, check this out,” I said, and spun around.

“Does this mean you’re playing today?” he joked.

“Only if it’s water football,” I teased. Wally and Clara looked at us and seemed concerned. “It means that I get to sit on the sidelines, though, so I don’t have to hang out in the bleachers with you. That makes it even more awesome.” He rolled his eyes at me.

“That’s very nice,” Clara said nervously. What were they freaked out about now? Christ. Those two worried about fucking everything. Zach and I ignored them and sat down to eat. The waiter took our order pretty promptly, and was a little surprised at how much food we asked for. He’d be even more surprised when we ate it all.

“So I’m riding with Zach,” I explained to my father, “which means you’ll need to meet the car downstairs at ten. That’s going to take you over to where Zach lives. We’ll meet you there. ”

“That’s fine,” he said. He looked hollow, almost like Frank. He was not doing well.

“Then we’re leaving for the game, and the car will bring you over there when you’re done hanging out with Zach’s host family,” I continued, making sure they all knew the drill. “The game starts at 2:00.”

“I need to be at the field by 1:00,” Zach said, more to let me know our schedule.

“Sounds good,” I said, and we all got up and headed out front. I greeted the limo driver, who would be dealing with them for the whole day.

“What are you going to do after the game?” I asked Dad.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll probably just stay here at the hotel.”

“Oh my,” Clara exclaimed. “I forgot that gift I brought.”

“Well run up and get it,” Wally said to her in his irritated tone. I was surprised that he was annoyed she’d forgotten it: he should be used to shit like that by now. Clara wasn’t the brightest person around. Wally and Dad climbed into the limo.

“Ready?” Zach asked me.

“Just a minute,” I told him, and then went over to talk to the limo driver. He was a black guy, probably in his early forties. “I’m Will Schluter.”

“You’re the guy that set this all up,” he said, looking at his paper. “I’m Monte.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said, and shook his hand. “You’ve got my cell phone number right there.” I pointed to it.

“I do,” he confirmed.

“My father lost his partner when the towers fell,” I told him. “He’s not handling it real well.”

“Tough time,” he said sadly. I nodded.

“If he asks you to take him somewhere out of the ordinary, I want you to call me,” I told him.

“What’s out of the ordinary?”

I thought about that. “If he wants you to take him to Manhattan, that’s out of the ordinary.”

“Not for most people who have a limo in Jersey,” he said.

“For him, that would be a big deal,” I said. He wasn’t really tracking with me. “Look, he’s really not doing well, and I’m worried about him. If he goes there, it means he’s hurting pretty bad. Alright?”

He seemed to get where I was coming from. “Got it.”

“Thanks,” I said, then went over to where Zach was impatiently waiting.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m just worried about my dad,” I admitted.

“He doesn’t look real good,” Zach agreed. “He’s got that empty look.” It was the same look that Frank had all the time. We hopped in the Durango and drove over to his house. It was a well-maintained two-story house in a nice neighborhood, and looked like the picture of standard suburban living.

The limo wasn’t too far behind us, so we all invaded the house at pretty much the same time. Gary and Anna Piehl were Zach’s host parents. They were in their mid 40s, and had raised a son and a daughter, both of whom were in college now. I got the feeling that they’d taken Zach in to fight the void created by having their kids go away to school. They kept referring to their ‘empty nest before Zach got here’. Gary was an engineer, and looked kind of dorky, while Anna stayed at home and raised the kids. She clicked with Clara right away.

Zach had a nice room, and they seemed like good people. It was pretty much all he, and we, could have hoped for. We hung around with them until noon, and then left for the game. “They seem like nice people,” I said.

“They are,” Zach agreed. “I’m worried about leaving the Piehls and my parents alone together.”

“Why?”

“Things are going really well. I can pretty much do my own thing, and as long as I don’t get outrageous, they don’t bust me up for shit,” he said. “I’m worried that my mom and dad will try to get them to put all these extra rules on me.”

“Like what?”

“An earlier curfew, rules about who can come over and hang out with me, shit like that,” he said.

“Not much you can do about it now,” I said fatalistically. He gave me an unpleasant look. “Maybe you’ll get lucky.”

“Maybe,” he said dubiously. We drove through McDonald’s and grabbed some burgers, then went to Oradel to get ready for the game. Zach introduced me to the coach, and to a bunch of the players. They all seemed like nice guys. I left them alone, avoiding the locker room since I didn’t want to get caught perving on Zach’s teammates, and found a place outside to hang out alone.

My brain was racing at about a million miles an hour and it seemed like no matter what I thought about, it was complicated. My mind shifted to Zach, because he was the most complicated of all. Just thinking about him made me smile. I’d sworn that I wasn’t going to trust him, that I wasn’t going to fall into his web, but he was just being so fucking awesome, that was hard to do. In a lot of ways, he reminded me of Robbie, but that was probably mostly due to some of the common mannerisms and features they had, like those gorgeous violet eyes. But they were very different people. Robbie had been a really nice guy with a pretty twisted psyche that made him kind of spastic. He and my dad had a volatile relationship, and I didn’t want to sign up for that ride. Robbie could be stubborn, and he could also be a major pussy. He’d also let his emotions completely override his logical mind. I remembered back to how he’d been with JJ, and how he’d treated my father when they’d broken up in November of 1999. It was like there was some weird drug that poured into his brain and made him completely avoid reason.

Zach wasn’t like that. He didn’t seem like he was stubborn, and he didn’t seem like a pussy. He was the kind of guy who went out and got what he wanted. There was an edge to him, a kind of nastiness that told me he was capable of being ruthless if he wanted or needed to be. I could tell that even when he was playing around. He’d start out being obnoxious, and then ultimately get more playful; like he did yesterday in the shower. Just when he’d started to piss me off with the shower wand, he’d backed off and made it fun. I got the feeling that if he needed to be cruel, he could do it.

So he was driven, out to achieve his goals, and ruthless if he had to be. Did that make him a bad person? Didn’t my family do the same thing? My father was like a bulldozer when someone blocked his path, and Stef and Grand were no better, just less confrontational. I decided that those traits didn’t make him a bad person, especially when I factored in how nice he was treating me. He’d been amazing since we’d first hooked up at Robbie’s memorial, talking to me on the phone all the time, being a friend to me and getting me off with incredible phone sex. The only thing sexier than his voice was his body.

And then he’d done this, gotten me this jersey and made me part of the team. That was really symbolic, since this team was pretty much everything to him. He spent a thousand bucks of his own money, and based on how tight a leash Wally and Clara probably kept him on, that had to be a lot, just to make that happen. I’d never thought Zach would sacrifice his own money, that he’d give up something just for me. I’d kind of pegged him as a selfish asshole, a guy I had to keep at arm’s length so he didn’t take advantage of me, but with this one jersey, he’d blown that whole perception right out the door.

While all that was nice, that wasn’t even the nicest thing he did for me. He really put himself out there for me. And best of all, he made me feel special. He may be a douchebag to the rest of the world, but he wasn’t a douchebag to me. There is no way that guy could not care about me, unless he was as good of an actor as Paul Newman. And the end result of that was that I was sitting here, less than fifty miles from where Robbie, my mother, and Hank had been killed, and I was actually smiling.

I was distracted when I saw the guys come jogging out of the locker room, and smiled at Zach’s consternation when he didn’t spot me right away, and my smile grew even bigger when he saw me and gave me a huge grin. “Come on,” he said. I went out to the field where they were practicing. “There are scouts here today.”

“Where are they from?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know exactly, but a couple of them stopped the coach and talked to him.”

“That’s awesome,” I said.

“Only if I play well,” he said, exposing his nervousness, something that was really intimate in a masculine way.

“You will,” I said, pumping him up. I hung out on the bench, bullshitting with the guys while they got ready. The quarterback was pretty impressive, some freakishly huge dude who was good at quarterback and as a linebacker.

“Alright guys,” the coach said, gathering everyone together for the final pep talk. “This is one of the best teams in New Jersey, but we can beat them. If you want it, it’s ours. We play the Crusaders today, and then next week we take on St. Joseph. We win these two games, and we’re on the map. There are a few scouts here today, but that’s nothing compared to what will happen if we win these next two games. They’ll be swarming all over us, as long as we win.” I could see the sheer determination in Zach’s eyes, and in the eyes of the other guys, but it wasn’t as intense as it was for Zach.

The Ironmen got the ball first, getting the kickoff and getting zilch in the way of a return. The coach picked out the players he wanted out there, and Zach wasn’t part of the mix. He sat there, really pissed. I didn’t say anything; I just left him alone. The Ironmen didn’t do shit, and punted it away on the fourth down. I glanced up in the stands to see my father with Zach’s parents and his host parents, all of them waiting for Zach to play; but he didn’t. The Crusaders took control of the ball and ground the Ironmen down the field, using a series of short passes and runs to make solid yardage. When they finally scored, their crowd went nuts, while our guys just looked dejected.

They kicked off to the Ironmen, and this time they managed to bring the ball up to their own forty yard line. The coach sent out the same squad that had done nothing before, but Zach was done fuming. He walked up to the coach and got right in front of him. “What do you want, Hayes?”

“Why aren’t you putting me in?” Zach demanded.

“I’ll put you in when I’m ready to put you in,” he said, asserting his authority.

“Then on Monday, when De La Salle calls me and asks me to move to Concord, I’m packing up and I’m gone,” Zach said, staring him boldly in the eye. “Quit fucking with my future.”

The coach eyed him, got pissed, and then got pensive. “Fine. Go in for Carter. Let’s see what you can do.” Zach jogged out onto the field, said something to Carter, who looked pretty annoyed, then got into the huddle.

It was second down, and the quarterback tried for a pass, but threw it too far for the receiver to grab, so that incomplete pass brought up the third down, with six yards to go. “They’ll pass again,” I heard one of the Crusader fans say. “They always pass on the third down.”

Only this time, they didn’t. The quarterback took the hike, and handed it off to Zach, and he started running. I’d never seen him play football, but he was incredible. I’d watched lots of football, mostly on television, and I’d seen a good number of high school games, but Zach didn’t play like the guys on a high school team. He played more like the guys I’d seen on TV, or the guys at Stanford. He could change directions in a way that defied physics, and even when they tried to tackle him, he spun his body, twisting along to get those extra yards. He ended up getting the first down, and a little more. They fought the ball down the field but the Crusaders’ defensive line was like a wall, and Zach was having a hard time busting through it. The Ironmen finally exhausted their downs and had to settle for a field goal.

Zach came walking over to the sidelines, and I was all ginned up to congratulate him, but he looked furious, so I avoided him. He paced back and forth, then zeroed in on one of the offensive linemen. “I told you to make a fucking hole for me, dipshit.”

“Not my fault you can’t run,” the guy said. He was massive, and he puffed out his chest, making himself even bigger, trying to intimidate Zach with his size. Only that didn’t faze Zach at all. He got right in the guy’s face and poked the guy’s chest with his finger.

“It’s your job to bust a hole in the fucking line, so fucking do it. There are scouts here watching us play, and I’m not gonna have my career short-circuited just because you’re too big of a pussy to run into someone.”

“I ain’t afraid,” the guy said, and he was almost as pissed as Zach.

“No? Looks that way to me. As soon as the ball snaps, you basically turn around, grab your ankles, and ask the other dude to fuck you. So punch me a fucking hole!” Zach was shouting as he finished that sentence. “Can you do that?”

“Douchebag,” the guy said.

“I asked you a fucking question. Can you do that?” Zach yelled.

“I can do that,” the guy grumbled.

“Guess we’ll see,” Zach said sarcastically, then refocused on the game. The Crusaders managed to get another touchdown, making it 14-3. The Ironmen were getting pretty deflated, and that got worse when they botched the kickoff, taking possession on their own 15-yard line.

“Let’s go,” the coach said.

Zach looked at the lineman he’d been bitching at. “You ready?”

“I’m fucking ready,” the guy said.

Zach was ready, he was completely fired up. I could tell from his posture, and from the vibe he gave off, and I’m sure the other players got that as well. The quarterback took the snap, handed it off to Zach, and then the lineman did what he was supposed to do, and carved out a hole for Zach. Then Zach was off, running through the defensive line, picking up speed, while another offensive lineman trailed him, providing an invaluable block, one that took out the only guy that could stop him. He ran the distance, and scored the Ironmen’s first touchdown. It was an awesome run, and he knew it. He came over to the sideline, with that shit-eating grin on his face. He talked to his teammates, and then headed over to me. “Impressed?”

“That was alright,” I said. He faked a frown, because he knew I was proud of him. “You were fucking awesome,” I said, giving him a huge grin. I spent the rest of the game cheering him on, cheering the team on, and watching the dynamics. Zach actually reminded me a lot of Matt, in that he was clearly the star player on the team, but he was kind of a prima donna. He was all about him, and about winning, and he was willing to plow over anyone who wasn’t going to do their job. He didn’t worry about the team, he worried about himself, and just demanded that the team do its part.

I watched their kicker, who was like an entirely separate species of player, and couldn’t help but think about Robbie. Guys like Zach were here in the rough and tumble line, taking their hits, grinding it out, while the kicker was almost in his own little ethereal world, where he came out onto this field of battle almost with a disdain for the carnage, kicking the ball when he had to, and avoiding getting knocked around. I chuckled as I thought that JJ would be able to pull that off perfectly, if he could kick, especially the disdain. Zach and Matt were so hyper-competitive, like a couple of gladiators, while Robbie had been like the Ironmen’s kicker, a skilled technician. It actually made things easier for me, deriving such a stark contrast, but I wondered how my father was handling things.

I glanced up in the stands at him and saw him clapping and cheering, but it was forced. I saw him make small talk with Wally and Clara, and the Piehls, but I could almost see how much energy that was taking, and how badly it was sapping him. It must be agony for him to look out on the field and see a guy playing, wearing a jersey with HAYES spelled out across the back. Zach wore number 24, and while I didn’t know what Robbie’s number was, I decided that the name itself would have more meaning to my father.

In the end, the Ironmen won the game, shutting down the Crusaders 17-14. There was no question that Zach was the star of the game, and that was pretty obvious in the meeting at the end of the game. The coach was ecstatic, so happy he was even nice to me, and I was just an appendage. I sat in the locker room with the guys, as they ripped off their uniforms and headed to the showers. I could have perved on them, but in reality, I only had eyes for one of them. When Zach pulled off his pants and turned away from me, wearing only his jock strap, I threw some major wood, and I had to start thinking of gross things to get it to go down. He turned around, saw me, and winked.

We hung out with the team, while Zach found out details of this party we were supposed to go to, and then we met up with the rest of our entourage. Dad, Clara, and the Piehls were effusive in their praise of Zach, which was great, since he deserved it. It was so awesome to see how big an impact that had on him, and how important it was that these people all think well of him. Wally had merely told him “good game,” and said nothing more. I’d wondered if Zach was one of those guys who when his father deigned to say something like that, it was really meaningful anyway, but Zach’s general mood seemed to slump, and that told me that it got him down.

Dad took us out to dinner, and while he didn’t say much, it didn’t really matter, since everyone else talked a lot. Things were going well until Wally decided to dissect the game. “You could have gotten another touchdown if you’d have fought free of that last tackle.”

I could feel Zach grimace, even though he didn’t show it. “Can’t get free from all of them,” he said philosophically.

“You want a good scholarship, and you want to play for a good team, you need to show them what you can do, and you could have broken that tackle,” Wally insisted. I could see Zach deflate with his words.

“Do you really need to worry about scholarships?” I asked Zach, more to get Wally to leave him alone than anything. Wally gave me a dirty look, which I ignored. Let him be pissed at me, and rant at me; I was immune from his anger. “I mean, you have more than enough money to pay for your education.”

“You don’t want to spend all of your money!” Clara exclaimed, horrified. I caught my father’s eye, and he telepathically told me to keep my mouth shut. It had been ingrained into my psyche that investment in education was the most important thing you could do. If he spent all of his money on school, which he wouldn’t, that seemed like a really smart thing to do.

“It’s not so much about the money as the school,” Zach said. “We’ll get scouted more now that we beat Bergen.”

“That’s great news,” Dad said.

“It is, as long as you kick your game up,” Wally said.

“You did really well,” I said to Zach. I was so sick of Wally bitching at him, and bringing him down. “The whole team thought so, and the coach said you were the star of the game.”

“Yes you were,” Mrs. Piehl said supportively. After dinner, the limo took the rest of them home, in the Piehls’ case, and back to the hotel, in the case of Wally, Clara, and my dad.

Zach and I walked out to the Durango, not really saying anything until we were in the car and no one else could hear. “You know, the whole time Gathan played hockey, he never gave him shit about missing plays,” Zach grumbled, referring to Wally.

“Maybe it’s because he cares more about you,” I offered hopefully.

“Yeah, he loves me so much, only that just means that nothing I do is good enough.”

“I thought you were fucking amazing,” I told him. “I thought you played like the guys I see in college.”

“Guys you see in college?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“When I go to the games, dumbass,” I said, even though his question had conjured up the other guys in my life; Tony at the forefront, followed by Jeff, Erik, and maybe Josh, if that worked out. I looked over at him and smiled, thinking that I wouldn’t trade any of them for Zach. “So which party are we going to?”

“The one in our room,” he said, leering at me.

“Dude, you’re the man of the hour. Don’t you want to go out with those guys?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Unless you want to go?”

“It’s your deal,” I said. “I’m more than happy to have a party in our room.” We went back to the hotel and went to go up to the room, but he must have forgotten something, because when we got to the lobby, he excused himself to go back to the Durango. He came back, carrying his backpack.

We got into our room and I was all over him, and he responded with even more enthusiasm, if that was possible. And then he stopped kissing me, and pushed me on the bed playfully. “I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” I asked, totally confused.

“The bathroom. When I come back, I want you on your back, naked,” he ordered.

I smiled. “Yes, sir.” I pulled off my clothes, and he seemed to be taking his time, so I paused to fold them up and put them on the side chair. I’d just lay down on my back, with my arms folded behind my head, and had just settled in when Zach came out, wearing nothing but his jock strap. God, he was sexy.

“You seemed to like it when I wore this in the locker room,” he said. “It’s the same one I wore during the game.”

He grinned at my erection. “Fuck yeah,” I said. He knelt over me and jammed his groin in my face, the rank odor from his jock exciting me in a way I never thought it would.

“That’s it, sniff that jock,” he said, in a condescending way. I wasn’t into that, and he knew it. He wasn’t either. I’d tried some of the sexual strategies on Zach that had worked with other guys I’d been with, especially Tony. One night I’d sneered at him and said, “You like that big dick in your ass, dontcha?” Only he’d gotten pretty turned off, so I’d shifted gears damn fast to save the fuck. He knew I was the same way, only this was that side of him I’d been thinking about earlier, the side where he gets kind of mean.

The only way to deal with that was to back him down, so I sniffed it, but then nibbled on it too, pinching his balls. He got the message. “Turn around,” I said.

He pivoted, exposing his beautiful ass, framed by his game-winning jock strap. I pulled his ass to my face and started rimming him, getting some serious moans from him, until I felt his mouth on my dick, then the serious moans came from me too. Before I could really think about what was happening, he turned around and sat on my dick, taking me with just spit for lube. That was pretty impressive with a big dick like mine. I really lost it, and so did he, as we put everything we had in that fuck. When I finally came, it was probably the most amazing orgasm I’d had to date. It was unbelievable that I’d have that big of a reaction when topping another guy. This was really fucking up my self-anointed bottom label.

That euphoric thought was completely erased by the realization that I’d just barebacked him. I knew I was doing it, but it hadn’t even registered. How did that happen? How could I be so fucking stupid? “Dude, it’s OK,” he said, sensing the huge change in my mood, and knowing why it happened. “I got tested when I got my physical for the team. I’m negative. I haven’t fucked anyone since then.”

“What about that chick you were going out with?” I asked. He wasn’t into her, and I got the feeling that he was using her as a beard, so I ignored the whole relationship.

“We haven’t fucked,” he said. “She blew me, and I fingered her. That’s as far as it’s gone.”

“It’s a big deal,” I said, then saw that he was getting pretty pissed off at me for not trusting him. “It’s a big deal because I didn’t even think about it. I just went with it.”

“You were that into me, that you took the risk?” he asked, being cocky.

“I guess I was that into you that I took the risk, and I trusted you enough to know that you’d tell me if you weren’t safe,” I said, modifying it a bit.

“I love feeling your load leaking out of my ass,” he said as he nuzzled my neck.

“It’s just something I usually need to think about, and have a talk about first,” I said, wondering what I was agreeing to.

“So how about if we bareback as long as we’re safe with other people?” he offered. I’d been lectured enough that I knew that was the standard line guys used to avoid using condoms. To fall for that, you really had to know that guy, and trust the guy.

“Deal,” I said, holding out my hand, and making him shake, so it was a pledge. I needed more time to process it, so I decided that a couple more times topping him without a condom this weekend would be pretty low risk, even though it wouldn’t be no risk. I’d be able to come up with a better strategy by the time I saw him again.

“Deal,” he confirmed. He lay on his back next to me for a minute, and then leaned up so he was propped up on his elbow, looking at me. “That means a lot, especially after putting up with shit from my dad.”

“That was pretty raw. I don’t think anyone could have done better than you did. What does he want from you?”

He flopped onto his back and shrugged. “Perfection.” I assumed a position much like his, only closer, so I was molded to his body.

“You almost have that down,” I said, smiling. He grinned back, and then frowned.

“He wants me to be the running back he never was,” he grumbled. “That’s what I get for not only picking his sport to play, but to also picking his position. That’s why Gathan didn’t get shit for fucking up in a game, because Dad didn’t know hockey well enough to really lay into him about it.”

“Dude, I’m sorry,” I said meaningfully.

“It’s time for some truth, since your cum is leaking out of my ass,” he said. “I didn’t move here to get away from my scumball friends, because most of them really weren’t that bad. And I didn’t move here to get away from drugs, because doing ’roids was fucking stupid, and I’d already figured that out.”

“So why did you move here?”

“To get away from them,” he said, referring to Wally and Clara. “They don’t have a clue what it takes to get to the show.” I’d heard him talk about ‘the show’ before; when he said that, he was referring to the NFL. “I can do it, I have the skill and the ability, but they’d fucking derail me. So I had to get away from them, and from Claremont.”

“I can see that,” I said, validating him, even though my mind was reeling at what that meant for ‘us’. Football was everything to Zach; more important than me, than his siblings, and evidently more important than his parents. Before we could talk about that anymore, my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, but it was from New Jersey, so I gave Zach an apologetic look and answered it. “Hello.”

“Is this Will Schluter?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said cautiously.

“This is Monte, from the car service,” he said. “You wanted me to let you know if I took your father anywhere out of the ordinary, and that included Manhattan.”

“That’s right,” I said apprehensively.

“I just dropped him off in Tribeca,” he said. He gave me the address: it was my mother’s condo. “Told me I was done for the night. Said he’d take a cab when he was ready to come back to the hotel.”

“Thanks, Monte,” I said, even as I started getting out of bed. “I really appreciate that.” I made a mental note to tip that guy massively. We hung up and I turned to Zach. “I have to go to Manhattan. You probably still have time to make that party.”

He shook his head. “I’m going with you.” He saw me start to object, so he shot a good reason at me. “You’ll need someone to drive you.”

“You sure?” I asked. “This won’t be pretty.”

“I’m sure,” he confirmed.