9.11 - 65. Chapter 65

This one should make Tim happy (in as much as that's possible)

October 31, 2001

Escorial

“What a surprise to hear from you,” Mary Ellen said as she answered the phone.

“Don’t bother to program my name into your phone. You probably won’t need to,” I said, only unlike the past, I was actually joking. She chuckled.

“Too late,” she quipped. “So what do you want?”

“You mean besides calling to wish you a Happy Halloween. I know this is your favorite holiday.”

She laughed. “I can put on my witch costume. It’s like you coming out of the closet for just a day.” That was pretty funny.

“True that. So how are you doing?”

“I’m surviving,” she said. “You’ll be amazed, but I’m actually going to my classes. I might actually bust a B average this semester without fucking any of my professors.” Mary Ellen was really smart, but not very motivated. It was a family joke that she did just enough to maintain the 3.0 GPA that my father had deemed the barely acceptable minimum.

“Dad would have been proud of you,” I said. She didn’t respond to that, but it had resonated with her.

“How is it with you?” she asked.

“Some good, some bad,” I said, letting my guard down with her in what was unusual, and possibly dangerous.

“Things will turn out fine, Wade. You’re too smart not to land on your feet,” she said, a platitude, but coming from her, it had some meaning.

“Thanks. I actually did call you for a real reason.”

“I’m listening,” she said.

“I’m trying to figure out what to do for the holidays, and I wanted your input.”

“You wanted my input?” she asked sarcastically.

“If I want you to be around, I figured that I better ask for your input,” I teased.

“You want me around? That’s even more surprising.”

“Sometimes I amaze myself,” I joked. “I was thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas.”

“What does Beau think?” she asked. They’d gotten tighter after our father’s death, which probably should have worried me, but it seemed to be a good thing.

“I haven’t talked to him yet,” I told her honestly. She paused for a bit, and I knew why. She was trying to digest that compliment; that I’d call her before Beau.

“I think we should do things like we did last year,” she pronounced. “Let’s have Thanksgiving at Goodwell, and then we can all do our own thing for Christmas.”

“If we do that, what will you do for Christmas?” I asked.

“I’ll figure something out,” she said dismissively.

“You’re welcome to join us here in California. There will even be a few straight guys here.”

She laughed. “Only a few? You don’t give me much of a challenge.”

“That’s what the gay guys are for,” I joked.

“I’ll think about it,” she said. “But thanks for the invite.”

“No problem,” I told her.

“What about Mother?” she asked.

“Nana has been out here quite a bit, but she’s all but moved into Goodwell. If Mother shows up for Thanksgiving, Nana may pull out her shotgun and solve our problem for us.”

Mary Ellen laughed. “Good. I’ll invite her.”

“I think that’s reasonable,” I agreed. I’d already talked to Nana about it, and she’d reluctantly agreed, recognizing that family unity was important. We both knew it would be even more entertaining than usual: Aunt Emeline would have a field day with Mother this year. “Besides, she’s so mad at me she probably won’t want to come.”

“What did you do to her?” Mary Ellen asked.

“The governor was considering appointing her to replace Dad in the Senate,” I said. There was a recent precedent: When Missouri Governor Carnahan ran for the US Senate and died in a plane wreck in 2000, the voters of Missouri elected him to the Senate anyway. How big an idiot was John Ashcroft, that he couldn’t win an election against a dead man? The governor had then appointed Carnahan’s widow to serve in his place.

“That’s a horrifying thought, Mother in the Senate,” Mary Ellen said.

“I agree, and that’s what I told the governor. The slick bastard tried to get me to trade his appointment of someone else for my pledge to not work for Mark Warner’s election.”

She laughed. “Well, your endorsement of Warner was pretty prominent in the paper, and Mother’s not a senator, so I’m assuming that deal didn’t work out.”

“I told him he was more than welcome to appoint Mother. I said that with the land deal still fresh on the presses, that would certainly help elect a Democrat as governor of Virginia,” I said. Mary Ellen really laughed at that.

“I’ll bet you’re not his favorite person either,” she said.

“I’m not so sure. I think he was using me to be the bad guy, to give him a good excuse to say no to Mother,” I said. “We’ll see if I get a Christmas card from him.”

“Well, Mother got caught up in her own web, so she has only herself to blame,” Mary Ellen said philosophically.

“I’m sure she sees it that way,” I joked sarcastically. After we were done chuckling, Mary Ellen got back onto the topic at hand.

“If you want, I’ll tell Beau, and he can invite Mother,” she offered.

“Thanks. I appreciate it,” I said.

“We’ll see if she shows up,” Mary Ellen said.

“Where else does she have to go?” I asked, and that actually evoked a small amount of sympathy in both of us. My mother had burned her bridges so badly that the only place she was welcome for Thanksgiving was with her family, the majority of whom detested her.

“I’ll see you in November, and I’ll think about Christmas,” she said, and then we hung up.

I wandered down to the nursery to spend some time with Riley. Tiffany, JJ, Riley, and Maddy had come back from LA this weekend. I’d almost forgotten how much I enjoyed having them around, well, Tiffany, Riley, and Maddy anyway. It seemed that the plan to have them stay mostly up here had been blown out the window, but I was dealing with it. “Hey there Riley-boy!” I said. He smiled big when he saw me, and held up his arms so I’d hold him. Of course I did. I picked up Maddy and gave her a hug too, and then I spent the next hour just hanging out with them, playing with toys, and being a dad. It was wonderful, but somewhat melancholy at the same time, because it reminded me of my father.

“Well hello there,” Tiffany said as she came into the nursery. “I figured you’d be off to a party by now.”

“It’s only two o’clock,” I said. “I don’t leave until after dinner.”

“What about Matt?” she asked.

“I don’t know what Matt is doing,” I said, and couldn’t hide how bitter I was about that.

She raised an eyebrow. “I haven’t gone riding since I’ve been back. Want to go with me?”

I gave her a weak smile. “Sure.” I hugged Riley and Maddy, then went out to the stables with her and changed into my tack. I took Gunpowder, since Nana was in LA spending time with Ethan, and the poor horse wasn’t getting as much exercise as he was used to. Nana had all but adopted Ethan, and that had produced some pretty pronounced changes in him. Tiffany took one of the mares.

“I’m sorry we haven’t been around,” she apologized, but in typical Tiffany fashion, she seemed annoyed when she did, as if it pained her to admit she was wrong. It was all an act.

“It’s alright,” I said, giving her absolution. “To be honest, it’s probably just as well.”

“You guys are fighting again?”

“Again?” I challenged, and then sighed. “Matt’s been pretty much drowning his sorrow with the dick of damn near every guy on campus he can find.”

“And that’s new?”

“It wouldn’t be a problem, except for two things. The first is that he’s totally blown me off. I don’t think I’m all that high-maintenance, but it really sucks when he goes off with all these other guys, and then ignores me,” I said, pouring out my soul to her. I wondered if she noticed how I had to open my eyes extra wide to dry up the tears. I’d basically turned to Matt, and he’d turned away from me.

“Wade, you are not high-maintenance. This is not about you,” she said reassuringly.

“He’s not the only one dealing with this shit,” I snapped, letting my emotions out, a rarity.

“No, but he’s dealing with it much worse than you are,” she said.

“I don’t know about that,” I said. “The other issue is even tougher.”

“Uh oh,” she said.

“You may or may not know this, but Will’s been pretty into Tony,” I said, getting a chuckle from her.

“I heard a rumor,” she joked. “Will doesn’t seem all that into him at the moment though. The only guy he’s into now is Zach.”

I nodded. “He’s falling for Zach hard.” It worried me, because Zach didn’t have the best reputation, and Will was pretty vulnerable. Gathan was all but freaking out over them being together, more or less.

“So how does that fit into you having problems with Matt?”

“Will told Matt that Tony was important to him, and told him that Tony was off his list of fuckable guys.”

“So?”

“Matt fucked him,” I said. “We were at a party last night and one of the guys from the LBGT Club was pissed off that Matt cock-blocked him with Tony. He was talking about it and I was in the group. Matt and I had a discussion about it, and he admitted it.”

“A discussion?”

“It wasn’t pretty,” I admitted. I’d laid into Matt about how totally shitty it was to sleep with a guy your brother is into. “He hasn’t come home since then.”

“Probably safer for him, at least when Will finds out,” she said.

“Will won’t hurt Matt,” I said. “Just his GMC. He said he’d torch it if Matt fucked Tony.”

Tiffany laughed. “I’ll make sure we have stuff for smores. I love a good fire.”

“I don’t think I’d blame him,” I said.

“Will’s not even that into Tony,” Tiffany said. I gave her a sour look, because she knew that’s not what this was about. “This is tough for you.”

“Duh,” I said, in a somewhat nasty way.

“Wade, you’re an honorable guy. You’d never do something like that to a family member. You’re judging Matt by those standards.”

“And that’s wrong?”

“No, it’s not wrong; it’s just that Matt obviously doesn’t see things that way.”

I pulled Gunpowder back so he stopped and her mare did the same thing. I looked at Tiffany firmly. “Brothers don’t do that to each other. What this is going to do is tell Will that Matt doesn’t consider him to really be his brother. And Will’s going to act pissed off, but he’ll really be hurt. Then he’s going to really lose it, and it’s possible that everyone is going to have to take sides.”

She looked at me, as if she had divined some great world secret. “You’re worried about Matt.”

“I’m worried about all of them. What happens when Will loses it? What do you think Darius and JJ will do? Will they back up Matt or Will?” There was no question in my mind that Darius would side with Will. For JJ it would be tougher.

“What’s Matt going to do?” she asked.

“He says he’s going to pretend nothing happened,” I said, and that really bothered me, because now I was in a position of knowing and not saying anything. That made me part of this whole nightmare, at least in Will’s eyes.

“I think you should talk to JP and Stef,” she said. That was good advice, so I nodded.

“I’ve been working on my law school applications,” I said. “We’ll have some things to talk about next year.”

“We’ll work it out, Wade,” she said, knowing that law school most likely meant a change of venue for me. Right now, that looked really attractive to me. We took the horses back to the stables, changed out of our tack, and headed into the house.

“Thanks for the ride,” I said.

“You’re always solving everyone else’s problems, Wade,” she said. “Who solves yours?” I gave her a wry smile and a hug, and then went back to our room to take a shower. I wasn’t surprised to find that Matt still wasn’t home. He’d be avoiding me. That was a good idea.

JP liked to spend some time in his office before dinner, so it was no surprise for me to find him there. Stef was with him, as was Brad. JP’s office had a desk with two chairs in front of it, but it also had a seating area with two chairs and a sofa. They were arrayed around the seating area, with JP and Brad each in a chair, with Stef lounging back in the sofa. They all looked relaxed; that was about to change. “Good evening, Wade,” JP said, glancing at the clock to see it had just passed five o’clock, and thus his greeting was correct.

I shut the doors after I came in, which told them I had something serious to discuss. Stef sat up on the sofa in a more upright manner, as if to accentuate that. “I need to talk to you,” I said.

“All of us?” Brad asked. “I can leave.”

I blinked at him, stunned. He was usually relentless in finding out what was going on, yet here he was actually volunteering to exclude himself from our discussion. Ever since he’d come back from New Jersey, he’d seemed stronger, more centered. “No, this involves all of us.”

“You have our attention,” JP said, and gestured to the sofa.

“Sit next to me,” Stef said flirtatiously, making me smile.

“Gladly,” I said, and then got serious. “Matt had sex with Tony.” I’d been blunt, because these men appreciated direct and to-the-point discussions. They took a minute to digest that quietly, ruminating the implications around in their minds.

“Does Will know?” Brad asked. “I would have checked for a burning GMC, but Matt isn’t home yet.”

His attempt at humor fell flat. “I don’t think so.” I told them how I’d found out, and about my unpleasant argument with Matt.

“My preferred course of action is to let these things play out, so the people involved can be in control of their own lives,” JP said. Brad was ready to jump in and challenge that, and so was Stef, but they waited for me to explain myself, a sign of respect I appreciated.

“I think there is too much at stake here to do that,” I said. He raised an eyebrow, asking me to explain. “What happens if Will loses it over this? What happens when he disowns Matt?”

“I think that is entirely likely,” Stef said, and Brad nodded. They were pretty tuned into Will, and they’d come to the same conclusion I had.

“And how will you react?” I challenged them all. “Will you take sides, and if so, whose? What if Will refuses to live in the same house with Matt? What will Darius and JJ do?” They’d written this off as a teen drama thing, but they suddenly grasped the implications, that this was serious enough to create a schism in the entire family.

“Will has a right to bring guys he likes home and expect they won’t be fucked by other members of the family,” Brad said firmly, clearly indicating where he would line up on this thing.

“Just like you did,” Stef noted, referring back to the time in high school when JP’s partner Sam had fucked Jake, a guy Brad had basically claimed as his boyfriend. It was incredibly ironic that Sam was Tony’s father. He’d been the rough equivalent of Brad’s stepfather at the time, and Isidore had been the one to jump in and really defend Brad. I wondered if Isidore would feel the same way this time. And what impact would this have on Frank, who was really struggling with Robbie’s loss? He didn’t really respond to anyone, but the only two who seemed to spark any life in him were Isidore and Matt.

“The right and wrong of the situation hasn’t changed,” Brad replied acidly. He was even more pissed off now, since his own dormant emotions on that old matter had been reawakened.

Stef looked at me carefully. “Perhaps the toughest choice in this would be whose side you would choose.”

“Perhaps,” I said, avoiding that decision, even though I knew what I’d do. “I think it would be better if we could avert such a showdown.”

“Neither Will nor Matt is known for dealing with things in a calm and reasoned manner,” JP observed with a wry smile.

“This much is certain,” Stef agreed.

“Who’s going to tell Will?” Brad asked. We looked at him, and he all but glared back at us. “He has to know. I’m not going to keep this from him.”

“It is not our place to do that,” JP objected. He was trying to protect me from a breach of confidentiality, but Matt hadn’t told me, so I didn’t feel like I had that obligation to him.

“I think he needs to know,” I said, agreeing with Brad.

“It would be best if Matt told him, in the form of an apology,” Stef said. “It will not fully repair their relationship, but it will prevent the kind of nuclear explosion you are trying to avoid.”

“I’m not sure Matt’s willing to do that,” I said. “He’s pretty adamant that it’s unfair for Will to have any kind of input on who he has sex with.”

“Will is going to poke him pretty hard if Matt talks to him, just to make sure he is sincere,” Brad said. I was impressed with how well he was reading Will these days.

I looked at JP. “Matt isn’t really hearing me these days. I think that the only person he’d probably listen to is you.” I’d been pretty neutral when I’d spoken those words, but they could hear the sadness buried beneath them.

“I have a strategy,” Stef announced. We all looked at him, asking him to go on. “It seems that the best way to defuse this situation is to have Matt apologize to Will, and to have Will accept his apology as best he can.”

“That sounds right,” Brad said, to hurry him along.

Stef tended to talk slowly when he was being profound, or thought he was. He was talking slowly now. “As they are both somewhat impulsive, they may need some coaching and guidance.” We chuckled at that. “I think that JP should talk to Matt, and Wade should talk to Will.”

“I thought you said it would be better if Will heard it from Matt?” I asked.

“Plans can change,” Stef said with a slight smile. “If Will knows what is coming, and can prepare himself, he will react better.”

“At least we may save the GMC,” Brad said ruefully.

“Is he home?” I asked.

“He is. He has a party to go to after dinner,” Brad said.

“Then I’ll go do my part,” I said to JP with a grimace. “Good luck.” I stood up and left them, and headed down to Will’s room. My mind was on the task at hand, so I was surprised to run into Matt.

“Hey,” he said. “You weren’t at practice today.”

I ignored his comment. “JP is looking for you.”

“Did you tell him?” he asked me, outraged. I turned to walk away from him, but he grabbed my arm and spun me around. “Did you?”

“I did,” I spat, as I shook my arm free.

“Why is it OK for you to break my confidence, but it’s the end of the world when I break yours?” he demanded.

“Did you tell me you fucked Tony?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he said.

“No, you admitted it after I’d already found out,” I corrected. “You don’t have any moral high ground in this one.”

“So is that why you weren’t at practice?” he demanded. “You trying to get back at me for that?”

“I wasn’t at practice because I’m not on the team anymore. I sent the coach an e-mail this afternoon, telling him my hockey days at Stanford are over,” I said. It pissed me off that he hadn’t heard a damn thing I’d said for the past month, but suddenly he was paying attention, only because I’d quit the team.

“You quit,” he said with a sneer, trying to make me feel like a loser.

“I explained to the coach that I couldn’t play on a team where I had no respect for the captain,” I said to him. If I would have slapped him, it wouldn’t have had a bigger impact. He stood there, stunned, while I turned and walked down the hall to Will’s room. I could feel his eyes on my back the entire time. I bit back the tears, thinking that this was about the only time he’d bothered to notice me for the past month.

October 31, 2001

Escorial

I adjusted my phone so I was listening in my other ear. “I can’t wait for you to get here,” Zach said. Ever since I’d gotten back, we’d talked on the phone a lot more.

“I can’t wait either,” I said.

“I told the Piehls you were coming to town, and that I’d probably stay at the hotel with you. They offered to let you stay here instead,” he said nervously.

“Dude, that is so not good,” I said.

“They haven’t point-blank told me I can’t stay there, but I’m worried they’ll talk to my parents and that will be the edict,” he said.

“That sucks,” I said, and felt completely deflated. “It’s not like I’ll be there all that long.”

“They’ll be worried about us being unchaperoned,” he said. I could feel his eyes rolling, just like mine did.

“Wait a minute. What if we had a chaperone?” I asked, going into problem-solving mode.

“Who are they going to agree to?”

“My dad’s coming along to see you play, and then he’s going up to Connecticut for a few days. Maybe we could go up there with him?” Maybe Connecticut would be interesting. I smiled. It could be a barren wasteland, but as long as Zach was there, it would be interesting.

“That’s a great idea,” he said enthusiastically. “Clear it with your dad, and I’ll spin that to the Piehls.”

“Sounds good,” I said. Our conversation was interrupted when there was a knock on my door. “Just a minute.” I got up and went over to unlock it, and found Wade standing there.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Wade said, seeing that I was on the phone. He looked really upset, something that was pretty rare for him.

“You’re not bothering me,” I said, opening the door to invite him in. “I gotta run,” I said to Zach.

“I’ll call you and let you know what the Piehls say,” he promised, and then we hung up.

“Zach?” he asked with a smile, which I returned.

“Yeah,” I said. “We’re plotting to spend the weekend together in Connecticut.”

“Sounds like paradise,” he joked.

“If Zach is there, it will be as close as I can get,” I said. We walked over to my ‘sitting area’ with the bearskin rug, and I was going to sit in a chair, but Wade chose to sit on the rug. I sat across from him, eying him intently. He was really agitated. “What’s wrong?”

“I need to talk to you,” he said.

“Duh,” I said, trying to make things better, but it didn’t work. He sat there, saying nothing, but I could literally feel the pain and anguish in him. Whatever was bugging him, it was tearing him apart. I instinctively leaned forward and hugged him. Hugs from Wade were awkward, because he usually held back a bit, but not this time. This time, he gripped me back even stronger than I held him, and clung to me for a relatively long time. He finally broke off our embrace and pulled back, as if recoiling, pausing to wipe a tear out of his right eye. For Wade, this brief display of emotion was the equivalent of a normal person’s sobbing and shrieking. “Dude, whatever it is, we’ll get through it.”

He looked really uncomfortable. “I’m sorry.”

I smiled. “How many times have I cried on your shoulder? I owe you. I’m here for you.”

“Thanks,” he said, then steeled himself to tell me what was bothering him. “I was at a party last night and I found out that Tony and Matt had hooked up. Tony fucked him.”

He’d laid it out there, and said nothing, waiting for me to react. Now it was my turn to freak out, and I did, as I let the raw emotions that news caused roll through my brain. The first was anger, psyche-piercing anger, at both Tony and Matt, but for entirely different reasons. I felt my face twitching as I manfully controlled that rage and forced my mind to think logically, and to separate the issue into distinct parts. I dealt with Tony first, since he was easier. “Tony is out of my life.”

“Completely?” Wade asked.

“Completely,” I confirmed. I was so done with him. “Every time he’s made a commitment to me, he’s broken it. This one was so fucking easy. Our whole relationship has been like this. He makes a promise, breaks it, I forgive him, then he makes another one, and then he breaks that fucking promise too.”

“It’s a tough time for him,” Wade said, not to defend him, but to draw me out more.

“Yeah, and my life has been a fucking cakewalk for the past month and a half,” I snapped. “He doesn’t give a shit about me. If he did, he wouldn’t have done this.”

“You’re not as into him as you used to be,” he said.

“That’s not the issue,” I spat violently. “It just makes it easier.” That was actually funny, and we both chuckled about that.

“Maybe you can salvage your friendship.”

“Why would I want a friend like that? A guy who shits on me all the time, and who lets me down when I really need him?” Wade didn’t seem to get what I was saying. “Look, I’ve done this before, where I’ve been pissed at him and blown him off, only to change my mind and take him back. It’s like he’s testing me, seeing how far he can push me, only this time, he crossed a big-ass line, and it’s over. Done.”

“What happens when he comes up here to visit?”

“He’s not coming up here. He’s banished. And if Grand won’t agree to that, after this bullshit, then I’m not here,” I said adamantly.

“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Wade said. I thought he was right. I really did not expect that to be an issue, so I didn’t dwell on it. Instead I shifted gears, and thought about Matt. That wasn’t so easy. I couldn’t really do the same thing to Matt without really causing problems for the whole family, but especially for Wade.

“I guess I have a GMC to torch,” I said to Wade, but I was joking. It’s not that I didn’t want to burn up Matt’s SUV and everything he fucking owned in some pagan sacrifice. The thought of that was pretty fucking appealing. But I owed it to Wade to try and keep it together. He’d been there for me. It was payback time.

“You probably should do it,” he said.

I shook my head. “You know, Matt’s never really liked me all that much. He pretty much only put up with me because of you, Grand, and Stef. I’m not surprised that he’d shit on me.”

“He’s your brother,” Wade insisted.

I looked at him, locking our eyes. “No, he’s not. I have two brothers, and they wouldn’t do this kind of shit. They know how to have my back, and I have theirs.”

“Matt’s part of the family,” he said.

I shook my head. “Not as far as I’m concerned. To me, he’s a guy who’s around because he’s a good fuck. Kind of like Cody, only Matt doesn’t have a soul, and Cody does.” He recoiled at my bitterness.

“I can’t argue for him on this one,” Wade said. That just blew me away. Wade loved Matt, but he was willing to back me up on this one, because he loved me too, and because he thought I was right. “But I want you to think about how to handle him.”

“What do you mean?” I demanded. “I think if he’s lucky, I’ll say nothing to him and completely ignore him.”

“Alright,” Wade agreed. “That will probably work, but it will also create a lot of tension around here.”

“Maybe it’s not a good idea for us to be around each other,” I said, thinking out loud.

“What if you made this into a big issue?” he asked me. “What if you forced JP to make one of you move out?”

I thought about that. “He’d make Matt move,” I said confidently.

“Probably. Would Matt be allowed to visit?”

I got what he was doing, then. He was making me think about all the ramifications of a full-out feud between Matt and me. “Would you move out with him?” I asked, more to give my mind time to process everything.

He shook his head sadly, and looked away. “No.”

I sighed. “I don’t want to be responsible for fucking up your relationship with him.”

“I think we’re responsible for that, not you,” he said in a nasty way, showing me how much this whole thing was bothering him. “What about the rest of the family? What about your brothers? What about Frank?”

I let him guide my mind, and thought about that. “Darius will have my back on this. No question about it.” It was so refreshing to be able to say that confidently. “JJ really likes Matt, which figures, since he’s a pretty bad judge of character.” Wade actually chuckled at that a bit. “But in the end, he’d be in my corner too.” He would be, but it would be hard on him, and he’d be even bitchier than normal.

“What about Frank?” Wade persisted.

“He’ll be upset about it, and he’ll really be upset if Matt’s not around,” I said. Matt was one of Frank’s few links to sanity at this point, as far as I was concerned.

“There’s one other person you haven’t factored into this,” he said.

“Grand? Stef?” I didn’t get who else would have a massive issue with this.

“Robbie.” I was so tempted to point out that he was dead, so he really couldn’t have a problem with it anyway, but that wasn’t the point. He was reminding me that Matt was Robbie’s son, and I had a legacy obligation to cut Matt some slack. I had to do it for everyone, but I had to do it especially for Wade and for Robbie.

“Sometimes this thing with Zach scares the shit out of me,” I said, changing the subject a bit.

“Why? You seem really into him?”

“I am really into him,” I said with a leer, cracking him up. “I watched Robbie make some really stupid fucking decisions, and he took my father on one hell of an emotional roller coaster ride. Now I’m seeing Matt do the same kind of shit, being a mindless asshole and taking you along for the same kind of ride. So no matter how this works out, I’m keeping him at arms length so I don’t have to put up with that bullshit.” That really made him think. I wondered if he realized what kind of hell he’d signed up for.

“You’re worried that Zach will do the same thing to you?” he asked. I nodded. “You’d have to really love him for him to have that kind of influence over you.”

“I would,” I agreed, then wondered if I already did.