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Flux - 10. Chapter 10
June 14, 2002
Escorial, CA
The pain pills were working, but they’d not only dulled my pain, they’d dulled my brain. I was hoping that I wouldn’t have too big of a challenge with JP, and with dinner, and with my parents. Just thinking of all of them made me grimace. I walked into JP’s study to find him sitting in the seating area on one of the chairs, while Stef was on the couch. JP’s study was about as Old World as you could get, with dark paneling, wood floors, and oriental carpets. The chairs and a sofa were upholstered in dark red leather. The whole room seemed to personify old money and power. “You wanted to see me?” I asked, sounding mildly groggy.
“Yes,” JP said in a clipped way. He looked annoyed, but Stef seemed to be his usual cheerful self. Stef patted the couch next to him, so I smiled and sat there. “How are you doing?”
“The pain pills are helping the pain, but I’m kind of like a zombie,” I said.
“I understand you will heal up in a few weeks, and you have only to avoid strenuous activity?” Stef asked, his tone sympathetic.
“No rough sex for a few weeks,” I said, and winked at him, making him giggle.
“The GMC did not fare as well, I am told,” JP said.
That made me sad, since I’d had that vehicle since high school. My parents had bought it for me, a black Yukon Denali, and I’d taken as meticulous care of it as possible, even while living on campus. “It’s probably totaled,” I said glumly.
“You will have to go car shopping when all of the graduation festivities have ended,” Stef said. “Are you going to get another GMC?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I was thinking that I’d just have my stuff shipped to Chicago, and buy something there to save myself from the cross-country drive.” It was a good thing I’d already pondered that, since my mind was working pretty slowly.
“That sounds reasonable,” JP said.
“Would it be alright for me to leave some of my things here, things that I won’t need right away?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if that was necessary, but somehow the thought of completely moving out of this place was pretty wrenching.
“That is fine,” JP said with a smile, slightly modifying his grouchy mood.
“I was planning to go to Chicago with you,” Stef said. “I have an idea for an apartment.”
“You do?” I wondered if he’d try to convince me to live in the condo by Northwestern. It was nice, but pretty far away from the Loop, and from Boystown, which is where I’d rather live.
“I do, but we can talk about that later. In the meantime, you should think about what kind of vehicle you want. Whatever you pick, it will be a graduation gift from me and JP.”
I stared at him, amazed again at their generosity. “Thank you,” I said sincerely. “Wow. That is really generous.”
“Stef is paying for it. I just get credit,” JP said. “Pick something expensive.”
I laughed, and then cringed as the pain shot through my chest. “I’ll probably need something that can handle snow.”
“Probably,” JP said with a grimace. “I remember those winters. It is a good thing the summers are so beautiful and make up for them.”
“Can’t be any worse than Cleveland,” I said. That’s where I’d grown up, and winters there had sometimes been brutal, especially when the cold wind was really blowing off the lake.
Brad came in and I glanced at him long enough to see his face, with its swollen and bruised nose hidden behind bandages, but looked away before we could make eye contact. With his entry into the room, the mood had reverted from a pleasant and playful one, back to the original tense mood I’d experienced when I first walked into the room. It was evident that the tension came from JP and Brad, both of whom seemed pretty irritated. “You felt the need to summon me before dinner?” he asked JP.
“I did,” he replied, and gestured to the remaining chair, which Brad sat in.
“Why am I here?” Brad demanded.
“You have a broken nose, which you claim is a result of running into a door. Even you are not known to be so devoid of coordination for that to be plausible,” JP said. “Meanwhile, Matt has a swollen right hand, and striking people in anger is something he has done before.”
I sat there, not a little annoyed at his comments, making my slow mind work to frame a response, but I didn’t have to, because Brad beat me to it. His pain pills must not have fucked him up as badly as mine did. “Your comment is insulting,” Brad said. “You are out of line to even make such an observation.”
“I agree,” I said, managing to chime in.
“As you have so often pointed out to me in the past, simply because two events happen, that does not mean that one caused the other,” Brad continued, before JP could say anything. “And you have also cautioned me countless times against butting into other people’s business when it does not involve me. I find it incredibly obnoxious to find you doing the same damn thing to me right now, and to Matt, when we are both dealing with injuries.”
“You do not have to be nasty about it,” JP said, beating a hasty retreat.
“No?” Brad demanded. “I’m popping pain pills, and I’m assuming Matt is too.” He looked at me obliquely, not really making eye contact. Brad was using his classic tactic; he went on the offense, as his best defensive strategy.
“I am,” I confirmed. It was odd that as pissed off at him as I was, and as much as I detested him, I was willing to let him take over and guide our argument. We found ourselves as inconvenient allies.
“So you wait until we’re hurt, and our senses are dulled, and then you ambush us and try to accuse us of some malfeasance?” Brad demanded.
“I was not doing that,” JP objected. I glanced at Stef to see him just barely hiding his smile. He liked a little drama in his life, unlike Wade, I thought ruefully. And as much as he loved JP, I thought he secretly enjoyed it when JP found himself in a situation where his own arguments were tossed back in his face.
“You are an intellectual predator,” Brad accused.
“That’s pretty raw,” I said to JP, as if to confirm Brad’s accusation.
“That is not fair,” JP objected. It was really hilarious to see how flummoxed he was. He’d planned this big, self-righteous tirade against Brad and me for all the sins we’d committed, but Brad had neatly backed him up by reminding him that it was really none of his business.
“I think that if you are going to stick your nose where it does not belong, you risk having it as swollen as Bradley’s,” Stef said to JP. I snaughed, and got a really dirty look from Brad, which made me smile. JP gave Stef a pretty dour look too, but Stef was too busy trying not to laugh his ass off to let that bother him.
“Then I see no reason to detain either of you any longer,” JP said, acting wounded.
None of us said anything for a bit, and then Brad and I both got up and walked out of the study. I went to head back to my room, but Brad stopped me. “Matt.”
“What?” I asked, feeling my anger rise. I just wanted him to leave me alone. Was that such a big thing to ask?
“We need to talk about this.” It wasn’t a request, it was more of an order, and that pissed me off, because there was no way he was going to give me directives. It was almost like he was assuming a parental role, and that’s something he’d forfeited forever.
I got close to him, but he was a tough dude, and he didn’t back down. I took that opportunity to study his bruised and swollen face. It said a lot about how angry I still was that I didn’t feel guilty, but instead, felt proud of my handiwork. “We’ll talk about this when I’m ready to talk about this. In the meantime, you stay the fuck away from me, or I’ll send your fucking ass back to the hospital again.” We stood there, a couple of feet apart, glaring at each other. And then, as if by magic, the anger seemed to clear from his eyes.
“I’ll leave you alone, then, but I would appreciate it if you’d come find me when you’re ready to discuss it,” he said. And because I’d been in exactly the same situation with Will, where he was pissed at me and I had to wait for him to get over it, I understood perfectly where Brad was coming from. I tried not to let it bother me. This whole situation was totally fucked up.
“I need to work my way through this, then I will,” I said, telling him what I would have wanted Will to tell me.
“Thanks,” he said. “My son has demanded that I spend some time in therapy, so I guess I’ll be working through it too.” I could have made a smart-ass comment, but there was no reason to make things even more tense around here.
I nodded. “I’ll see you at dinner.” I turned and walked away, desperate to catch a few minutes of solitude before dinner. It was not to be. When I got back to my room, I found Wade waiting for me.
“I came to check up on you,” he said. “Will told me you had received a summons to appear before JP.”
I chuckled at his legal framing of my meeting, even as I sat next to him. “It was pretty funny. He tried to accuse me of breaking Brad’s nose, and Brad basically told him to mind his own fucking business.”
“And JP did?”
“He’s always talking about staying out of other people’s affairs, so he beat a pretty hasty retreat,” I said.
He put his hand on my right hand, the hand that still hurt, and his soothing touch was like a balm. “I’m sorry that I hurt you.” I smiled at him. I didn’t want to be mad at Wade. I was tired of feeling like shit, and I knew he was too.
“I’m sorry I fucked your sister.”
He actually laughed. “Pretty much everyone else has, so you might as well,” he said. “It kind of freaked me out at first, but it really doesn’t bother me.”
I didn’t get that, but I was smart enough not to argue with him when I was actually on the winning side of an issue. That seemed to be pretty rare these days. “I was just really fired up, and I ran into her at just the right time, and it happened. It won’t happen again.”
“I understand,” he said, and that surprised me. I looked at him, confused that he’d be so willing to see my side of things, but he just gave me a caring look. “You forget that I know you almost as well as you know yourself.”
“I never forget that,” I said.
“It’s up to you, but if I had my choice, I’d like to forget that this day happened, and just go on with our lives,” he said. I tended to agree with him, but our relationship had been in such a flux, it was hard to know what that meant.
“How does that change things between us?” I asked somewhat apprehensively.
“It doesn’t,” he said. In other words, he wanted me to overlook his deal with Brad, and he was willing to ignore the fact that I’d broken Brad’s nose and fucked Mary Ellen.
“I can do that with you, but it won’t be as easy to do that with Brad,” I said.
“I watched Will deal with this, and the only way he was able to cope was to separate the two people. He put you and Tony in completely different boxes. I think it’s reasonable for you to do the same thing.” That’s exactly what I planned to do, but I was surprised he suggested it. Personally, I thought he was throwing Brad under the bus, but it didn’t seem like the smart thing to do to bring that up either.
“Are you still going to, uh, be with him?” I asked. I was walking on pretty touchy turf here, but this was important enough to risk an argument. I braced myself for an outburst from him, but instead I got patient introspection.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I have to think about it. But I’ll make you a promise.”
“What?”
“If I decide to fuck around with him, I’ll talk to you about it first,” he said. I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t know what to say. It occurred to me that I was going to have to spend a lot of time with Casey working my way through this, especially if he decided to keep on fucking Brad. “It was kind of like what you had with Mary Ellen, only over a longer period of time.”
“No, it wasn’t,” I disagreed. “You two are so much closer than that. With Mary Ellen, it was a raw animalistic release. With you two, there’s a connection.”
He looked at me, preparing to argue, and then sighed. “Yes,” he admitted.
“Do you love him?”
“In a way,” he said. He saw me getting angry, and stroked my hand to ask me to calm down. “I don’t know if you still feel this way, but until today, you’ve been arguing for us to be partners.”
While what he said was true, I didn’t want to make that commitment, because there was no denying that these events had damaged my feelings for him. “So?”
“If that doesn’t happen, how would you want us to be?”
I thought about that. “I think that our friendship, our bond, is the most important thing. These months without you, I’ve been so lonely. I’d have these big issues that would come up, and my first instinct was to talk to you about them. You’re the person I trust the most, and I knew that you’d help me make the best choice. Without you there, I was floundering.”
He smiled and kissed me. “I missed you too.” I wanted to make love to him right then, but a quick glance at the clock told me we didn’t have time for that if we were going to be on time to dinner. With JP already annoyed with me, and with everyone here, I didn’t want to risk being late. “Would you be happy with that, even if we didn’t fuck?”
“I’d settle,” I joked. “I think that even if we were just friends, and nothing more, the physical bond between us strengthens that. It would be hard to give that up, but it’s not the most important thing.”
“That’s how I feel about Brad,” he said. That shocked me, because I hadn’t expected him to end up making that point, but I thought about what he said.
I nodded. “My feelings for you are pretty intense. I didn’t think you cared about him that much.”
He scowled at me. “The premise of the initial discussion was that you and I could only be friends, which is a little different than where we’re at right now.”
“You’re trying to tell me that Brad is a good friend, and a good fuck, but that’s it?” I asked.
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” he said, and that ruined almost our whole conversation, because I didn’t believe that for a minute. I was pretty sure the bond between them was a lot stronger than that. It’s like he was trying to convince me to give him my blessing to keep fucking Brad, which he didn’t need anyway. No, if he wanted to fuck Brad, he was going to have to do it knowing that he was hurting me, and pissing me off.
“When I asked Will why he didn’t talk to me earlier about Tony, he said that it was because I was still sleeping with Tony. The wound can’t heal if it’s still open, and bleeding.”
“So you’re saying that if I were still with him, you wouldn’t be able to forgive either one of us?” he asked.
“The deal here is that my big problem isn’t so much you sleeping with Brad, it’s Brad sleeping with you,” I said honestly.
“What’s the difference?”
“The difference is that I can probably deal with you doing it, but I’d probably hate Brad for it.” That bothered him, because he didn’t want to give Brad up. Now that I’d figured out his big motivation, seeing his thought process was pretty easy.
“That doesn’t seem fair,” he said.
“I think it’s very fair,” I said. “That’s the price Brad has to pay. But if you want to still be with him, don’t let that bother you, because he doesn’t really give a shit about me and what I think.” I spat that last sentence out bitterly. He paused to think about that for a bit.
“I guess that’s where it’s at, at least for right now,” he said fatalistically, referring to the overall relationship between, me, him, and Brad.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you,” I said, much too belligerently.
“I just wanted to talk to you about this, that’s all,” he said, backing up. Only we both knew that was a big lie.
“We talked, and we’re good. Brad and I aren’t. That’s where things are,” I summarized.
He nodded weakly, a gesture I interpreted as disappointment at not getting what he wanted from our talk. “Time for dinner.” I followed him up to the dining room, neither one of us saying anything. Our conversation had started off really nice, and ended on a pretty somber note. I was pretty grumpy when I walked into the dining room, but as soon as I made the transition into that room, my bad mood vanished.
“There you are!” Nana exclaimed. Wade’s grandmother was one powerhouse. She and I had always gotten along well, at least for as long as I’d known her. I’d been kind of worried that she would hate me now, but her effusive greeting put those fears to rest. Nana didn’t play games: she either liked you or she didn’t, and you knew which way she felt. “I heard about your accident. How are you?”
I gave her a delicate hug, since I was sore. “It still hurts a little bit, but I’ll be fine. It’s good to see you.” She patted my cheek affectionately.
“Hey Matt,” Mary Ellen flirted. Wade rolled his eyes.
“Hey,” I said, and winked back. I greeted Beau, who looked a little lost, and Ethan, who was ironically enough more comfortable, since he’d spent a reasonable amount of time here. But I got along well with both of them, so it didn’t take long before we were having a good time, just bullshitting.
The sound of footsteps preceded the arrival of Darius and JJ, and as soon as they walked in, the dynamic changed yet again. Darius gave me a perfunctory greeting, because he was still pissed off at me for fucking Will over, but he really poured on the charm with Mary Ellen. Not only that, but he hit it off with Beau pretty well too.
“Matt!” JJ said enthusiastically. He gave me a hug, which hurt like hell, but I grinned and bore it, because it was so good to see someone who was genuinely happy I was here. He was short and looked kind of scrawny, but he was pretty muscular underneath his smooth skin.
“Good to see you!” I said.
“I wasn’t going to miss seeing you graduate,” he said, as if it were a pledge.
“I know you’re busy. I’m glad you made it,” I said. “We can hang out for a while after that.”
“Can’t,” he said. “I have to go to Boston.”
“I’m going with you,” I told him. He gave me a huge smile.
“Kick ass!”
“You’re going too?” I heard Tiffany say from behind me. I hadn’t heard her come in. I turned to face her. She looked more elegant these days, as if she’d managed to absorb some of Wade’s genteel mannerisms, but her tongue was as sharp as ever.
“I am,” I said firmly, then got playful. “You know you want me to.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Right.” I just stared at her and raised an eyebrow, flirting with her like I had since we’d first met. “It’s good to see you. It may be nice to have you along.”
“Bet on it,” I teased. Dinner ended up being a lot of fun, especially since Brad sat at the opposite end of the table from me. The only thing that bothered me was that every time I looked over at Wade, he was looking down the table toward Brad. It reminded me of how things had been when Robbie had still been alive, and they’d had an affair. Wade had been unable to keep his eyes off of Brad then, just like now, or so it seemed.
After dinner, I hung out on the patio. I’d found a chair there that was actually comfortable for me to sit in, and sitting there gave me a view of the drive so I could watch for my parents. I popped another pain pill, even though I wasn’t supposed to, and felt it kick in just as the limo pulled up to the front. I walked through the house and made it to the foyer in time to greet them as they arrived. They were considerably older than my friends’ parents, and that’s because they’d adopted me when they were older. They were both thin, with rigidly straight backs, clothed in about the preppiest outfits you could imagine. Their arrival ushered in a whole new round of concerns about my health, and how badly I’d been injured in the car wreck. I called my father “Dad” and my mother “Mummy.” They were wealthy, and part of the country club set, so it seemed to fit her.
“Are you alright?” Mummy asked, as she put her hand on my chest gently, acting like she had healing powers. “I’ve just been frantic, stuck in Denver while you were here in the hospital!”
“I just have a couple of bruised ribs,” I said, trying to ease their concern. “I have to take it easy, but I’ll be fine in a few weeks.”
“I am so relieved,” she said, with her lockjaw accent, the kind they all had in Shaker Heights, or so it seemed. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and a light hug.
“It’s good to see you,” my father said, and gave me a similarly distant hug, not because they didn’t love me, but because they didn’t want to hurt my ribs. “Damn airlines. You’d think they’d be able to keep to a schedule.”
“That’s not the worst of it,” Mummy chimed in. “Security now is just horrendous. They are so invasive. And now you have to take your shoes off too, and put them through that machine. It is just ridiculous!”
“They’re just trying to keep us safe,” I said, and tried not to think about 9-11 and get all somber. Wade walked up next to me and put his arm around me protectively.
“It’s good to see both of you,” he said to my parents in his friendly but formal way.
“It is so good to see you too,” Mummy said, and gave him a nice hug. My parents liked Wade. They weren’t all that thrilled that I was gay, even though they’d worked through it, but they had approved of my choice for a boyfriend. They’d been pretty sad when I’d told them we had broken up, so this joint appearance must be confusing the fuck out of them.
JP appeared miraculously and took over, good host that he was. “You must both be exhausted from your ordeal.”
“We will live quite well without having to remember it,” Mummy said, as if their flight delay was the worst catastrophe that had enveloped the world.
“Perhaps you would like to get some sleep?” JP offered, giving them a graceful exit. “Then in the morning, if you are up to it, we have a new mare you may want to try out.”
“That sounds wonderful,” Mummy said enthusiastically. She loved to ride. She turned to me. “We will see you in the morning.”
“Sleep well,” I said, trying not too sound relieved. Wade and I watched them walk down the hall. As soon as they were gone, we went back outside to the patio, where everyone who was under thirty was hanging out. I had a nice time, and really enjoyed watching Darius work his game on Mary Ellen. JJ broke up the party by claiming he was tired. His exit was followed by Ethan’s, who wasn’t all that sociable anyway. “Tired?” I asked Wade.
“Not really, but I’ll go to bed with you,” he said, cracking me up, and making my chest hurt. We went back to his room, and got ready for bed like an old married couple. We brushed our teeth, took off our clothes, and got in bed, both of us lying on our backs. I felt a shot of pain in my chest, and grabbed the pain pills urgently and downed another one. “You alright?” he asked.
“It’s starting to hurt worse,” I said. “Fuck.”
He turned onto his side so he was facing me and started running his hand gently over my chest. Just his touch seemed to ease the pain. He leaned in and kissed me, but when I got passionate, he pulled back. “Just relax,” he said.
“OK,” I promised.
He kissed me again, getting me fired up, but when I got too into it, he’d back off. He finally left my mouth, letting his lips work down my body to my dick, where he gave me one of his amazing blow jobs. Wade had the strongest cheek muscles around, and he was one great cock sucker. He swallowed my load and licked his lips while he looked at me, making me laugh and pant at the same time. “Good?”
I laughed harder, and then cringed in pain. “Good,” I said. I reached for his dick. “What about you?”
He pushed my hand away. “I’m fine. You can take care of me later.” I was going to argue, but I felt sleep overwhelming me. Before I knew it, I was out.
June 15, 2002
Escorial, CA
I sat on my patio, drinking a gin and tonic, even though the pain pill bottle said I wasn’t supposed to. I wasn’t in the mood to follow stupid rules anyway. I stared off to a point where the beautiful lawn gave way to perfectly manicured bushes, and then beyond that was the hillside, kept in its natural state, with just a little care to keep it contained. It was another beautiful day, but unfortunately my mood did not match the weather.
Just as I was about to engage in some unhealthy introspection, a very unpleasant shape appeared on the lawn, and started walking toward me. The last thing I needed was Will showing up to bust my balls some more. He’d already made it plain to me that he thought I was a total shithead for fucking around with Wade. And while part of me agreed with him, I knew in my heart that I wouldn’t have given up that time with Wade. He really was exquisite: so smart, so handsome, and such a good lover. If he’d been anyone else, if he hadn’t been linked to Matt, I’d have fought to keep our romantic connection. So while I felt incredibly guilty for hurting Matt, and while I was really pissed off at him for breaking my nose, the thing I felt most was sadness, knowing that now that our relationship was outed, I’d lost Wade. I’d fought against that conclusion, trying to think of ways we could keep seeing each other, but the price was just too high.
“Good afternoon,” Will said cheerfully. “We didn’t win.” He was sniping at me for not being able to play, or so I thought.
“Couldn’t win without me?” I asked. I was trying to joke, but with my mood as bad as it was, it came out sounding pretty cocky.
“Wow. We think we’re pretty important, don’t we?” he asked in a patronizing way.
“Whatever,” I snapped, then regretted it immediately, because when I said that I sounded like him, and he got that and laughed at me. “What do you want?” My bad mood had finally destroyed his good mood, and I saw his brows furrow. I got some pleasure out of making him feel crappy, but I knew there would be a price to pay for pissing him off.
“You have absolutely no right to be mad at me, so you can check your fucking attitude at the door,” he snapped.
“What do you want?” I asked again, but a little more nicely.
“When are you going to LA?” My psychologist was located in Santa Monica, so I had to go back there to see him.
“Probably tomorrow, right after the graduation.”
“You’re leaving before the party?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said definitively, hoping he’d accept that, and I’d be able to get away with escaping from here.
“Seriously?”
“I didn’t seem serious?” I asked snidely.
“When are you going to Connecticut?”
“What makes you think I’m going to Connecticut?” I asked, even though I was planning to do just that.
“Because you’re running away, and since you can’t surf, that’s the most logical place for you to go,” he said. “You’re probably out of the water for at least six to eight weeks.” It pissed me off that he was right. That’s exactly what Jack had told me, and it was the same water ban that Will had gotten last summer when his nose was broken. The similarities of our two situations were both ironic and irritating.
“What difference does it make to you?”
“These are not hard questions, and I don’t deserve this bullshit. If anyone deserves to be treated like total shit, it’s you. So you can just go fuck yourself,” he said, and he was really angry now. I wished he would be like Darius and JJ, who if I wanted them to leave me alone, I could be mildly annoying and they’d take the hint. Will was too persistent for that to work.
“Why did you want to know?” I asked again, trying to sound more pleasant.
“Never mind,” he said. “Stef will help me out. You are totally and completely unreliable.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, and now I was mad too.
He got up and leaned over so his face was a foot away from mine. “Matt hooked up with Wade’s sister last night. Maybe you should fuck her next.” He turned on his heel and stormed off.
“Will!” I called, so frustrated with him.
“What?” he asked, pausing.
“Please come back,” I said, and if I hadn’t been pleading, I could tell he’d have kept walking. He stood there, his back to me, then finally turned around and faced me, his arms folded and his eyes boiling with rage. “I’m sorry I was crabby, alright? This hasn’t been the best weekend for me.”
He reluctantly walked back over and sat down. “You created this problem. You’re the one who built this nightmare. So don’t you think, for even one minute, that I’m going to be your goddamn whipping boy. Are we clear?”
Arguing with him was exhausting, and it was a losing proposition, since he was right. “We’re clear.”
“So please tell me, if it isn’t too much trouble, what your fucking schedule is for next week.”
“I was going to LA on Sunday night. I have an appointment with my therapist on Monday afternoon. Then on Tuesday, I was going to fly back to New York.”
“You can go to LA on Monday morning,” he said. “After the party.”
“That’s not my plan,” I said.
“It is now,” he said. He was treating me badly, but I reminded myself that I’d brought this on myself be being such a dick when he first came up to talk to me. “Then on Tuesday, you can drop me off in Claremont on your way to New York.”
“Why are you going to Claremont?”
He didn’t deign to answer me. “That’s the plan.” He got up and left. Another relationship I’d fucked up, I thought, as I watched him walk off across the lawn.
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