Flux - 26. Chapter 26

July 7, 2002

Chicago, IL

Will

I hung up the phone, and smiled at Matt ruefully. “That was Stef. They’re running about half an hour late.”

“Terrific,” he grumbled. It was especially annoying that they were late after we busted our asses to make it to Spartacus on time. As if to emphasize that, our limo pulled up in front of the club and stopped. I looked at my watch and it read 9:55. Matt and I just shook our heads.

“Well, we might as well go in and see what they’re working on today,” I said fatalistically. We just had a brief stop here, to check in with Josh. After that we were headed to the airport for the flight to Paly, where we’d drop off Stef and JJ; and then Matt and I were flying on to Maui. I was stoked to get back to the surf.

As we were walking up to the door, I was surprised to see Cam Heely stroll up at the same time. He was wearing khakis and a polo shirt, which seemed to be the business uniform here in Chicago in the summer. He was really handsome; it was easy to see why Matt was with him all those years ago, and why he was so anxious to spend time with him now. “Morning,” Cam said.

“Good morning,” Matt and I chimed together.

“Stef is running about half an hour late,” Matt said. Cam just shrugged. We walked into the bar and paused, grabbing one of the hard hats that were there in case Gus showed up. It was funny how his little tirade yesterday had conditioned us. Only Gus wasn’t the guy we ran into as we walked into the bar; the only person there was Josh.

“What are you doing here?” Josh demanded as he glared at Cam.

“I invited him to see the progress on our building, and to meet Stef,” Matt said, squaring off with him.

“Did you spend the night with him?” Josh asked Cam.

“Not that it’s any of your fucking business, but no I didn’t,” Cam snapped.

“Oh right,” Josh said sarcastically. “You just got here at the same time by coincidence.”

This whole conversation was really pissing me off. First of all, Cam was here as our guest, so even though Cam and Josh had been together, it was incredibly rude of Josh to treat all three of us like this. And in addition to that, Josh had been the one to go off and fuck that brown-haired dude in the bathroom. He was being pretty fucking hypocritical. But most of all, I knew that unless someone nipped this in the bud, Josh would be a royal pain in the ass for Matt to deal with. And since Stef wasn’t here, I decided that it was my job to take this idiot down a notch. “Excuse us,” I said to Cam and Matt, and then turned to Josh. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” he asked me, being a smartass.

I stood in front of him, no more than a foot away. “You and I are going to have a fucking conversation, asshole!” I stalked off, wondering if Josh would follow. He did.

“What?” he asked, a little more nicely.

“Who the fuck do you think you are, throwing attitude at Matt, Cam, and me? That’s fucking bullshit. There is no way we’re going into business with a douchebag that can’t even show us some common courtesy.”

“You’re already in business with me,” he said in a smarmy way. “The contracts are signed.”

“God, are you stupid,” I said contemptuously. “You know how little it would take to send you packing? Those contracts you talk about could end up in court for years. Where are you going to get the money for the legal bills?”

“I don’t know,” he said, after he thought about it for a bit.

“Do you really think that any of us are going to put up with even the slightest amount of crap from you?” I was well beyond Grand’s volume threshold, but not loud enough for Cam and Matt to hear. “Are you that fucking stupid? You have a chance to build your dream, and we’re throwing shitloads of money into this building, money you originally budgeted in, which gives you all kinds of extra cash to make this the club you want. If Matt weren’t going to live here, that wouldn’t be happening. And you’re going to throw it all away by being a dick? Seriously?” I was pumping out some serious rage, and that finally backed him down a notch.

“Dude, so it’s alright for Matt to come in here and pick off my boyfriend and fuck him?” he asked self-righteously, but I could tell he was a little wounded. It was funny, because he was pretty easy to read. He wasn’t bummed about losing Cam, but he was upset about being faced. This was about his pride.

“You’re the one who fucked that dipshit in the bathroom. Cam was about to storm out of the bar after he witnessed you banging that dude in a stall. So it was already fucking over. Don’t you get that?”

“I guess,” he said, sulking.

“Matt and Cam go back a long way, so it’s not like Cam is some random dude you were with who Matt just picked off. And even if Cam was some random dude, the way you treated him, you deserved to be dumped.”

“So it’s OK for them to fuck and show up the next morning together?” And this was what was really getting him: the humiliation of being out-played by Matt.

“They didn’t fuck, they just talked,” I said. “I know. I shared a room with them.” That wasn’t exactly true, but I knew that if Matt said he didn’t fuck Cam, he didn’t fuck Cam.

“Oh,” he said.

I rolled my eyes at him. “Look, because you’re cute, I’ll give you some advice.” He smiled slightly at that. “You’ve got a whole lot invested in making this club work. That’s only going to happen if you get along with Matt.”

“So I’m his bitch?”

God, he was frustrating. “No, you’re not his bitch. He’s easy to get along with. Shit, you’re both a lot alike. If you’d relax, you’d probably enjoy him.”

“Hard to see that now,” he grumbled.

“You’re both wolves on the hunt. You want to fight with each other, or you want to spend your time prowling the guys you want to fuck?” He didn’t say anything. “Dude, haven’t you ever heard of a wingman?”

“You think I’m a player?” he asked, pretending to be offended.

“Don’t even try to bullshit me,” I said firmly. “I don’t think you’re a player, I know you’re a player.” He gave me a nasty look. “What the fuck is wrong with that?”

“Most players are assholes.”

“Well, from what I’ve seen of you so far, that pretty much sounds right,” I said, being a total smartass. Before he could say something that would really piss me off again, I stared at him, my eyes like lasers. “So here’s what you’re going to do. You and I are going to walk out there, and you’re going to apologize to Matt and Cam for being such a fucking idiot. And when Matt’s around, you’re going to be nice to him, and go out of your way to get along with him.”

“And what if I don’t?” he asked defiantly, just because he was pissed off that I was ordering him around.

“Then the next person you talk to won’t be so nice and easy going about all this shit as I am,” I threatened. “If you create drama, you’ll end up really pissing Stef off. So you’ll either end up having a chat with him, or with my father, who’s pretty fucking intense.”

He exhaled. “More intense than you?”

“Dude, you have no idea,” I said. “So just stop being an asshole, and play nice with others.”

“Fine,” Josh said with a grimace. I’d ripped him up enough; it was time to build him back up again.

“You have amazing ideas, and you can make this happen. All you have to do is not be a dick, and get along with people. Can you do that?”

He gave me a wry grin. “I can do that,” he said.

“I know you can,” I said earnestly. “So show me why I’m going to want to hang out here instead of the Manhole.”

“Dude, that place is so lame compared to what we’re building,” he said. I led him back over to where Matt and Cam were standing, having a low-key conversation.

“I like the no shirt rule,” I said, raising my eyebrow.

He chuckled, and then seemed resolved, and walked up to Matt. He held out his hand. “Let’s start over. Sorry I was a dick.”

Matt looked at him and blinked, then managed to get his shit together fast enough to shake Josh’s hand without facing him again. “I’m good with that,” he said, and hit Josh with his grin.

Josh turned to Cam, who was eying him suspiciously. “I’ve got some business shit to take care of, but maybe after that you and I can talk.”

“I’ll think about it,” Cam said, but not in a nasty way.

And then the whole dynamic changed again when Stef and JJ arrived. Matt introduced them to Cam, and Stef really went out of his way to be nice to Cam, which was cool. Then Josh went through all of the plans for the bar, including the revisions he’d made to the ceiling, among other things. Stef was very supportive, and even JJ was encouraging.

By 11:30, it had gotten to the point where people were just saying the same shit over and over again, so I decided to take the initiative. “We should get going if we want to make it to Escorial on time.”

“I do not have a specific curfew,” Stef said to me.

“Fine,” I said. “Let’s stay then.”

He gave me a mildly disapproving look. “No, I think we are done here. I am very impressed with what you are doing,” he said, directing that line to Josh. “And it was a pleasure to meet you,” he said to Cam.

We shook hands, and Josh kind of freaked me out, because when I shook his hand, he pulled me into a man-hug and whispered “thanks” in my ear. I just smiled at him and followed Stef out to the car. I guess it made sense that there would be drama in a gay bar, and drama about a gay bar, but I was pretty much done with it.

“Dude, what the fuck did you say to him?” Matt asked me.

“I just explained the situation to him,” I said calmly. Stef looked at us curiously, and that prompted Matt to regale him and JJ with the whole story about his relationship with Cam, the drama at Manhole last night, and the confrontation this morning. It took the entire limo ride, plus the time we spent in the plane taxiing and taking off for Matt to finish his story.

Stef listened intently, and then when Matt was done, he looked at me curiously. “And what did you say to Josh?”

I shrugged. “I told him that he had the chance to build his dream, but that wasn’t going to work if he was a complete asshole. I told him that Matt usually wasn’t too difficult to get along with, and he should try doing that, because none of us appreciated his attitude and his drama.”

“Indeed,” he said. “He seemed to get your message.”

I smiled. “Well, I explained that I was the easy one to deal with, and that if he was a royal pain in the ass, he’d end up talking to you or Dad instead, and that would be way worse.”

“I am not sure that is true,” Stef said with a smile. “It sounds like you handled that well.”

“Thanks,” I said. Then I took that opportunity to go back and crash in one of the bedrooms, to try and capture some of the sleep I’d given up last night.

I thought about my time with Devon, and was about to make myself feel guilty about it, but changed my mind. He was really hot, he was a good lover, and he was a lot of fun. I hadn’t done anything wrong by sleeping with him, and in the end, even though Devon was amazing in bed, the whole thing made me appreciate Zach that much more. As much as I was looking forward to getting to Maui, I was even more excited to see him on the 9^th.

July 11, 2002

Maui

Matt

“This place is amazing,” I said to Wade. We were in a restaurant in Lahaina, with a table right on the end of the deck, overlooking the ocean. A nice breeze blew the ocean air into our faces, but not in an annoying way. I took a sip of the Blue Hawaiian I’d ordered, complete with the lame-ass miniature umbrella.

“It is,” Wade agreed, smiling at me. I didn’t remember ever seeing him so relaxed. “Dude, you have a totally gay drink.” He said this as he took a swig of his beer.

“Dude, that works, since I’m totally gay,” I joked, getting a chuckle from him. “Or did you forget that?”

“No, I remember very clearly,” he said, smiling at me.

“Why didn’t we do this before?” I asked him. “I mean, we both have shitloads of money. Why didn’t we ever take vacations?”

“We’ve been places,” he said.

“Yeah, but we haven’t been to a place like this where we can just kick back and enjoy ourselves,” I pointed out. Most of the other traveling we’d done had had a purpose.

He shrugged. “I think there was always too much shit going on in our lives. We were too busy.”

“I think we should make a promise, right now, that we’ll take at least two one-week vacations every year,” I said.

“Together?” he asked.

“Well, that would be nice, but even if we’re not together, I think it’s important that we do it,” I said.

“I’ll make you a deal. Every year that we’re both single, we promise to go on two one-week vacations together,” he said.

“Deal,” I said, and extended my hand. He shook it and smiled. “This one doesn’t count.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not a week,” I said. “You didn’t get here until the 9^th, and we’re supposed to leave tomorrow.”

He nodded. “Alright, then where are we going?”

“Maybe we can come back here in August, before school starts,” I suggested.

He thought about it and nodded. “I can do that.”

“Awesome!”

“We’re supposed to go to Paly tomorrow,” he said. I could tell he didn’t want to leave any more than I did.

“I’m thinking the thirteenth is soon enough,” I told him. “I’ll bet Will is cool with that too.” He had been in heaven, surfing with Zach, who was learning pretty quickly, and with Kai, who was a fucking freak on a board.

“I’ll bet he is,” Wade said, smiling.

“I think I’m gonna play hockey again,” I told him.

He looked at me in surprise. “A rec league?” I almost laughed at how similar his attitude had been to mine.

“There’s a gay hockey league in Chicago,” I said. “Cam told me about it. He thinks I should try out for their team.”

“It will keep you in shape,” he said, only his mood had changed. No one else would probably be able to tell, because Wade was such a stoic rock on the outside, but I knew him so well, I could almost tell what he was thinking. And right now, he was really jealous. It was actually kind of cute.

“You don’t think I’m in good enough shape?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“I said ‘keep’ you in shape, as in maintenance,” he said. “Dumb ass.”

“So if I make the team, will you come see some of my games?” I asked in my flirtatious tone.

“Dude, I am not gonna fly halfway across the country to watch you play hockey,” he said. He saw me get annoyed and smiled, then added: “All the time.”

“Asshole,” I said lovingly.

“Maybe I’ll join the Boston team and we’ll play you and kick your ass,” he said.

“Probably a bunch of dried up old bean growers on that team,” I said dismissively.

“We’ll see.”

“Are you going to do that? Try to play hockey?” I’d been joking, but it would be pretty cool if he did.

He shrugged. “I’ll have to see how things go. I may need to play just to burn off steam so I don’t kill JJ.”

That was pretty funny. “He’ll be too busy skating to bug you.”

“Let’s hope,” he said. “Did Cam and Josh get back together?” I’d told him all about the trip to Chicago, and their issues, and he knew that I’d talked to Cam this morning.

“No,” I said. “Cam said he wants to try being single for a while.” He’d actually seemed to embrace that whole concept; I guess my sales pitch was pretty good.

“He sounds like a nice guy.”

“He’s amazing,” I said, messing with him. “He’s gotten even more handsome since high school. When we saw him in the bar without his shirt on, I thought Will’s pants were going to tent all the way to Wisconsin.”

“I’ll have to meet him,” he said, almost grumbling.

“Wade,” I said, staring at him to get his attention.

“What?”

“You’re jealous,” I accused. It was hilarious to see how much that pissed him off.

“I am not jealous,” he said adamantly. I just stared at him, waiting for him to go on. “Alright, maybe I’m a little jealous.”

“I like him, I love you,” I told him.

“Yeah, but we’re not together,” he said, the line he always pulled out when we talked about shit like this.

“Tell me what you’ll be doing five years from now,” I said.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ll either be practicing law, or finishing up my PhD.”

“So that’s the most important thing to you?” I asked, still giving him shit.

“No,” he said. “What about you? What do you see yourself doing in five years?”

“Living with you,” I told him. His eyes bulged, and even though he tried not to smile, he couldn’t.

“We’ve got a long way to go before we get to that point,” he said, being a buzz kill.

“So you don’t see that?”

“I didn’t say that,” he said, mildly flustered.

“On a scale of one to ten, what are the chances you and I will be together in five years, with ten is where you’re certain we will be, and one is that there’s no fucking way?”

I thought he’d argue with me, and make me tell him first, but instead he looked me squarely in the eye and said “Eight.”

I smiled big at that, but decided to have fun with him. “Eight? What the fuck? That’s like eighty percent. Dude, that’s a low B. When did you ever get a low B?”

“I don’t do as well with my personal life as I do in class,” he said, and actually sounded sad about it.

“Sounds like you have your own hidden Wally inside you,” I joked, referring to Zach’s father. “You’re always criticizing yourself.”

“Alright asshole. What do you think the chances are?”

“Eight point five,” I said, winking at him. “I’m always more optimistic than you are.”

He looked at his watch. “We probably should get back. They’ll be out of the water soon, and they’ll be hungry.”

I nodded, flipped a twenty on the table to pay for our drinks, and went out to the SUV. He let me drive, because I was kind of a freak about that; I liked to drive, and being the passenger almost gave me anxiety attacks. Guess Brad wasn’t the only one with control issues. We got back to Will’s house in a pretty euphoric mood until we walked in the house and heard loud voices.

“You fucking lied to me!” Will shouted.

“I didn’t lie to you!” Zach shouted back. “What the fuck do you want me to do?”

“Grow a fucking spine. And a fucking brain to go with it,” Will screamed. I heard footsteps as he stomped off, and heard a door slam.

“Next time we go on vacation, let’s just the two of us go,” I said to Wade. He chuckled.

“I’ll go see if I can calm him down,” Wade said, referring to Will.

“I’ll handle the other one.”

July 11, 2002

Maui

Will

I lugged my board along the trail that went up the cliff, directly from the beach to my house. God, this place was kick ass. There were things in my life that I regretted, but buying this house was not one of them. I was pretty fucking tired after surfing most of the day, and that made this short hike less than fun, but it was all worth it.

I got up to the top of the cliff and walked through the gate, taking some time to rinse off my board and put it away. Then I went and jumped straight into the warm pool, letting the fresh water wash the salt water off my body. Zach came out and smiled at me, even as he talked on the phone. He nodded to say ‘hi’, and then continued his phone conversation, only he went inside to do that. I lounged around in the pool for about five minutes, and then transitioned to the hot tub, which felt wonderful. I must have stayed in there for ten minutes, and I was pretty surprised that Zach hadn’t come back out yet. He wasn’t big on long phone conversations, unless he was talking to me, I thought with a smile.

I got out and dried off, then went into the house and saw him still on the phone, only this time he didn’t smile at me, and looked pretty unhappy. I stopped and looked at him, but he turned away from me, a clear sign that he was focused and didn’t want me bugging him. That was fine; I had phone calls like that sometimes. I went up to my amazing room and took a long shower, wondering if he’d get off the phone in time to join me, but after fifteen minutes, I gave up and got out, got dressed, and went downstairs.

I found him in the kitchen, rummaging around for a snack. “Did you just get off the phone?”

“Yeah,” he said, but he was in a bad mood.

“Doesn’t sound like the conversation went very well,” I said, more of a question.

“Probably better than this one’s going to go,” he said resignedly.

“That means you’re planning to piss me off,” I said, and found that I was already getting mad. I just stared at him, waiting for him to tell me what the deal was.

“That was Barry. There’s an exhibition that he wants me to go to. It runs from July 20^th to the 25^th.” He stood there; bracing himself for the storm he knew was coming. All that shit we’d dealt with about our trip to Europe, and the end result had been that he’d promised me we could go the last two weeks of July. No excuses, nothing else would get priority. And I’d talked Grand into rescheduling his trip so he could do it then too, which was a major hassle for him.

“Tell him you can’t go,” I said, throwing down the gauntlet.

“I tried to tell him that, but this one is pretty important,” he said nervously. Then he sighed. “And my parents are on board with me doing it, so they’ve all but demanded that I go.”

“You have a chance to do an internship with one of the top historians in the country,” I said through clenched teeth. “Those fucking idiots think one exhibition is worth more than that? Colleges look at more than just how well you run. They look at your brain too.”

“Barry knows that,” he said. “He thinks this one is that important.”

“This isn’t about an exhibition,” I said. “This is about you honoring your commitments to me, and about you giving me at least some place in your life. You promised me that you’d do that. I was totally fine with taking a back seat to football, provided you tossed me a bone once in a while. This was the bone, and you’re not even going to do that.”

“I told you that football came first,” he said lamely.

“You also said it wasn’t the only thing that was important to you. You promised me we’d have these two weeks. I talked Grand into changing his whole fucking schedule around. You’re a fucking idiot if you think it’s a smart idea to piss him off.”

“I’m betting he’d understand,” he had the nerve to say to me.

“Really? Are you fucking kidding me? He’d tell you that there’s more to being a college athlete than running the fucking ball. And he’d tell you it’s important for you to see some of the world. Why do you think he set this whole thing up?”

“To make you happy,” he said, and I just about completely lost it.

“That’s bullshit. He doesn’t need to do that to make me happy. He did it for you. He told me that travelling overseas had a real positive effect on Gathan, and he was hoping that the same thing would happen to you,” I told him. He reeled at that revelation, trying to grapple with the fact that this was more than just a fun vacation for us.

“That was really nice of him,” Zach said softly.

“Yeah it was, until you shit on him. You better stop and think about who’s more important to have on your side.”

“You’re saying that if I don’t go to Europe with you, you’re not on my side anymore? You’re not in my corner? You’re bailing on me?” Now he was pissed off, and he was yelling almost as loudly as I was.

“This is just another deal where your parents are trying to keep us apart,” I accused.

“They just chimed in at the end,” he said.

“Part of the deal with them hating me is that you have to fight to keep me in your life. That’s assuming you want me to be in your life.”

“That’s bullshit. This isn’t about some game. This is a really important exhibition. You’re making this into some big drama, and you’ve got my advisor and my parents plotting to set up this whole exhibition deal just so we’re not together. If they’re that powerful and smart that they can create an exhibition from thin air, then I think we should be worried about what they can do.”

“Right,” I said sarcastically. “You telling me that Barry didn’t know about this deal before now? He’s supposed to know about all these important events, and this one, that is so fucking vital, totally slipped off his radar? If that’s the case, than he’s a raving dumbfuck and you need to tell him to fuck off.”

“He knew about this thing, but he didn’t know it was going to be as big of a deal as it’s turning out to be.” I was so tired of listening to his lame excuses, especially since he was just spouting the same lines Barry fed him, and not thinking about it with his own brain.

“You promised me you were free from July 14^th on, that the rest of July was blocked out. This wasn’t just some bullshit promise, this was a vow. Now you’re telling me you’re not going. That means you lied to me. You fucking lied to me!” I shouted.

“I didn’t lie to you!” Zach shouted back. “What the fuck do you want me to do?”

“Grow a fucking spine. And a fucking brain to go with it,” I screamed. I had completely lost my ability to be rational about this, so I stomped out of the room, getting away from him before I said something else I didn’t want to say. Or worse, I said something I wanted to say.

I went up to my bedroom and slammed the door behind me, then collapsed onto the bed, lying on my back. I guess I should have seen this coming. I guess I should have known that ultimately Barry and his parents would find a way to set things up so he had to choose between me and them. And they set it up so there was them and football on one side; and me, my family, and his education on the other. I thought about that equation and felt the sadness overwhelm me. Even if I didn’t sway him, his education should. That just told me how unimportant I really was to him.

There was a knock at the door, but I was so not ready to talk to him. “If you walk through that fucking door,” I shouted, “you have a fucking death wish.”

I saw a head peeking around the edge of the door and I was looking around for something to throw at it when I saw that it was Wade. “You’re not gonna kick my ass, are you?” he asked, pretending to be scared. And as pissed off as I was, and as upset as I was, the thought that he’d be afraid that I’d kick his ass just seemed hysterically funny. I started laughing, even as he came in and closed the door behind him.

“You’re safe,” I told him.

“What a relief,” he said, as he sat on the bed next to me. “I take it you’re having an argument.”

“That’s what I love about you,” I said sarcastically. “You are so fucking smart.”

“I’ve been known to do some stupid fucking things,” he said, then seemed almost as sad as I was.

“You know what, Wade? Maybe it’s time for both of us to be single men,” I said with resolve.

He nodded. “I don’t really have much of a choice right now.” It was one of those rare moments where he let me see how much he loved Matt, and how much it bothered him that they weren’t together anymore.

“I really don’t have much of a choice either,” I said, as that sad reality broke over me.