Streak - 32. Chapter 32

November 13, 2002

De La Salle High School

Concord, CA

Zach

“Hayes, Coach wants to see you,” Gehrlich said. The other guys looked at me nervously, wondering if I was in trouble, but I just shrugged. I hadn’t done anything wrong, at least that the coach knew about. It was 9:15am, and if I were going to make it to my next class, I’d have to hurry. I hustled over to the athletic department and found him in his office.

“You wanted to see me, Coach?” I asked respectfully.

He gave me an unpleasant look. “Got a fax from your parents. Says you can’t play this weekend.”

“What?” I asked, even as a million emotions flew through my body. The biggest one was anger. He handed me the fax, which was a simple letter, signed by both of my parents, withdrawing permission for me to participate in any athletics at De La Salle. “Shit.”

“Looks like you’re out until you get this worked out,” he said.

“I’m sorry Coach. I don’t want to let you and the team down,” I said. That wasn’t entirely true, but I knew that shit resonated with him, if I made it about the team, and loyalty.

“It’s an easy match-up this weekend. Get it worked out by playoffs,” he growled.

“Can I have a copy of this?”

“Sure,” he said. He took the fax and went over to the copy machine, but it wasn’t working. “Damn. We’ll have to go up to the office.” I looked at my watch and noticed that my next class had already started, but this was more important. We walked up to the office, he zipped off two copies for me, and then walked back toward the athletic department, leaving me standing there, totally enraged.

I walked out to the Durango with my phone out. I called Frank and left a message, and then I called Will.

“Hey,” he said cheerfully. There was a lot of noise in the background.

“Where are you at?” I asked, in kind of a bitchy way.

“I’m in the City with Marc,” he said.

“That’s your dad’s new hot boy, right?” I asked.

“That’s him,” he said. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to figure out how not to hate my fucking parents,” I growled.

“What happened?”

“They faxed a letter to the school saying I couldn’t play football anymore,” I said, sounding morose and depressed.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“No,” I grumbled. “First Peebles tells me I have to listen to them or a raven is going to peck my eye out, now they fax the school and tell them I can’t play football. I’m surrounded by fucking idiots.”

“Where are you at?” he asked. Typical Will: he’d immediately gone into problem-solving mode.

“I’m in Concord, just leaving school.”

“It’s pretty early,” he said.

“You never cut classes?” I asked sarcastically.

“I did, and I do. I’m doing it now. Come meet us.”

“In the City?” I asked, like an idiot.

“No, we’re going to fucking Alaska. Yes in the City.”

“I don’t know,” I said, even as I got on the freeway.

“Come meet up with Marc and me. I’ll make it worth your while,” he said, in his sexiest voice. “Maybe you can talk to Sean while you’re here.”

“Good idea,” I said. Sean was my lawyer; I’d need to get him on this pretty fucking fast if I was going to be back on the field by playoffs. I called Sean and set up a meeting with him, then punched the Durango as I zipped into the fast lane. It was late enough that traffic wasn’t too bad, and I managed to get across the Bay Bridge without too many delays.

Will said they were hanging out in Ghirardelli Square, so I parked in a garage and walked over there, trying to find them. It was actually pretty simple, since they were taking a break at a café. Will spotted me before I saw him. “Hey!” he yelled, and waved at me. I walked over to him, grinning even though I was so pissed off there had to be steam coming out of my ears.

“Hey,” I said, and he fist bumped me. It was awesome the way he was so careful about that, about not showing any PDA, but I’d had a shitty day, and I decided it was one of those times to live on the edge. I brushed his hand aside and gave him a monster hug. At first he resisted, because that’s how important it was that he back me up on not getting outed, but then he seemed to get how fucked up I was, and he hugged me back.

“Dude, we’re in public,” he said cautiously.

“Right now, I don’t give a fuck,” I said. He chuckled, but I broke the hug off anyway.

“This is Marc,” he said, introducing me to this guy who was hot as fuck.

“Zach,” I said, and shook his hand. I smiled as I did, almost a leer, but saw him getting uncomfortable so I softened it up, and he relaxed. Instead of flirting with him, I treated him like I should have treated JJ. That whole experience had taught me a lot about how to read dudes. “It’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard all about you.”

“Oh yeah? What have you heard?” he asked, relaxing a bit.

“I heard you were super hot, and amazingly talented,” I said.

“You heard right,” he said, making me chuckle.

“Are you OK?” Will asked.

I sat down and ordered a coke. “No I’m not OK.” I handed him the copy of the fax, and watched him get pissed off, almost as pissed off as I was.

“We’ll fix this,” he said, with sheer determination. “We will fix this.” It was like it was an oath.

“I guess I should have expected this after the disaster on the phone last night,” I said, referring to my conversation with Alan Peebles.

“You don’t deserve this,” Will said. “This is bullshit.”

I realized that we were here in the City, it was beautiful, and I’d brought all my shit here and just dumped it on them. I was being a major buzz kill. “Let’s go walk around,” I said.

Somehow, I managed to compartmentalize my anger, and put on my happy face. We walked down through Fisherman’s Wharf, checking out all the weird looking fish, even as the smell damn near gagged me. Just as we got to Pier 39, my phone vibrated and I looked at it. “It’s Frank,” I said, and walked away from them a bit to answer it. “Hey.”

“Where are you?” he demanded.

“I’m in the City with Will and Marc, Brad’s new boyfriend,” I said.

“You’re not in school,” he said.

“I’m not.” I wasn’t in the mood for him to bust my balls about missing classes, and he got that message.

“Tell those guys I said ‘hi’,” he said, then got to the point. “Your parents said that you can play football in Claremont, or you can not play football and stay at De La Salle.”

“Then I’ll stay at De La Salle and not play football,” I said. That was easy enough.

“You sure about that?”

“There is no fucking way I’m going back to Claremont,” I said.

I heard him snaugh. “I’ve said that a few times.” He made me chuckle.

“Maybe I’ll transfer down here to Menlo and we can all move back to Escorial,” I said, thinking about how cool that would be.

“Yeah, they’d love that,” Frank said, referring to my parents.

“I’m meeting with Sean this evening,” I told him.

“You going forward with that hearing to change your guardian?”

“I am,” I said, as if it were a vow.

“Let me know how it goes,” he said, and then we hung up. I was walking back over to where Will and Mark were shopping when my phone rang again. I looked at the caller-ID and frowned. I knew that number by heart: it was the phone at my parents’ house. It could be Brent, but that was unlikely. He’d call me on his cell phone. The smart thing to do was to ignore it, but with every vibrating ring, I just got more and more pissed off.

“Hello,” I said coldly.

“Zach, it’s your mother,” she said severely, in the tone she used to scold me.

“You must have the wrong number, lady,” I told her. “I don’t have a mother.”

“What?”

“I’m an orphan.”

There was silence on the phone for a couple of seconds. “Zachary…” she said, and began to start in on me. She only used my full name when she was pissed off.

“You are dead to me.”

“Zach...” she said in a more soothing way, since she realized how incredibly pissed off I was.

“You are dead to me,” I said again, in the same bloodless way I’d said it the first time.

“Your father…” she started to say but I cut her off.

“I don’t have a father. I told you that. You are dead to me.” Then I hung up the phone. I looked over to the shop that Marc and Will were hanging out in and my eyes connected with Will. I walked over to a bench and sat down, and put my head in my hands, trying to block out the world so I could figure this shit out.

I felt the bench move as someone sat next to me, and then felt Will’s firm hand squeeze my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“This is such bullshit,” I said. I told him about my conversation with Frank, then about my conversation with my mother.

“I was thinking that maybe you could come back to Escorial and stay there tonight,” he suggested.

“I’ve got a better idea,” I said, inspired. “Why don’t we call in sick tomorrow, and spend the night here.”

He grinned. “I can do that.”

“Awesome,” I said, since it was the first good thing to happen to me today. Just as I was lifting myself out of my shitty mood, my phone rang again. I ignored it, because it was my parents’ number again, but they called back again. And again. I looked at Will, dreading the call, but knowing if I didn’t answer it, they’d just drive me fucking crazy. “Hello.”

“What the hell did you say to your mother?” my father yelled at me.

I was calm, cool as could be, and spoke to him with absolutely no feeling in my voice. “I told her the same thing I’m telling you. As far as I’m concerned, I’m an orphan. You are dead to me.”

“You told her that?!”

“You are dead to me,” I repeated, and then I hung up the phone. It rang again, with him calling me back. I hit the talk button and said “you are dead to me,” then hung up again.

“Dude,” Will said sympathetically. I just grimaced at him, letting him see how painful it was to have them hurt me like this. He leaned into me, not in a boyfriend kind of way, but in the way one dude would tell another dude a secret. Only when he spoke, his voice wasn’t like that at all. “I am gonna rock your fucking world tonight.” His voice was so fucking sexy, it’s like the words went straight to my dick.

“Now I can’t stand up,” I said, smiling at him.

My phone rang again, and it was a different number: this time it was my mother’s cell phone. I hit talk, and uttered the same words. “You are dead to me.” Then I hung up.

I walked over to hang with Marc, while Will made a phone call, although I had no idea who he was talking to. He finally came over and joined us. “Let’s go.”

“Where?” I asked.

“I got us a suite at the Grand Hyatt in Union Square,” he said. “We can go hang out there and chill.” I was thinking we were going to go to this hotel and just sit there, which sounded boring as fuck, but Will decided we should take a detour, so we climbed to the top of Telegraph Hill and checked out Coit Tower, then just walked toward Union Square, stopping from time to time if there was a shop or something that looked interesting. And to get lunch.

When we got back to Union Square, Marc’s eyes bulged as he saw a couple of cool art galleries. “Let’s go check this out,” he said, looking at one that had huge glass windows and lots of contemporary art.

“Dude, this is a field trip?” I joked, since going to galleries wasn’t my idea of a good time. They ignored me.

We walked into this gallery that was really high class, and I actually did feel like I was on a field trip, and totally out of place. Will and Marc weren’t like that at all. “I love his stuff,” Marc said, as he stared at paintings of balls, not the boy kind, the kinds that bounce.

“John Gibson?” Will asked curiously.

Marc nodded. “He’s from Massachusetts. I met him a couple of times, and even got to talk to him.”

“Dude, I like balls, but is that all he paints?” I asked.

“Look at what he does with them,” Marc said. “He told me that he paints balls because they are the most simple and fundamentally different thing from the flat surface of a painting that he can think of. He said that he likes the elegant opposition of forces.”

“That is exactly right,” a voice behind us said. We turned to find an older gentleman looking at us in an appraising way. He was probably in his late fifties, and had that kind of classy air that JP Crampton had. He clearly worked here. I figured that he’d look at this twenty something dude with two teenagers and just toss us out, but he seemed pretty cool. He pointed to a plaque on the wall we hadn’t seen. “Here’s what he said: ‘Every day I try to wring a ‘real’ ball out of a flat surface and every day I can’t quite do it.’ In the good paintings there is some residue of that effort and in the best paintings there is a lot. In many ways then the subject of these paintings – at least for me – is just that residue: a wish for something that cannot be had, a version of a ball overlaid with desire.”

“Impressive,” Marc said.

“I’m Thomas Hartford,” he said, and shook our hands as we introduced ourselves. Will and I just told him our first names, but Marc gave him both first and last.

“I like this one,” Will said, as he stood in front of a painting of a single blue ball. It was pretty big, about five feet by four feet.

“A blue ball?” I asked, and chuckled like an idiot. Will rolled his eyes at me, while the art dealer guy gave me a patronizing look, even as he checked me out.

“Look at the ball’s reflection,” Will said, entranced. “How much is it?”

“Ten thousand dollars,” Hartford said.

“I’ll take it,” he said impulsively, surprising all of us. “Can you ship it to Palo Alto for me?”

“Certainly,” he said.

“Dude, ten grand for a painting of a ball?” I asked, getting another dirty look from all three of them.

“Don’t your paintings sell for more than that?” Will asked Marc.

“Sometimes,” he said.

“Marc Carmine,” Hartford mused. “I’ve heard of you. You’re in New York and Boston.”

“I’m staying out here for a few weeks,” Marc said.

“Maybe longer,” Will added.

“Do you have any pieces here, with you?” he asked. “We may be interested in exhibiting them.”

“I don’t, but I’m working on a few,” Marc said, clearly excited. “I’ve got all of my prior work in digital format on my laptop, but I don’t have it with me.”

“Are you going to be in Palo Alto, too?” he asked Marc.

“That’s where I’m staying.”

“I’ll be down there early next week. Perhaps I can deliver this painting, and view some of your pictures.”

“That sounds good,” Marc said. Hartford gave him a card, and they arranged a time for them to meet.

Will gave Hartford his American Express Platinum card, and when Hartford looked at the name, he paused. “Schluter. Are you related to Stefan Schluter?”

“He’s my grandfather,” Will said proudly. “Do you know him?”

“I know him intimately,” he said with a smile.

“Dude, you act like that’s a big deal,” Will joked, which I thought was kind of obnoxious, but that made this Hartford guy really crack up.

“It sounds like Stef is the same. I have not seen him in years. Where is he living?”

“He lives in Palo Alto with my other grandfather. His partner.” Hartford looked at us curiously. “JP Crampton,” Will augmented.

“He’s with JP? How does that work? They’re both bottoms,” he said, and that made me laugh so hard I got some dirty looks from the other people in the gallery.

“You do know him,” Will said. “When you come down to meet with Marc, stay for dinner.”

“Thank you for the invitation. I’ll do that,” he said. He took Will’s credit card and charged the ten grand, and then we left.

“Let’s not tell Stef and Grand that we met this guy,” Will said. “It will be fun to surprise them.”

“Next Tuesday at dinner?” I asked. Will nodded. “Looks like I’m making a trip to Escorial.”

We walked over and checked into the hotel, then went up to the suite to kick back. It was amazing, with a really cool view of Union Square. We stood there by the window, the three of us, with Will in the middle. I felt my phone as it vibrated, and I heard Marc’s doing the same thing. “What the fuck is with you two?” Will asked. “I feel like I’m a lesbian, surrounded by vibrators.”

“Sorry,” Marc said nervously.

“David?” Will asked. Marc nodded.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“The dude Marc used to be with,” Will said. “Treated him like shit.”

“How did he treat you like shit?” I asked Marc.

“He didn’t hit me,” Marc said quickly. “He was just mean.”

I looked into his eyes, and knew exactly what he’d been through, because I’d been there too, only on the other side of the coin. I felt guilt surging through my brain as I remembered this dude I’d hooked up with in Claremont when I was fifteen. His name was Kenny, and he was a dentist. I’d turned him into my bitch, and that’s why I never had to worry about money when I lived there. I laughed at how my parents had worried about me getting in trouble without a car. I didn’t need one in Claremont, because I had Kenny to do whatever I told him to do, to take me wherever I wanted him to. He’d been relieved, at first, when I broke it off with him, then he’d started calling me and bugging me, and finally, he’d left me alone. “He made you feel like shit about yourself.”

“Yeah,” Marc said.

His phone rang again. “Is that him?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Give me the phone,” I ordered. He did what I told him to, a sign of how cowed this dude had been. I went to hit the talk button.

“What are you doing?” he asked, and grabbed for the phone.

“I’m gonna solve your problem,” I said, and hit the talk button.

“Marc, just talk to me,” a man’s voice whined. “I’m sorry baby. I’m sorry. Come back and let’s talk about this.”

“Look asshole,” I snarled, “he’s my bitch now. You leave him the fuck alone.” My voice was so intense; it scared Marc, and got a raised eyebrow from Will.

“Who the fuck is this?” he demanded.

“None of your fucking business,” I shouted. “He does what I say, when I say it. I’m checking everything. I see his phone log. I see you calling him. You do that again, you’re fucking dead meat.”

“This is none of your fucking business!”

“It is my fucking business. He’s mine now. You call him again, and it’s gonna get ugly.”

“What are you gonna do to me, punk?” he asked, being cocky.

“One more phone call to him and you better start watching your back. You have to go out in public sometime. One more call and bad things happen to you. Bad things.” I surprised myself by how evil I sounded.

“Like I’m afraid of you,” he said, only he was. I could hear it in his voice.

“Last dude that did this, I fisted him. You ever been fisted?” He said nothing. “Answer the question, asshole, or I’ll come over there and bite off your fingers!”

“No.”

“Neither had he. I have big hands. He didn’t like it much and neither will you. Now stay the fuck away from him, or you are going to experience a whole new kind of pain,” I snarled. There was silence, and then the call ended.

“Dude, that was impressive,” Will said, smiling at me.

“And a little scary,” Marc said nervously. He held out his hand for his phone.

“I’m gonna hang on to it for a few minutes.” I knew the drill. Five minutes later, it rang again, and it was David. “Looks like you can’t take a fucking hint,” I yelled. “Looks like I’m gonna have to go postal on your ass.”

“I’m sorry,” David said in a subdued way. “I just wanted to talk to Marc and find out where to send the stuff he left here.”

I covered the speaker on the phone. “You want your stuff back?” I asked Marc quietly. He shook his head. “He doesn’t want it. Donate it to charity. And don’t ever fucking call this number again. Find yourself a new bitch, asshole. Are we clear?”

“Clear,” he said, and hung up the phone. I handed Marc his phone. “If he calls you, let me know.”

“OK,” Marc said nervously. He and I sat on the couch, while Will vanished for a few minutes. He came back in with a joint and lit it. He passed it to me; I took a hit, and then passed it to Marc. He looked at it strangely, shrugged, and took a hit. In no time at all, we were all pretty stoned. After that, Marc snagged one of the bedrooms to take a nap, while Will and I took the other one and fucked like wild men.

November 13, 2002

Palo Alto, CA

Brad

“I’m not sure if twenty percent of this company is worth eighteen million,” I said to Cal, our accounting guru. The guy was a whiz with financial statements. “We’re going to have to put some work into them. Our management resources team will have their hands full.”

“We told them we wanted thirty percent, they’re offering twenty,” he said. “Let’s go in at twenty five, with the typical covenants and guarantees. Those numbers work even if we have to go run the company ourselves.”

I chuckled. “You think if we hard ball them, Kleiner Perkins will snake the deal from us?” I asked, referring to one of the other monster venture capital firms in the Bay.

“They need our help, and they know it. Kleiner Perkins can’t give them what they really need,” he said.

“Fine. Write up the offer and send it over to them. Give them twenty-four hours to respond. I don’t want them using us as bargain bait,” I said. No way was I getting into a bidding war with these people.

“They may need to get a Board resolution,” he said, explaining why that short time frame may not work.

“A simple letter of understanding in the meantime will be sufficient. They can get the resolution and the shareholder approval lined up in the next two weeks,” I said.

My door opened and Grace poked her head in. “You have a phone call.” I looked at her, waiting for her to tell me who was interrupting my day. “It’s Will. He says it’s important.”

“I’ll get this handled,” Cal said, and walked out of my office.

“I’ll take it in here,” I said. I heard my phone buzz, and answered it cheerfully, putting my business persona on hold. “Hey there!”

“Sorry to bug you. I know you’re busy,” he apologized.

“What’s up?” I asked, telling him to get to the point.

“Can you come up to the City?”

“Now?” I asked, in an exasperated way.

“It’s been kind of a weird day, and I’m worried that Marc may be freaking out,” he said.

“Why?” I asked nervously, a reaction that told me how fast and hard I was falling for this guy.

“David has been calling him.” I felt fury flowing through my body. “Zach talked to David and scared the shit out of him, but I think the whole thing freaked Marc out.”

“What did Zach say?” I asked, and then paused. “Wait a minute, what’s Zach doing with you in the City?”

“Wally and Clara sent De La Salle a fax telling them Zach couldn’t play football,” he said. I collapsed in my chair, stunned at what idiots Wally and Clara were being. “Look Dad, Zach has to go meet with Sean in a couple of hours, and I want to go with him, but I don’t want to leave Marc by himself.”

“When is your meeting?”

“At 5:30,” he said.

“Where are you?”

“Grand Hyatt, Union Square,” he said, and gave me the room number.

“I’ll get there as soon as I can. Make sure I can get a key from the front desk.”

“You got it,” he said. Grace entered as soon as the call ended, since she could tell from her phone if I was on a call or not.

“I can clear the rest of your day,” she said. “The only meeting you had is that five o’clock, and Luke said he could handle that one.” She was so efficient, she figured out that I’d probably be leaving, and had gotten things squared away for me.

“Thanks Grace,” I said. I grabbed my jacket, got in my Porsche, and rocketed up 280 into the City. I was lucky it was early, because the rush hour traffic hadn’t started yet, but I didn’t get close to the City until 4:00, and at that point, it started to snarl up. I didn’t make it to the hotel until 4:30.

“Good afternoon, sir,” a pleasant valet said, ogling my car. “Checking in?”

“We already have a room,” I said. I gave him my name, and then got into the elevator, but this was one of those places where you had to have a room key to get up to the top floors. I sighed and went up to the front desk. I had to wait for five minutes while some idiot argued about his bill, then finally I was able to get a key and head up to the suite.

I wasn’t really paying attention, and went to the first door I came to, put in the key, and strode in confidently. Only I hadn’t gone into the main suite, I’d gone into Will’s room. He was lying on his back with Zach on top of him, riding up and down on Will’s cock. I froze, freaking out about interrupting them, even as it was impossible to ignore how sexy Zach’s thighs were as the muscles strained. They both looked at me, probably as embarrassed as I was. “Uh, sorry,” I mumbled, and all but ran out the door. I went to the next door, which was the suite entrance. I should have noticed that in the beginning.

My key opened this door too. No one was in the main area, so I went over to the other bedroom and opened the door gently. I peeked in and saw Marc lying on his back, his arms behind his head, just staring at the ceiling. He looked really stressed out. I pushed the door open enough to get his attention, and then walked in the room. “What are you doing here?” he asked, and his whole face lit up. It was so awesome to be able to do that, to make someone happy just by showing up.

“Came up to see you,” I said.

He gave me a suspicious look. “Will called you.”

“He told me about Zach’s deal, and that they had to spend some time with Zach’s lawyer, so I figured I’d keep you company so you didn’t get bored,” I said.

“He must have told you that David called,” he said.

“He said Zach talked to him,” I said. I was kind of surprised about that, since I figured that if anyone would have stepped in, it would have been Will.

“He was pretty scary,” he said. “He even had me worried, so he had to scare the shit out of David.”

“Has he called you back since then?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Even if he does, I’ll just ignore his calls. I think he was using the excuse that he still had my clothes to try and connect with me.”

“You have new stuff,” I said.

“I told him, well, actually Zach told him, that I didn’t want them, and to just go ahead and donate them to charity.” I nodded and sat on the bed next to him.

“So you’re not going to talk to him?” I asked. It really wasn’t my place to tell him who he could and couldn’t talk to, but he humored me.

“No, I’m done with him. I know it, you know it, Will and Zach know it, and now I think David knows it.”

“Good,” I said. “Sorry you had a shitty day.”

“Dude, my day wasn’t shitty at all. It’s been amazing,” he said. That was a little frustrating, since Will made it seem like he was pretty upset, but when I looked into his eyes a little deeper, I could see that this thing with David had rattled him.

“What did you do?”

“Toured around this city, which is beautiful. Went to an art gallery. Will bought a painting, and I talked to the guy about maybe exhibiting some of my art.”

“That’s fantastic,” I said. “Seems like you’re getting yourself set up here in California.”

“Seems that way,” he said with a grin, then pulled me down on top of him, and it was my turn to get laid.