Streak - 43. Chapter 43

December 12, 2002

Boston, MA

JJ

“It’s nice that you are here for dinner tonight,” Alex said to Matt and Wade. Tiffany was upstairs, feeling like shit because she was pregnant. Why she put herself and her body through that was beyond me.

“It is,” I lied, to be polite. I’d been hoping to have a nice, intimate dinner with just Alex, but evidently that was not to be.

“We don’t have hockey on Thursdays now that the games are over,” Matt said, referring to their competition in Sydney.

“I’m glad we’re getting a chance to talk to you two,” Wade said. I almost sighed. Every time we were around Wade, he’d bring up the fucking wedding. That was all he wanted to talk about. “I wanted to know what your plans for Christmas are.”

That was an unexpected question, even though, with that holiday two weeks away, it shouldn’t surprise me. “I don’t know,” I said, tossing the ball back to them.

“I should go back to England,” Alex said, almost to himself.

“California is warmer,” I said with a smile.

“Are you planning to go there for the holiday?” Alex asked me.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I usually do, but I haven’t talked to everyone else about it.”

“I spoke to Nana today, and she said that your grandfather had extended an invitation to all of us to join you at Bridgemont for Christmas,” Wade said. I wondered if I was included in that ‘us’, then I started to get paranoid. This would give Mary Ellen the perfect opportunity to move in on my turf, if I wasn’t around.

Alex had an amazing way of sensing my insecurities, and addressing them. It was one of many reasons why I loved him. “Jays, if it were up to me, you’d go back to England with me, but I don’t want to interfere with your plans to be with your family.”

I smiled broadly at that, even though I knew that if I went along, I’d spend most of my time listening to the details about the fucking wedding. “Then I’ll go to England.”

“Are you planning to run that by your father?” Wade asked. That was incredibly annoying. By saying that, he’d made a huge issue out of the fact that I was only seventeen.

“I don’t require his approval,” I said acidly. “I will simply inform him.”

“Cool,” Matt said, to move us beyond that unpleasant moment. I was ready to blast Wade out of the room, but I could tell by his expression that he got that he pissed me off, so I let it slide.

“When will we leave?” I asked.

“Classes are done by the twentieth,” Wade noted.

“I think I will be finished so I can leave on the twentieth,” Alex said.

“Then let’s plan on that,” Wade agreed. “I did talk to JP about this, and told him what we were thinking.”

“Was he disappointed?” Matt asked.

“I think he was fine with it,” Wade said. Not that anyone would be able to tell if Grand was upset anyway. “He knows we’ll have a lot of wedding details to work out.”

And once again, he brought up the fucking wedding. “I suspect we will,” Alex said.

“The last I heard, they were targeting January 10^th or January 17^th,” Wade said. I felt myself almost panic, since I’d be at Nationals during both of those weekends. Not only would I not have Alex with me, I’d miss the fucking wedding. I wondered if that might actually make things easier, for me to not go. It probably would at first, but I’d be so paranoid that Mary Ellen would be sinking her claws totally into him, and I wouldn’t even be around to fight for him.

“Those weekends won’t work,” Alex said firmly. “I’ll be in Dallas for the figure skating nationals.”

“It was my understanding that the venues were booked on the other weekends,” Wade said, more of a question.

“I spoke with my grandfather, and suggested that we change the customs just a bit, to acknowledge those here in the states who may want to attend,” Alex said.

“How are you going to do that?” Matt asked.

“We’re going to have it on Saturday, the 25^th,” Alex said. “Weddings are typically held on Fridays, but by swapping over to a Saturday, we’ll make it easier for a quick weekend trip for our American guests. Since the church and reception venue were both available, it seemed to be serendipitous.” He was so cute when he used fancy words.

“That works out really well,” Wade said, embracing that decision. “I evidently have a much larger role in this than I’d anticipated.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Since my father is dead, I’m the head of the family,” Wade said. “It’s my job to host the reception, and to give away the bride.”

“Dude, you’ve been wanting to give Mary Ellen away for your whole life,” Matt joked. “This will probably be a great day for you.”

We all laughed at that. “Probably,” Wade agreed. “I talked to Nana, and evidently it’s rude for the groom to have more guests at the wedding than the bride.”

“That’s going to be tough, since the wedding is in England,” Matt said. “How are you going to get a bunch of Americans to go to London for a weekend?”

“By paying for it,” Wade said calmly.

“You’re going to pay for everyone to fly over?” Matt asked, stunned.

“I am,” Wade said. “I’ve got to rearrange the plans a bit, but I’m going to charter a jet to fly out of DC on Thursday evening. The reception is still at the Savoy?” That question was directed at Alex.

“It is,” he confirmed.

“We’ll book rooms there for everyone,” Wade said.

“How many people do you think will attend?” Alex asked.

“Nana and I reviewed the guest list, and we think that it’s likely that only three-fourths of the people we invite will go,” Wade said. “That should put us at two hundred guests on our side of the aisle.”

“That is an impressive turnout,” Alex said.

“Dude, who are you inviting?” Matt asked.

Wade shrugged. “We’re related to all of the First Families of Virginia, so that’s a good chunk of people there. Add in some other family friends, and the list should be quite large.”

“That is much how it is in England,” Alex said. “It is rare to run into another aristocrat who is not at least a distant cousin.” Once again, it amazed me how similar Wade’s world and Alex’s world were, separated only by a big ocean.

“The flight over will probably be a blast,” Matt said.

“I’m planning to charter a large jet, so we should have quite the party,” Wade said with a grin. “We may actually have to take two. I’m going to have a lot of work to do to get all of these arrangements made.”

Wade had been pushing my buttons all night, which was really stupid on his part, because he was so easy for me to annoy. Other than Darius and maybe Will, he was fast becoming my favorite target when I was in a shit-disturbing mood. “You don’t have to make things so hard,” I said to him in a dismissive way.

“Yes he does,” Matt said with a leer, getting a dirty look from Wade. I just rolled my eyes at him.

“What do you mean?” Wade asked me.

“You don’t have to micromanage everything. You don’t always have to be in control,” I said.

“Sometimes he’s not in control,” Matt said, maintaining his leer. He was so uncouth it was almost more annoying than watching how much he was bugging Wade.

“Explain that,” Wade demanded, ignoring Matt.

“I’m sorry,” I said innocently. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” I did actually mean to do just that, but it was fun to point out to Wade that he was visibly flustered.

“I’m not upset,” he lied.

“Hire someone,” I said, answering his question. “They’re called event planners. Tell them what you want, and they’ll do it. And they may even do a better job than you could have.”

Matt smirked at Wade and raised an eyebrow. “That would appear to be a good solution to helping you manage your time,” Alex said diplomatically.

“And it’s pretty much what I told you to do,” Matt said, in his ‘I told you so’ tone.

“Whatever,” Wade said, and sounded so much like Will that both Matt and I started laughing.

“I am truly grateful for all that you are doing to make sure we can keep up appearances,” Alex said, jumping in to save Wade. I smiled, even though I tried not to. How cool that he didn’t talk about ‘his special day’ or some sentimental wedding shit like that. Instead, he was focused on how it would look to society.

“How many bridesmaids are there going to be?” Matt asked. And then we were back to talking about the fucking details of the fucking wedding.

“That has been a subject of much controversy,” Alex said. “It is customary to only have one attendant each for the bride and groom. There is some precedent to expand that to two people, so that’s what we’ve decided to do.”

“Do you know who the people are?” Matt asked.

“I’ve chosen my best man already,” Alex said. “As I have talked to him and secured his approval, I feel comfortable sharing that with you.”

“Is he as handsome as you are?” Matt asked, flirting.

“No one is as handsome as Alex,” I said, winking at Alex.

“Thank you,” Alex said, with a shy smile, and then answered the question. “He is quite handsome. He is also named Alex. That was one of the things that bonded us together at school. He’s the grandson of a duke, so it was almost as if we were from cloned backgrounds.”

“Is he a duke now?” Matt asked.

“No. Alexander Douglas-Hamilton is currently the Marquess of Douglas and Clydesdale. He is heir to the Duke of Hamilton,” Alex said.

“I met him last summer,” Wade mused. “A really nice, fun guy.”

“He is,” Alex confirmed. “I believe Mary Ellen has asked Shelby Bannister to serve as her maid of honor.”

Wade chuckled. “Those two are about as different as two women can be. Shelby is a caring, nice, sweet person. Dark hair, slender, more svelte than Mary Ellen.”

“You mean Mary Ellen has bigger tits,” Matt said.

“That too,” Wade said, shaking his head at Matt. I hoped he wasn’t this coarse in front of foreigners.

“The other young lady is a friend of the family, Susannah Calthorpe. Her father is the vicar at the church in Bridgemont,” Alex said.

“No title?” Wade taunted.

“The Calthorpes are social climbers, and readily accepted in the best circles, but that is not automatic,” Alex said. We looked at him quizzically. “Even if I were a jerk, my pedigree would ensure that I was able to join certain institutions, clubs and the like. The Calthorpes have to be personally appealing as well.”

Of course Wade understood that completely. “So you have a Brit and an American in Mary Ellen’s party. Who’s your Yank?” Matt asked.

“I have not talked to him yet, so it would be inappropriate for me to say,” Alex said, being stuffy.

“We’re not going to blow the big surprise,” Matt said, annoyed at having this remain a secret. I just shrugged.

Alex turned his attention to me. “I was hoping you would do it.”

“Me?” I asked, stunned. I could have seen him picking Wade, but then again, Wade had his own part to play in this nightmare. Matt was another option. But I really would have expected him to pick another one of his English friends.

“This is an important event in my life, and as you are the most important person to me, it seems appropriate,” Alex said. He sounded stuffy, which meant this was making him nervous.

“If you want me to do it, I’ll do it,” I said with a smile. I was really unhappy about this wedding, and I wasn’t thrilled about being a part of it, but that was offset by how annoying it would be to Mary Ellen to have me there at the altar with them when they were married.

“Then you will do it,” Alex said.

“Is Susannah hot?” Matt asked. I rolled my eyes at him yet again.

“Very,” Alex said, and winked at me.

“I’ll make plans for us to head to England for Christmas,” Wade said, concluding our dinner. I watched them leave and thought that by the time this wedding was over, I would have made it through some pretty big events. I had Christmas first, then the Nationals, then this wedding. I hoped they’d all turn out alright.

December 20, 2002

Concord, CA

Zach

“Your last game,” Will said wistfully. I adjusted the phone a little bit, so I could hear him better.

“In high school,” I corrected.

“You tell UCLA you’re going there yet?”

“I talked to them yesterday,” I said. “They were pretty excited.” That had made me feel pretty good.

“So why’d you decide on them instead of USC?”

“Hazing at USC is supposed to be pretty bad, and I’m not putting up with that bullshit,” I said. No way did I want to deal with a bunch of no-talent seniors making me their bitch.

“So you’re coming back to Escorial after this, right?”

“Duh,” I said, chuckling.

“I have missed you so much,” he said, with a longing tone to his voice that made me throw instant wood.

“I’ve missed you too,” I said. I saw my reflection in the mirrored windows, and knew I was smiling and blushing into the phone. It definitely looked like I was talking to a chick.

“You get your first Christmas present from me today.”

“Dude, you got me multiple presents?”

“I did,” he said smugly. “To go with multiple orgasms.”

“I am psyched,” I said, with a genuine smile on my face. A Christmas present from Will, I mused: it had to be something cool. That was pretty exciting. Some people got all freaked out about having a rich boyfriend or girlfriend, but I loved it. Maybe that made me a dick, but I think Will actually liked that I was that way, that I just appreciated the shit he did for me.

“You should be,” he said, almost a taunt. My mind shifted again, and I thought about how he was making a big deal about this Christmas present he got me. I’d worked my ass off on my present for him, so I was pretty confident he’d have a hard time beating it. I’d definitely hit it out of the ballpark with his birthday present. He wore the compass necklace I got him all the time.

The school bus pulled up and stopped, the bus that would take us to the Oakland Coliseum for the championship game against San Leandro. I saw the coach off in the distance. “Gotta go,” I snapped.

“Good luck,” Will said, as we ended our conversation. Hensen gave me a dirty look for talking on the phone before our game. Evidently it was against the rules, and no one followed rules better than Hensen. Whatever. All of his adherence to those stupid-ass rules hadn’t helped him become even a mediocre player. He was standing at the front of the line, so he could be the first one on the bus. I was glad, that way I wouldn’t have to sit next to him.

I ended up scoring a seat by myself, which was cool. I took a second to call my parents, but they didn’t answer their phone. I’d been doing really well with them, and had even talked football with my dad without getting a bunch of crap from him. I could tell he was trying hard. I guess the counselor was coaching him. It was working.

We got to the Oakland Coliseum, and if the game against Long Beach Poly had been the shit, what with us playing where the Bears played, this was so much better. This was an NFL stadium, home of the Oakland Raiders. We walked to the locker room, most of us in kind of a daze as we looked around. This was it. This was the show. Most of these guys would never get to play at a place like this, but I would. It was my destiny.

We got dressed for the game then had one of our long, maudlin team meetings, with everyone talking about how much they loved being on this team, blah blah blah… I sat there and was quiet until the coach eyeballed me, then I gave some canned quip about how glad I was that God had led me out here to De La Salle. Once we were done with all that shit, the coaches talked about this game. The upside of the whole deal was that the coach was worried about San Leandro and their speed. Those fuckers were fast. And there was one dude who had put a cheap hit on one of our guys last year, and he had a target on his back this year. I didn’t really worry about that. I wasn’t an enforcer; my job was to know who this douchebag was so I could do my best to avoid getting wiped out by him.

When we were done with the meeting, we lined up in the tunnel that led out onto the stadium and waited for the announcements to start. This was pretty cool because they actually announced each of us by name. They were going in alphabetical order, which meant I followed Gerhlich. “You ready?” he asked me with a grin.

“I’m ready,” I said, smiling back. I was so pumped up. This place was full of fans, and we could hear the cheers reverberating even down here in the tunnel. We made it up to the front of the line, then they called Gehrlich’s name, and he ran onto the field, leaving me standing there.

“Zach Hayes!” the announcer shouted, and I jogged effortlessly out onto the field. I was pretty stunned by the cheers, which were loud, louder than they’d been for anyone except maybe Cecil. I smiled and focused on the other guys and took my place in the lineup. Only once I was safely positioned there, did I pause to look around.

Frank told me they’d scored tickets right behind our bench, so I looked over there and found them. Frank and Isidore were there, as was their whole family. Brad and his boy, Marc, were cheering, along with Jack, Claire, John, and Marie. JP looked regal as he stood clapping rigidly, while Stef looked elegant. Will was next to them, and then to his left was Brent. I felt my smile damn near exploding across my face as we made eye contact. Only the biggest surprise was next to him, where my parents stood, grinning as broadly as I was. How cool was that? No wonder they hadn’t answered the phone. I looked back at Will and saw him smiling smugly. This was his doing. This was my Christmas present. He’d lugged these three people out here, my parents and Brent, who were so important to me. Based on all the shit we’d been through, it was the best gift, to have them here to share this last hurrah of my high school football career.

We jogged over to our bench, but I kept on going, and went up to the stands. I knew I’d hear about that from the coach, but this was the last game, so what was he going to do to me? “Thank you so much for coming to my game!” I said to my parents, even as I gave them both hugs.

“I think it was more Will’s doing than anything,” Dad said, winking at Will. I looked at Will and shared my appreciation with him non-verbally, in that way we were so good at communication.

“It’s good to see you too,” I said to Brent, like it was no big deal he was here.

“Nothing else going on,” he said in his casual way.

“Hayes, what are you doing?” I heard the coach say.

“My parents flew out to surprise me and see the game, Coach,” I said. “I just wanted to say hello.” He smiled at them briefly, and then turned back to the field, which was my cue to go over to the bench. They won the toss, so we kicked off to San Leandro. That gave me time to stand on the sidelines and watch what was going on. Normally I focused completely on the game and tuned in to what the other team was like, but this time I was more worried about what the people behind me were thinking.

My dad and I had been doing really well, but how would he handle actually being here and seeing me play? I was gripped with fear, not for me, but for him. This was probably the equivalent of a recovering alcoholic going to a bar. What if he relapsed, and became a judgmental asshole like he’d been for most of my life? We’d done so much to repair our relationship, but if he went back to that place where all he did was bitch at me, and try to control my career, it would be pretty ugly. I thought I’d been pretty forgiving of him, but I didn’t have it in me to put up with that same bullshit all over again.

“Hayes!” that familiar voice said. I found the coach standing next to me.

“Coach?”

“Get your head in the game,” he growled.

“You got it, Coach,” I said cheerfully, with my lopsided smile. Inside I was beating the shit out of myself for letting all of these family issues totally distract me, and I was even more pissed off that it had been obvious to everyone. I did what he said, and focused on the game, knowing that if I did my best, even if my father melted down, it wouldn’t be my fault.

San Leandro was fast, but their speed couldn’t get them around our defense. We shut them down for the first drive, and got the ball back on our 20-yard line. Sometimes the coach sent out our B-team to just check out the other team and see how they played against us, but this was the championship game, so he didn’t do that. He picked the A-team and sent us out there. It was clearly his plan to knock them on their heels, and to make sure we got on the scoreboard first.

We took the field, and the first two downs were a total disappointment. I ran on one of them, and couldn’t pick up more than two yards, while the other one resulted in an incomplete pass. We lined up for the third down, and ended up with a false start penalty that pushed us back five yards. We definitely needed to huddle over this one.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” One of the offensive linesmen yelled, bitching at the dude who had made the false start.

“Shut the fuck up,” Cecil snapped. The transformation in this guy was incredible. He had really become a leader. “We’re thirteen yards in the hole, and we’re on third down.”

“We have to do something,” Gerhlich said.

“No shit,” Cecil said to him in a smart-ass tone.

“So what’s the plan?” I asked, so we could focus. Time was limited in the huddle.

“It’s time for starwalk,” Cecil said, grinning at me.

“You’re sure?” Arturo asked. “Coach say that was OK?”

“We’ve got twenty seconds to make the decision and go for it, shithead,” Cecil snapped. “I’m making the call.”

Starwalk was a play we’d developed as a team, without any input from the coaches. It had been more of a fun exercise, something to do on the bus to various games, but we’d fleshed it out and even practiced it a few times. There was really only one other person besides Cecil who could have objected to it, and that was me, since the play was designed entirely around me. That’s where it got its name, since they called me ‘the star’, although not always in an affectionate way. “Let’s do it,” I said, backing him up. A slight nod to Gerhlich was all it took to make sure he was on board with me.

“Coach is gonna kill us if we fuck this up,” one of the guys said.

“No, you big pussy, if we fuck this up, he’s going to kill Cecil,” I joked, getting a chuckle. We lined up with me right next to Cecil, clearly indicating that we were going to run the ball. That was the beauty of this play, because it dovetailed perfectly into our normal strategy. In this kind of situation, where we desperately needed the yards, it would make sense that they’d let me run it. Only that wasn’t the plan.

Cecil took the hike and pretended to hand it off to me, in what was one of the better executed quarterback fakes. I pretended to have the ball, hunching over a bit so it was hard to tell that I didn’t, and charged toward the line, with Gerhlich plowing a path for me. I took some wicked blows from their line, which was awesome because that meant they thought I really had the ball. “He’s not carrying,” one of their dudes shouted, and then they were all off of me, and I dropped my hands, exposing the ruse.

As if by clockwork, Cecil pulled the ball out from behind his back and stood there, waiting to throw, eyeing our two wide receivers who were desperately trying to get open. Their safeties were fast, of course, and it was a challenge, but I didn’t worry about that, because that wasn’t the plan. I was through their cordon and wide open, and I just took off running with Gehrlich right with me. None of them seemed to notice that I’d done that, at least not until it was too late. With the safeties focused on our receivers, and their line flummoxed by our fake, I all but walked down the field (even though I was running) and looked over my shoulder just in time to see the ball heading toward me. I ignored everything else and adjusted my pace to match the trajectory of the ball. It worked so well the ball all but landed in my hands, and I picked up my pace and breezed into the end-zone before San Leandro even figured out what was happening.

We were all congratulating each other, even as we walked over to the sidelines. The scowl on the coach’s face erased a lot of our good humor. “What the hell was that?” he demanded.

“It was a touchdown, Coach,” I said with a grin, which only seemed to piss him off even more.

“Our present to you, Coach,” Cecil said. “We figured we’d show you how much you taught us.” Damn, that was good. The perfect response.

The coach gave him a fowl look, and then grinned slightly. “Nice job.” That set the tone for the game, and we dominated San Leandro, winning 42 to 14. The cheers at the end were like a tonic, pumping me up. We walked across the field and did the sportsmanship bullshit with the other team, but not for long, because these guys were douchebags. They acted like they’d won, and I heard their coach carping about how it was bullshit to expect a public school to beat a private school. Whatever.

We got to the locker room, all of us stoked. “Dude, you were awesome,” I said to Cecil, and high-fived him.

“Kept the streak alive,” he said, smiling. And that was the thing. We’d done our job. We’d kept it going. We hadn’t lost a game all season. Next year, that job would fall to the 2003 De La Salle team, but for us, the pressure was off. We’d delivered. We had a rousing team meeting, and it seemed to take for fucking ever to shower and get out of there.

“You’ve got half an hour to talk to your families, then the bus leaves,” the coach said. I looked at my watch, then all but tore out of the locker room and headed to the stadium, both excited and fearful about what I’d find waiting for me. The first person I spotted was Will, of course.

“Holy shit!” he exclaimed. “You were amazing!” He fist bumped me to show the world that we were just buds.

“Not as amazing as you,” I said, gesturing at my parents. “Thanks.” Gehrlich came and gave Will a big hug, picking him up off the ground and spinning him around, which cracked me up, but I was distracted by the rest of my family.

“I’m real proud of you,” my mother said, and gave me a big hug.

“Thanks, Mom,” I said, but then I focused on my father.

“That was the best game I have ever seen,” he told me, grinning from ear to ear. “Shit, even if I wanted to find something to bitch about, I couldn’t.”

I smiled as big as he did. “Thanks, Dad,” I said, and gave him a massive hug. “It made all the difference, knowing you guys were here.”

“Zachary, I will always be there for you,” he said meaningfully, and gave me another hug. I looked over his shoulder and saw Will smiling at me, even as a tear fell out of my eye.