Millennium - 12. Chapter 12

November 14, 1999

 

“Easy?” I asked. “Alright, if it’s so easy, who is it?”

“Who hated you more than anyone else? Who refused to come to our parties after you and I got back together? Who glared at you when he walked across the stage at graduation?” He looked at me smugly, like he was right. And he was.

“Dan?” I asked myself. “Dan Church,” I said now, as sure as he was. “Fuck. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“You were too busy dreaming up conspiracy theories about Carson,” he said. I glared at him. “I’m just kidding,” he added hastily. “I promised I’d keep my mouth shut, and I will.”

“I have to call Stef,” I told him.

“He’ll probably be here in an hour or so. I already called him. They’re on their way down.”

“They?”

“He and JP,” Robbie said. “I should probably get going.”

“Will you stay here with me?” I asked.

“All night?” he asked, like it was some big chore. If he were lying here, they’d have to drag me away. He didn’t even want to be here. There was no way to stop the tears this time. “OK, OK,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

“No. It’s fine. You can go.”

“Brad, it’s not you, it’s just that I’m nervous about seeing Stef and JP.”

“Because you’ve treated me like shit and you think they’ll be mad at you for it?”

“Yeah,” he said guiltily.

“They will, and you deserve it,” I said. “But when they’re done here, I want you with me. And I’m afraid that if you leave, you won’t come back.” I think it was finally starting to dawn on him just how fucked up this thing was making me.

“This is a nightmare,” he said. “I’ve created a nightmare.” I tried to nod but it hurt too much. “I need some time to be all by myself. Just me. Not with you and not with Carson.”

“I understand,” I told him. “Here’s the deal. You want to vanish for a while to think this through; I’ll support you one hundred percent. But if you tell me that, and you run off with him, I will never forgive you.”

“You’re already pissed off at me,” he said.

“You don’t understand. It will move from pissed off to hate. And then I can’t say what I will do. So please, just be open with me about this shit. It’s not like there’s much left of our relationship to save.”

“Don’t say that. How can you say that after the great time we had in Vegas?”

“Because of the shitty time we had tonight,” I told him. He was about to argue with me when Stef and JP came in. Stef rushed over to my bed.

“How are you?” Stef asked. Talk about drama queens. He had tears in his eyes, and was about to go all maudlin on me.

“My head hurts,” I said. “We have to talk.” Robbie got up to leave. “Stay.” I said. He sat back down.

“What about your head?” Stef said. It was like he felt cheated that he didn’t get to put on the concerned-person-in-the-hospital routine.

“Listen to me,” I snapped. “Robbie figured out who’s behind Amphion, or at least it’s a pretty good guess.”

“Who?” JP asked.

“Dan Church,” Robbie said. I watched Stef and JP digest that, watched as the light bulbs went off in their heads.

“That very well could be,” Stef said. “Good thinking, Robbie.”

“Thanks,” he said, positively beaming at having them not hate him, at least for a moment or two.

“Stef, I was thinking. If Dan hated me, and he wanted to take me down, he’d have to erode away the most important things to me. First they’d have to break Robbie and me up.” Both of them glared at Robbie, and he looked like he’d been hit by a truck. It was as if he were complicit in this thing. “Then they’d hurt our company, and take away my pride. They’ve done all of those things. They haven’t hurt the company seriously yet, but they’re trying. Robbie isn’t completely gone, but he’s close.” I felt like shit because I forgot he was there. “This whole thing has almost destroyed my pride. I keep making a complete ass out of myself. The only thing left they could do is hurt my family. Stef, what if they do something to the kids?”

“That won’t happen,” JP said calmly. “We’ll make sure of that.” I didn’t see how he was going to do that.

“I think they want to destroy Robbie too,” I told them.

“Brad thinks that Carson, this guy I, uh, work with and I’m, uh, seeing, is part of this conspiracy, getting me to pick shitty movies.”

“Well he has done quite well with the last two,” Stef said, pissed off. Robbie glared back at him.

“That’s a lot of speculation,” JP said.

“That’s what I said,” Robbie agreed, glad to have JP in his corner.

“Still, it would make sense for you to take some simple precautions, Robbie. You can’t say anything about this to Carson, and you’d be foolish if you listened to any of his recommendations.” I almost laughed, but I didn’t. I could tell that having JP say the same thing I did, when we clearly hadn’t talked about it had an impact.

“He’s already promised to do that, with some serious consequences if he doesn’t,” I said, looking at him directly.

“I fucking got it,” he said, frustrated. “I gotta pee. I’ll be back.”

“How did this happen?” Stef asked.

“This is more important,” I told him. “We have to get a private investigator to track Carson. And no one can know. Not assistants, no one.”

“It is not Brandon,” Stef asserted.

“We just made Robbie promise not to talk to his, uh, friend about it. I don’t think Brad is asking too much that you keep Brandon in the dark,” JP said. He almost called Carson Robbie’s boyfriend, but I tried not to let that bother me.

“Dad, you have to make sure both of these guys,” I said, talking about Stefan and Robbie, “understand this. If any of this gets out, all of our plans are shot.” Stef glared at me, because when I’d said guys, my tone made it sound more like I was calling them idiots. Well, if the shoe fit. “And we have to find out about Dan Church. Who’s he tight with?”

“I know the people to call,” JP said. “And I will talk to both Stef and Robbie to make sure they understand the situation.” He glared at Stef, who was now sufficiently cowed to drop it.

“And now that we have done with that, how did this happen?” Stef demanded.

“I got in a fight with Robbie,” I said

“He hit you?” Stef asked. The fury on his face was scary.

“No, I hurt myself beating up his car,” I said.

“You beat up his car?” JP asked, trying not to smile. “It appears as though the car kicked your ass.”

It was too funny not to laugh. Robbie chose that moment to return. “What’s so funny?”

“They were just telling me what a pussy I am for letting a car kick my ass,” I joked.

“I don’t know. The car’s pretty fucked up,” he said, irritated. And then Stef lost it.

Stef was always pleasant, usually cheerful and effervescent. He never really got mad, or got pissed off, or if he did, it was very very rare. But he was pissed off now. He got in Robbie’s face and almost yelled at him. Considering it was Stef, it was like he was screaming. “I have never been as disappointed in someone as I am in you. You let your dick rule your mind, you let your own frailties destroy lives, and you are absolutely faithless and unreliable and untrustworthy. You have let this little twink get under your skin and influence you, and you have cost all of us who are shareholders in the firm tens of millions of dollars. If you were not almost my son-in-law, you would have already been fired, and you would already be well on your way out of this town.”

“Stef, please...” I said, intervening. I could see the devastation his words were having on Robbie.

“This is not just about you Bradley. This is about the rest of us too. Anyone who got anything from Greg’s estate has a vested interest in the firm doing well. That means Robbie, but it also means me, and you, and Marcel.” Lou had gotten his inheritance in cash.

“We don’t know if Carson is even involved,” Robbie started to say, but Stef cut him off.

“I am not willing to lose millions of dollars and to see the people I love destroyed just because you have a fucking bald spot. Deal with it!” Stef yelled. We all just stared at each other, digesting how succinctly Stef had summed the situation up.

“Stef, I think we should go and let Brad get some rest,” JP said. It’s what he didn’t say that hit Robbie like the sledgehammer that was still lodged in the windshield of his car. Unless he completely agreed, JP would have found something to hand Robbie to let him save his ego. He didn’t.

“I’m going to take a vacation. I can leave things right now, and it should be alright. I’ll send a notice to the board, letting them know how to get in touch with me,” Robbie said, beaten down.

“Who is going with you?” Stef demanded.

“I’m going alone,” Robbie said firmly. “I already made that promise.”

“Well Robbie, your word does not seem to be worth much these days, so we will have to hope you mean it this time,” Stef snapped, and stormed out of the room. JP followed him, leaving us alone.

I held out my hand to him. “I should go,” he said.

“You should stay,” I said. “At least stay here tonight. I know it’s not the nicest place to be, but I’m here. That counts for something, doesn’t it?” I asked, trying to be playful.

“Yeah,” he said. He lay down with me in the bed, on the side without the IV, and I let him curl up to me this time. “Won’t they yell at me for being here?”

“Don’t worry. I had this boyfriend who was in the hospital once, and I spent a lot of time there. I know how to handle them,” I teased. He raised his head and smiled at me.

“I’m going to stay here until you’re OK, then I’m going to leave for a while.”

“When will you be back?” I asked.

“A couple of weeks,” he said.

“We’ll be at Escorial for Thanksgiving. You should be there,” I told him.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Robbie, I know you’re hurt. If I were a dick, I’d say ‘cry me a river’, but I won’t.”

“You just did,” he said angrily.

“Yeah, I know. I thought that was pretty clever,” I said, trying to joke with him.

“Ha ha ha,” he said sarcastically, but he smiled.

“No matter what happens, you have an obligation to our kids. We really don’t know why Billy flipped out like he did,” I said, referring to my brother. He’d been killed in a drunk driving accident after a fight with the rest of us. “I always wondered how much of it was due to his losing Sam. Sam was the guy he relied on the most.” Sam had been JP’s partner when we were kids, and their break-up had been hard on all of us.

“Just what I need. More guilt.”

“That’s bullshit. I just want you to think about other people before you run off and mope all by yourself,” I snapped. “Will has me, we all know that. And JJ, well, he tends to migrate toward Jeanine. But Darius has always looked to you as his primary source of support. You’re the one who taught him how to drive. You’re the one he talks to about his girl problems. Well, you and Cody. You can’t vanish.”

“I’ll be home for Thanksgiving,” he grudgingly agreed.

“Where will you go?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “And I’m not going to tell anyone.”

“You have to. What if we need to get in touch with you?”

“I’ll take my cell phone, and I have e-mail,” he said. I didn’t say anything, I was just too tired and my head hurt too much to argue with him, to explain it to him. “What?”

“Can I call you? Can Carson call you?”

“I haven’t figured it out yet,” he said, frustrated.

“Alright, well I am trying not to be more pissed off about this than I am, and I really don’t feel up to talking about it. You give him more access to you than you give me, and I will personally bite off one of your testicles. Do you understand where I’m coming from?” I was really cranky now.

He smiled. “OK, I got it.”

“I want to know where you go. Of all the people on the face of the earth, name one person you can trust more than me,” I said.

“There isn’t anyone.”

“I’m not going to go chase you down, but I do want to know where you are. And I have an idea for you.”

“What?”

“I was just over in Maui. The villa is beautiful. Go there.”

He smiled and nodded. “What if you decide to go surfing?”

“I think I’ll be a little too busy to do any surfing outside of Malibu. You’ll be isolated there. No one will bother you. And there’s a stash of weed in the bottom drawer of my nightstand.” He laughed with me.

“Get some sleep,” he said. “I’ll be here until you get out of the hospital.”

“That could be weeks then,” I said with a grin, and kissed him. He shook his head, and then we drifted off to sleep.

 

November 15, 1999

 

It was a tense ride home from the hospital, what with Stef, JP, Robbie and I all riding in the limo. My head was throbbing, but they gave me some pain pills, plus a prescription for some more, so that was helping a bit. I felt like shit. I hated the hospital, but part of me wanted to stay there so Robbie would be around. This time, I wanted him around more for him than for me. He’d taken his browbeating yesterday pretty bad, and the thing with Carson had shaken him to the core. I knew the reason for that. The reason for that was that he’d opened up his mind and started to think about it, and what he’d ruled out as a certainty, now at least merited consideration as a possibility.

“I have to go back to Palo Alto,” JP said as the car turned into Malibu Colony.

“I will stay here with you for the next day to make sure you are alright,” Stef said.

“Go ahead and go back Stef. I’m staying here until tomorrow,” Robbie said. I smiled at him.

“If you’re sure...” Stef said.

“I’m sure,” I said. Robbie smiled back at me. Robbie put his arm around me and I leaned back into him.

“It seems you are in good hands,” Stef said dubiously. Robbie had some serious ground to make up there. Stef didn’t get mad at people often, but when he did, he was pretty unforgiving, at least until the person begged him to forgive him. He’d all but written Robbie off.

“I’ll be fine,” I said. We drove up and they helped me into the house. It was quite a welcoming committee. Jeanine and the boys were there, as were Cody and Max. In the end, after they talked to me, they spent more time with Stef and JP, all except Will, who followed me up to my room.

“You OK, Dad?” he asked me concerned.

“I’ll be fine. I just hit my head. No real risk of damage there,” I joked. He gave me a dirty look. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

“Mom let us stay home until you got here,” he said. “If you’d have gone a little slower we probably could have missed the whole day.” I laughed.

“It’s a nice day too. Surf’s up,” I said, raising an eyebrow.

“Can I go?” his eyes lit up.

“Yeah, but hurry, before your mother sees you,” I said. He did well enough in school that he could miss a day. He gave me a kiss and a hug and then took off.

“Jeanine will probably get pissed about that,” Robbie observed. “She’ll think you’re undermining her with Will. He pretty much only listens to you as it is.”

“Then she can hate me too. She’ll have to stand in line. I’m getting used to it,” I told him.

“I’m going to go get something for us to eat. I’ll be back,” he said. He leaned in and gave me a nice kiss.

JP almost bumped into Robbie as Robbie left our room. “I looked at the car. I may have to revise my estimate of who kicked who’s ass.”

“I was drunk and mad and stupid,” I said. “It’s probably one of the dumber things I’ve done.”

“I’ve done some dumb things too,” he said. “I took the liberty of calling the Ferrari dealer. They’ll pick it up tomorrow after Robbie leaves.”

“Thanks Dad. This whole thing is really tearing me apart. I mean, I beat up a car. You know what really pisses me off though?”

“What?”

I sighed. “They’re winning. It’s working. They’re slowly but surely ruining my life.”

“The fight’s not over. Just like the Ferrari, we’ll have you fixed up like new soon enough and you can take them on again,” he said, smiling.

“I feel like I have a sledgehammer in my head,” I told him.

“Now you know how the car feels,” he said. “We’re leaving. We’ll see you in a few days.”

I gave him a hug, then Stef came in and we had a long, drawn-out, tearful goodbye. I loved him completely, but his drama could wear me out.

Jeanine came in next. “I see you let Will go surfing.” She was irritated. I ignored it.

“It’s a nice day and his grades are good,” I said.

“You undermine me when you do that,” she snapped.

“Then I will have to try to do better in the future,” I said, smiling. She smiled back and shook her head. She knew I’d do whatever the fuck I wanted, but somehow the fact that I’d made this vague commitment seemed to placate her.

“They’re gone,” Robbie said, coming in carrying a tray. “Thank God.”

“It’s nice that they cared enough about me to come down and check up on me,” I said.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” he asked me, all pissed off.

I stared at him, shocked. “I didn’t mean anything by it Robbie. I just thought it was nice that they came to see me.”

He sat in bed next to me and we started munching on food. “I’m sorry. I guess I feel so guilty about how I treated you that I think everything is a dart aimed at me.”

“It’s not always about you,” I said in a smart-ass tone of voice. He rolled his eyes, but then I changed my tone. “I want you to think about something.”

“What?” he asked me suspiciously.

“Whoever you end up with, and you’re such a handsome, awesome guy, you’ll end up with someone, but whoever it is, you should try to be in a monogamous relationship. I don’t think you can do this open thing.”

“I get it. One more thing I can’t do right,” he said.

“Knock it off, dumbass. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m your biggest fan,” I snapped. He looked at me and rolled his eyes, then hit me with that cute grin of his that always melted me.

“Sorry.”

“You are a loving and devoted person. You fuck a guy, and you develop feelings for him. You’ll never be a Stef, JP, Cody, or Matt. You’re more like Wade. He does that. A fuck to him is more than just a fuck.” He looked at me and thought about it. “That’s why this has been so hard on me. I know you, and I knew that when you took up with Carson, it was more than just sex. Sex I could handle. Sharing your love; that I can’t handle. I could with someone else, maybe, but not you.”

“Why not with me?” he asked.

“Because with you it’s always a battle. You can’t just love me and love Carson. You have to love only one of us or you’ll go nuts. So it’s a conflict, a constant conflict, until one of us wins.”

“What makes you think there’s even a chance you wouldn’t win in the end,” he said grinning. It would be so easy to just forget about all of this and accept him at face value, but he needed to get it right this time.

“I’m not saying I wouldn’t lose, I just think it’s unfair and unreasonable that I’m even in this fight. And I’m telling you now that I’m done with it. I’m done fighting. I’m never fucking doing this again. If I give you cause, that’s one thing. But I haven’t done anything wrong to warrant the hell you’ve put me through. That’s the hardest part. I think about it, and I try and figure out where I went wrong. There’s the little stuff. I didn’t tell you I loved you enough. I didn’t go out of my way to show you. But you know how I feel. It wasn’t enough for you to do this.”

“People don’t always have control over their emotions like you do,” he said. “Love isn’t always something you can stop.”

“If you were really happy with me, if you really loved me, you wouldn’t have been tempted.”

“You’re not tempted?” he demanded.

“Sure I am,” I told him. “I’m tempted all the time. I handle this open relationship differently than you do.”

“Better than me,” he said with a sneer.

“Differently,” I said firmly. “I’m tempted all the time. When I’m free, I give in to it. I become slutty. I have been with more guys since November 2 than I have since high school.” It was fun to watch that really upset him.

“How many? Who?” he demanded.

“I don’t know, it’s not important, and you really have no right to even ask me that question.” I sighed. “The difference is that you fuck one guy, but you love him. I fuck ten, but I still love you.”

“You fucked ten guys?” he asked. I just stared at him, unwilling to go there. “Fine. I get what you’re saying. I’m leaving for Hawaii tomorrow morning. When I come back, I’ll have a better idea of what I want to do.”

“I’m glad for you,” I said petulantly. It irked me to the extreme that he would think he had complete control over my life.

“What do you mean? What are you pissed about now?” he asked.

“Look, I’m glad you’re going to do this. You need to. You need to do this for you. I don’t want you to think that gives you the right to make decisions for me,” I told him.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that you should go on this soul search, but I’m not going to sit here and pine away for you. I’m not promising to be here for you when you get back.”

He stared at me, trying to get it, and when he finally did, I could see the sadness in his eyes. “I guess if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.”

“I guess it is,” I told him.

.