Millennium - 45. Chapter 45

December 30, 1999

 

We were sitting in the dining room of the cabin in Big Bear, enjoying breakfast while we shared the paper. We looked like the picture of morning domestic bliss. I smiled at Robbie and he grinned back. “What?” he asked me.

“This was really nice, bringing me here,” I said. I looked out at the snow on the ground and the beautiful scenery. “I sometimes forget that things besides a beach can be beautiful.”

“I’m glad you like it. I like being here because you’re here.”

I rolled my eyes at his sappiness, trying to play it off, but his look told me he wanted me to acknowledge it, so I did. “That’s nice of you to say. I know how you feel. When you’re not around, I feel lost and alone.” He smiled to thank me, but it really was the truth.

“I didn’t know if you’d like being up here in the snow. I was planning to find out before this, but then you beat up my car,” he said.

“Because I beat up your car, that means I like snow?” I asked, confused.

“No, dumb ass,” he said. “Remember we were supposed to go away, just the two of us, before Thanksgiving? Then all that shit hit? I was going to take you to Telluride.”

I’d forgotten all about that weekend. He must have planned that whole thing out, and then watched it turn to shit after our big fight and his departure to Hawaii. “That would have been really nice,” I said sadly.

“Don’t go there. It’s all over now. We can still go back sometime,” he said cheerfully. God, I loved this man. “I figured it would be fun, even though you never really seemed all that into skiing.”

“It’s OK. It’s kind of like surfing for people who can’t swim,” I joked.

“No, that’s snowboarding,” he corrected. “Maybe you should give that a shot?”

I thought about that and nodded. “We should take the boys and go try it.”

“We can leave Jeanine and Tiffany home alone for a romantic weekend,” he teased.

“If they’re still getting along,” I said. “I feel bad, like we messed their relationship up.”

“They made up while you were in DC,” Robbie said. I looked at him funny. “Hey, you go gallivanting off to these high society parties, don’t get mad at me if you miss all the local gossip.”

“Well, in a few more days we won’t be around to enjoy it anyway,” I said, referring back to my paper.

“Oh yeah? Why?”

“This Y2K thing. All the missiles are gonna go off, all the computers are gonna shut down, and the whole world is going to end. I’m just not sure if it’s going to happen at midnight on Eastern Time, Greenwich Mean Time, or Pacific Time,” I said sarcastically.

“Right,” he said, making fun of my sarcasm. “You know it’s all hype. We’ll be fine, at least at the company,” Robbie said. “Cost a fucking fortune, but we’re ready for it.”

“If there is a meltdown and everyone has to scramble to fix things, our reputation will get hammered. We dumped our Y2K companies, all those firms specializing in fixing the problem, in November. When we started selling out tech assets, Luke wanted to lose them first.”

“So why will your reputation get hammered?”

I sighed. “Because if Y2K is all hype, and it goes off smoothly, those companies won’t have that huge marketing campaign, you know, global apocalypse, to motivate customers. The stock price drops as sales do, and we look smart. If it does cause major problems, those companies will be more in demand than ever, and their stock will soar. Only we don’t own any, we already sold it.”

“I think things will be just fine,” he said confidently. “When are you going back up to the Bay?”

“Probably on January 2, after my hangover wears off,” I joked. “That’s a Sunday night, so I figured I’d have meetings on Monday and Tuesday, and then come back on Tuesday night.”

“I was thinking maybe we could go see David together,” he said nervously.

“Sure,” I agreed, but I couldn’t blow that off. “Is something wrong?”

“No baby, nothing is wrong. I’m really really happy. I can’t remember when I’ve felt this good about things. I feel great about work, I feel good about myself, but the best part is how I feel about us.” I beamed at him, bathing him with my most radiant smile. “I just want to make sure things stay that way.”

“They won’t always be perfect. These good times, though, we should enjoy them.”

“I won’t ever hurt you like I did. I won’t ever do that again,” he said. There were tears in his eyes, and that really hit me hard. I got up and went over and sat in his lap.

“I trust you,” I told him.

“You do?” He seemed surprised.

“Yeah. You’re like a good dog. You learn from your mistakes.” He snaughed and pushed me off of him and onto the floor with a thud, then jumped on top of me.

“Woof,” he said. I was laughing so hard I thought I would puke.

“I don’t think you understand how much I love you, and how much you turn me on,” I said to him in my sultry voice.

“I don’t eh?” he asked, playing along.

“No, I don’t think so,” I told him. I pushed him off of me and stood up, holding out my hand. “Let me show you.” I led him into the bedroom and fucked his brains out, really fucked him hard like he liked it.

“You are an amazing lover,” he said afterward.

“It’s my partner,” I told him. “You know, that used to make me nervous, fucking you like that. Now I love it. You know why?”

“Why?” he asked nervously.

“Because now it’s just a fun way for us to get off together. You are so healthy and fun.”

“It hasn’t always been like that. And some people would say I’ve got some pretty kinky hang-ups.”

I grinned at him and kissed him. “Maybe so, but I love every one of them.” That got a big smile from him. It dawned on me that his sexual ego had suffered some heavy blows in this whole thing too. “I want to tell you something about that time when we weren’t together in November.”

“I don’t want to think about it,” he said definitively.

“Let me finish, OK?” He nodded. “You know, I didn’t always get laid. Sometimes I had to take things into my own hands.”

“Really? Even you had to resort to jacking off?” he teased.

“Yeah,” I said. “I know it’s hard to believe.” He smacked me playfully. “And there wasn’t one time that I jacked off that I didn’t think of you.”

There’s an amazing satisfaction that comes from saying something to your partner that makes him really happy, and makes him feel good about himself. I saw that hit him, saw him think about it, and smiled back at him when he got a huge grin on his face. “Always?”

“Always,” I said honestly. “You are the most amazing lover. You’ll do anything I ask to make me happy, and even more, you respond to everything I do.”

“Last time I jacked off, you know what I thought about?” he asked.

“What?”

“Eating fettuccini off your body.” I blushed and we laughed.

 

December 31, 1999

 

I thought back to when I was a kid and we’d have our Bastille Day Party at Escorial. The whole house would be in this state of pandemonium and chaos while everyone worked to make sure it was the best party ever. That seemed like child’s play compared to the panic at our houses today. Caterers, party planners, pyrotechnic engineers for the fireworks, everyone was running around like crazy while Stef battled valiantly to try and pull it all together. I’d offered to help and tried to get involved, but I’d been more of an obstacle than a help. Stef knew what he was doing.

So rather than get in the way, I’d escaped out here in the freezing cold weather in the freezing cold Pacific, to catch some waves. The guy who invented wetsuits just didn’t get enough credit. I watched as a big wave started forming, and all my years of experience, all my time in the water, told me this was one worth catching. “I’ve got this one,” Will said, paddling into position. His instincts were as good as mine.

I maneuvered into position, neither one of us saying anything, as the monster formed and then was on us. I felt it lift my board and I was up and vertical in an instant, sliding down the face of the wave. I looked to my right and caught Will’s eye for a fleeting second, all the attention we could or were willing to spare, and saw him wink slightly at me. I played with the wave for as long as I could, until it finally came crashing down on me. I felt its power as it drilled me under and held me there. There was pain in my lungs as I gasped for breath, fighting against this monster wave that was so pissed off that I’d gotten so much enjoyment from it. I struggled to the surface and gasped, only to be dragged down again by a secondary wave. When I finally managed to come back up, there was a hand in front of me, offering to pull me out.

“Thanks, Will,” I said.

“Wave kicked your ass, Dad,” he joked.

“It was just pissed off because it gave me such a good ride,” I said. He laughed. We went back out again and again. We didn’t say much; we didn’t have to. This was our bonding time, doing something we loved, and doing it together. We’d finally had enough, but I didn’t want to go back up to the house, so we just collapsed on the beach.

“Wicked waves,” Will said. “Thanks for coming out here with me today.”

“It was tight,” I said, imitating his slang. “Besides, it got me away from all that party-planning shit.”

“I talked to Drew,” he said.

“How’s he doing?” I asked with genuine interest.

“He misses me,” Will said sadly. I put my hand on his shoulder to show him I understood. “He’s going away to school next semester. Back East. To Choate.”

“Things aren’t good at home?”

“His parents treat him OK. He just thinks they don’t love him any more, and it makes them all sad. This was the best solution, he says.”

“It’s rough for guys who are gay and their parents don’t understand,” I said. “Pop and I were lucky about that. Grand didn’t have it so easy.”

“He didn’t?”

“No. He came out to his father after his boyfriend was killed in Vietnam. You’ve seen André’s statue, right?” He nodded. “They didn’t get along for a while.”

“Wow. I didn’t know that,” he said.

“Ask him about it. He’ll tell you.” He seemed to think that over.

“So Kevin is my cousin?” he asked.

“Yeah. I met my biological father’s wife in DC. She’s a bitch. She has two sons. One is OK. That’s Mike. He’s the guy I went to see in San Diego, who’s in the Navy. The other son is an asshole. He’s the one who’s with Brian.”

“Why do they hate us so much?”

“Well, they don’t hate you. Yet. They hate me because Mrs. Carmichael interrupted my biological father and mother having sex. Mrs. Carmichael was pregnant when she did, and catching them freaked her out so badly she miscarried. So she blames them for killing her baby, and she assumes that I was conceived at the same time. To her, I got life at the same time her own child was being killed.”

“That’s a pretty horrible thing for Grandma to do,” he said, talking about my mother.

“She was a pretty horrible person,” I said honestly. “She treated me like shit when I was growing up. The only real parents I knew were Grand and Grandmaman. But I was closest to Stef.”

“Why do you and Stef press your fingers together sometimes?”

I smiled. “Because we’re blood brothers,” I said.

“That's when you and your best friend prick a finger, and then you press your bloodied fingers together, right? I saw it in that movie, My Girl. Jason and I almost became blood brothers once but he chickened out. Why'd you do that with Stef?”

“When I was a kid, Stef and I were in Paris and he took me to see his old apartment and showed me where he grew up. I knew I liked boys even then, but I was too shy and nervous to talk about it. Stef sensed that. He told me that if we both pricked our fingers, then smashed them together so the blood mixed, we would be blood brothers. And then we could never reveal each other’s secrets. That gave me the courage to confide in him.”

Will laughed. “That’s the lamest thing I ever heard.” Only he didn’t mean it.

“So ever since then, when I want to tell him that I love him, we press our fingers together, and it’s a much more powerful message.”

“You think he’d take me to Paris and show me where he grew up?” Will asked.

I smiled. “I know he would. And if you asked him, it would make him really happy.”

We went up to the house and put our boards away, then went inside to get cleaned up. “Stef’s been looking for you,” Robbie said.

“Good thing I was gone,” I told him, smiling. I threw on some casual clothes and went over to find a very frazzled Stefan.

“There you are. I need your help,” he said. “I need to double-check that all the valets are ready, I need to…”

I looked over to the side and saw Jeff Grimes there, looking kind of bored. I remembered what Tim said about his organizational abilities, and had an idea. “Just a minute,” I said, cutting Stef off, and really pissing him off. I walked over to Jeff. “Hey, Stef needs your help, and not just your hunky body. Come on.”

“Cool,” he said, and followed me over to where a freaked out Stef was really starting to lose it.

“Stef,” I said soothingly, “you have an untapped resource here. He’s organized and cute. What more could you want?” He made to argue with me. “He’s more than capable,” I said firmly.

Stef glared at me, glanced at Jeff, and then glared at me again. I locked my eyes on his until he got it. He needed to have confidence in Jeff, so Jeff would have confidence in himself. “You are absolutely right. I cannot believe I left such a valuable commodity to go to waste.” He turned to Jeff and smiled his most charming smile. “Can you help me get things organized?”

Jeff smiled back at him. “Sure,” he said excitedly. I went to the desk and got a pad and a pen for Jeff, and watched him take furious notes as Stef rattled things off. “I’ll get on it,” he said with a grin.

Stef looked at me and smiled. “You are so good at finding the talents in people.”

“That’s what I tell all the guys I fuck,” I joked back. He rolled his eyes.

“I had forgotten what Father Tim said about his abilities,” Stef persisted.

“You know, if he pulls off this party, I think you may have just found your new personal assistant,” I told him. He thought about that and nodded. I wandered over to where Jeff was now concentrating, as he pulled all the parking details together.

“Dude, thanks so much. I was bored shitless,” he said.

“You do this right, you could end up using your brain instead of your brawn,” I told him.

“What do you mean?”

“Stef needs a new personal assistant. Show him you can do the job.”

“I’m only 18,” he said.

“Yeah, but you’re cute, and he likes that,” I joked. “Age is irrelevant. Ability is what matters.”

“Thanks,” he said, looked around, and then gave me a nice kiss, one that was almost just a little more than friendly but not quite.

“You’re welcome. And have fun at the party tonight. No hustling. You’re above that now.”

“Not a chance,” he said with his cocky voice. I walked over to the stairs and started to go up to get changed for the party. I paused to look back and survey the activity below me, and two vignettes struck me to my core. On the patio, Robbie and Darius sat talking as they smoked a joint. That made me chuckle, because I knew that Darius had to be the one to initiate it. I watched their expressions, watched their bond, and it made me smile. Robbie was a good father. He hadn’t had a chance to be there for Matt when he was growing up, but when Matt needed him this past year and a half, Robbie had leaped forward to help him out. It was that unconditional love that made a father-son relationship so special. And now here he was with Darius, the same caring attitude, the same smile, the same loving man, putting his all into his adopted son. I was a lucky man. I knew that now. What’s more, he knew he was lucky too.

I looked down at the other scene, taking place on the modern yet tasteful sectional sofa that sat in the Great room. JP and Will sat at the center, close together, talking. I didn’t need to be there, I knew what they were talking about. I could see JP’s expression of sadness as he talked about André and his death. I watched, amazed, as a tear fell from his eye. Will moved like a cat, fast and fluid, and wiped it away with his hand. JP smiled at him, and then gave him a hug, not one of those fake man hugs that we learned to do, but a real one, the kind he gave me. Fuck Brian. JP had such amazing grandchildren; he didn’t need that asshole anyway. I wondered if he’d finally figured that out.

There was one guy missing. I walked back down the stairs, went next door, and hiked up those stairs to JJ’s room. I knocked gently and entered. He was standing in the middle of the room on one leg, practicing a stance of sorts, while Tiffany stood next to him coaching him. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” I said.

“We were just finishing up,” she said. She gave me a quick hug on her way out.

“What’s up?” JJ asked.

“Nothing. I just thought I’d come check up on you. When’s your next competition?”

He smiled. “There’s a local deal on the 15^th and 16^th. It’s pretty lame. I’m pretty much guaranteed to kick ass.”

“I can’t wait to see you skate.” His cockiness worried me, but I put that aside.

“It’s not that big of a deal. You don’t have to make that one.”

“I want to,” I told him. “I haven’t seen you skate for a while, and especially not since I heard you were this wunderkind.”

“I’m not that good,” he said modestly. “I’ve got to get a lot better.”

“Yeah, but you want to do that, you’re driven to do that. That’s the coolest part of this. That you set goals and work hard to achieve them.”

“What happens if I fail?” he asked nervously.

“Then you fail. You will, you know. You can’t always win. The mark of a true champion is how you handle those defeats. Do you just get up, dust yourself off, and try harder? You do that; you’ll win the next time.”

“I know. It’s hard though, to work hard and then mess up bad when it counts.”

“Experience cures most of that,” I told him, being a sage.

“I’ve been thinking about this whole thing with school,” he told me. I just waited for him to go on. “I’m not sure I want to do the tutoring thing yet. Maybe in the fall. I’m not sure.”

“I’m glad you’re thinking seriously about it,” I said. “Why the change of heart?”

“I don’t know,” he said, irritated.

“There’s someone at school you like hanging around with?” I asked, hitting the nail on the head.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he insisted.

“That’s fine. If you do, I’m here for you,” I said. I got up and gave him a hug, then went to get cleaned up for our party. Of the boys, JJ was the biggest enigma for me. The only way to solve that was to be a better father and to spend more time with him. I thought about how I spent my time, and about all the drama that had absorbed me over the last few months. I needed to try and find more balance in my life. I needed to make sure I had time for my family.

I heard the shower door open and turned around to see Robbie walk in, smiling. “You don’t mind some company, do you?”

“You are always welcome in my shower,” I joked.

“How were the waves?”

“They were nice,” I said.

“What’s bothering you?” he asked, sensing my introspective mood.

“I need to find more balance in my life,” I said, verbalizing what I’d just told myself. “I need to be more involved with the guys, and I need to be a better partner, both to you and to Jeanine.”

“Brad, just because we have three awesome sons and you pause to realize that, doesn’t mean you fucked up because you haven’t been there every minute of their lives.” He read me so well. “It’s not something you need to do; it’s something you want to do.”

“Whatever,” I said, blowing him off even though he had laid it out perfectly.

“I feel the same way. I was out, fucking around, ruining our relationship and my company, while my sons were growing up without me.” I saw the tears in his eyes. “If I would have spent more time with them and with you, we’d have all been a lot happier.”

I grinned. “I don’t know if we all would have been a lot happier. I’m not sure they want us around all that much.” He smiled back at me.

“I know we need to get downstairs,” he said, “but I really want you to make love to me right now.” I looked into his eyes and saw all the love he felt for me, and it was a lot. I thought about these past two months, and what stresses must have been on him to make him risk that. This guy was devoted to me, fully and completely.

“There’s always time for that,” I said. “You are the most important person in the world to me.”

He turned his body around but kept his neck and torso turned toward me so our eyes could stay locked while we made love. I ran my hands across his cheeks and through his hair while I pistoned in and out of him, loving gestures. “I’m never letting you get away from me, never again.”

“Good,” I told him with a grin, and then I made him cum.