Gap Year - 54. Chapter 54

March 1, 2004

The Hotel Bel Air

Bel Air, CA

Will

I paused to watch Zach, smiling at how angelic he looked as he slept. I quietly stripped off my clothes, turned the light back off, and climbed gently into bed. He was sleeping on his side, but just as I was about to spoon up behind him, he flopped onto his back. I carefully picked up his arm, admiring how muscular it was, and pushed it backward and moved it over his head. With the pesky arm out of the way, I slid in and lay partially on top of him, with my head on his chest. That was the moment that I knew something was wrong, because while he was naked from the waist up, he was still wearing his jeans. He squirmed again, then I felt his arm move with the smoothness of a cat until I felt his hand on my back. When he started slowly moving his fingers lower toward my ass, I giggled. “You’re back,” he said in an unpleasant way that suggested he was annoyed that I hadn’t been here when he got here.

“I am,” I agreed, trying to be patient. I wasn’t sure what was coming at me, but I resolved to keep my cool.

“I figured that I’d wait for you in your room, but I got tired and decided to crash,” he said. His tone was matter of fact, something I didn’t expect in this situation. I didn’t expect a guy who was in my bed to be so cold.

“I’m glad you did,” I said cheerfully, and moved up so I could kiss him. He kissed me back, but in a perfunctory way, as if to tell me he was pissed at me. “What’s wrong?”

“I just figured you’d want to carve out some time to spend together,” he said, being bitchy. “That’s why I came over. Of course, I’ve been here for a while.”

“You were busy, remember?” I asked. The cheerfulness had now completely vanished from my voice, and that change in tone should have warned him he was about to piss me off.

“I finished up early,” he said.

“You mean Travis didn’t meet you like he was supposed to,” I said acidly. “Nice lie.” He blinked for a second since I’d nailed him for that, but it didn’t really derail his crazy train.

“So you found out he was supposed to come over and then made sure he stayed with you instead?” he demanded.

“No, he decided to stay here on his own,” I said, glaring at him.

“This is bullshit,” he said, and sat up, all but dumping me off his body.

“What is bullshit?” I demanded, as he fueled my anger. “I am not at your fucking beck and call.”

“You come to LA and peel Travis away from me,” he said. “You found out he’s the one dude I fuck around with besides you, so you have to go after him?”

“This isn’t some big contest to see who he likes better. You know the story,” I spat at him. “You know that T and I have a long history. You make it sound like this is all about you. It has nothing to do with you at all.”

“How does it not have anything to do with me?” he asked loudly.

“If you raise your voice, this is going to be a very short conversation,” I warned him. “I have done nothing wrong. I’m hanging out with Travis, which you have no fucking right to complain about.”

“I have a right to complain when you decide to fuck the one dude I’m with,” he said.

“I didn’t see your name on his ass,” I said.

“I get it,” he said in a snarky unfeeling way. “First you go and make out with my girlfriend in the middle of a party, and now you’re going out with the one dude I’m seeing. And when that bothers me, I’m just being high maintenance.”

“We already went over the deal with Taylor,” I all but snarled at him. “I told you I was sorry, and I thought that was behind us.”

“It’s not behind us when you keep doing the same fucking thing,” he said.

“We aren’t exclusive, and you’re not exclusive with T either,” I said. “So how is anyone doing anything wrong?”

“It’s part of a pattern,” he said. “It’s about you coming in and running everyone else out of my life.”

“No, you just think everything should be focused on you and what you want. You want a girlfriend, and you want two dudes that just sit around and wait until you can get a break. When you do, you snap your fingers and they’re supposed to come running over to fuck you,” I said.

“You’re twisting this,” he accused.

“That’s not what I’m doing,” I said, glaring at him. “I’m telling you that you’re being a selfish asshole. That’s not a lie, and that’s not me warping things. That’s how it is.” I was lying in bed with him naked, which was something I so did not want right now, especially since he was dressed from the waist down. That was way too much intimacy, and it was making me feel incredibly vulnerable. I got up and walked over to my dresser.

“What are you doing?” he demanded. I ignored him, put on some sweatpants, grabbed a T-shirt, and walked over to my mini-fridge to grab a Pepsi. I slipped on my T-shirt and took my Pepsi out onto the patio, slamming the sliding door behind me. I stood there fuming for a few minutes, trying to control my anger. When I’d made enough progress to have a conversation with him, I went back inside. I found him completely dressed, just finishing up tying his shoes. “I’m out of here,” he said.

I stood between him and the door. “You’re going to leave things like this?” I demanded.

“Get the fuck out of my way,” he snarled.

“You can leave after we work this out,” I said.

“I said get the fuck out of my way,” he repeated, elevating his volume. I looked in his eyes and saw something I’d never seen from him. There was no love, no caring, not a single positive emotion: there was only rage. He’d never looked at me like that before. When I didn’t move, he leaped forward and used both of his hands to grab the right side of my body and fling me across the room. He was so fucking strong I all but flew, having no control over anything. I hit the wall that was about ten feet away, my forehead slamming against a shelf while my side was all but impaled by the edge of the dresser. I pivoted and the rest of the force slammed me against the blank wall. Pain was probably searing through my side where the dresser had hit me, and my head was probably sore from banging it against the shelf, but I was so pissed I felt none of it. He had never done that to me; he’d never physically assaulted me. Of all the things I’d felt sure of with him, I’d been confident that he’d never cross that line. I remembered how when I’d been drunk after the frat party and I’d told him that he’d never kick my ass. I’d meant that, and I thought he’d meant it too. Only he’d gone there, and that effectively ended us. No way I would put up with that, not from anyone, not even from him. I managed to stagger to my feet, expecting him to apologize, but he just looked at me, his anger pulsing, with a slightly smarmy expression on his face. It was like he was proud of himself for being the alpha male and for proving he was stronger than me. It’s not like I was calm at this point, but his non-verbal taunting blew past any controls I had.

I felt the unopened can of Pepsi in my hand and in the back of my mind I allowed myself to acknowledge the humor in the situation, that despite careening all over the room I’d manage to maintain my hold on a fucking soft drink. Yet that was a good thing, because now I had a weapon in my hand. I pivoted back for leverage then threw it at him with as much force as I could muster. I wasn’t into baseball or football but I could throw the damn balls pretty well, and this ended up being one accurate toss. It flew through the air, even faster than I had, and hit him in the face around his eye. The force of the can hitting his face caused it to explode, spraying soda all over him and that part of the room. “Asshole!” I spat.

He reeled from that blow, bending over and holding his hand to his eye. Normally I would have felt bad about that, but I was beyond caring. “Fuck!” he yelled. “Fuck!”

I walked over to the door and opened it, then grabbed his arm and pulled him to the threshold. He was so focused on his eye that he didn’t even try to fight me, he just stumbled along. I gave him a swift kick in the ass to shove him out the door. He turned back to look at me, his eye still shielded by his hand. It looked like there was blood on his face, but that didn’t register as I slammed the door. I stood there hyperventilating, needing so badly to burn off some steam. I went over and put on my tennis shoes, determined to run off some anger, but when I went back to the door to leave, I looked through the peephole and I saw him leaning against the wall, holding his hand against his eye. That can must have hurt him pretty bad. I didn’t feel guilty, and I didn’t feel sad, I just felt annoyed that he was still there. I resolved to get rid of him, so I went into the bathroom and grabbed a washcloth, pausing to glance in the mirror. I had a welt on my forehead and the force of my impact had scraped the skin. I frowned at my disfigured appearance, took a second to wipe my wound with the washcloth, then walked back out to the door to the suite and opened it. I handed him the washcloth, ignoring the stains from my blood that were on it. “Here.” He just glared at me, probably thinking that this was a prelude to me apologizing. As if. “You have two minutes to get the fuck out of here before I have security toss your ass out.”

He looked at me, completely shocked that I didn’t fawn all over him with concern. “Give me my phone and I’ll leave,” he said in a bitchy way.

I was so unhinged by all of this that I slammed the door again and went back into the room. I found the phone I’d had Jake set up for him, the one that Chris Hammersmith had delivered to him in this very room, picked it up and stared at it. ‘His’ phone? I walked into the bathroom and tossed it into the toilet, letting it sit there for a minute. Looking at the toilet made me realize I needed to pee, so I did that. After I was sure it was ruined, I fished it out of the nasty water, flushed the toilet, washed my hands, and wrapped it in another washcloth. I walked back through the room, opened the door and tossed it at him, but it ended up landing in the grass. “Two minutes starts now,” I said, and stood there staring at him.

He walked over and picked it up. “It’s fucking soaked. It’s ruined!” he said, now even more pissed off.

“What a fucking shame,” I said. “Now get the fuck out of here!” He scowled at me and took off walking, while I went back into the room. My final satisfaction was knowing that he’d put it in his pocket and that as the pee laced water drained out of it, it would end up making his jeans smell nasty. I shut the door and then I locked it using the deadbolt, remembering that he had a card key. I’d have to go up to the front desk and get new keys so he couldn’t come back in. I was breathing so fast it was like I just finished a race, so I went out onto the porch and lit up a joint, hoping the pot would relax me, only it didn’t really help. I sighed and left my room, feeling completely paranoid that he was out here and that he’d jump me and pulverize me. It was a feeling I never expected to have when I thought about him, and I was probably being a little paranoid, but I knew that it was possible, and that made it a danger. I walked with my finger on the SWAT key on my phone. I was relieved when I got to the front desk, and the lady working there was so polite her manner helped me calm down. She gave me new keys, which automatically deactivated the old ones, so armed with them I went back to my room, my finger still on the SWAT key. I got back to my room and felt relieved, and safe. I looked at my watch and saw that it was one in the morning, and I had to wake up at 7:30 to get ready for the 8am meeting. A glance in the mirror made me revise that time to 7am, to give me time to try and make the scratch on my forehead better. My phone rang and I saw that it was Zach, so I sent it to voicemail. I called the front desk and got a wakeup call for 7am, then muted my phone.

The smart thing to do was to crash, but I was too wound up for that so I wouldn’t have slept anyway. Since I had athletic clothes on, I decided to go for a run. I jogged out of the hotel and hit the streets of Bel Air. I should have been in some serious pain from my head contusion and my sore side, but my adrenaline was still pumping, both from anger and fear, and that drowned out any physical distractions.

I had so many feelings coursing through my body that it was hard to sort them out. I chuckled to myself ruefully when I thought about how worried I’d been about my situation with Zach and Travis, and how I’d labored to find a solution so I didn’t hurt either one of them. I’d spent all that time unloading my crap story on Stef, and of course he came up with a reasonable path. All that had been worthless. Zach was such a dumbfuck. If he would have talked to me instead of tossing me across the room, he’d be looking forward to a threesome tomorrow afternoon. At least I didn’t have to worry about my feelings for Travis making Zach feel bad. Right now making him feel bad was a bonus, not a negative. I jogged steadily through this neighborhood with its stately homes, finding it a little surreal that I was surrounded by millions of dollars in real estate but there wasn’t a person around. A Lamborghini zipped by me, but I’d heard it coming and made sure I got out of its way. The more I ran, the more my mood settled down, and that’s when I’d expected the guilt to hit me, only it didn’t. I’d thought I’d feel bad about how I left things with Zach. The Pepsi I’d thrown had probably given him a massive black eye, and I’d been totally callous about his injury afterward, but I’d done that in reaction to him hurting me. When I backed up and looked at the big picture, it was pretty simple: He’d gotten physically aggressive with me. I wasn’t a pussy; I’d fought back, and I’d probably hurt him. Standing up for myself was not a crime, it was what I was supposed to do. No, he’s the one who crossed the line. He’d treated me probably like he’d treated the other guys in the past that he’d used. I thought of that dentist back in Claremont who had been his bitch. He’d demoted our relationship to that level and tossed me into the heap of dudes he assumed he could push around and manipulate.

I dove in and hyper analyzed those ruminations. I was probably over-reacting, and by tomorrow I’d probably be calm and I’d miss him. I logically evaluated my thoughts and decided that if that were the case, I would start to feel some of that now, but I didn’t. He had violated a core tenet of us, and he’d shown me that he didn’t love me anymore. Did I still love him? At a core level, I would probably always love him. I decided that was manifesting itself in my mind right now because while I was mad at him, I had no plans or no desire to go out and hurt him or cause him pain. If he were someone I didn’t love who had done that to me, I would be much more vengeful. I let my mind drift to the thought of sex with him, something that would have normally changed my entire internal conversation, but right now I had no desire to be with him. I started heading back to the hotel and asked myself that if I found him there and he fell on his knees and begged me to forgive him, would I do it? I knew that I would forgive him, but that wouldn’t change things. If he tried to reconcile with any kind of physical contact other than a handshake, I would completely reject him. The thought of having sex with him wasn’t attractive at all; it was almost revolting.

I couldn’t figure out why I had made this hard-headed decision, as if I’d never loved him, as if I hadn’t seen us as soul mates. Not having that reason, that answer, made me dig deeper, my achievement orientation demanding that I find the solution to this psycho riddle in my head. I passed through the gates of the hotel and started to get nervous, wondering if he’d come back, and wondering if he was so pissed he’d try to really fuck me up. I remembered what he'd done to Trevor Armistead. He’d beaten that dude up so bad he still wasn’t walking quite right. That train of thought finally led me to my answer. It was easy for me to be this cold because I couldn’t trust him anymore. Tonight, it had been a toss across the room. Tomorrow it might be a black eye. Then the next time it could be worse. I didn’t want to be alone with him.

I was walking through the pathway to my room when I heard loud voices, which made me shake my head and smile at all the discord that was present here at the hotel tonight. I instinctively headed toward the noise, because I was bored and because I was hoping someone else’s problems would distract me from my own. I heard a woman yelling: “You’re fucking wasted all the fucking time! This is bullshit!”

“I’m not wasted all the fucking time,” I heard a familiar voice respond, although I couldn’t remember who he was. He sure as fuck sounded wasted now.

“You’re wasted now,” she said, and her mirroring my thoughts made me giggle. “I swear to God, BJ, your ass is going into rehab or I’m throwing your ass out.”

“It’s a fucking hotel,” he slurred, then burped. “You can’t throw me out of a whole fucking hotel.” I heard the door open so I stepped into the shadows, thinking that once again I was hiding while eavesdropping on other people. I should talk to my shrink about this. Maybe this was some twisted kink I’d managed to discover. At least my dick wasn’t hard.

“You know what, why don’t you find somewhere else to sleep,” she said. They started yelling and ranting so loud and fast I couldn’t really understand the words. I was just about to make my escape from my listening post when I heard the door to their room slam.

“Let me in!” he shouted and banged on the door.

“Go fuck yourself!” she shouted back.

“Fuck!” I heard him say, then there was silence. I prepped myself, then walked out, acting like I had just come around the corner. I hadn’t quite figured out who was getting reamed until I saw him: Billie Joe Armstrong, the dude from Green Day.

“Dude, what the fuck are you doing?” I asked, and chuckled.

He blinked at me, and it almost seemed like he was going to try to fight with me. Great, my night to start brawls. He finally processed who I was and got a big smile on his face. “Hey!” He leaped forward and gave me a massive hug, the kind of hug a totally fucked-up drunk gives you. “Got kicked out.”

“I’ll bail your sorry ass out,” I said, and put my arm around him to guide him back toward my room. He smelled nasty, like he’d been sweating all day and hadn’t taken a shower.

“You gonna blow me in the bushes again?” he asked softly. There was no way I was putting my mouth that close to his reeking body.

“No, I’m taking you back to my room, where we’re going to chill in the hot tub and smoke some weed,” I said.

“So you’re not gonna blow me?” he asked, cracking me up. He was cute.

“In the hot tub,” I said. He was fun, and he was talented, but I could kind of see where his wife was coming from. I had to help him take off his clothes and almost pour him into the hot tub, then we blew each other. He was so fucked up I don’t think he was fully hard even when he blew his load. I dried him off and he passed out on the couch while I went into the bathroom to rinse off. I glanced at the clock before I climbed into bed and it was 3:30.

The 7am wakeup call hit me like a brick, since I’d only slept for a couple of hours, but I sighed, stretched, then went and took another shower, this time making sure to shave and get ready for the meetings. I looked in the mirror and took stock of my appearance. I had a massive bruise on my right side, and the pain to go with it. That wasn’t a big deal because most people wouldn’t see it. My face was an entirely different case. My forehead had a scratch that was starting to scab up, on top of a bump and a red bruise starting to form there. I tried to comb my hair forward, making it swoop down across the abrasion to hide it, but I was only partially successful.

I put on my boxers and went out to get ready, noticing that I’d had six calls from Zach, along with an equal number of voicemails. I ignored them. I fired up my laptop to make sure nothing happened that I needed to know about, and I saw that he’d sent me an email: “Will, please talk to me. Zach.” I took my phone back into the bathroom, took a picture of both of my bruises, loaded them onto my laptop, and sent them back to him with no words. He’d see the bruises, and he’d see that the necklace he’d gotten me, the one that I always wore, wasn’t around my neck. It was a compass, so I could always find my way back to him, or so he’d told me. I didn’t want to find my way back to him. Not anymore.

I put on grey pants, a blue shirt, a cool tie Stef had gotten me, slipped on my Allen Edmonds shoes, and then put on my blue blazer. Other than my fucking bruise and cut, I looked good. I grinned at myself then walked over to the couch and nudged Billie Joe awake. “What?” he asked groggily.

“Hey, I’ve got meetings, so I have to bail,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and started to get up, but I pushed him back down, getting a smile in return.

“Crash here as long as you want,” I said. “You should move to the bed. It’s more comfortable.”

“Thanks,” he said. “And thanks for having my back last night.”

“No problem,” I said. I got up and left the room, almost worried that Zach would be camped out waiting to talk to me. I walked briskly just in case and felt relieved when I got to Stef’s room.

Tom let me in and looked at me, then got a bit alarmed, but I ignored him and strolled into the suite to see Stef. “Good morning!” Stef said cheerfully, then got worried. “What happened to you?”

“No threesome for me,” I said.

“Who did this to you?” he demanded, fully outraged, and fully ready to go hurt whoever had caused me harm. In that way, he was no different than Grand or my father.

“I got into a fight with Zach,” I said. My tone told him I really didn’t want to dive into it, so he just nodded. “I better eat.”

I got a plate of food, sat at the table, and started to devour it. Tom joined me, while Stef just ate some fruit. “Bruise hasn’t bloomed yet,” Tom observed. “Hope you got in a punch or two.”

“He threw me across the room, and I hit a shelf with my head and jammed my side into the dresser,” I said. “I threw a Pepsi can and hit him in the eye. He probably got the worst of it.” He’d been visibly bleeding, while I only had a glorified scratch.

“What started this confrontation?” Stef asked.

“He was pissed off at me for getting tight with Travis,” I said. “He accused me of coming down here and messing up his life. First I make out with his girlfriend, then I start going out with the dude who fucks him on a regular basis.”

“That pissed him off?” Tom asked. I thought about that, even as I stopped to ponder how his simple questions made me stop and analyze things.

“I think it was mostly jealousy,” I said. “I used to think he was jealous of me, but I think I may have been wrong about that. He’s probably more jealous of Travis.”

“What makes you think that?” Stef asked.

“Because of this,” I said, pointing at my forehead. I was worried that Stef thought I was being a bit unforgiving, so I expanded on that. “Stef, the look of rage in his eyes was something I’ve never seen from him. It was lacking in any kind of positive feeling, not even hidden in the back.”

“I do not know how to evaluate this,” Stef said confused. “All of the signs point to your conclusion, but it just doesn’t feel right.”

“No, it doesn’t,” I said. Now that he said that I could see where he was coming from.

“Have you talked to him about it?” Tom asked.

“No, and it’s going to be awhile before I have that conversation,” I said, then got more defensive. “He crossed the line. He got physical. I’m not putting up with that from anyone. No fucking way.”

It made me smile internally to see Stef get my point, come to the same conclusion and snap firmly into line, so to speak. “You should not. And I must say that I am so very proud of you for refusing to tolerate abuse in a relationship.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I was worried that other people would think I was being unfair to him.”

“I do not understand,” Stef said.

“Zach and I are done,” I said firmly. “After that look in his eyes and the way he treated me, I would never be comfortable around him again.”

I ate while Stef and Tom thought about that. “Even if he was just a mate, I couldn’t be friends with a bloke like that,” Tom said.

“I cannot see the benefit of being in a relationship with anyone who makes you afraid,” Stef agreed. “Does he understand the new status of your relationship?”

“He’s called me about six times and sent me an email,” I told them. “I ignored the calls and responded to the email with pictures of my bruises.”

“He’d have to be daft not to get the picture,” Tom said.

I paused and stared at him, almost making him uncomfortable. “Have I told you how totally fucking glad I am that you came home with us?”

He smiled at me, a huge grin. “Well you have now,” he said.

“I completely agree,” Stef said, only his look was mixed with lust. He caught my eye, knew that I’d busted him, and we both smiled wryly at each other. Zach wasn’t the only person I could communicate with using only non-verbal gestures. I had other people who loved me, and would never hurt me like that.