Gap Year - 74. Chapter 74

March 10, 2004

Malibu, CA

Will

Travis sat up in bed and was more agitated than I’d ever seen. I lovingly stroked his back. “It’s going to be okay,” I said soothingly.

“It’s not going to be okay,” he said. “I’m going to go down and get a Pepsi.” It bothered me that he was all but running out of bed.

“Sounds good,” I said. We got on the elevator pad and zipped down to my main floor. “You’re not mad at me, are you?”

He looked at me like I was an idiot, then stepped off the pad and headed to the refrigerator. “I’m not mad at you. Why would I be mad at you?”

He grabbed a Pepsi for each of us then sat on the couch. I sat next to him, figuring that if he wanted more personal space he would have sat in the chair. “So why did you torch his truck?”

“Do I have to talk about this?” he demanded. It dawned on me that his attitude and his agitation were big clues that he was feeling trapped.

“Yeah, you kinda do,” I said, smiling at him. “Would it be easier for you if we went for a walk?”

He smiled at me. “Thanks. I feel the need to be active right now.”

“Dude, then why the fuck did you get out of bed?” I joked, getting a thin smile from him. It was probably a lot colder now that it was dark, so I put on jeans, a long-sleeved t-shirt, and a hoodie, then put on my socks and shoes. It was funny that he wore pretty much the same thing as I did. We didn’t run down the stairs like we normally did, but instead we crept down quietly to avoid having to deal with anyone. We got to the stairs that would lead down to the beach, but Travis paused, then detoured to the garage.

“I want to show you something,” he said as he got into his truck. “Hop in.”

“Alright,” I said. He exited the Colony then went north on PCH. Neither of us said anything; we just drove in silence. We went about four miles north of Malibu and he stopped at Zuma Beach. “Beautiful beach,” I said, as we got out of the truck. It was a great surfing spot and was known for its wide sandy beach.

“Rip tides are a bitch,” Travis said grumpily. He walked up to one of the bathrooms and tried to open it, but it was locked.

“Guess you’ll have to pee in the bushes,” I joked. Zuma was a convenient beach because you didn’t have to hike up and down a cliff to get to it. Travis ignored my comment and strolled slowly on the sidewalk with me next to him. It was an especially dark night because the clouds blocked out any celestial light, and it was cold and a bit windy. That had seemingly driven everyone else away, so Travis and I had the entire beach to ourselves.

We walked for about five minutes in silence. “The biggest mistake I made in my entire life happened here,” he said somberly. “At that restroom. About a year ago.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“I’d had a great day surfing and had just gotten out of the water,” he said. “I rinsed off at the shower, put my board in the truck, grabbed my shorts, and went into the bathroom to change.” He was speaking in a monotone, almost like it was a stream of consciousness.

“Sounds typical,” I said, just so he’d know I was tracking with him.

“Hardly,” he said, and reached up to wipe away a tear. “I went into one of the stalls and there was a hole in one of the walls.”

“A glory hole?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t notice it until I stripped off my wetsuit and sat down on the toilet seat to put on my shorts. I looked through it and saw a dude looking like he was stroking his cock. He never let me see it, but he just made motions with his hands like he was jerking off.”

“Was he cute?” I asked playfully. I was surprised when he gave me a dirty look.

“I scoped him out through the hole and he was pretty hot,” he said. “Dark hair, probably in his mid-twenties, and he obviously lifted to bulk up his body.”

“Then what happened?” I asked, to prompt him.

“I got really turned on, and started stroking my cock while I watched him. After a bit, he put his finger on the bottom of the hole and sort of rubbed it. I had no fucking idea what he wanted, then he made a sign like he wanted me to put my dick through the hole. I stood up and slid my cock through the hole, hoping that the next thing I’d feel was his mouth as he blew me.”

“What did he do?”

“He stood up and said ‘you’re under arrest’,” Travis said.

“Holy shit,” I said, and put my arm around him. “Holy shit.”

“He cuffed me and took me out to his squad car, and I was lucky that no one I knew saw me. He gave me all kinds of shit about how what I did was illegal, and how children could have been there and seen it. He was being a total dick, trying to brow beat me into making a full confession. He told me if I did that, I’d probably get off pretty easily,” he said.

“You didn’t do that did you?” I asked, horrified.

“No,” he said in annoyance. “I told him that he was full of shit. I told him that I didn’t do anything wrong. He started yelling at me, but I told him I wanted to talk to my lawyer. He tried to bully me for a bit, but I kept telling him that I wouldn’t say anything without my lawyer being there.”

“That was really smart,” I said. I could hear the anguish in his voice, and knew he needed some encouragement.

He didn’t acknowledge my words, but I knew they’d helped. “He finally got frustrated and shut up, then gave me my phone. I called my lawyer, he told me not to say shit, then he talked to the cop. The cop wrote me up for public indecency, gave me a ticket, then let me go.”

“Did your father find out?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “I was shitting bricks the whole time because I thought that’s what would happen. I knew that if he found out, my life would become a living hell. The cop had scared the shit out of me, telling me that I’d have to end up registering as a sex offender, so I was pretty much losing it.” I think most guys in that situation would have come unglued, but for Travis it was probably worse. He’d really had no one to turn to, no one to help him out, so he’d had to tackle this whole deal alone.

“How did you keep it from him?” I couldn’t figure out how he could have accomplished that.

“I have good attorneys,” he said, smiling slightly.

“You’re a minor,” I said. “Don’t they have to contact your parents?”

“They managed to avoid that, although I have no fucking idea how,” he said. “They leaned on the prosecuting attorney and the police department, and within two days the entire thing was hushed up. My lawyer told me that they’d managed to erase any trace or record that I’d been arrested.” What he didn’t say, but what we both knew, was that because he was a Buck and his family was so influential it was a lot easier to get this fixed. I internally rolled my eyes, thinking that the fact that Curtis Buck was a complete asshole had probably actually helped in this situation.

“Dude, you got hella lucky,” I said.

“No, I didn’t,” he said.

“You got off totally, and the whole incident was erased,” I said. “How is that not lucky?”

“When the cop had uncuffed me and let me go, I got back to my truck and I was shaking. I was freezing cold, even though the temperature wasn’t that bad. I slipped on my jacket and put the ticket in the pocket.”

“I’m so sorry you had to deal with that,” I said, even though I still didn’t see how it could be worse.

“That happened in May, and I really didn’t need my jacket after that,” he said. “I should have taken the ticket and thrown it away, but I forgot about it.”

“You probably just wanted to forget the whole fucking thing,” I said.

“That’s exactly what I wanted,” he said. “Fast forward to this fall. I was hanging out in Santa Monica at the pier with Taylor and Zach, and it started to get cold. Zach was whining about it, and since I had on a hoodie, I let him borrow my jacket. I totally forgot that the ticket was in the pocket.”

“Fuck,” I said. “So Zach found it?”

“He found it,” Travis confirmed. He walked over to a bench and we both sat down.

“Did he blackmail you with it?” I asked.

“Not at first,” Travis said. “I’d hung around with him with Taylor, but we really didn’t talk much. But after he saw the ticket, he called me and asked me to meet him on campus. I went down there, and he told me he’d seen it, then he made me suck his dick.”

“So the ticket was his big clue that you were gay,” I concluded.

“Yeah,” he said. “At first, it was actually pretty awesome. I mean, Zach is a total douchebag, but I hadn’t seen that side of him, and he’s smoking hot. Shit, it was almost like a fantasy to have this stud tell me he knew I was gay and then totally seduce me.”

“A release for your raging libido,” I teased, making him smile briefly.

“Yeah, that’s how it was,” he said. “So things were pretty good for a while, but then he started making demands on me.”

“What kind of demands?” I asked.

“He’d call me at any time of the day, sometimes when I was supposed to be in school, and demand that I come over and fuck him,” I said. “It slowly changed from us hooking up to blackmail.”

“That sucks,” I said. I felt so sorry for him while simultaneously being absolutely furious with Zach.

He nodded. “Whenever he wanted me to do something, he’d remind me that he had that ticket,” Travis said. “That’s why I didn’t go to New York with you.”

“What did he say?” I asked, so pissed off.

“He told me that if I flew out with you, he’d give the ticket to my father,” Travis said. He was in complete agony, so much that he bent over to try and stop the pain in his stomach. “I felt so trapped, like I was in a cage. I wanted to go so bad, and it was hell to know that by blowing you off I hurt you so badly. But if I went, and he showed that ticket to my father, I would be totally fucked.”

I stroked his back lovingly. “I understand why you did what you did,” I said.

“I was so pissed off at that motherfucker that I had to do something to strike back at him,” Travis said, now full of venom. “I knew a dude and paid him to light the Expedition on fire. When I heard that he’d done it, I was ecstatic at finally being able to strike back at him.”

“Weren’t you worried he’d figure out that you did it?”

He shook his head. “He knows I pretty much hate him, and he knows you were pissed at him, and he knows my father is just waiting to go scorched earth on him, so I figured he’d have a hard time pinning it on me.” I was briefly annoyed that he was setting me up to be the key suspect in this deal, but that was inconsequential at this point.

“That was pretty clever, big guy,” I said. We sat there for a bit, and I kind of expected him to calm down, but he just got more upset. He finally looked at me, then all but lunged at me and hugged me like he was a dying man.

“I am so sorry,” he said. “I heard you talking to Patrick after he fucked you, and could hear the pain in your voice and in your words. That was worse than any of this. I never wanted to hurt you. That was the last thing I wanted to do.”

“I understand,” I said soothingly. “It’s okay.”

He didn’t seem to hear me, he just rambled on. “I decided that even if I was fucked, that even if Zach did out me over that arrest, there was no way I could leave you that upset. That’s why I flew to New York.” My heart swelled at that. He’d been so worried about me that he’d come to New York to ease my pain. He was willing to trade his own personal hell for my happiness. I grimaced internally at how different he was than Zach, who would have sold me down the river in a millisecond to save his own skin.

“Thanks,” I said. “I was pretty fucked up, and you saved me.”

“Don’t thank me,” he snapped. “It was my fucking fault in the first place.”

“Dude, you risked everything for me,” I said, and gave him a soft but loving kiss. “That was noble.”

“Whatever,” he said grumpily, but I knew my words had an impact.

“What did Zach say when you went to New York?” I asked.

“He told me that I was lucky he was in a forgiving mood,” Travis spat. “He told me he’d let me off the hook if I fucked him. I didn’t want to. I couldn’t stand to do that, and I was pretty sure that I couldn’t get hard, so I told him to fuck off.”

“That was pretty brave,” I said, and gave him a nice kiss.

“I didn’t feel brave,” he grumbled. “He told me we’d talk about it when I got back, and said he was sure I’d change my mind. He said that with such a sinister tone it was terrifying, but I was so done being his bitch.”

“I don’t blame you,” I said.

“When I got back, he was pretty calm and didn’t say anything to me,” Travis said. “That was after his truck burned up like a firework.”

“I guess that mellowed him out,” I said.

“I got the feeling that you scared the shit out of him,” Travis said.

I nodded. “He should be scared of me.”

For the first time since we’d started this conversation, he actually smiled, even though it was a weak one. “I don’t know why he’d be more scared of you than me. Shit, you were only going to slash his tires, while I burned up his whole fucking SUV.”

I laughed at that. “You calling me a pussy?”

“Not saying I am, not saying I’m not,” he joked. I looked into his eyes, boring deep as if trying to read his mind, and I sensed total sincerity. I found myself falling into him figuratively, while our mouths moved in a slow and deliberate way until our lips met. We sat there on the bench, making out for what seemed to be forever.

We finally broke off the kiss and pulled back enough to gaze into each other’s eyes. I’d been struggling with my feelings toward Travis, fighting against giving in to the emotions, but as I looked at him I realized that I had lost that battle. “I love you,” I said to him. He seemed as surprised that I uttered those words as I was.

He blinked in disbelief, then a huge smile spread across his face. “I love you too,” he said.

“I’m also really proud of you,” I said.

“Why the fuck would you be proud of me?” he demanded.

“You had this massive crisis after being arrested, and you handled that all by yourself. You obviously had a really skilled attorney in your corner, but you picked him. Then you had to deal with being blackmailed, and again you were all alone, with no one to back you up. And in the end, you stood up to Zach and told him to fuck off, even though the consequences to you could have been fucking tragic,” I said. “That’s why I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks,” he said, and gave me another soft kiss. “And now, even after all this, I still have to live in fear that this will come out and I’ll be raked over the coals.”

“That is not going to happen,” I said firmly.

“How can you be so sure?” he demanded. I felt even worse for him, because the pressure from all this had clearly scarred his ability to think about it rationally.

“Two reasons,” I said, then paused to make sure I had his attention.

“Go on,” he said.

“First of all, after you turn 18, your father really can’t do all that much to fuck with you.”

“He could still make my life unpleasant, but I guess he’s going to do that anyway,” Travis said glumly.

“And the second reason is that Zach will never use that ticket to blackmail you again,” I asserted.

“How can you be so sure?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Because if he does, I will ruin him. He’s not immune to pressure. He’s a star football player who’s deep in the closet.”

“You’d out him?” he asked. “I thought you said that no one in your family would do that to someone?” I paused to think about that.

“I don’t think I’d have to, because the threat alone should snap him into line,” I said honestly. “But if he was hanging this over your head, in essence threatening to out you, then turnabout is fair play.”

“I guess,” he said, as he digested it.

“Visualize this,” I said, trying to think of an analogy. “Let’s say some dude came up to you with a knife and tried to rob you. You had a knife on you, and you pulled it out and managed to stab him instead. Would that be wrong?”

He grimaced as he contemplated that. “No.”

“Why?” I challenged, to make him think this all the way through.

“Because I was just defending myself,” he said.

“Exactly,” I answered. “So if Zach threatens to out you, and you or I out him instead, in reality it’s an act of self-defense.”

He sighed. “I can see that.” I sat there with him for a few minutes, neither one of us saying anything, but his tension levels hadn’t evaporated like I expected.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I’ve been living in fear over this thing for almost a year,” he said. “It’s hard to believe that I’m safe, and he can’t hurt me.”

I sensed that some activity would help him out, so I got up and we started walking across the sand until we got to the area where the land met the water, and walked along the wet sand because it was so much easier than the dry stuff. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“We’d just rekindled our friendship, then I fell totally in love with you,” he said, shaking his head. “I wasn’t going to fuck that up by dumping this shit on you.”

“You were wrong,” I said, and got a dirty look from him. “That’s part of loving someone. If you have a problem, or need help, I’m there for you.”

“Yeah, but it sucks dumping that burden on you,” he said.

“What burden?” I asked. “In this case, all I had to do was listen to you, and I have to have a talk with Zach about this.”

“You’re going to talk to him about this?” he asked.

“At lunch tomorrow,” I confirmed.

“You’re still going to meet up with him?” he asked. He was acting like I was being totally disloyal after he’d just revealed Zach as a total asshole. I didn’t say anything; I just gave him my steely look, reminding him non-verbally that he’d been in the same dilemma after Zach had hurt me and he’d still had contact with him.

“I am,” I said. We walked along for a bit, then I explained my decision. “I think that the best thing to do is to basically paint over this whole thing and then bury it.”

“I don’t think I can do that,” he said.

I nodded. “You mean now that you’ve grappled with what he was doing to you, you’re more pissed off at him than ever?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“At lunch tomorrow, I’m going to meet up with him and give him a car to replace the Expedition,” I said.

“You’re giving him a fucking car?” he demanded, outraged.

“What happens if there’s an investigation into how the Expedition burned up?” I asked.

“They won’t be able to finger me,” he said.

“No?” I challenged. “You want that risk out there?”

“I guess not,” he grumpily agreed.

“This way, the whole thing will be cleaned up. I’m going to make the people whose cars were damaged in the fire whole, plus some, and I’m giving Zach a new SUV. Who’s going to complain about it? Who’s going to demand an investigation?”

“No one,” he said.

“If we don’t do this, you’ll always have to wonder if this won’t rise up and bite you in the ass,” I said. “It’s worth a hundred grand or so for that peace of mind.”

“I should give you some money,” he said, agreeing with me.

“It’s covered,” I insisted.

“Are you still going to be friends with him?” he asked me.

“Theoretically, yes,” I said.

“What the fuck does that mean?” he asked, a bit too loudly. A dirty look from me settled him down.

“We’ll talk, and tell each other that things are cool, but they really won’t be,” I said. He looked at me, confused. “I’m still pissed off at him for hurting me, and I’m really pissed off at him for what he did to you.”

“Then why are you going to be friends with him?”

I sighed. “Because I owe him for helping me out after 9-11, and I made a promise to always be his friend. He’s also a distant cousin, so there’s family relationships involved too. So we’ll pledge to still be friends, but we won’t talk much. That way when we see each other it will be mellow, with no drama.”

“In his letter he sounded pretty desperate for you to still be in his life,” he said.

I nodded. “I think what he really needs is to know that if he has a problem, my family and I will be in his corner. So he probably meant what he wrote at the time, but when reality sets in, that’s what he wants.”

“How do you know this?” he asked. “How the fuck did you figure this out?”

“One of my superpowers is being able to read Zach pretty well,” I said.

“That’s your superpower?” he challenged playfully.

“I said one of them,” I joked back.

“I don’t think I can be as forgiving as you are,” he said bitterly.

“So the big question is whether you can put this behind you and pretty much leave him alone, or are you going to still try and fuck up his life?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Why are you so willing to let him off the hook?”

“Because if I carry a grudge about this, it’s only going to hurt me,” I said. “It works the same way with you. You said your biggest wish was to put all this shit behind you. You can’t do that if you still want to ruin his life.”

“It still seems like he’s getting off pretty easy,” he objected.

“Dude, karma will bite him in the ass eventually,” I said a bit playfully. “If you put this behind you, you’ll be happier, and you also won’t have to worry about him pulling this shit out and stabbing you in the back. It’s up to you, but I think it’s worth it for you to be able to do that, and to have peace of mind.” We walked along for a bit while he digested what I said.

“I get what you’re saying,” he said. “Thanks for explaining it to me.”

“Dude, I love you,” I said. “We’re a team.”

“Does that mean we’re like a couple, where we don’t fuck around with other people?” he asked. It kind of freaked me out, and I was not a little bothered that this conversation had suddenly shifted to a DTR talk.

“Is that what you want?” I asked, throwing it back at him.

“I could probably do that,” he said, then hesitated. “I don’t know.”

“This has been an awesome but intense conversation,” I said. “I’m probably not in the best position to shift gears and think about the rules for our relationship.” I was worried that would piss him off, but instead he laughed.

“No shit,” he said. “Sorry I brought it up.”

“We need to talk about it, but not right now,” I said. “Right now, we need to get home.”

“Why? Is there something going on?” he asked. I casually moved my hand over and grabbed his groin. He started laughing. “I guess there is.”