Gap Year - 75. Chapter 75

March 11, 2004

Los Angeles, CA

Will

I tooled down the freeway in Zach’s new SUV, relieved that there was minimal traffic. My quick stop at the car dealer ended up taking an hour, which annoyed the fuck out of me, but I expected no less from those cretins. The automotive industry was so fucking strange. On the one hand, cars were cool, and getting a new one was hella fun. On the other hand, dealing with car dealers and their bullshit damn near ruined the whole experience.

Grand usually liked to get the newest model, and that had ultimately narrowed his choice down to the BMW X3 and the Dodge Durango. I personally thought BMWs were overrated, and Zach had really liked the Durango I’d bought him in New Jersey, so I’d suggested we go with this one. I was pretty hyped when I bought Zach his first Durango and his Expedition, but buying this one was a hollow event, even though this SUV was pretty slick. The leather interior was nice, and Zach would appreciate the Patriot Blue paint job, but the thing that really made it stand out was its engine. This thing was packing a Hemi V-8, and it was fucking fast, at least for a truck.

When I first called Zach and set up this meeting, I was struggling to sync what his letter said with his actions. I’d expected to go in and have a meeting where I was trying desperately to keep it from getting romantic while listening to him grovel. My whole goal had been to try to endure that and end up where we were friends and no more. I sure as fuck didn’t want to do a post-mortem on our entire fucking relationship. After talking to Travis, I had a new attitude and a new purpose. My goal was to go in and make things right before this all exploded into something ugly. I felt like Travis, Zach, and I were like the USA, Russia, and China, and my goal was to prevent a nuclear war. In reality, I was probably the only one who wasn’t vulnerable in this situation. Either Travis or Zach could out the other dude, but if they did the consequences would be stunningly harsh. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t do it, though, and if they did, I’d be sucked into the battle regardless of who started it. More than that, it was possible that a battle between Zach and Travis would drag in both of our families. We’d just finished fighting a war with Sabrina Granger, so the last thing we needed was another one with Curtis Buck. In this situation, I had to be the peacemaker.

I parked at the restaurant and hurried in, but by the time I got there I was almost ten minutes late. My eyes scanned the tables until I saw Zach in a booth toward the back. He saw me and smiled, so I smiled back and walked over to him. “I’m sorry I’m late,” I said. “I had an errand to run and it took a little longer than I planned.”

He got up and gave me a hug, something I wasn’t ready for and didn’t want, but I hadn’t stuck my hand in between us to regulate it so I kept my body angled away from him and tried to make it seem genuine. I ended it as soon as I decently could and sat down, ignoring the look of disappointment on his face. “It’s no problem,” he said.

The waitress came over and we both ordered, and with that out of the way we were free to talk about more substantive things. “Your letter was nice,” I said.

“I felt so desperate, and I didn’t know how to get through to you,” he said plaintively. With just this brief interaction, I could tell that his feelings for me were still strong, but I tried to ignore that.

“You succeeded,” I said, because I knew he’d appreciate my putting it in an achievement context. Still, he was trying to appeal to me the way he used to, trying to rekindle our relationship, so my succinct answer burst his bubble even more than our stunted hug.

“This has been really freaking me out,” he said, and I was surprised by his intensity.

“What? Your rages?” I asked.

He nodded. “It scares the fuck out of me. It’s like one minute I’m having a good time, and the next I get so furious I’m almost out of control. You have to know how sorry I am about hurting you.”

“That’s what you said in your letter, and I believe you,” I said, without giving him absolution. “I’m wondering if you got yourself into a bad situation, and that caused your anger.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean with Travis,” I said firmly.

“I’m not following you,” he said, but he was just stalling to try and figure out how much I knew.

“I want you to give me Travis’s ticket,” I said, almost as a demand.

“What ticket?” he asked. My eyes narrowed and he flinched.

“You know damn well what I’m talking about,” I said. “Give it to me.”

“I’m not sure I have it with me,” he lied.

“And I’m sure you do,” I said. “I’m going to try to clean up this mess you’re in, but that’s my price. It’s your call.”

“What mess?” he asked. I stared at him, my eyes drilling into him, watching as he floundered at my demand. He had been expecting a quasi-romantic conversation, but I was approaching this more like a business lunch. “I want to ask you something.”

“What?” I demanded.

“Did you torch my truck?”

“Who do you think did it?” I asked. He was about to get pissed at me for answering a question with a question, but then it must have dawned on him that he’d just done that to me.

“I figured it was either you or Curtis Buck,” he said.

“You figured wrong,” I said. “I paid some guys to puncture your tires. I assumed you would remember the last time I did that and get the message that it wasn’t a good idea to fuck with me.”

“I figured that out,” he grumbled. “If you didn’t do it, who did?”

“Travis,” I answered.

“That motherfucker,” he said angrily. “I should kick his fucking ass.”

“You hurt him, and you will have to watch your back for a really long time,” I said. I think he was surprised by my animosity. “Now give me the fucking ticket.”

The waitress decided to reappear, bringing us drinks and salads, then left. “It’s about the only thing I have to protect myself,” he said nervously.

“Don’t play the innocent victim with me,” I said. “You basically had Travis enslaved. You set it up so he was at your beck and call to do whatever you wanted.”

“It’s not like he wasn’t into it too,” Zach objected.

“Seriously?” I asked. “You’ve been gaslighting him for months, so when you called him up and told him not to go to New York, he didn’t even think about the reality of the situation.”

“What reality?” he asked. He knew he was in deep shit with me, and he’d been trying to stay positive, but I was starting to irritate him. I couldn’t give a shit less.

“The reality that he could have outed you just as easily as you could have outed him, and that in the end, the consequences to you would be a whole lot worse,” I said.

“You’re twisting this,” he argued.

“Am I?” I asked, being snarky. “Getting busted was majorly traumatic for him. He said it was the worst mistake he ever made. So when you pulled out the ticket and started blackmailing him, not only did he have to deal with your crap, he was haunted by that whole horrible incident. All he wanted to do was forget it, but you wouldn’t let him.”

“I only brought the ticket up a few times,” he said.

I shook my head at him. “That’s not the issue. Just because you only threatened him with it a few times doesn’t mean it wasn’t hanging over his head like a sword.”

“I didn’t think about it that way,” he said, trying to act like he was having some kind of epiphany. I looked at him and made him read my expression, which told him that I was getting pretty sick and tired of his bullshit.

“When I came down here and found out that you and Travis were hooking up, I spent a lot of time trying to decide if you loved me or him more,” I said.

“I love you,” he said. I ignored that he put that in the present tense because that was pretty freaky. He was probably being honest, in that he did love me in his own twisted way. If I wanted to hurt him really badly, now was the time, but that would only make me feel like shit and it wouldn’t help me achieve my goal. Instead of responding to his statement, I gave him a slight smile.

“I believe you,” I said. “I thought you were upset about me pulling Travis away from you because you were into him, but in reality it was like me stealing a piece of your property.”

“That is not how it was,” he said, almost a growl.

“You had the perfect setup. You had a chick you liked, and you had a guy who was totally obligated to do whatever you commanded,” I said. “Travis was like your slave, and when this blew up, you were forced to set him free.”

“Who says I’m forced to do that?” he asked defiantly.

I raised an eyebrow to remind him that he was seriously challenging my patience. “You know, ever since we first hooked up, I’ve been damn good at reading you,” I said. “I’m not always right, but I am this time, and you know it.”

“Travis and I had a good thing,” he said. “It was good for both of us.”

I rolled my eyes. “It was basically non-consensual sex.”

“You’re accusing me of raping him?” he demanded, really pissed now.

“No, I’m accusing you of enslaving him,” I said. “I can understand now why you were so upset when I breezed in and fucked things up for you. This was a great plan to get exactly what you wanted, but to do that you had to all but gut Travis.”

He pulled out his wallet, dug around in one of the pockets that were usually used for spare credit cards, pulled out a piece of paper, and tossed it at me. “There.”

I unfolded it and studied it, noting that everything on the ticket was just as Travis described it. “Thank you,” I said. “I’m hoping this helps ease his pain.”

“He’s all pissed off at me, and when you give that back to him, he’s going to come after me with a vengeance,” Zach said. “You think he’s a nice guy, but he can be fucking ruthless.”

“That’s why he burned your truck up and I only wanted to slash the tires,” I said. “You’re right, he’s dangerous because he has a shitload of money, he comes from a very powerful family, and he’s smart.”

“What if he decides to really fuck me up?” he said.

“Zach, if you keep the ticket, what would you do with it anyway? Don’t you get it? It’s a worthless piece of paper,” I said. “The minute you exposed that ticket and outed him, he’d drag you right along with him. Don’t you get that?”

“He’s more afraid of that than even I am,” Zach said.

“So your solution is to terrorize him and make him hate you? How is that going to have a happy ending?” I demanded, even as I put the ticket in my own wallet.

“I was trying to keep him in line,” he said.

“You were trying to control him, and you were worse than my father,” I said. He glared at me, but the look he got back from me knocked him off his outrage pony.

“Whatever,” he said. I could have been pissed at that comment, but he didn’t say it in a snarky way, he said it in a way that acknowledged I was right.

“I talked to Travis about this whole situation, and I told him that there is no benefit to a war between the three of us,” I explained. “I told him that I was going to clean up this mess and try to set it up so everyone can go back to their own corner without having to worry about getting blown up.”

“How does that work?” he asked.

“Travis promised that if you gave back the ticket and vowed you’d never reveal that it existed, he’d forgo vengeance,” I said, making him chuckle at my Godfather reference.

“I promise I’ll take it to the grave,” he said, in a tone that all but admitted total defeat. I could also tell he was sincere. “What if he doesn’t live up to the promise he made me?”

“He didn’t promise you shit,” I said. “He promised me that he’d let it go.”

“And you promised me he’d leave me alone,” Zach mused. “So basically, you’re the dude guaranteeing that all of this shit is over and done.”

“Pretty much,” I said.

“So how are you going to clean up this mess?” he asked. Our main course came, so we paused to eat. We made casual conversation about the food, the weather, and other bullshit topics. When we were done and I paid the check, I finally answered his question.

“Jake is working with the other people who got their cars damaged, so that will be fixed shortly,” I explained. I pulled the keys to the Durango out of my pocket. “And you get a new SUV.”

He looked at the Dodge insignia on the key and smiled. “Another Durango?”

“The very latest redesigned Durango with all the options including a Hemi V-8 that rocks,” I said, smiling back at him. “Want to see it?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely,” he said. We left the restaurant and walked out back. “It’s blue.”

“Very good,” I joked. He hit the remote to open the doors and started ogling his new vehicle.

“Leather seats,” he said. “You got me the top-of-the-line model.”

“I did.”

“Why? I don’t deserve that. Not after the way I treated you,” he said. A tear actually fell out of his eye.

“That’s the whole deal with cleaning up this mess,” I said. “It’s over. We’re all putting that shit behind us.”

“You mean you actually forgive me for that huge fucking bruise on your side?” he asked, then started crying.

I found that frustrating, but I put myself out there to comfort him. I walked over to him and put my arm around him. “It’s over.”

He gave me a big hug, all but clinging to me, but he’d given me what I wanted, so I hugged him back and just held him for a while. Most of the time I was doing that, I was analyzing my feelings and trying to deal with the fact that such intimate contact with him had zero effect on my libido. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome,” I said.

He got in and started the Durango, grinning at the rumble of the engine. “Hop in,” he said. “I can take you wherever you want to go.”

“Thanks, but I’m good,” I said. I gestured to a limo a few spaces down. “I got a car to take me home.”

“Can I still call you?” he asked.

“You can still call me,” I said, then sighed. “I told you all this stuff is in the past, and we’re good. At the same time, it’s probably not a bad idea that we give each other some space.”

“I don’t need space from you,” he said earnestly. I didn’t say anything, and that popped his happy bubble, and made him realize that I needed space from him.”

“If something happens and you need me, call me,” I said.

“Thanks,” he said. “I will.”

“Take care,” I said. I gave him a kiss on the cheek, then went over and hopped in my car for the trip to Malibu. I took out my phone and called Grand.

“Hello,” he answered. It sounded like he was in a good mood.

“Hello,” I replied. “Zach liked the Durango.”

“I’m glad he was pleased,” Grand replied. “It seems that the dinner with Claire, John, and Marie was successful.”

“Really?” I asked hopefully.

“Claire told me that the rift between them had not entirely been repaired, but that they made a good start,” he said.

“That is awesome news, especially if that means that John and Marie are in better moods on this trip,” I joked.

“One can hope,” he said, and we ended the call. The closer we got to Malibu, the more excited I got, because the waves were rocking. When I got inside, I saw a note from Tony telling me that he and Mason were at Disneyland, and that they’d be back tonight or tomorrow. I shrugged then ran up to my room, shucked off my clothes, then wrapped a towel around my waist and headed down to our surf room before hitting the beach. I was having a blast in the waves, but then things got even better.

“How long have you been out here, asshole?” Travis asked me playfully as he paddled up next to me.

“An hour or two,” I said. “Waves are rocking.”

“Fuck you,” he said jovially. We surfed until 6:30, went inside and ate, then went up to my room to shower and fuck. I enjoyed the afterglow for about fifteen minutes, then got all task-oriented.

“I want to show you something,” I said, as I got up.

“Now?” he asked, not a little annoyed.

“Now,” I said. I dressed pretty much like I had last night, and since he didn’t know where we were going, he mirrored my outfit.

I hopped into the Toyota and started driving north on PCH. “How was your lunch?” He’d probably been dying to ask me about that since he’d gotten home. That fact that he’d waited that long told me it had bugged him more than he would admit.

“It was okay,” I said. “I told him that this whole situation was bullshit, and that we needed to back off and leave each other alone.”

“You told him that?” he asked.

“I did,” I said. “The three of us need to be civil, at least.”

“Why?” he demanded.

“Because if you go postal on him, my family is going to be pissed off, and that will put me in a tough position,” I said. “And if he goes off on you, the same thing will happen. Nothing is more important to me than being good with you.”

He smiled and grabbed my hand. “Thanks for seeing the big picture.”

“Based on our conversation last night, I told him that you’d leave him alone,” I said.

“I’m not promising him shit,” he said.

“You didn’t promise him shit,” I agreed. “You promised me.”

He didn’t like that, but he didn’t say anything until we got to Zuma Beach. “What are we doing here? Shit, this is the last place I want to be.”

“Come on,” I said. I got out and led him over to the bench we’d sat on last night. I pulled out my wallet and handed him the ticket. “That’s Zach’s peace offering.”

“You got this back for me,” he said. He held it in his hands, and he looked happy and fucked up at the same time.

I pulled out my lighter. “Let’s have a bonfire.”

He chuckled and handed the ticket to me, then we both watched intently as I lit the ticket on fire and let it burn. After a few minutes, the ticket was just unrecognizable embers. “I feel really strange.”

I got up and led him back to the truck. “Why?”

“I’m so happy that’s over,” he said. “But it’s bothered me for so long, it seems weird to have it off my back.”

“You have basically been enslaved since Zach found that ticket,” I said, telling him what I’d told Zach. “It’s probably weird to be basically free again.”

He thought about that for a bit. “Yeah, it is,” he said. “I never thought about it that way.”

“And you’ve been so desperate to put that whole incident behind you, but with that ticket hanging over your head, you really couldn’t do that,” I said.

“I couldn’t,” he said, and I could tell he was deep in thought. We got back and he didn’t hop out of the truck. “You mind if I make a phone call?”

“Not at all,” I said. “I’ll meet you upstairs.” I marveled at how empty the house was, despite the fact that there were five people living here and three guests. I’d figured he’d take about fifteen minutes to do what he had to do, so I was surprised when he didn’t stroll through my bedroom door until it had been an hour.

“Sorry it took so long,” he said as he collapsed on the couch next to me.

“That’s fine,” I said. “Who’d you call?”

He gave me a dirty look and I felt guilty for prying. I started to apologize, but he stopped me by giving me a really nice kiss. “Sometimes, I’m not a very nice person.”

“I haven’t seen that at all,” I said, and ran my fingers through his hair in a loving way.

He looked away, swallowed hard, then turned back to face me. “After I went to New York and Zach didn’t do anything, I started wondering if he was really holding all the cards. After we talked, I was convinced,” he said.

“It was a tough situation for both of you,” I said, just to move him on.

“On Tuesday, I talked to some dudes and paid them to really fuck him up,” he said. “I was so angry, I wanted him to feel some of the pain he had inflicted on me.”

It would have been so easy for me to judge him over that, but if I did I’d expose myself as a hypocrite. I wasn’t willing to put up with shit from anyone unless they were part of my family, so there was no reason to expect him to behave differently. “I might have done that too,” I said.

He smiled then kissed me, and I could feel the volcano that was simmering just beneath his surface. “Thanks for understanding.”

“I try not to be a fucking hypocrite,” I said, smiling. “So who did you call?”

“I called the dudes I hired and called them off,” he said. “They were pissed until I told them they could keep the cash anyway.”

“I’m glad you did that,” I said.

“Then I called Zach,” he said. My eyes shot open and my expression must have told him how annoyed that made me.

“Why?” I demanded. He smirked at me and raised an eyebrow.

“Now you know how I felt when you told me you were having lunch with him,” he said, taunting me. He was right. He had freaked out and I’d acted like he was being obnoxious, and here I was doing the same thing.

“Oh,” I said. He looked at me and started laughing, and it was too funny for me not to laugh along.

“We talked for about fifteen minutes,” he said. “I told him that there may still be some guys gunning for him, and that he should be careful for the next few days until the recall notice went out.”

“That was nice of you,” I said, because it was.

“He told me he was sorry for everything, and I told him I was glad we’d worked it out so it was over,” he said.

“You did good,” I said.

“I think we both need to recognize that he brings out major insecurities in us,” he said firmly.

I thought about what he said, then nodded. If I did something with Zach, it would really bother Travis, and if he did something with Zach, I’d probably lose my mind. “We do,” I agreed.

“We’re both still going to be around him, whether we want to be or not,” he said. I was wondering if he was beating around the bush and that he was trying to tell me he still wanted to fuck Zach.

“So what are you saying?” I asked.

“I’m saying we’re going to have to put up with him whether we want to or not,” he said. I felt like an idiot for letting my paranoid musings turn me into an asshole.

“We didn’t talk about how we’re going to be a couple,” I said.

He nodded. “Remember how last night you were too freaked out to talk about it?” I wasn’t freaked out, but I opted not to split hairs, so I just nodded. “I’m kind of feeling like that right now. I mean, this nightmare that’s lasted since last May is finally over. That’s kind of clouding my mind.”

“I understand,” I said lovingly, then got so apprehensive I was biting my lower lip. “If you hook up with him, it will really bother me.”

“I’m not going to fuck him,” he said, and he was really pissed at me. “Shit, yesterday I hated the dude enough to have most of his bones broken.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I guess I was just throwing my insecurities out there, hoping you’d make me feel better.”

He looked at me dubiously, then relented. “No, I’m sorry. This whole thing has been completely fucked up. I think the problem is that if either one of us gets with him, it will bring all these issues and this whole nightmare back.”

“I won’t sleep with him,” I pledged, letting him know that it was an oath.

“I won’t sleep with him either,” Travis said, with just as much sincerity.

“Did you tell Crawford and Sierra we’re together?” I asked him.

He frowned at me for changing the subject. “No.”

“Are you going to?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he answered. He was really frustrated, because tomorrow he was going to have to deal with this, one way or the other. “Maybe I’ll tell them on the plane.”

“I think you should tell them before we leave,” I said.

“Why would I do that?”

“Because if it freaks either one of them out, they’ll be stuck and they won’t be able to escape from the situation. If they’re in the air, they’re pretty much trapped,” I said. He didn’t seem bothered by that, and it made me wonder if that was his plan.

“I’ll think about it,” he said.

“You do that,” I said, then we made love.