Gap Year - 97. Chapter 97

April 24, 2004

The Beverly Hills Hotel

Beverly Hills, CA

Will

“Waves rocked today!” Travis said, and high fived me. We’d gotten down here in time to spend a couple of hours in the water and still make it to the hotel and get ready for the big party tonight. We were sitting in Grand and Stef’s suite, enjoying some pre-dinner cocktails.

“Makes me remember what I liked best about living down here,” Dad said. He impulsively looked down at his Blackberry and freaked out. “Shit, it’s Matt’s birthday. I need to call him.”

“I talked to him when we were on our way down here and told him all about the shit we were dealing with,” I said. “He said you should call him sometime this weekend.”

“Thanks,” Dad said, smiling at having that problem solved as soon as he discovered it. There was a knock on the door to the suite and a guard answered it. It was a little overwhelming how much security we had. I was even more impressed at how well Jake and Travis had worked together with the security team to set up the arrangements. Evidently Travis had already had much of it planned out.

Jake came walking in and plopped down in a chair, looking grumpy and dejected. He was clearly about to destroy the good mood in the room. “What’s up?” I asked him.

“I talked to my mother. She finally called me back,” he said.

“I take it that conversation did not go very well?” Stef asked.

“She hung up on me, so no, it didn’t go well,” Jake said.

“It seems reasonable that learning your father had slept with Miranda Buck would have upset her,” Stef offered. We’d spent all of last night and most of the morning laboring over how Jake and Travis could be half-brothers and had come to the conclusion that Jake’s father had had an affair with Miranda Buck. It really seemed to be the only logical option.

“Did your father engage in extramarital affairs?” Grand asked Jake.

“Evidently,” Jake said, being bitchy. Grand just looked at him, his steady gaze pulling Jake back into the world of rational dialog. “No one talked about it, but I’m pretty sure he did.”

“What makes you think that?” Dad asked.

“One time at dinner my mother put this picture on the table and said nothing. It showed my father with this attractive woman in her thirties wearing nothing but a bikini, sitting on his lap,” Jake said. “It was a pretty intimate pose.”

“What did your father do?” I asked.

“Picked up the picture, looked at it and said ‘fun trip’, then tossed it back on the table,” Jake said.

“That’s sure not the way you would have reacted,” I teased my father, who laughed.

“It is not,” he agreed.

“There was one other time, when I went to pick him up at work, and the same woman was walking out with him. He made me wait while he walked her to her car, gave her a nice kiss after she got in, then walked over and got in our car,” he said.

“Did he say anything?” Travis asked.

“No, just had this cocky look on his face, almost daring me to say something,” Jake said.

“What do your parents look like?” I asked. “Do you have a picture?”

“Not on me,” Jake said, then got an inspired look on his face. “Be right back.” He got up and hurried out of the room.

“We have a separate dining room set up,” Travis said, focusing on our upcoming dinner. “They’ll screen people as they arrive.”

“Sounds good,” Dad said.

“I was planning to head back to my suite before dinner,” Travis said, and glanced at his phone to check the time.

“Your suite?” I challenged.

“I uh, mean our suite,” he said, worried that he’d committed some huge faux pas, but I shook my head to tell him I was just giving him shit. Before that could devolve into playful banter, Jake came back into the room.

“I think I have a picture,” he said. He dinged around with his files, then pivoted the screen around to show us what he’d located. “This is a picture of them on their 25^th wedding anniversary.”

“Not what I expected,” Travis said, staring at the photo. It wasn’t what I expected either. Jake’s father was a pretty handsome guy, but he looked like an accountant, or at least an unstylish businessman. He had dark hair, which seemed odd since both Travis and Jake were blonds. Jake’s mom was much more attractive and must have been amazingly hot in her younger days. She was a blonde, so maybe that’s where he got his hair color. He didn’t really look much like Travis or Jake, though, which was strange since their appearance was so similar.

“Dude, your mom is way hotter than your father,” I teased.

“She is; she always was,” Jake said. “Want to guess why she married him?”

“How long were they married before you were born?” Dad asked.

“Good question,” Jake said. “Seven months, and I weighed 7 pounds, 14 ounces.” He clearly wasn’t premature, not with that weight.

“Then I know why she married him,” Dad said.

“So your mom was pregnant and was forced to marry him?” Travis asked.

“I don’t know if she was forced to or not, but it was probably that or get an abortion,” Jake said. “They never talked about it, and when I tried to gently ask my mom about it, she shut me down pretty hard.”

“Must suck to have all these secrets,” Dad said, which made me laugh probably much too loudly. “What?” he demanded of me acidly.

“That sounds like your absolute nightmare,” I said, getting a smile from him, and a chuckle from Stef and Grand.

“That wouldn’t have been ideal,” Dad allowed, making us chuckle some more.

“It didn’t seem abnormal to me, but then again, no one talked much in our house,” he said. “The only thing that they were definitive about was that I had to support myself.”

“That’s kind of weird, since you’re an only child,” I mused.

“That’s the way things were,” Jake said. If he were French, he would have shrugged when he said it.

“You said you had to join the army to pay for college,” Dad said, but it was more of a question.

“That was part of it,” Jake said. I knew that I was spoiled and pampered, and that I was lucky as fuck in that I would never have to worry about having enough money to live comfortably, so I was probably not the best judge of this situation. Still, it seemed really unusual for Jake’s parents to be such tightwads when it came to something like Jake’s education, since they didn’t have any other kids to worry about. From what Jake said, his father made decent money, so it’s not like they were broke. My father and I shared a look of confusion over that, then he seemed to get resolved, as if he’d solved a mystery. And just as the tumblers started to line up in his mind, so they started to line up in mine.

“I’m still not sure if Mr. Pike is Travis’s father,” I said to them all.

“I am not sure what other explanation there can be,” Jake said.

“Why do you think that Jake’s father is not also Travis’s father?” Grand asked. He was always the scientist, and wanted me to explain my reasoning.

“First of all, he looks nothing like Jake or Travis,” I said. “I mean, they are so obviously related, but this dude has no resemblance to them at all?”

Everyone studied the picture of Jake’s parents again. “There do not seem to be any similar physical traits,” Stef concluded.

“It also makes no sense for Jake’s parents to refuse to pay for his education, especially since they seem to be well off and he was their only son,” I said.

“People have different attitudes about money,” Dad said, playing the devil’s advocate. “I don’t think that’s very conclusive.”

“But it’s part of the picture,” I persisted. “And finally, if Mr. Pike was sleeping with Miranda Buck, it would have been about the same time she was raping Jake. I mean, this situation is twisted, but even if Mr. Pike didn’t give a shit about Jake, I don’t know if Miranda Buck would have been so callous.”

“You’re defending a rapist?” Travis demanded. His mother was going to have some serious work to do to repair her relationship with him.

“Like we talked about, I think that she was taking what she wanted,” I said. “In her mind, she was probably doing Jake a favor.”

“How the fuck was raping me doing me a favor?” Jake demanded.

“She may have assumed that all young men are horny, and would default to assuming that Jake was straight, and she is well aware of how attractive she is,” Stef said. “She would probably assume that a sixteen-year-old boy would be thrilled to have an attractive, experienced older woman show him the ropes.”

“I’m thinking back to your father’s diary, and how he slept with my mother under similar circumstances,” Grand said. It was sad to see how that still bothered him, but since Travis didn’t know about Steven’s diary, Grand’s comparison meant nothing to him.

“So that makes it okay?” Travis demanded. It suddenly dawned on me that his primary motive here wasn’t to pillory his mother, as I’d originally thought, but to defend Jake. That was actually rather sweet.

“It is not a judgment; it is an explanation,” Grand said calmly. “It does not exonerate your mother in any way.”

“Getting back to the point,” Dad intervened, “To sleep with both Jake and his father would have been an act of malice and probably more sociopathic than she actually is.”

“You’re assuming she even knew they were father and son,” I pointed out. “I know I don’t have solid facts to say that Mr. Pike isn’t Travis’s father; it just doesn’t feel right. My instincts are telling me he’s not.”

“Then who else could it be?” Stef asked.

“This is all so totally and completely fucked up,” Jake said, shaking his head in frustration.

“Only this time, you’re not alone when you have to deal with this bullshit,” Dad said to him supportively. Jake caught his eye and Dad gestured toward Travis.

“I’m not,” Jake agreed. “I’m sorry. I’m just pissed off. I was venting.”

Travis looked at his watch and stood up. “Dude, it’s time to go to this dinner. It’s your turn to watch me do the same thing.”

“Sounds good,” Jake said, and put his arm around Travis’s shoulders in a supportive way. We took that as our clue to head to the dining room, but I stopped Travis as soon as we’d left Stef and Grand’s room.

“Didn’t you need to go back to our suite?” I asked him.

“I’m good,” he said.

“Did anyone tell Darius we were going to be in town?” Dad asked. He looked really guilty for seemingly forgetting about his oldest son. He was probably even more sensitive about it since he’d almost forgotten it was Matt’s birthday.

“I called him and told him the deal,” I said. “He has a big party tonight, so I told him I’d fill him in tomorrow on what happened.”

“His party took priority over this?” Stef asked. His annoyance was probably more of an indicator of the stress this dinner was causing us than any real anger he had at Darius.

“Darius would have been here if I’d have told him it was important,” I said, setting myself up as the target for any wrath his absence would cause. Stef opted to nod and let it go. “Besides, he’s not a big fan of confrontational dinners.”

“Maybe this one will be happy and harmonious,” Grand joked. I rolled my eyes at him.

The hotel had taken what was a conference room and turned it into a dining room. I hadn’t seen the room, but I was intimately aware of the layout, because Travis had studied it extensively. We were early, but we dutifully went through the metal detectors. It was hilarious to see how that stymied Stef, in particular, because he rarely went places where he had to go through such a device. We walked into the room to find it decorated quite nicely. The table was oval in shape, which made it possible to see everyone even if you were seated at either end of it. There were appetizers waiting for us, along with a waiter to take drink orders.

Travis had been absolutely paranoid about the food, and the potential for his father to poison him. In my mind, such a thing was unthinkable at a place like the Beverly Hills Hotel, but I wasn’t about to judge him for it. He was the hunted one, and the pressure of that had really impacted him. He’d insisted on a buffet, so everyone had to eat the same thing, and had made the odd decision to make it a Thanksgiving feast with turkey and all the accompanying dishes. He informed the waiter that he’d have a beer, and asked him to bring him the bottle so he could open it. I almost giggled out loud, thinking that he was following the same safety protocols you’d use to avoid getting roofied. I was willing to risk being poisoned, so I went with my standard vodka and tonic.

A cell phone rang, making all of us check our devices to see if it was ours. Jake frowned at his phone, looked at the dining room, then sighed. “I have to take this call,” he said, and vanished into the small room that was adjacent to this dining room.

“This is going to completely suck,” Travis said with dread.

“Probably,” I agreed. “Keep your eye on the end goal here. You want to find out who your father is.”

“I do,” he said, and steeled himself with resolve to get through this. We heard some commotion outside the door as they cleared someone through the metal detector, and I wasn’t surprised to see Travis’s mother come through the door. I could have predicted she’d be the first to arrive. We were all wearing nice but relatively conservative suits except for Stef. He wore an outfit that was very chic, with colors that were bright and colorful. Miranda had dressed in a similar fashion, looking as if she’d just come from Fashion Week in New York. It seemed as if the two of them were determined to force some cheer into this occasion.

“Travis!” she said and hurried over to give her son a warm hug. He returned it as enthusiastically as he could. I knew he was seriously pissed and disappointed in her after Jake had explained what had happened between them, and the thought that she had fucked not only Jake but Jake’s father had really thrown him for a loop. It’s not like he was a prude: Malibu society wasn’t known for its high morals, but her alleged actions were way beyond the norm even in that libertine group.

“Good to see you, Mom,” Travis said, sounding remarkably sincere. Once again I pondered how good his acting skills were.

She shifted her attention to me once their greeting was over. “And it is good to see you again, too,” she said, and hugged me.

“It’s good to see you too,” I said, pasting on a smile as I said it. She seemed to think I meant it, which made me wonder if I should be contemplating an acting career with Travis.

We heard more commotion, so Stef took over after that, guiding Miranda Buck off to re-introduce her to Grand and my father, while I waited to see who would be next through the door. Taylor walked through, followed by Zach. They were both dressed like they were going to a swanky Hollywood party, with chic clothes that were not unlike those worn by Miranda and Stef, only with a much more subdued color palette. It made sense that since the people in the room were mostly members of my family that Zach would take the lead. I rolled my eyes internally at how this gathering sucked so bad, Zach was the person I was least dreading dealing with. Fortunately, my face scab was gone, although the bruising around his eye from the Pepsi can was still visible. “Hey!” he said and gave me an enthusiastic hug. “Welcome back from your Grand Tour!”

“I had more fun than Travis,” I joked. “He had to do homework.”

“Fuck you,” Travis said, then gave Zach a hug as well.

“Travis,” Taylor said to her brother coldly. There was no physical greeting, not even air kisses.

“Taylor,” Travis replied, with the same level of iciness. Darius had pointed out to me how much they didn’t get along, but I’d always seen them together in social settings where they were on their best behavior. Now, with that veil removed, I was surprised at the level of animosity between the two of them.

“Hey Tay!” I said cheerfully, to force her to put her social façade back on. My words had the desired effect, raising the shields of affected politeness to hide the bad feelings that lay underneath.

“Shoots!” she said and hugged me. “How was Europe?”

“Foreign,” I joked, making her laugh. Zach went off to say hi to Grand, Stef, and my father, dragging Taylor with him. I gave my father a warning glance, telling him with my eyes not to try and kill Zach for hurting me.

Next to arrive was Trevor Buck. Big walked into the room and paused, as if expecting everyone to rush over and welcome him. It was actually pretty pathetic that this dude had been raised to be the center of attention to the point that he expected it, only in this crowd, that wasn’t likely. To keep things from being uncomfortable, I made the effort to bridge the gap. “Hey Big!” I said, and shook his hand.

“What have you been up to?” he asked, in a way that told me he could give a shit less.

“Traveling the world,” I said vapidly. Big moved past me as if I’d said nothing and focused on Travis, giving him a fist bump.

“Happy Birthday,” Big said casually.

“Thanks,” Travis said, acknowledging Big’s meaningless wishes.

“What kind of pussy are you, so paranoid that you have to have a metal detector set up?” Big asked Travis, his tone changing to the same one he’d used when we were kids and he was trying to bully us.

“Fuck you, Big,” Travis spat. “If you were being chased around by people trying to kill you, then you’d probably take a few precautions too.”

“Right,” Big said in a patronizing way. It stunned me that Darius had put up with his arrogant bullshit for so many years. Miranda rescued us from his presence and led him off to greet the others.

No sooner had we gotten rid of him than a different figure walked through the door, someone I didn’t know. This guy was probably in his mid-fifties and was very fit and handsome. He walked straight up to Travis, smiling as he shook his hand. “You’ve certainly grown up since the last time I saw you.”

“I have,” Travis said. “Will Schluter, this is Tim Spaetz. He was my grandfather’s attorney.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said, and shook his hand.

“I’ve heard all about you, so that’s more appropriately my line,” he said, hitting me with some major charm.

“I’m glad you’re here, but I’m kind of surprised at the same time,” Travis said, although it was more of a question.

“I understand,” Tim said gently. He put his hand on Travis’s bicep in a friendly way. “I was directed to meet with you and explain some things on your eighteenth birthday. I’m sorry I’m a few days late, but this seemed to be the appropriate venue.”

“That’s fine,” Travis said. “All I know is that Curtis Buck isn’t my father, and no one will tell me who really is.”

“Then I’m willing to bet the next few hours will be very enlightening,” he said mysteriously.

“I’ll bet,” Travis said fatalistically. Curtis wasn’t here, and Jake was still on the phone, but Miranda decided we should all go ahead and sit at the table, so we followed her lead.

Travis had spent a lot of time on the seating chart, laboring over how he wanted to position himself relative to everyone else. He sat at one head of the table, with me on his right, followed by Jake, my father, Tim Spaetz, and Big. He’d placed Curtis Buck at the other end of the table, with Taylor to his right, followed by Zach, Miranda, Stef, and Grand. I thought it was cute that Travis had picked Grand and me to be next to him, and had fun making annoying faces at Grand, who sat across from me, while everyone was getting situated.

“Daddy isn’t here?” Taylor asked.

“Obviously,” Big said. She gave him a dirty look. The door to the small anteroom opened and Jake came out, making a much more dramatic entry than he had probably planned to make. Taylor, Big, and Zach looked at him, then at Travis, much as I’d done when I’d first seen them together. The three of them looked gobsmacked, because while they’d clearly been expecting drama, seeing this man who was clearly related to Travis in some way blew their minds.

“I’d like to introduce you to my partner, Jake Pike,” Dad said. I thought it was really adorable that he rose up and stood next to Jake, almost like a dude who was helping a lady sit down, then they sat down together. Miranda Buck looked like someone had hit her.

“I see you managed to meet your real father,” Curtis Buck’s booming voice said. How such a loud and obnoxious person managed to enter the room without being noticed was truly an achievement.

“What?” Big asked. He didn’t seem like the sharpest tool in the shed, so this was probably confusing the fuck out of him.

Travis leaned over and whispered in my ear. “He doesn’t know.” Curtis Buck thought that Jake was Travis’s father?

“Let’s keep it that way, at least for a while,” I said softly.

“Mr. Pike seduced your mother, and he is Travis’s real father,” Curtis pronounced.

“That is entirely wrong,” Jake answered.

“Oh? It seems pretty obvious to me,” Curtis said.

“First of all, I did not seduce her; she raped me,” Jake said, and glared at Miranda. “I was sixteen years old.”

“You were sixteen,” Big said, chuckling. “Like that wasn’t a wet dream.”

“God, you are such a dumbfuck,” I said, finally losing it. “If some dude in his late twenties had made you have sex with him, would that have been a wet dream?”

“I’d have kicked his ass,” Big said, projecting his full macho bravado.

“It’s not about physical strength; it’s about power, so just answer the question. Would you have enjoyed it?” I demanded. He made to ignore me, but I wasn’t letting him off the hook. “Maybe you would have?” I asked, in an almost smarmy way.

He glared at me, probably annoyed that we weren’t at recess in school so he could try and physically intimidate me. “I wouldn’t have,” he grumbled.

“I didn’t either,” Jake snapped, and focused all his anger and pain at Miranda.

“You’re not my brother,” Taylor said, but seemed happy about it. “You’re not a Buck.”

“He is not,” Curtis said, his voice dripping with disdain.

“He’s still our half-brother,” Big said, in a surprisingly supportive way.

“Well, it is very unfortunate that I didn’t know that you raped Jake when we got divorced,” Curtis said to Miranda smugly. “That would have saved me a fortune, and I wouldn’t have worked so hard to cause you pain.” That last line was directed at Jake.

“You are hardly one to judge anyone,” Miranda snapped at him.

“How did you cause me pain?” Jake demanded, ignoring Miranda’s attempt to start an argument with Curtis.

“Let’s just say that the encounter that ultimately resulted in you being outed while you were in the army took a little help,” Curtis said, grinning slyly at Jake.

“You son of a bitch!” Jake shouted, and tried to jump out of his chair, but my father blocked his way, and I grabbed him from behind to hold him back.

“Calm the fuck down!” I said to him. It was supposed to be a whisper, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t end up that way. It wasn’t Jake’s fury that was the scariest, though; it was my father’s. He turned to look at Jake, and the expression on his face would have terrified anyone who wasn’t related to him. I pondered that I hadn’t seen him this unhinged since he’d caught me talking to Carson, Robbie’s sidepiece, on the beach. “You too,” I said to my father quietly, so only he heard me. I thought for a moment he was going to lash out at me, but instead I saw him manfully rein in his temper. There was an amazingly uncomfortable silence for about a minute, with people trying to control their emotions.

“Jake,” Miranda Buck said, to get his attention. My eyes rocketed to her at the same time Jake’s did. She was crying now, with tears flowing out of her eyes and making her mascara run, making her look like some deformed clown. “I am so very sorry that I did that.” That was a classy thing to do, but it seemed like too little, too late. Jake nodded to her, more to acknowledge her apology than to accept it.

“If anyone wonders why I divorced this slut, now you know,” Curtis said snidely.

“What a bunch of shit coming from you,” Travis spat.

“You don’t know how happy of a day this is for me,” Curtis said, and seemed almost psychotic, he was so intense. “I finally get to shed myself of this imposter son I’ve been saddled with.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Travis shouted at Curtis. Grand cleared his throat, so loud was Travis’s voice, but that only restrained Travis slightly. “You keep trying to dominate this conversation and make it all about you. I couldn’t give a shit less about you. I want to know who the fuck my father is.”

“How fucking stupid are you? Didn’t you hear me tell you that your father is Jake Pike?” Curtis asked.

“You’re wrong,” Travis said to him coldly. “Jake is not my father.”

“So you say,” Curtis said, even though I could see his mind reeling as he digested Travis’s statement.

“We had a paternity test done to confirm it,” Travis said.

“If he’s not your father, then who is?” Curtis demanded.

“That’s exactly what I want to know,” Travis said, no less vehemently than Curtis had. That finally shocked Curtis Buck into calmness. I caught Zach’s eyes, and he raised his eyebrows in a ‘what the fuck’ way, so freaky was this news.

All eyes focused on Miranda Buck, but she just sat there, as if she were frozen. Did she think that Jake was Travis’s father too? I mean, she should have remembered who she’d fucked. Shit, even I did that. “In response to your question, I have something for you,” Tim Spaetz said.

“Are you his father?” Big asked, but he was joking, and Tim’s reaction was enough to make some of us chuckle.

“I am not,” he said firmly, and couldn’t hide the look of disdain he shot at Miranda. He reached into his dispatch bag and pulled out a letter that was written on stationery not unlike the expensive stuff Grand and Stef used. Then he got up, walked over to Travis, and handed it to him. “I would recommend that you go through that door and take a minute or two to read this,” he said, gesturing at the anteroom.

“Alright,” Travis said skeptically. He took the letter, stood up, and walked into the other room, shutting the door behind him.

“I think that Travis would not mind if we ate,” Grand said, hoping that food would fill the void in the conversation.

“What’s for dinner?” Big asked. No one had told the staff to set up the main meal yet, so the appetizers were the only things on the side table.

“It’s a thanksgiving feast,” I answered in a snarky way.

“Why are we having turkey in April?” Taylor asked.

“To celebrate the fact that your father was spectacularly unsuccessful in his attempts to hunt down Travis and have him killed,” I said, glaring at Curtis.

“So far,” Curtis said, taunting me.

“When this dinner is over, I am going to make it my mission in life to rip off your head and piss down your neck,” my father said, with anger and venom I’d never heard from him. “You’ll be too busy trying to save your own sorry ass to even think about hurting someone else.”

“We’ll see about that,” Curtis said, but was a little cowed by that.

“You have stupidly wasted almost your entire family fortune, destroyed a legacy that’s lasted generations, and are even now spending what little cash you have left trying to get revenge against a young man who has never done a thing to harm you,” Dad said coldly. “Taylor and Big have a fraction of the cash they used to have, all due to you.”

“You said that Travis was the one who caused us to lose all our money,” Big said, directing that at Curtis.

“That’s exactly what happened,” Curtis said.

“That is not how it happened at all,” Dad said, then proceeded to rip into Curtis about his stupid investments in the tech sector.

“And as I told you, it was only a matter of time before I lined up financing to solve the problem,” Curtis spat back at him.

“You are so reviled and unpopular that, when this happened, no one was willing to go out on a limb and lend you money,” Dad said. “You exhausted every lead, every angle, and no one would bail your sorry ass out.”

“I had a plan,” Curtis insisted.

“Indeed you did. Are you also going to share with them the details of your plans with Mr. Fellowes?” Stef asked. He’d been aloof throughout this whole thing, but when he finally did speak, his voice carried all the gravitas of his years of experience. “Did you plan to share with them that your scheme was to ensure that Travis met an untimely end so you could get your hands on his money? Are you then going to enlighten them about your plans to use that money to buy back the assets of Buck Industries?”

“If I was going to do that, they wouldn’t be mad at me; they would be happy that I’d restored their inheritance,” Curtis said, speaking for his two biological children.

“You were going to have Travis killed to get the cash to cover up your fuck up,” Big said, shaking his head in disgust and anger.

“He was doing it for us,” Taylor said to Big. It was strange that she’d all but admitted that was Curtis’s plot and that she was on board with it, yet the conversation flowed on, largely ignoring her statement.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Taylor?” Big demanded. “Travis may not be a Buck, but he’s still our brother. You’d kill your own brother? You’d kill him for money?”

“You have gaslighted Taylor and Big into thinking you were planning this whole thing out for their benefit,” Stef said, “but you neglected to reveal the most interesting part of your plan.”

“What’s that?” Big asked.

“When he went back in and bought up the assets of Buck Industries, using Travis’s money, they would end up in his name, not yours,” Stef explained. “So your father would be the sole owner of Buck Industries, and you would be where you are right now.”

“That is not how things would have been structured,” Curtis lied. He was so obviously not telling the truth that even Taylor was pissed at him.

The door to the anteroom opened and Travis came out, and that caused all conversation to cease as we all focused on him. I had seen him looking confused and disoriented a lot over the past month as this shit had hit him, but he looked worse than any of those times now. I sensed how completely rudderless he was, and how whatever was in that letter had totally altered his worldview. I instinctively stood up and gave him a big hug as he reached the table, hoping he could draw some strength from me, but I don’t think it really helped him much. “What’s wrong?” I asked him.

He sat down and let his eyes scan the people at the table, then he spoke. “My biological father is Thomas Buck.”

“Grandpa Buck?” Taylor asked, her mind obviously blown as well.

“Grandpa Buck,” Travis confirmed.