Gap Year - 101. Chapter 101

April 28, 2004

Malibu, CA

Will

“What’s your plan today?” Travis asked me.

“Same as yesterday,” I said. “Surf.”

“Fucker,” he replied, looked at his watch nervously, then relaxed. “Time for a quick breakfast.”

“I can take longer,” I said, rubbing his nose in the fact that I had no obligations. We walked into the kitchen to find three other people there: Cody, a guard named Steve, and a large woman I’d never met. Steve had really dark black skin, while the woman looked black but with much lighter skin.

“Good morning,” Cody said cheerfully. “Will, Travis, this is Coraline. She’s going to take care of us.”

“Nice to meet you,” Travis said, and shook her hand. I did the same thing, noting that her hands were calloused. She gave us both a dubious look.

“Breakfast is almost ready,” she declared. “Sit down.”

“Okay,” I said, smiling at her direct manner, then turned my attention back to Cody. “What happened to that dude you hired?”

“He had links to Curtis Buck,” Cody said. Travis and I looked at each other, amazed at the long tentacles of Curtis Buck’s reach. I wondered if his lack of money would really truncate his meddling in Travis’s life.

“Christ,” Travis said, shaking his head.

“Taking the Lord’s name in vain is a sin,” Coraline said, even as she put down plates of pancakes in front of us.

“Sorry,” Travis mumbled.

“You need to get used to it,” I said to her playfully. “There’s lots of sin in this house.”

“Devil child,” she quipped, making all of us laugh.

“I can take you to school whenever you’re ready,” Steve said to Travis.

“Thanks, but I’m going to drive myself today,” Travis said. Steve looked unhappy, since it was his job to keep Travis safe, while Cody looked mildly surprised, but I wasn’t so subtle.

“Why?” I demanded.

“I just want to,” he snapped at me.

“Yeah, well I don’t want you to end up dead,” I snapped back at him.

“It’s my life,” he said loudly.

“Yeah, well your life is important to me,” I snarled at him. This was escalating to the point where it was about to become a full-fledged argument, so I controlled my temper, said nothing more, and focused on eating.

We sat there in silence for five minutes. “Waves look to be good today,” he finally said, trying to save the mood. “Maybe I’ll get back in time to catch some.” Travis had been really uptight last night, and had been even more tense this morning. He was acting weird, and now he was jettisoning his security. There was no way I was just going to let this whole thing go.

“If you’re still alive by then,” I said acidly, boldly staring into his beautiful gray eyes, then went back to eating. He sighed, got up to leave, and tossed his napkin on his plate. I ignored him until I realized he was just standing there staring at me.

“Walk me to my truck?” he asked. I said nothing but got up and walked out to the garage.

“You should use the remote-start in case it blows up,” I said, which was bitchy and counterproductive, but that’s where my mood was.

He opened the garage, hit the remote start sequence, and his pickup fired up. “Safe this time.”

“This time,” I said, glaring at him.

“Look, I know you love me, and I appreciate you looking out for me, but I’m feeling totally claustrophobic,” he said to me. His plaintive tone mellowed me out.

“So you have to risk your life?” I demanded.

“I just need the freedom of driving myself today,” he said. “I know the risks. I’ll be careful.”

I shook my head at him, but gave him a nice kiss. “Have a nice day,” I said after I broke it off, then walked into the house, listening as the Chevy rumbled out of the garage and the garage door closed.

“Not smart,” Steve said to me.

“He’s an adult, and he can do what he wants, even if it’s stupid,” I said, smiling slightly at the end.

“Makes it hard for me to do my job,” he grumbled.

“Well, you’re pretty much off the hook until he comes home today,” I said. “Ever surf?”

“Black dudes can’t even swim, much less surf,” he joked, cracking me up.

“That’s a bad stereotype,” I said. “Lots of black dudes are very skilled in the water.”

“Not this one,” he said. I smiled, then went downstairs to put on my wetsuit, grab my board, and head out to the water.

The waves were pretty inconsistent, which left me floating atop my board in the Pacific with lots of time to think. I was pretty surprised that Travis had blown off his driver this morning, but the more I thought about it, the more I could kind of see his point. He’d had good days at school on Monday and Tuesday, and while a lot of kids at Brentwood got dropped off and picked up by drivers, he hadn’t done that since he’d gotten his driver’s license. It probably made him feel weird to do it, and it probably attracted bullshit comments from his friends that would have grated on his psyche.

I spotted Cam Squires further down the beach and thought about paddling down to hang out with him, then decided that would be a bad idea. He wasn’t a good enough surfer to make being in the water with him a lot of fun, and the place that he was the most fun was somewhere I did not want to go. Travis and I still hadn’t had a formal DTR talk, but it really hadn’t mattered all that much since he was really the only dude I wanted to be with.

The weather was beautiful today, with temperatures pushing into the seventies, along with brisk winds and sunny skies, but the water was not so good. By lunchtime, the waves had died completely, so I grudgingly hauled my ass back into the house, took a shower, got dressed, then went down to scrounge for food.

Coraline was in the great room, dusting off one of the tables. “Hey there!” I said pleasantly.

“I suppose you’re hungry,” she said, eyeballing me.

“I am, but I can pull something together,” I said, since she seemed kind of annoyed, and I didn’t want to bother her workflow.

“No, that’s my job,” she said, and followed me into the kitchen. She made me a cheeseburger, then left me alone to eat it. Cheeseburgers are usually pretty generic, but this one was truly epic.

“This is really good,” I said to her appreciatively.

“Thank you,” she said, and actually smiled at me for the first time.

I was contemplating what to do next when my phone rang. I saw that it was my father, so I answered it. “Hey,” I said pleasantly.

“Hey,” he said, sounding very uptight. “Where are you?”

“In Malibu, at the house,” I said. “What’s wrong?”

“Jake decided to fly down to LA this morning. Didn’t tell me about it, just left a message with the receptionist,” he said. I was trying to figure out why he’d mentioned the receptionist then I finally got clarity. Jake was stalling for time before my father figured out what he was doing.

“He left the message so you wouldn’t find it for a while?” I asked.

“That’s my guess,” he said. “So I’m getting ready to fly down there.”

“What’s going on? Why's he being so secretive?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Dad said, then covered the phone to talk to someone. “I have to go. I’ll see you soon.” Before I could say anything, the call ended. I shrugged, wondering what the fuck was going on with all of these people. I went back up to my room and was totally bored. I lay down on my couch, put on some lame ass afternoon show, and fell asleep. I was jarred awake when my phone buzzed. I recognized the number as our house phone. We’d given up on using the intercom: phones were so much easier to use.

“Yeah,” I said, as I answered it.

“Will, this is Steve. There’s a Zach Hayes here. He’s asking if it’s okay for him to be here, and he wants to see you,” he said. At first, I was annoyed that Zach would have the balls to show up here unannounced, but I pushed that aside and appreciated that he was obviously approaching me, through Steve, with a lot of respect.

“That’s fine, I’ll be right down,” I said. I decided that hanging out with Zach on the patio was low-risk, and besides, I was bored. I took a few minutes to pee, to make sure my hair looked good, and to check that my breath wasn’t nasty, then ran down the stairs to find him standing by the windows in the Great Room. “Hey!” I said pleasantly.

“I hope it’s alright that I’m here,” he said nervously.

“It’s alright,” I said, then gave him a man-hug to help put him at ease. “Come hang out with me on the patio.”

“I can do that,” he said, smiling at me. I grabbed beers for both of us, then decided to avoid the table and opt for the more informal and comfy lounge chairs. He followed my lead and sat in the chair next to mine, with a side table in between us.

“So what’s up?” I asked.

“You mean why did I show up without calling you first?” he asked. “I’m sorry. That was pretty rude, and probably totally uncool after what I did to you.”

“I think we worked through that shit, and we decided we were friends,” I said firmly but with a smile. “So your showing up isn’t like some massive intrusion.”

“Good,” he said, smiling, then frowned. “I broke up with Taylor, and I was feeling shitty and pretty lost,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I said sympathetically.

“This is one of those big deal events, and my natural instinct was to talk to you,” he said. I was aware that he was playing me perfectly, because he was being very sincere and he was being very careful not to flirt or give off any sexual vibes at all. I decided that, even if it was an act, I’d take it at face value.

“Then it’s a good thing I’m here,” I said, and smiled. He looked back at me seriously, so I adjusted my countenance. “Are you alright?”

“Not really,” he said, shaking his head. “She wouldn’t give him up.”

“Her father?” I asked. He nodded. I didn’t know what to say to that. “Of all the people in this thing, she’s the one I can’t understand.”

“I thought I did, but I guess I’m wrong,” he said, and actually wiped away a tear.

“You knew this was happening, yet you stayed with her,” I accused. He looked at me, planning to argue about that, then shrugged.

“I’m no angel either,” he said.

“Dude, having sex with dudes is on a whole different level than fucking your father on an ongoing basis,” I said. “Did she know about that?”

“Not details,” he said. “She confronted me about it because Curtis was ranting about what a fag I was, and I admitted to her that I liked to get fucked.”

“You trusted her enough to tell her,” I mused.

“I’d already busted her with Curtis, so with that knowledge I had some immunity from their wrath,” he said grimly.

“I didn’t really understand how you could be so bold when you met with him in his office at Big’s party, but once I realized you knew about them, it made sense,” I said.

“I went over to the Buck Mansion one night to surprise her and hid in her closet,” he said, kind of in a stream of consciousness. “It was kind of like it must have been when you watched Travis fuck me, only it was way more twisted.”

“Yeah, because I actually thought that was pretty hot,” I said, smiling to try and help him with this conversation.

“True that,” he agreed. “So after he left, I came out of the closet and she totally came unglued. Screamed at me for probably half an hour. I finally told her to fuck off, then left.”

“I think you have way more patience than I do,” I said, and was mildly annoyed that he nodded and laughed.

“She tracked me down on campus two days later and apologized,” he said. “I tried to talk about it, but she point blank-refused, and that’s when she brought up the deal with my love of dick.”

“So the implication was you’d keep your mouth shut about what you saw, and she’d be your beard?” I asked.

“She’s not just a beard,” he snapped, getting a raised eyebrow from me in return. He sighed. “After we had our big issue, she made me tell her what happened to piss you off.”

“And she doesn’t hate me?” I asked.

“No, because she won,” he said, then laughed. I decided not to make a snarky comment about that. “She went and bought a strap-on.”

“No shit?” I asked, thinking about it. “That’s pretty fucking smart of her.”

“It was also pretty sweet, the way she was trying to do things for me that I like,” he said. “And it’s a whole lot of fucking fun.”

“That’s awesome,” I said, ignoring the fact that he was probably using that as a way to deny how gay he was so he could stay in the closet. “What about her deal with Curtis?”

“We promised that we’d be exclusive,” he said. “After this came out at the dinner from hell, I asked her when she’d last fucked Curtis, and she admitted that she’d been with him two days before that.”

“Had you been faithful?” I asked.

He glared at me briefly until he realized I was just asking a question, not judging him. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. This was clearly causing him a lot of pain.

“So today I told her that she had to pick him or me,” he said. “She picked him.”

“You know this is about so much more than you and her, right?” I asked him. He looked at me, totally confused. “This is not about whether you are a good boyfriend, or an awesome piece of ass.”

“Then why is she still with him?” he asked.

“I have no idea, but what this should tell you is that she is really fucked up, and struggling with this,” I said. “He has some kind of hold on her.”

“You mean he’s blackmailing her?” he asked, outraged.

“I don’t know, but that’s not what I’m thinking about,” I said. “I mean, she’s been sleeping with her father for what, six or seven years now?”

“Something like that,” he said, since neither one of us knew the exact dates.

“What’s your psychologist think about it?” I asked. He told me he’d been in therapy over his anger issues, so tapping into a professional would be a smart move at this point.

“I’m not going to tell him about this,” he said adamantly. That surprised me enough to blink a bit, which prompted him to explain. “I told him about Taylor, and he knows who she is. No way am I going to tell anyone about this so it gets out.”

“I mean, he has a professional obligation to keep his fucking mouth shut,” I said.

“Yeah, well there’s too much on the line here for me to risk it,” he said.

“I think there’s too much on the line for you not to risk it,” I said. He stared at me blankly. “Dude, you’re important too. You act like you don’t matter. If you don’t deal with this, it will fuck you up.”

“I’ll think about it,” he said. We sat there for a few seconds, staring out at the water. “Thanks for what you said.”

“When we met at the restaurant and I gave you the Durango, I told you that I wanted us to still be friends,” I said.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“I mean, I kind of meant it, but not really,” I said.

“So what, you think that rejecting me for a second time today is a nice thing to do?” he asked, starting to freak out.

“NO,” I said, or shouted, to make sure I calmed his ass down. “I’m saying that I didn’t really mean it then, but I mean it now.”

“Cool,” he said, and was justifiably frustrated with me. “When I left the Buck Mansion, I saw Travis driving up.”

“Driving up where?” I asked, and now it was my turn to freak out.

“Up the road you take to get there,” he said. “He was almost to the gates.”

“You think he went there?” I asked, totally unable to grapple with this and what it could mean.

“You really love him,” Zach said, his tone a combination of happy for me and wistful.

“Yeah, I do, which is why I’m worried he walked into the lion’s den and he’s going to die there,” I said.

“Will,” he said, and made me focus on him. His eyes told me to calm the fuck down. “Travis isn’t an idiot. If he went up there, he’s got a plan.”

“I’ve spent the last month trying to figure out ways to keep him out of Curtis Buck’s clutches, and he goes and walks in and says ‘here I fucking am’?” I demanded. He said nothing; he just stared at me until I finally got a grip.

“You don’t trust him?” he asked.

“I trust him,” I snapped. “We keep having these issues where he runs off and does shit like this and he doesn’t talk about it.”

“He has to get your approval before he does anything?” he asked, smiling to show me he was partially giving me shit.

“Alright, I get your point, but it’s like this deal where he ran away to Europe, tried to buy Buck, and then had all kinds of issues, when he could have told me about it and I could have helped him make it happen,” I said. I realized I was on the cusp of whining, which did not help my mood.

“Maybe he wants to deal with this on his own,” Zach said. “Maybe he doesn’t want help.”

I looked at him, looked down, grimaced, and looked at him again, and I knew that he was right. Just like I had confidence in my father, so I needed to have confidence in Travis. “Maybe,” I said, smiling ruefully. “Thanks.”

“I’ll talk you off the ledge anytime,” he said. We sat there for a bit, then he seemed to get uncomfortable. “I should probably get going.”

“You’re welcome to stick around,” I offered, more to be polite than anything.

“Nah,” he said, and stood up. “Shit to do.”

I stood up and faced him, then knowing I’d have to set the tone of our goodbye, I pulled him into a hug. I felt his strong arms grip me, holding me tightly, something that was a little intimidating until I let myself feel the pain he was holding back, then I hugged him back just as warmly. We finally broke off the embrace. “Call me if you need me.”

“You do the same,” he said. I turned to walk him off the patio, only to find Travis there, glaring at us. “Travis,” Zach said to him stiffly.

“Zach,” Travis said, in an even frostier way.

“Take care of yourself,” I said to Zach, to give him an exit from this tense situation, an out he smartly took.

“What the fuck was that?” Travis demanded, as soon as the patio doors closed behind Zach.

“He was having a tough time, and I gave him a hug,” I said.

“Just a hug? Right,” he said. He was trying to start a fight with me, probably to avoid the real issue.

“Just a hug,” I confirmed. “Why were you at the Buck Mansion?”

“I should have known he’d tell you that he saw me,” Travis said.

“He didn’t think your going up there was that big of a deal, evidently,” I said. “I kind of do.”

“Did you fuck him?” he demanded. I’m not sure how I contained my temper, but I did, barely. I walked straight past him, into the house, and up the stairs to our room, closing the door behind me. I grabbed a soda and sat on the couch, waiting for him to realize what an ass he’d been. Predictably enough, there was a knock on the door. “Come in,” I said, like I didn’t know it was him.

The door opened, and he came in with his adorable sheepish expression. “I’m sorry.” I gestured for him to have a seat on the couch and said nothing. He was carrying this thing that artists use to transport paintings or drawings, and he sat it on his lap. “I want to show you something.”

“Alright,” I said, and moved over closer to him. He opened up the case and pulled out a large photograph of him that looked like it was taken in the 1950s. “Did you have to do this for art class?” I asked.

“Art class?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “This looks like a picture of you that was made to look like you were living in the 1950s.” I paused and got more animated. “Was this part of your meeting with the acting coach?”

He chuckled. “This isn’t me. This is Tom Buck when he was eighteen.”

I stared at the photo, then at him, then at the photo again. “Holy fuck,” I exclaimed. Now that he’d told me it wasn’t him, I started to see some of the differences, but it took some work to spot them.

“I remembered this picture, and I wanted to see it,” he said.

“You could have been killed,” I said, getting mad at him all over again.

“I called Curtis yesterday and told him that I wanted to get some of my things. He told me I could stop by after school, and that he would make sure I didn’t get hurt,” he said.

“That’s pretty trusting, since he’s been all but hunting you for a month, at least,” I said.

“About the only redeeming quality he has is that if he formally pledges that he’ll do something, he usually does it,” Travis said. “He made a pledge.”

“You took a chance and it worked out,” I said, then added “This time.”

“It did,” he agreed.

“I wouldn’t give him any more opportunities,” I said, to try to divine his plans.

“I’m not scared of him anymore,” Travis said. I stared at him, trying to figure out what had possessed him to trust Curtis Buck. “I went up there and faced him, we said maybe two sentences to each other, I got my stuff and left. But now he knows I’m not afraid.”

His confidence surprised me, and it also totally turned me on. “I know a way to prove I didn’t fuck Zach.”

“Will, I’m sorry I said that,” he said, not picking up on my slightly sultry tone.

I stood up in front of him and started to unzip my pants, and as the zipper went down, his smile got bigger. I grabbed his head and pulled it towards my cock, which he inhaled with the skill of someone who had had a lot of practice. “You think I fucked him?” I asked, in between moans.

“Clean as a whistle,” he said, as he paused. “I think that, instead, maybe you should fuck me.”

“You think so?” I taunted, making both of us laugh.

“I think so,” he said, and so I did. Fifteen minutes later found us sprawled naked across the fake bearskin rug, grinning at each other. “That was fun.”

“That was a fucking blast,” I said, and kissed him. Our romantic interlude was interrupted by loud voices, and it didn’t take me long to recognize that one of them belonged to my father. “Shit.”

“Sounds like he’s pretty pissed off,” Travis said.

“Come on,” I said, and we hurriedly threw on our clothes.

“Shouldn’t we leave them alone?” he asked.

“No,” I said, but didn’t have time to elaborate. “Grab your picture.”

“Alright,” he said. We walked out of my room and up the stairs to his room, where the door was closed, but the voices were still loud.

“I cannot believe you flew down here and went to see Curtis Buck and didn’t even tell me you were leaving town!” my father shouted.

“I don’t need your approval to do shit,” Jake yelled back at him.

“Sounds like our argument,” Travis said. “You were less obnoxious.”

I laughed, then knocked loudly. “What?” my father asked from the other side of the door.

“Travis and I want to show you something,” I said. After a few seconds, Jake opened the door and ushered us in.

“Good to see you,” I said, and gave him a hug, which threw him off balance a bit because he was still in fight mode.

“Hey,” Travis said, and gave Jake a really warm hug. “How awesome that you’re here.”

“Thanks,” Jake said, mellowing a bit.

I then turned my attention to my father. “It’s good to see you, too, although it would have been nicer if you weren’t screaming so loudly that the house was shaking.”

“Very funny,” he snapped.

“You should remember that yelling is a form of abuse,” I said to him firmly, and that took the wind completely out of his sails.

“Check out this picture,” Travis said, mostly to Jake, and pulled out the photo of Tom Buck.

“Dad?” Jake asked, staring at it.

“Dad,” Travis said, and put his arm around Jake in an affectionate way.

“The resemblance is uncanny,” Dad said, looking at the picture, then at Travis, then at Jake.

“It really is,” I agreed.

Travis’s phone rang, he saw the caller ID and started to answer. “It’s Big.” He stood up and walked away from us, making his conversation private.

“I’m sorry,” Jake said to my father.

“Me too,” Dad said. “Will is right; I should not have yelled at you.”

“And I should have told you I was coming here,” he said. Their sweet but sappy reconciliation was interrupted when Travis hung up the phone.

“Curtis Buck is dead,” he announced.