Flux - 11. Chapter 11

June 17, 2002

Escorial, CA

Matt

I sat on the patio, slowly smoking a joint all by myself, letting my Oakleys block out the bright sunlight. I’d just gotten back from taking my parents to the airport, while Wade was still gone, having ridden along with his own family as they went to catch their plane. We were supposed to be doing the same thing, heading to the airport to leave for Boston, but Wade had seen reason, after Tiffany and I had whined enough, and had agreed to leave tomorrow instead of today. We needed the day to recover.

Yesterday had been a busy fucking day. We’d gone to our commencement and heard Condoleezza Rice rant about the importance of education, which was kind of a wasted message to Stanford students who had spent at least four grueling years getting their degree, not to mention all that we’d had to do before that to even get into the place. Then we’d broken up into groups, based on our minors, to get our diplomas. That had been kind of a bummer, since Wade and I had different minors. I’d minored in Economics, so my ceremony was on the Hoover Lawn. Wade minored in Political Science, so he’d been over in Kennedy Grove. I’d given him shit by pointing out that he’d puked there not too long ago.

After the ceremony, we’d all come up to Escorial for a massive party. There had been a bunch of students here, along with several parents, and it had started off as a pretty staid garden party. That had lasted until about 7:00pm, then it had morphed into a total college party. Both Wade and I had gotten pretty drunk, but not obliterated. It was strange, because it should have been my last college hurrah, a time to totally cut loose, but instead I’d been pretty contained. It was almost like now that I’d graduated, I was done with those antics. Or maybe I was just too freaked out about all the shit that had happened lately and I didn’t want to be completely trashed.

I heard the door open and started to put out the joint hurriedly, but then relaxed. All the people who I’d worry about busting me, like my parents, were gone. I turned to see JP strolling out. “I hope I am not disturbing you,” he said politely, which was pretty funny, since it was his house, and his terrace.

“Not at all,” I said, and handed him the joint.

He looked at it oddly, then shrugged and took a hit. The quarter was over for him as well, and he deserved a little relaxation time. “It seems that all of our guests have gone,” he noted.

“Did Darius fly back to LA with Will and Brad?” I asked. I’d left first, and hadn’t seen them all off.

“No, he actually went back to Virginia with Mary Ellen,” JP said.

“No shit?” I asked, surprised. “I mean, they were all but inseparable this weekend, but I figured that was it.”

“Evidently there were parties or social activities in Charlottesville and DC that lured Darius to join her,” JP said.

“I’m sure that was it,” I said sarcastically, making him smile. I felt a twinge of guilt at having fucked Mary Ellen, but I’d gotten there before Darius, so he couldn’t give me a Will-type lecture on messing with his woman. And having tapped that, I could see why Darius would be following her back to Virginia. That girl was one amazing piece of ass.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. My whole life was in a state of fluidity.

“Would you like to go for a ride with me?” he asked. I looked at him dubiously. My stomach and head would probably not hold up to being jostled by a horse, and there was no way I could handle that kind of pain from my bruised ribs. “In the car,” he added, reading my mind.

“Let’s go,” I said, standing up. We walked out to the garage to find one of the guys polishing a new Porsche.

“My new car,” JP said. “I decided to try a Porsche out for a change.”

“This is one nice Porsche,” I said as I ogled his new car.

“It is a 911 Turbo S Cabriolet,” he said, as if reading from the manual. “It is also black.”

“It is indeed,” I said with a smile. The top was down, making it the perfect car for a beautiful day like this. I got into the passenger seat and adjusted it a bit, making myself comfortable, while JP fired the car up and tooled slowly down the drive. He made the quick trek to I-280, and headed north toward the City. Once we were on the freeway, he wound it up, hitting 100 mph pretty fast. He slowed down shortly after hitting that benchmark speed, so as not to get a ticket, or get thrown into jail for speeding recklessly. “It’s fast too.”

“Yes it is,” he said with a grin. When JP was driving like this, the boy in him came out. His blond hair flew about in the wind, even though it was clipped short, and he had a contended smile on his face, as if he were master of the world. He tooled up the freeway a bit, then turned around in Millbrae and drove back to a pub in Woodside. We got a table on the deck, ordered some beers and burgers, and relaxed, enjoying the weather, the food, and the drinks.

“You seem perplexed,” he said. I thought I seemed very relaxed, but he must be referring to my earlier comment.

“I am,” I said. I hesitated before saying anything.

“I do not mean to pry,” he said hastily, thinking that I was reluctant to tell him, which I kind of was.

“No, I need to tell you,” I said. “And I know I can trust you, but it’s kind of a big deal.”

“I will not betray your confidence,” he affirmed, but seemed kind of offended that I even raised that as an issue.

“I know, I’m sorry…” I said, but he just looked at me, wanting me to either tell him what was bothering me, or to shut up about it. “Wade and Brad have been sleeping together.”

He raised an eyebrow, a pretty small gesture to indicate he was very shocked. “For how long?”

“Since January,” I said. He took a big swig of his beer as he thought about that, and the implications.

“I take it you are not alright with that?”

“That’s putting it nicely,” I said. “But you know what’s weird about this? I find myself in the same position Will was in when he was pissed off at me. So part of me wants to beat the living shit out of Brad, but another part understands what he’s dealing with. Sort of.”

“This is truly one of the more ironic incidents I’ve seen,” he agreed.

“And the worst thing of all is that I now understand how Will felt, and I feel like total shit for hurting him,” I said. “On the other hand, I loved Wade a lot more than he loved Tony.”

“I would point out that it is really not your place to evaluate the depths of his feelings for Tony, but I would agree with you,” he said rigidly. He was always the professor, demanding that I not jump to conclusions. “In Will’s case, he was not as upset about Tony’s betrayal as yours. Is that different from how you feel?”

“I don’t know how I feel about Wade,” I said, shaking my head. “I love him, I really do, but ever since I found out about this, it’s like part of us died.”

“So you would not follow him to Boston now, even if he asked?”

I thought about that for a bit. “No,” I answered. “I’m not ready to do that, to be with him as a couple. Not after that.”

“That is quite a change of heart,” he said.

“At the party last night, he was hanging out and flirting with some of the guys, and hell, he even gave Klip his Audi, and it didn’t bother me at all,” I said. I’d suspected that Wade had gotten with Klip, so when he handed Klip the keys and the title to his slightly used Audi S4, it just confirmed it as far as I was concerned. “It felt a lot like how I feel about Cody. I love him, and I would jump in bed with him any chance I get, but I don’t see us as a couple.”

“That is probably healthy,” he said. “And, as you have described his feelings, you are in much the same place as he is.” JP was too funny, how he was careful to make sure he wasn’t speaking for Wade, even though if he said that, it probably meant that’s exactly how Wade felt.

“I think so,” I agreed.

“I am assuming this validates my hypothesis that you broke Bradley’s nose?”

Just his mention of Brad fueled my anger. He’d avoided me during the party, which was smart of him. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“Well, it is difficult for me to sanction you since I cannot reveal why,” he said with a wry grin. I smiled at him to thank him. “I am not a violent person, probably because I lack the means to make much of an impact, but I think I could possibly be that enraged.”

“It wasn’t the right thing to do, but it sure felt good,” I said. “He’s been giving me all this attitude about what I did to Will, and here he was doing the same thing to me.”

“He is lucky Will does not know about this.”

“Will knows,” I said. “That’s what blew the lid off this thing. When you sent Will to find Brad, after I was in that accident, Will busted in on them, mid-fuck.”

JP looked at me, smiled, and then actually laughed. I didn’t see that there was anything funny about this at all, and my flat expression stopped his laughter pretty quickly. “I’m sorry. I do not mean to laugh at your situation. I am just thinking that, if you ultimately forgive Bradley and make him do a penance, you should factor in the torture he will already have endured at Will’s hands.”

I snaughed, and shook my head slightly. “Will seemed to deal with it pretty well.”

He looked pensive, and took a minute before responding. “I would guess that he has lost a lot of respect for both Wade and his father.”

“So have I,” I told him.

“What will you do?”

“About what?” I asked.

“About Bradley?”

It was my turn to think. “I totally get where Will was with me. When I see Brad, I just feel all this rage. I don’t think I could make it through a conversation with him without hitting him again.”

“You are saying you need time?” he asked.

I nodded. “I guess. I hope that does it. Wade pulled me aside after the initial explosion over this, and all but asked me if he could keep sleeping with Brad.”

“That is rather bold,” JP said.

“That’s one way to put it,” I said. “I told him that if he did, I could probably deal with him doing it, but I’d just hate Brad more.”

“And he did not understand that?”

“I don’t think so,” I answered.

“Do you understand why you feel that way?”

“No,” I answered honestly. “I’m going to talk to Casey about it when I get back from Boston.”

“When are you going to Chicago?”

“After I get back from traveling around with Will and Zach,” I said.

“I would like to ask you a favor,” he said.

“Go on.”

“Understand that I will not break your confidence,” he began. I stared at him, because we’d already been over that, and I didn’t want him to think I was questioning him. “I wonder if you would allow me to talk to Will about this.”

“Why?” I asked, even though I had a good idea as to his reason.

“I think that this will be very hard on him, and I think that he will be very reluctant to reveal this to anyone because he will not want to betray you, Wade, or his father,” he said. “I am worried that he will have no one to talk to.”

“This could really mess him up,” I said as I pondered his words. “Yeah. Go ahead. Talk to him.” My words were urgent, as if I wanted him to talk to Will immediately.

“I think he will be alright,” JP said. “He is going to Claremont tomorrow.”

“Zach will be there,” I said. “He’ll talk to Zach about this.”

“Perhaps,” JP said. “But I am not sure Zach has a good frame of reference to counsel him.”

“Do you think Zach is good for Will?” I asked.

“I do not like to speak about other people and their relationships,” he began, but saw my expression and stopped. I’d trusted him, but he wouldn’t trust me? He figured that out. “I think he has been good for Will so far.”

“So far?”

“To this relatively informed outsider, they appear to be very much in love,” he said. “That is incompatible with Zach’s football career. They have hired an agent for him, and I suspect that Zach will find more restrictions placed on his private life in the future.”

“That’s too bad,” I said honestly. I felt bad for both of them. This was going to be hell. “So you don’t think Zach is a bad guy?”

“I do not,” JP said. “I think that he has people in his life that, once he pulls them into his inner circle, he is quite loving and loyal to them. If they are not part of that circle, I think he has the capacity to be ruthless.”

“Reminds me of a cliquish high school kid,” I said. “You have to be in the right circle, or you’re not shit.”

“Possibly a variation on the theme,” JP allowed. “I do not know that we are all much different than that, but I sense with Zach it is more extreme.”

“He’d be a good boyfriend, if he was allowed to have a boyfriend,” I observed ruefully.

“Alas, he is not,” JP said sadly.

June 18, 2002

Van Nuys Airport, CA

Will

“I’m sorry we’re leaving so early,” Dad said nicely as we settled into the plane. We hadn’t talked at all, other than to make small talk.

“That’s fine,” I said dismissively. “I’m going to take a nap as soon as we take off.” I was doing that as much to avoid him as to rest.

“Did you get to surf yesterday?”

“I did. Waves were pretty good,” I said. I didn’t elaborate like I normally would.

“Is Zach picking you up at the airport?” He was trying to have a conversation with me by sticking to all these safe topics, but that was just annoying me.

“He is. He’s meeting with his new agent at the airport, so it works out for him. I guess the dude is flying through,” I told him.

“On a private plane? He must be a good agent,” Dad said.

“He is a good agent, or so I hear, but he’s flying in on that new commuter jet service they have out of Cleveland,” I said. Cody had done some research and helped Zach find a guy who specialized in high school athletes. His name was Barry Friedman, and he had all kinds of good references. He’d latched onto Zach in a heartbeat, which spoke volumes about how talented Zach was.

The plane began to take off, and he chose that moment to look at me. “I know you’re pissed at me.”

“I’m disappointed in you,” I answered honestly. “I’m having a hard time understanding why you fucked Wade, especially after all the moralizing you did about Matt and Tony. And about how you got up on your high horse about Jake and Sam all those years ago. It makes you a fucking hypocrite.”

“I know,” he said sadly, and looked away from me. He was driving me fucking crazy. Part of me wanted to reach out and help him with this, but another part of me was so disgusted with him I had a hard time doing that.

“I’ll be gone for a while,” I said. “It will give you time to figure things out, and me time to work through it.”

“My doctor helped me do that, to work through some of it,” he said.

“I’m glad,” I said sincerely. I hadn’t been able to get in to see my shrink, at least not without making it into an emergency, so I didn’t have any perspective.

“He thinks there are two parts to this deal with Wade and me, at least from my perspective,” he said. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to be objective about this, but he obviously wanted to talk about it, and I owed it to him to listen.

“What are they?” I asked, since he seemed to want me to.

“One part of it is the actual relationship between us. Wade and I have a really tight connection, a solid bond. And we were both lonely, and pretty much floundering. In that context, we found each other, and made each other happy,” he said, in this way that made it seem like they had this pure, meaningful thing going.

I frowned. “That’s fucking beautiful. What a lovely romantic story.”

“Will...” he said, asking me to be patient with him, and then he sighed and shut down on me. “Never mind.”

“What’s the other reason?” I asked in a relatively unpleasant way, unwilling to just get half the story.

“I did it to get back at Robbie. I’m still really pissed off at him. I hadn’t realized that, but I am,” he said, and a tear fell down his face. Christ. Now he had me on this fucking emotional roller coaster. I forced my irritation aside as much as I could.

“Dad, he’s dead. How can you still be pissed off at him?” I demanded, trying to sound at least a little sympathetic.

“For leaving me,” he yelled. “For going back up those fucking stairs and leaving me behind. For not thinking about me and the rest of us, and all the shit we’d have to deal with, and how hard it would be without having him here.”

“He couldn’t have lived with himself if he wouldn’t have tried to save Mom and Hank,” I said, and felt the sadness overwhelm me as I remembered that horrible day.

“Bullshit!” he screamed. “That’s fucking bullshit. He couldn’t have lived with himself, so he went up those fucking stairs, but instead he died. So he got what he wanted, he got to be a fucking hero. He didn’t think about the rest of us. He didn’t think about what he’d put me through. How hard this would be. How much shit I’d have to deal with. How lonely I’d be. He didn’t think about that at all. It was all about him. It was always all about him.” He was totally losing it, and it was just a little scary.

“I felt like that too,” I told him. “But I don’t think that now.”

“Well I do,” he snapped. “That motherfucker dumped on me again, for the last time, and left me hanging. So instead of escaping with you guys and feeling miserable, he stayed and made sure I felt miserable.”

“So you fucked Wade because you were mad at Robbie?” I asked, as much to get him away from his painful place as to get an answer.

“Because it would hurt his son, and because Matt reminds me so much of him,” he said, and looked away from me.

“It’s not fair to blame Matt for what Robbie did,” I said logically.

“I know that,” he said. He was talking loudly, even as tears poured down his face. “Don’t you think I get that? I didn’t know how pissed off I was at Robbie, and I didn’t realize I was trying to fuck Matt over.”

“I’m just trying to understand,” I said, even though I was reeling from my own emotional overload, at dealing with all this crap.

“And now it’s just worse. I’ve not only lost Robbie, I can’t have a friendship with Wade, Matt hates me, and you don’t like me either.”

I unbuckled my seat belt, got up and knelt in front of him, and watched, horrified, as he totally broke down. I pulled him into a hug and let him cry on my shoulder, while I cried with him. “I said I was disappointed in you, not that I didn’t like you. I love you. I always will.”

He pulled away briefly to look at me, with his red, teary eyes, to see if I was sincere. He nodded, and hugged me again. “I’m sorry to do this to you.”

“It’s alright,” I said, and patted his back soothingly. “You can still be friends with Wade, you just can’t fuck him. And Matt will ultimately forgive you.”

“What makes you so sure Matt will ultimately forgive me?” he asked.

“Because I forgave him,” I said simply. There was no way I would let Matt get away with carrying a grudge about this. “He’s not an angel either.”

“He really loves Wade,” he said. And that pissed me off a bit.

“And Tony wasn’t important to me? Is that how this works? So it’s OK for him to do that to me, because I wasn’t madly in love with Tony like he was with Wade? That’s bullshit. There’s no way he’s stupid enough to even raise that as an issue with me,” I said. And the rest of that sentence, that I didn’t say, was that Dad shouldn’t raise it either.

“You’re right,” he agreed. That didn’t make me any happier, but I blew that off.

“So what do you do about this?”

“I have to try and explain things to Matt,” he said. Matt wouldn’t listen to him, not now.

“Do you mind if I try to do that for you?” I asked.

“I think it’s something I should handle,” he said.

“That’s fine,” I said. “It’s your call.”

“What do you think?” he asked me, reconsidering.

“I think that if Matt understands your reasons before you tell him, he’ll hear them when you talk to him,” I said. “Can’t hurt.”

“I don’t want to put you in that position,” he said.

I rolled my eyes at him. “Seriously? This is bullshit. We all need to get over this shit. It’s too fucking divisive.”

“And you’ve gotten over it?”

“I’m working on it,” I said coldly. “I’m making progress.”

“You are,” he said, although I wasn’t sure how sincere he was.

“I want to know what you’re going to do about this basic anger you still have with Robbie,” I said. I was feeling like a fucking psychologist and way out of my league, but if this was the trigger that sparked it, it seemed that it needed to be addressed.

“My psychologist thinks that merely identifying it is a good first step. He’s going to help me work through it. We’re meeting weekly or more often if I need to,” he said. “It really freaks me out.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s so strong, because I’m really pissed, and it was just sitting there beneath the surface and I didn’t even know it was there,” he said.

“It was hidden, along with your relationship with Wade,” I said.

He nodded. “He thinks that’s what may have triggered it all to come loose.”

“Why didn’t you tell him about this before?”

I expected him to pause and think about his answer, but he didn’t. “Because I was worried that he’d tell me to end things with Wade, and I didn’t want to do that, I don’t want to do that.”

“You love him that much?” I asked, kind of freaked out.

“He’s really important to me,” he admitted. “If the price wasn’t so high, I wouldn’t end it.”

I held his hands in mine. “You’re right. The price is too high.”

“I know,” he said sadly.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it. It would suck to love someone, and not be able to be with him.

“I’m the one who should be sorry, for everything, for putting you through this,” he said, and got pretty upset again.

“It’s OK, Dad,” I said, and hugged him again. “I’m glad you told me all this. I understand where you’re coming from.”

“So we’re good?” he asked, and it made me grin, because he was using words Darius or I would use.

“We’re good,” I said. I gave him a final hug and went back to my seat, and even though I’d told him that, both he and Wade had still fallen down a notch or two in my pantheon of people I respected. That was just something I’d have to work through in my mind. He seemed pretty stable after that, and when he pulled out some work to do, I took that opportunity to go back and crash. These emotional upheavals were exhausting. I forced myself to sleep, the only way I could avoid all this crap. I was awakened when I felt my dad shaking me gently.

“We’re landing in half an hour,” he said. “I thought you may want some extra time since Zach is picking you up.”

“Thanks,” I said, smiling. I got up and went to the bathroom to make sure my hair wasn’t fucked up, and to brush my teeth. I put on a booster coat of deodorant, and even a spritz of cologne, and then went up to sit with him.

“We’re going to have to have a board meeting of Anders-Hayes,” he said. That was the movie production company that Robbie had owned, and that we still owned a shitload of stock in.

“Is there a problem?”

“We’ve got a serious offer to buy the company out,” he said. “An investment group wants to get into the entertainment business, and they’re willing to pay top dollar.”

“So it’s a good deal?” I didn’t know anything about this shit, but I trusted Dad and Stef.

“Harry Potter has made the company worth a hell of a lot of money,” he said. “Alex Danvers is recommending we take the deal. I think he’s right.”

“What’s he stand to gain in this?” I asked. I’d become so cynical, I always expected people to fuck me over.

“A chunk of cash, through his stock options and retention bonus,” Dad said. “That’s why we use them. His interests are aligned with ours.”

“When is the board meeting going to be?” I wasn’t a full member, but Darius, JJ, and I were invited to attend the meetings as non-voting members.

“Next week or the week after,” he said casually. “I’ll let you know.” I grumbled to myself about how that would totally fuck up my vacation. “If you can’t make it back, I can fill you in.”

“We’ll see,” I said. “And even if I don’t want to go, Matt probably will, and he’s my chaperone.”

“Then you’ll come back, and then you’ll leave again,” he said philosophically. That was easy to say, but harder to do. If we were out on a massive vacation, and we came back, it would be tough to get Matt motivated to go back out with us, or at least I guessed it would be. Before I could even try to explain that to him, the wheels on the plane touched the strip in Claremont, Ohio.

“I’ll work it out,” I said philosophically. “I’ll see you in a week or two.”

He pulled me in and gave me a big hug. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” I said, although I wasn’t sure exactly what he was thanking me for. I just assumed it was for not completely flaming him, and giving him some level of absolution.

The plane stopped and the pilot opened the door. I climbed out, stooping to get under the door frame, and was surprised to see a limo waiting for me instead of Wally and Clara’s car. I smiled, thinking that it was pretty romantic for Zach to spring for a limo to pick me up in. The pilot followed me down and handed my suitcase to the limo driver, while I got into the car with my backpack. I was pretty surprised, and not a little disappointed, to see that it was empty. “Welcome to Claremont, Mr. Schluter,” the limo driver said.

“Thanks,” I replied. “Who set up this car?”

“Mr Hayes,” he said. “He asked that you call him.”

“Zach?” I asked, to clarify which ‘Mr. Hayes’.

“Yes, sir,” he said. I pulled out my phone and dialed his number, even as I put the privacy screen up.

“Hey,” Zach said nervously as he answered the phone.

“Hey,” I said. “You were too lazy to drive out and get me?” I joked.

“I need to talk to you about that,” he said.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, having heard the apprehension in his voice.

“We have to spend a lot less time together,” he told me.

“What? How much less time?” I asked.

“I’m not supposed to see you,” he said, and I could hear the anguish in his voice.

“At all? You can’t see me at all?” I asked, blown away by that. “According to who?”

“People are talking about us,” he said. “My agent did some research, and at De La Salle and at Don Bosco they said we were so tight it was like we were a couple.”

“We’re cousins,” I insisted. “It makes sense that we’d spend some time together.”

“It looked like way more than that. And the problem is that once the rumors start, you have to be even more careful,” he told me. The only reason I didn’t lose it and rip him up about this was because I could hear how badly this upset him in his tone. I needed to not talk to him about this right now. If I did, I was going to say something I’d regret later.

“I’ve got another call,” I lied. “I’ll call you back later.”

“Will...” he began, trying to keep me on the line.

“I have to run,” I said, then ended the call.