Flux - 27. Chapter 27

July 11, 2002

Maui

Matt

“Fuck!” Zach yelled. He was in the kitchen, pacing back and forth like a caged lion. “Fuck!”

“Good luck,” Wade said to me, shaking his head as he climbed the stairs to go talk to Will. Zach grabbed a glass and filled it with water, then took a drink.

“Fuck!” he yelled again, and threw the glass onto the floor, shattering it, and sending water splattering all over the place.

“Dude. No breaking shit,” I said firmly as I walked into the kitchen. He glared at me, with fire in his eyes, completely enraged. The easiest way to get him to calm down was to fuck his brains out, but that wasn’t happening, so I’d have to settle for plan B. “Get the broom out of the closet and clean this shit up!”

Giving him a directive to do something seemed to calm him slightly. “Fine.” He went and got the broom out and started sweeping up the pieces. “This didn’t break like regular glass.”

“That’s because it’s crystal, dumbass,” I said, as I got some paper towels to wipe up the water and any tiny shards that were left on the floor.

“Oh.” He finished up and put the broom away. “I guess I should go talk to Will.”

“Nope. We’re going for a run. Get your shoes on,” I told him. He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, so that would work. He looked at me like he was planning to argue about it, and then changed his mind.

“Can I borrow some socks? Mine are up there,” he said, pointing toward Will’s room.

“No problem.” I went up to the room Wade and I were using, changed quickly into my running clothes, and grabbed an extra pair of socks for Zach. I came back down and tossed them to him, we put on our shoes, and then we started jogging.

This was such a beautiful place. We just jogged along the coastline, avoiding the beach since sand was hard to run on. Neither one of us said anything for a good forty-five minutes, we just jogged, then our mutual competitive streaks came out as we started to get a little winded: Neither one of us wanted to be the first to slow the pace, or take a break. I let that ego issue irritate me for another fifteen minutes, even as I looked sideways at Zach. Damn that boy was hot. He had the body and the looks to get into just about any bed he wanted to. I started to get winded, and realized how stupid it was for me to try and outlast a 17-year-old running back in top condition. “Let’s start heading back,” I said. We found a trail down to the beach and went down there, and once we got to the sand, we started walking.

“You get winded, old man?” he asked, giving me shit.

“Dude, I’ve got all kinds of endurance,” I joked back.

“I’ll bet,” he said, flirting with me. Then he seemed to remember that he had all these intense personal issues going on and got somber. “That glass was probably fucking expensive.”

“Probably was,” I said. The glass wasn’t the issue, and he knew it.

We just walked on, saying nothing. I figured that if he wanted to talk about things, he would. “I totally fucked this up.”

“What did you do?”

He sighed. “My advisor called and told me there’s this big exhibition series in Nebraska from the 20^th to the 25^th of this month. He wants me to go to it. Meanwhile, I promised Will and Dr. Crampton I’d go to Europe with them after the Bastille Day party, until the end of the month.”

“And Will is pissed off at you for breaking your promise?” That was totally like Will, and it made complete sense that he’d be angry about it.

“Totally pissed.” We walked on for a bit. “He says it’s stupid for me to give up a chance to pad my resume by skipping this internship with Dr. Crampton, and he’s really pissed off at me for letting Dr. Crampton down. Meanwhile my parents and my advisor are saying that it’s important for me to be at this deal in Nebraska.”

“What’s the deal in Nebraska? Why is that so important?”

“Bunch of scouts will be there,” he said.

“Will it make a big difference to you, to where you go?” I thought about how much better Wade would be at this conversation, taking a bloodlessly logical approach.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“There are some other important issues here,” I said. “There are about five relationships Will has that are at the top of his priority scale.”

“Is Tony up there?” he asked, which was totally weird and obnoxious.

“Don’t be an asshole,” I snapped. “You know better than that.”

“Sorry.”

“He really values his relationships with his father, with JP, with Stef, with Wade, and with you. You just shit on two of those.” I looked at him to make sure he was hearing me. “He really respects and idolizes JP. That’s one of the ways I can always tell if Will is really losing it, when he goes toe to toe with JP. You not only pissed him off, you embarrassed him.”

“How did I embarrass him?”

“He vouched for you with his grandfather. He told him how awesome you are. He set it up so JP thought so highly of you, he was willing to shift his schedule around to match yours and invest some time in you. Dude, there are guys at Stanford that would give their left nut to do something like that with JP, and you just tossed it away like it’s no big deal.”

“So what am I supposed to do?” he demanded. “My parents are demanding that I go to Nebraska.”

“You’re supposed to quit being a pawn and take control of your life,” I said. “That’s what Will was saying, when he told you to grow a spine.”

“You heard that,” he mused.

“Did you?”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” he asked, giving me some attitude. This kid was a strong little shit, but I could still take him, so his posturing meant nothing to me.

“It means that you’re letting all of these people pull your strings. Dude, that’s fucking ridiculous. And I’m not talking about just your advisor and your parents; I’m talking about Will and our family too.”

“What do you mean?”

“JP and Will set it up so you’d go to Europe with them. It was for your own good, and God knows you could use a little culture.”

“Fuck you,” he said, but in a playful way.

“So those are some strings. Then you’ve got your advisor, who wants you to do this deal in Nebraska. He doesn’t care about you growing as a person; he just cares about maximizing how much exposure you get. So he pulls on that string. Then when he doesn’t get you to do what he wants, he calls in your parents, and they pull on that string,” I said.

“Pretty much,” he mumbled.

“Dude, this is bullshit. This is your decision. Will says you keep trying to take control of your life and your career, but you’re not doing it. So let me ask you this. Looking at those two options, what’s the right move for you?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Well that’s what you should be thinking about, not about who wants you to do what,” I said, and not all that nicely.

We walked on for awhile. “You think I should go to Europe.”

“Dude, didn’t you hear a word I said to you?” I asked, kind of pissed. “It doesn’t matter what I think, it matters what you think. So think. That’s what Will was saying when he told you to grow a fucking brain!”

“Christ,” he snapped, frustrated. “I just wanted your opinion.”

“Nope. This one is all you. You’ve got until we get back to figure it out.”

“I do?” he challenged.

“You do,” I said, in a pretty authoritative way. But he was floundering, unable to get his mind to work in a rational way. “Look, you get into a situation like this; you have to think it out. Talk it out. Even if you’re by yourself.”

He nodded. “On the one hand, I made a promise to Will and Dr. Crampton. And if I go to Europe it will be good for my college applications. On the other hand, if I go to Nebraska, I may get a lot more exposure.”

“Alright,” I said, to encourage him. “Will this deal in Nebraska make that big of a difference?”

“Maybe,” he said, pondering that.

“Where do you want to go to college?”

“If I picked right now, it would be USC,” he said.

“What will make it easier for you to get into USC? Going to Nebraska, or going to Europe?”

He looked at me, looked away as he thought about it, and then looked back at me. “Probably Europe.”

“Alright, now think about the downside. What happens if you go to Europe?”

“My advisor will be pissed, and my parents will go apeshit,” he said.

“And what happens if you go to Nebraska?”

“I’ll probably totally fuck up my relationship with Will, and I’ll probably lose a lot of respect in Dr. Crampton’s eyes.”

“So what are you going to do?” I asked.

He looked at me, grimaced, and then smiled. “I’m going to Europe.” He paused. “You think that’s the right thing to do?”

“Duh,” I said. “Scouts have already seen you. Dude, you have to realize that colleges out there will see or hear about your talent, and they’ll want you. It’s not like you have to sell them. Your performance does that.” I had friends who got scholarships to Minnesota and New Hampshire to play hockey. I knew how that worked. If you were good, they chased you.

“Mind if I make a phone call?”

“Go ahead,” I said. We were almost back to the house, but he went ahead and dialed the number.

“Barry? It’s Zach. I’m not going to Nebraska.” There was a long pause, as Barry must have been arguing with him. “That’s bullshit. This is better for me, and my resume.” Another pause. “It’s not about Will, it’s about honoring my commitment to Dr. Crampton, and what’s best for me. That’s what you’re supposed to be focused on. Me.” He’d said that in a much nastier way. “Alright, well here’s how things are. You set this whole thing up, and got my parents involved. That’s the last time you ever fucking do that. You understand me?” He was almost yelling now. “I don’t give a shit. Here’s the deal. You created this problem, so you have to fix it. You have to make them believe it’s better for me to go to Europe than Nebraska.” I snaughed at how anyone who was hearing that question would see how obvious it was. Shit, almost anywhere was better than Nebraska, except maybe Oklahoma. “Well it’s your problem. You created it, you fix it. You don’t, and you’re fired.” I stared at him, pretty surprised. “My parents don’t have shit to say about that. They do, and I’m going to court!” There was a long pause. “I don’t want your apologies. This is the last time I’m putting up with your bullshit. You fix the problem.” Then he ended the call.

“Was he surprised?” I asked, smiling at him.

“A little.”

I ran my fingers down the center of his back. “Is that a spine growing?”

He smacked my hand away. “Fuck you.”

We walked into the house to find Wade and Will in the kitchen. Will was still fuming. “Where the fuck did you go?” he asked Zach.

“Running,” I said. I walked up to him and lifted my arm, exposing my pit to his face. “Wanna smell?” He gave me a dirty look.

Zach’s phone rang, and he looked at it with dread. “I’ll be right back.” We watched him walk out of the room to take the call.

“He’s got a lot of people pulling him in different directions,” I said to Will.

“You’re accusing me of manipulating him?” he demanded, making the extraordinary leap in logic to that conclusion.

“I didn’t say that,” I said in a pretty annoyed way. “Will you chill and listen?”

“Fine.”

“I noticed something about Zach today. When he’s not sure of himself, of what to do, he sort of blows in the wind, listening to whoever talked to him last.”

“Great,” Will said sarcastically.

“All I did was calmly help him look at the pros and cons so he could come to a decision,” I said to him firmly.

“You’re saying I should do that instead of flying off the handle,” he said.

“That’s what I’m saying,” I said, smiling.

“I feel like we keep having the same argument over and over again,” he said sadly.

“You are. And you probably will. Because every time something like this comes up, he’s going to have to sit down and weigh out what’s best for him. Don’t you do that?”

“Not if I’ve already promised to do something,” he said.

“Well that makes you more perfect than him,” I said in a smarmy way. “You win.”

“You don’t have to be an asshole,” he said, venting his anger at me.

“Yeah, I do. It’s kind of my job,” I joked, and winked at Wade, who took that as his cue to enter the conversation.

“This is one of those things where it’s not black and white,” Wade said. “This is one of those times when you have to help him work through his choices, even if the answer is obvious to you.”

“In other words, if I love him, I’m supposed to put aside my anger and help him solve his problems,” Will said. “I’m supposed to try to help him find a solution that works for both of us.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Wade said.

“Just like you guys did for each other?” he asked, even as he smirked at Wade and me. I should have been annoyed with his comment, but I was too busy trying not to laugh my ass off at how irritated Wade was.

“Yeah Wade,” I said, teasing him. “How’s that work?”

“Fuck you both,” Wade said.

“I got this one covered,” I said to Will, then leered at Wade. “Come on. Take a shower with me. Then we’ll get food, with or without our two drama queens.”

“Whatever,” Will said, and folded his arms in a snit, while I led Wade upstairs.

“I’m starting to wonder if JJ won’t be easier to handle than Will,” Wade grumbled.

“Dude, either one is a challenge.” We ignored their drama, and went back to enjoying our vacation and our time together.

July 11, 2002

Maui

Will

I watched Matt and Wade walk out of the kitchen, rolling my eyes at how they thought they were experts in relationship advice. Shit, they couldn’t even manage to keep their own deal working, much less toss down edicts about how I should handle things. But even while I was being bitchy, I thought about what they said, and let it seep into my brain.

I hadn’t thought about that aspect of Zach, because he’d always been pretty driven, a guy who knew what he wanted and went for it. I guess this is what happened when he didn’t know what he wanted. Maybe Matt was right. Maybe when he was confused, he was like a big ping-pong ball, bouncing from one conclusion to the next until he figured things out. In that mode, he’d let me, or his parents, or Barry, or his coach, or whoever push him around until he decided what the right thing to do was. And what Matt was saying is that if I was going to be a good boyfriend, my job was to help him work through those issues.

I looked outside and saw him pacing up and down next to the pool, and it looked like he was yelling into the phone, or at least having a pretty animated conversation. I wasn’t a complete idiot. From Matt’s attitude, I got that he must have helped Zach figure out what to do, and Zach must have realized that it was much smarter to go to Europe. This argument he was having was either with Barry or his parents. I allowed myself to smile briefly. Once Zach had made up his mind, he was pretty focused, and pretty hard to sway. It was that period before he’d come to a conclusion where he was vulnerable and malleable.

I was fine with that, and I could work with that, but there was one thing that really bothered me. When he’d promised me we’d have the rest of July, to me that meant he’d fought this battle already, and he’d made his decision. Even though this new thing came up, it seemed to me that if he’d already made that commitment to me, it shouldn’t have mattered. He’d argue back that if it was important, I needed to be flexible, and I could see that, but in this situation, I really hadn’t even registered on his radar. This deal in Nebraska came up and threw him back into a flux again.

I spied through the window at him, and saw him end the call and look at the phone as if it were evil. He tossed it on the table, as if he was throwing away his link to whoever he was pissed at. Then he sat on one of the chairs and put his head in his hands. All this introspection just didn’t seem so important when I saw the guy I loved dealing with this kind of conflict and pain. I walked outside and strode over to him. He knew I was there; he just didn’t want to look at me and deal with another argument. I went up behind him and put my hands on his shoulders, and I could feel the tension in him. He turned to look at me, and he was like a drowning man. He was probably getting crap from everyone, me included, and he really didn’t know who would be there for him.

I stood in front of him and held out my hand to pull him up. He gave me a slight smile and took my hand. I saw his phone on the table and grinned, because that gave me a killer idea. It was the only thing we were wearing that wasn’t waterproof. I gave him a massive heave, which propelled both of us backward and into the pool. He came up from under the water, splashing and spluttering. “What the fuck?!”

“You needed a shower,” I said, smiling at him. He smiled, and I relaxed, then the shit took advantage of that and dunked me. I wasn’t ready, and swallowed a bunch of water, so it was my turn to come up and splutter around. “Asshole.”

“Payback’s a bitch,” he joked, and then he got somber, and sad. “They disowned me.”

“Your parents?” I asked. He nodded, even as he grimaced. It was probably a good thing we were in the pool, since that way it wouldn’t be obvious if he was crying. “I’m sorry.”

“They told me that if I wasn’t going to listen to them, or Barry, and I was going to throw my career away, they didn’t want anything to do with me,” he said.

“Who told you that? Your father?” Wally blustered a lot.

“No. My mother.” That was probably devastating to him. He was definitely a Momma’s boy, and was her favorite, at least until now. I moved closer and put my hands behind his neck, and gave him a small kiss. I didn’t want to be extreme since we were out in the open. I remembered the zoom lens rule. “Matt tell you I decided to go Europe?”

I could have let that piss me off, since he said that to imply that I was only being nice to him because I’d gotten my way. “No, but I saw you yelling at your phone from the house, so I figured you did. Either that, or you hate your phone.”

He gave me a weak smile. “One minute you hate me, the next minute you’re being nice to me. What’s with that?”

“Well, it’s been over an hour since I was pissed off at you, but I’m that spastic. Get used to it,” I joked, then I got serious. “Matt and Wade reminded me that if I were a good boyfriend, I’d help you work this stuff out instead of freaking out on you.”

“That’s pretty much what Matt did,” he said. “He was really awesome.”

“Sometimes he is,” I said, smiling. I was actually joking, because over these past few weeks I’d started to see some of Matt’s stellar qualities, things I hadn’t really noticed before. Or maybe he’d never shown them to me. Either way, he and I were doing well. “The trigger to this was the promise you made me. To me, that kind of thing is a bond, something you don’t go back on.”

“What if it was something really important?” he asked. “What if this really was a huge fucking deal?”

I thought about that. “I think that if you make a promise, then you give the other person the right to make that call. So in this case, you made a commitment to me, you wanted to break it, and I think that really, it was my decision.”

“Dude, now you want to control my life?” he asked, getting annoyed with me.

“You’re an idiot. I’m already in control of your life,” I joked, getting a fake frown. “So here’s the deal. Don’t make promises to me that you can’t keep. Because if you do, and shit like this happens, it’s not just you who gets to decide as to whether you bail on me or not. I have a say in the decision.”

“I got it,” he said, giving me that shit eating grin of his. “Don’t promise you shit.”

“That’s smarter than breaking a promise you make.” I sighed, and stroked the dragon tattoo on his arm, making him grin. “We’re both freaks in our own way, with our own weirdnesses. This is one of mine. Commitments are important to me.”

“I’ll try to do better,” he said. I knew there was a big ‘but’ there, so I waited. “This is going to be an ongoing deal, this tug of war between you and football. Sometimes, you’re going to lose.”

“Just not all the time,” I said firmly.

“You can’t get mad and bail on me,” he said. “That’s the commitment I need from you.”

“I’m not going to bail on you. I wasn’t going to bail on you this time. I was just pissed off,” I said.

“If I’d have gone to Nebraska, you’d have stayed with me, and you’d have still loved me?”

“I don’t think there will ever be a time when I don’t love you,” I said, and ran my hand across his cheek in a loving way. “And I would have stayed with you. But we would have been damaged, because of the deal with the promise.”

“Now that my parents have disowned me, you’re all that I have,” he said. It was really sad, and really sweet, all at the same time.

“You have brothers, and you have Frank,” I said, but his eyes were boring into mine. “And you have me.”

“Good,” he said. “Take a shower with me.”

So I did.

July 12, 2002

Escorial

Brad

“Good morning,” Stef said as I walked into the kitchen.

“Is it?” I asked acidly.

“I think it is, but perhaps you do not?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, even as I sat down at the table. “What the fuck is wrong with these people?”

“Which people are you referring to?”

“First there was Enron, and now there’s Adelphia, Tyco, and WorldCom.” He looked at me in his oblique way. “I’m wondering if we can trust anyone’s financials anymore.”

“I think that the failure of these companies is already cleaning up the industry, although there will no doubt be additional regulation,” he said. “And if the companies have not reformed, I suspect they will at least find themselves under closer scrutiny from their accounting firms.”

“No shit,” I agreed. “Arthur Anderson was just sucked under by the Enron nightmare. I don’t think the others want to follow suit.”

“We will be more careful, but in any event, we lost a relatively small amount of money on Adelphia, Tyco, and WorldCom.”

“How much?”

He shrugged. “Twenty million dollars.” That wasn’t good news, but it really wasn’t a big deal. “It will not cost me my spot on the Forbes 400 list.”

I chuckled at that. “Where are you this year?”

“Our investment in Triton, and bailing out of the tech markets when we did, has propelled me up to 25^th place, at least according to Forbes,” he said, as if it didn’t matter. “You are at 230, just below Oprah.”

“I didn’t think I’d make that list,” I mused. “It’s pretty ironic that the thing that catapulted us up that list was the investment in Triton, and that was caused by the attack on us by Omega. They ended up making us even stronger.”

“With every threat, so also is there an opportunity,” he said sagely. “You made the 230^th spot even after you gifted away your Google stock. I think that in a few years, that would have driven you even higher.”

I shrugged. “Now that I’ve made a billion, any more is meaningless,” I said, joking with him. “I guess I don’t have to worry about the twenty million we lost.”

“You do not,” he affirmed.

“I wonder if I make enough to be richer than Oprah next year, if she’ll invite me on her show,” I joked.

“I’m sure her audience would find you compelling,” he said sarcastically. “You are not the kind of figure to motivate Midwestern housewives.” JP chose that moment to come strolling in. He greeted us briefly and sat down at the table.

“Well aren’t you a buzz-kill,” I said to Stef. “I think Midwestern housewives would love me.”

“You are not heterosexual enough for them. You will leave them disappointed, and it will make you seem inadequate,” he said, cracking me up.

“I heard about this new trend of yours.”

“What new trend?” he asked curiously.

“This trend where you become stodgy and boring.”

“I most certainly am not,” he insisted.

“Will said you were chiding them about focusing ‘on the tasks we have to accomplish before we surrender to the lure of pleasure’,” I said, recalling Will’s quote. JP snickered.

“You said that?” JP asked him, and then actually laughed.

“I have always fulfilled my responsibilities,” Stef asserted.

“Will said traveling with you and JJ was like being with Prussians,” I said, just to give him a bad time.

“Prussians?” JP asked.

“To even imply that I am German…” Stef said, exasperated.

“So you were rigid and unbending, and completely task-oriented?” JP asked him.

“I was not,” Stef said. “Perhaps I will have to take my billions and buy some new relatives.” JP and I broke out in full-scale laughter at that.

“I am mindful of the many times you have teased me mercilessly about my rigid demeanor, my logical approach to things, and my focus,” JP said to him. “I believe this is what they mean when they talk about karma.”

“You were not there,” Stef said. “Will and Matt were just being irritating.”

“Will said he and Matt were acting like you usually do,” I said to Stef. He just glared at both of us, while we chuckled at him.

“If either one of you suggests that this is a sign I am getting older, I will hire someone to castrate you,” he said, giving us truly evil looks, but that just made us laugh even harder. I was damn near crying when Frank came walking in, looking annoyed.

“And how are you this morning?” JP asked him.

“Crappy,” he grumbled, the looked at me. “You sure didn’t do me any favors when you pawned Wally and Clara off on me.”

“They aren’t getting along?” I asked. I was still in a playful mood from teasing Stef.

“They’re getting along with each other, but not with Zach,” he said. That got my attention, because if there was a problem with Zach, it most likely also involved Will. God only knew what he’d done to piss off Wally and Clara now.

“Perhaps you will share this latest tribulation with us,” JP said, as he made himself a cup of tea.

“Barry wanted Zach to go to some camp in Nebraska the week of July 20^th,” Frank said.

“Barry is Zach’s advisor, is he not?” Stef asked for clarity.

“He is,” I answered. “That week interferes with your trip to Europe, doesn’t it?” I asked JP.

“It does,” he said. I could tell that this irritated him, although Frank probably couldn’t. His left eye twitched a little bit, a sure giveaway that he was vexed. “We had rearranged our schedule to accommodate a prior excursion Zach was required to take.”

“Didn’t Barry promise Zach he was free for the rest of July?” I asked.

“He did, but then this exhibition came up, and he thought it was important,” Frank said.

“I take it Zach did not agree with Barry?” JP asked.

“He did not,” Frank said. “He told Wally and Clara that he thought about it, and decided that this exhibition wasn’t going to do him nearly as much good as going to Europe with you, and being able to put that on his resume.”

“He’s right,” JP said. “And I am not saying that because he is going with me, I am saying that because no matter what school he ends up at, his academic performance and activities will have some significance.”

“Will, Zach, and you think that’s the case; while Wally, Clara, and Barry don’t,” Frank said.

“I would think that it is obvious who is right, based on which side I’m on,” JP said, adding some humor that all of us but Frank appreciated.

“Zach told Barry that he was fired,” Frank said. “He told Barry that he created this nightmare with Wally and Clara, so it was his job to fix it. He evidently was unable to do that, so Zach told him he won’t work with him anymore.”

“I suspect that went over well,” I said with dread.

“It did not. Wally and Clara at first all but disowned Zach, but now they’ve decided that the best course of action is for him to return to Claremont and spend the rest of the summer, as well as his senior year, with them.”

“I doubt that is Zach’s preferred course of action,” JP said.

“It is not,” Frank confirmed. “He’s been strategizing with Will, and he’s already lawyered up.”

“I’m not sure why he gets so much enjoyment out of suing people,” I said, referring to Will. “So Zach is filing for emancipation as well?”

“No, Zach is planning to file a request to change his guardians,” Frank said. We all looked at him, waiting for him to go on. “He wants me to do it.”

“Do Wally and Clara know he’s planning to do this?” I asked.

“No.”