Gap Year - 33. Chapter 33

February 20, 2004

Santa Cruz, CA

 

Will

“This place is awesome,” I said, as we sat at a table looking out at the fog-covered ocean. The sight and muffled sounds of waves crashing on the rocks gave the scene a foreboding beauty.

“Even if the food is crappy, the views are worth it,” Dad said, then chuckled. “It would be really romantic if Will weren’t with us,” he said to Jake.

“I’m glad Will is with us,” Jake said, and smiled at me. I gave Dad a smarmy look, even though it was taxing to be around them. They’d gone from being fighting bitches from hell to middle schoolers in their first romance.

A really handsome guy came up to our table, and based on his black slacks, white shirt, and cheesy bow tie, he must be our waiter. He had light brown hair that was shaved really far up on the sides and long on top, and since his hair had no curl at all and looked to be thick, it kind of just hung there like a dead thing. It was almost hysterical that this totally hot guy, with what almost looked like classic features you saw on Roman statues and what was obviously a fit body, should have hair that made him look not a little ridiculous. “Good evening, I’m Arthur, your waiter,” he said. His voice was deep and sexy, but he was shy and nervous, and that took a lot away from it. I would he surprised if he was much older than 21.

“I’m Will,” I said pleasantly. “It’s nice to meet you.”

He smiled at me weakly, clearly unused to dealing with someone as exuberant as I was. “Can I get you all drinks?”

We ordered, then I stopped him before he left. “You said your name was Arthur? Not Art?” I was clearly flirting with him, and it was funny to see him blush slightly.

“I like Arthur better,” he said, then seemed worried he might offend me. “But if you want, you can call me Art.”

“Dude, it’s your name,” I said. “I’ll call you whatever you want.”

“I’ll get your drinks,” he said with a grin, and wandered off.

“You’ll get us thrown out of here if you keep harassing the waiter,” Dad said gruffly. I was going to flame him about that until I saw the twinkle in his eye and realized he was joking.

“Look, just because you have someone to sleep with doesn’t mean I should be lonely,” I said.

“From what I hear of your trip to New York, no one could describe you as lonely,” Jake said.

“Alright, who’s been gossiping about me?” I asked. My tone was joking and playful, but I was a little concerned about who was spreading rumors.

“That tidbit came to me from your grandmother, who heard it from JJ,” Jake answered.

“Then you probably don’t even have half the story,” I said.

“I heard you spent some time with Chris,” Dad said, referring to Chris Mendoza. He was trying to be casual in the way he mentioned that, but it so wasn’t working.

“That’s his way of asking me if I let Chris fuck me,” I told Jake.

“Did you?” Jake asked.

“I did,” I said, grinning at him, making both of us laugh. I then turned to my father: “On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate him as a lover, allowing for the fact that he’s a top?”

“Well he’s not a 10, because that’s taken,” Jake said. I rolled my eyes as they did that googley eyes thing with each other.

“Answer the question,” I said to my father, before he used Jake’s comment as a way to change the subject.

“I’d give him a 9.25,” Dad said, as if he were an Olympic judge issuing a score. “He really knows what he’s doing, and his techniques are well-rounded. He’s young but he’s learned from a lot of experience.” That was hilarious.

“That means he’s slutty,” I said to Jake. “That’s how Dad likes his men.”

“That’s why he’s with me,” he said in a really sexy way, then laughed when his incredible attractiveness had an impact on me. Sometimes he made me seriously want to fuck my stepfather. He bailed me out by getting us back to Chris’s sexual skills. “What about you?”

“I’d go with an 8.75,” I said.

“Why?” Dad asked, then seemed surprised he was having this conversation with me, and in front of Jake.

"He had all the right moves, like you said, but he was just a little too mechanical," I said.

“You fucked a robot?” Jake asked, cracking me up.

Just then Arthur arrived with our drinks, looking a little shocked, which made me really laugh. “You don’t seem like the kind of guy who would have to settle for robots,” he said, finally relaxing a bit and flirting with me.

“I know, right?” I agreed. “I usually end up with waiters.”

“I usually end up alone,” he grumbled.

“Dude, that cannot be true,” I said, and raised my eyes at him suggestively. He smiled and left us to enjoy our drinks.

“You’ve got some game,” Jake said, giving me props for hitting on the waiter.

“Thanks,” I said. “It seems to be working.”

“I can’t believe you only gave Chris an 8.75,” Dad said, then looked uncomfortable. It was hilarious that he’d brought us back to that topic, one that so clearly that bothered him.

“You have lower standards than I do,” I said.

“Really?” Jake asked and gave my father a fake dirty look.

“I do not!” Dad insisted.

“You do,” I asserted. “I’m thinking of that Dustin dude in New York.”

“He’s hot,” Dad said. “What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s a fucking bigot,” I said, with venom. I told them all about how I fucked him at the bar. It was funny to see my father try not to cringe about me talking about having sex in the backroom, but he had no grounds to give me shit about any of that. Jake asked me for details, which made my father’s job of remaining stoic even tougher.

“What if someone had a camera and recorded you?” Dad demanded.

“So,” I said.

“That could come back and bite you in the ass later,” he said.

“How?” I challenged.

“What if you were with someone and that came out? Or what if his parents found out about it?” Dad asked.

“First of all, if I’m with a guy and it’s that serious, and he gets pissed at me for something that happened before we were even together, then I shouldn’t be with him,” I said. “And if his parents get all bent over that and he lets it cause us problems, then I shouldn’t be with him.”

“What if you really love him?” Jake asked.

“I’m having a hard time seeing how I could fall in love with someone who was such an asshole,” I said, then refocused on my father. “I’m not like you, where I have to worry about my image.”

“You may, someday,” he said.

“I’m not going to be some politician running for office, and I don’t want to be some business dude that has to worry about what major shareholders think,” I said.

“Well, it doesn’t hurt to be careful,” he said, since he’d run out of arguments, but he still didn’t agree with me. “So how was Dustin a bigot?”

I told them about Dustin’s issues with Latino guys, and about our argument. “What an asshole,” Jake said, shaking his head.

“Stef and I decided that you are better at shallow sex than I am,” I said to my father, just as Arthur returned to take our order.

“I am not,” he objected, ignoring Arthur’s presence.

“That’s almost disappointing,” Arthur said to me, which made me and Jake laugh. Before I could flirt more, he got all task oriented and told us about the specials. “Let me give you some time to decide what you want.”

“I know what I want,” I said, and gave him a lustful look. “I’m hungry.”

Dad gave me a dirty look. “We can order.” We ordered, Arthur left, and we resumed our conversation.

“I think that deal with Dustin really upset Chris,” I said to them. “He’d been hitting on Dustin for a while, then to find out he was being rejected because he was a Latino was a pretty tough blow.”

“That’s too bad,” Dad said sympathetically. “So that’s when you decided to cheer him up?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I think we both needed a good experience to erase that whole deal.”

“I thought it was only an 8.75?” Dad challenged.

“Dude, 8.75 is a great score,” I said. “You must be an easy grader.”

“Must be,” Dad grumbled. “I can’t believe I judged Dustin so badly.”

“You know, it helps if you actually have a conversation with the guys you fuck,” I said. Jake laughed again.

“Whatever,” he quipped, even as he pulled out his phone.

“What are you doing?” Jake asked.

“Deleting his number,” Dad answered, then evidently having accomplished that, he put his phone away. “I was thinking of staying here until Sunday.”

“Where are you going after this?” Jake asked.

“Escorial,” Dad answered, and looked at me to see if I was good with that.

“I’ll make that my plan too,” I confirmed. “We can get up in the morning and hit the waves, and still make it back in time to get ready for dinner.” Jake looked really upset and not a little uncomfortable, so I gently kicked my father under the table.

“I’m sorry,” Dad said to him. “I should have checked with you on your plans. I just assumed you were coming with me.”

Jake smiled at him weakly. “I was thinking of going back up to the City, but I can spend a day or two in Palo Alto.”

“If you go up to the City on Tuesday, then I’ll head down to Malibu with Will for a few days,” Dad said. It was interesting to watch this dynamic. It was like both of them were trying to figure out how to navigate their damaged relationship.

“So what’s your status?” I asked them.

“We’re still married,” Dad said cautiously, as if that was legally binding, and as if that was the question on the table.

“I don’t think that’s what he meant,” Jake said a bit icily.

Dad sighed. “You have a really big decision to make. I thought it may help you to have some peace and quiet to do that. That’s why I figured I’d give you a few days of space next week.”

“I know I have a big decision to make, but I’ve had enough space,” he said. “I would like to have you around.”

“Then why don’t you come to Malibu with us?” I asked.

“I wasn’t invited,” Jake said, being bitchy.

“Dude, he said you were still married,” I said, giving him a ‘chill the fuck out’ look. “That means you get to go wherever you want. You don’t need an invitation.”

“Will is right,” Dad said, but seemed uncomfortable. I’d instinctively jumped in and focused on what was polite, but Jake had picked up on something I’d missed. Dad didn’t seem to want Jake to go with him.

“What’s bothering you?” I demanded. He hesitated. “What?” I asked more forcefully.

“If I tell you, you’ll think I’m an asshole,” he said to me, then looked at Jake, “and you’ll probably hate me.”

“I’ll chill out and listen to you,” I said, then looked at Jake.

“So will I,” he said. We were all freaking out, all of us wondering what kind of bombshell he’d lay on us.

“I can’t explain why, but it would bother me for you to be in Malibu if you’re still planning to rejoin the army,” Dad said.

Before he could go on, Jake all but jumped on him. “You said you were giving me your blessing. Was that just some big fucking lie?”

“Hey,” I said, and reached over to put my hand on Jake’s shoulder. I could feel the tension in his entire body. “We promised to be mellow and listen.”

He reached up and held my hand with his for a second, then spoke to my father. “Go on.”

He was gathering his thoughts, trying to explain it, when I got clarity before he did. It was freaky, because it was like I could read his mind. “If I was going to guess what’s going on in his mind, I’d say this has more to do with Robbie than you.”

“How do I compete with that?” Jake demanded.

“There’s no competition,” Dad objected lamely, then looked to me to continue.

“It would probably be overwhelming for him to be there where he’d have vivid memories of Robbie, at the same time you told him you were leaving,” I told Jake. “Remember, Robbie went off to do the noble thing and died. I don’t think I’d want to deal with you doing something similar, albeit without the death part, in a place where I was reminded of Robbie so intensely.”

“What he said,” my father agreed.

“Why was it so hard for you to tell me that?” Jake demanded.

“And why are you being a total bitch about this?” I shot back at him. “He opens up to both of us as much as he can, and you’re going to rip him up for it? Seriously?”

“I think it’s a valid question,” Jake said, turning his anger at me.

“No it’s not,” I said. “He struggled to open up, and clearly was having a hard time trying to explain it, but as soon as he does, you go off on him. Dude, that’s why it was so hard to tell you.”

“Here’s your salad,” Arthur said, trying to unobtrusively interrupt our conversation. He put salads down in front of my father and Jake. I used the time while Arthur was doing that to calm down and repair my mood. In front of me, he put a bowl of clam chowder.

“Didn’t I order a salad?” I asked him.

“You did, and I can still get you a salad, but I wanted you to try our clam chowder. It’s the best on the West Coast,” he said, grinning shyly.

“Cool,” I said, and took a bite. “Holy shit! This is the bomb!”

“I thought you’d like it,” he said.

“That was really nice of you,” I said. “Thanks for having my back.”

“No problem,” he said, and made to leave.

“How come you didn’t tell me about the clam chowder?” Dad asked. He was trying to be funny, but in his current mood it came out a bit harsh, and I watched Arthur get slightly terrified.

“Because I’m hotter than you,” I said, then looked at Arthur. “Don’t worry about him. I’ve got your back too.” He smiled and walked off.

“Dude, you may bag him,” Jake said excitedly.

“If I do, I’m going to find some time tomorrow to take him to get his hair cut,” I said, shaking my head at how lame it looked.

Jake laughed. “That wasn’t even the first thing on my mind.”

“Oh it’s not the first thing, but it’s definitely in the top ten,” I joked back.

When Jake was finished laughing, he refocused on my father. “I’m sorry I got upset. You should be able to bring up tough issues like this without me lashing out at you.”

“I think that’s what we were all trying to tell you two about marriage counseling,” I said.

“We’re having a tougher time right now because we’re dealing with these issues,” Dad said dismissively.

“No, you’re having a tough time right now because you don’t know how to talk to each other,” I corrected. “If you don’t do anything about it, you’ll end up apart no matter what Jake decides to do.”

“Are you saying you won’t go to counseling with me?” Jake challenged. I was kind of surprised by that question because I hadn’t sensed that he was all that serious about it either.

“Not at all,” Dad said hastily.

“He just didn’t want to go if it was my idea,” I said, being a brat.

“I have to say that does make it less attractive,” Jake said, giving me shit. “So you’ll go?” he asked my father.

“I will,” he replied, almost like it was a pledge.

“I’ll set up an appointment,” Jake responded. We chatted about bullshit after that until our main courses came out.

Arthur came out with our dinners and set down Dad’s and Jake’s first, and also like last time, he put down something completely different than I had ordered. There was a ton of food on the plate, and it was all different. It was like a buffet. “This definitely isn’t what I ordered,” I said with a smile.

“You liked the clam chowder, so I took a chance,” he said. He was being a little cocky now, and that majorly ramped up his attractiveness. “I put together a sample of all our really popular stuff.”

“Dude this is awesome!” I said. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, and sauntered off.

“Alright, you have to share,” Jake said. Dinner ended up being a lot of fun, with the conversation light and easy. We tried all the different food Arthur had brought and tried to guess what it was.

We finished dinner, and by now both Jake and my father were ready to go back to the house and fuck. “You finished?” Dad asked.

“I may have dessert,” I said, and watched him try to figure out how to convince me how to do that. “Why don’t you guys go back and I’ll snag dessert and pay the bill.”

“We can stay with you,” Dad said.

I ignored him and looked at Jake. “Leave.”

Jake laughed and stood up. “See you back at the house.” I watched them go with relief.

Arthur came over to the table, looking a little worried. “Did you need the bill?”

“I haven’t even had dessert yet,” I said in a sultry voice.

“I’ll bring you a menu,” he said.

“I don’t need one,” I said. “I know what I want.”

“Alright,” he said, and pulled out his notepad.

“What time to do get off?” I asked. He laughed, then got kind of freaked out.

“Sorry,” he said. “We’re not supposed to ‘fraternize’ with the customers. My manager’s over there.”

“What a stupid rule,” I said. “Can you do the same thing for dessert that you did for dinner?” I asked him.

“I can do that,” he said. I watched him walk away, admiring his handsome form. I saw that when he was off the floor, his manager cornered him. He shook his head at his manager, then walked back over to my table. “I got cut. We’ll have another waiter get dessert and close out the bill.” If I did that, he’d have to share his tip with the new guy.

“No,” I said. “I’ll just pay now.” Before he could argue, I handed him my platinum AMEX, trying not to be annoyed. I pulled out my phone and was sorting through emails when Arthur brought my check back.

“It was nice meeting you, Will,” he said.

“I didn’t get you in trouble, did I?” I asked, worried that it was my fault he was getting cut.

“No,” he said. “I’m the junior waiter on shift so I was kind of expecting it.”

I went to sign off on the credit card receipt when I noticed an additional piece of paper. It had a phone number on it, presumably his, with the word ‘Party?’ written on it. I smiled, signed off on the receipt, leaving him a massive tip. I put his number in my phone, then on the back of the receipt I was supposed to keep I wrote ‘Definitely’ along with my number. I got up and strolled out of the restaurant, then meandered to the back where the employee’s entrance was.

After a few minutes I saw him walk out the door, totally engrossed in a phone conversation. He pulled out a key fob and flipped it, causing the lights on a pretty new Toyota 4Runner to blink. As I walked up to the SUV, I noticed that he had a license plate frame that suggested he got his vehicle in Orange County and he had a University of Santa Cruz student sticker on the back window. I got there before he did and leaned against the driver’s door. “Fine, then fucking go,” he said to the phone, all pissed off. “That’s fine. Totally fine. We’re done.” He wasn’t paying attention to where he was going or what he was doing, so when he went to grab the door handle, he grabbed my crotch instead. “Fuck!” he shouted and jumped about three feet off the ground. I started laughing and couldn’t stop. It was even funnier to watch him try to calm down, to try not to laugh, all while listening to an argument on his phone. “I gotta go,” he said curtly. “Yeah, that’s it. I said we were done. We’re done.” He ended the call.

“That was fucking hilarious,” I said when I managed to stop laughing.

“Made a pretty shitty conversation a lot better,” he said. I could sense his anger and his sadness.

“What was that all about?” I asked, like it wasn’t obvious.

“I’m a single dude now,” he said.

“Good news for me,” I said, flirting a bit.

He grimaced a bit. “My girlfriend and I have been together for almost a year,” he said. He’d stressed the word girlfriend, as if to emphasize that he was straight.

“That sucks,” I said sympathetically.

“Especially since we’ve been together since the start of last semester, and we hang out with the same people,” he said.

“Will your friends hang with her or with you?” I asked.

“Most of them will hang with her,” he said. “She’s from Concord, and a lot of them are from there or the Bay Area, so they knew her first.”

“That makes it even harder, because you lose her and your friends,” I said. He nodded.

“So there’s no party to invite you to,” he said. “Guess I’ll just head back to campus.”

“What’s all that shit in the back?” I asked, pointing to the back of his 4Runner.

“Drums,” he said, smiling. “I’m a drummer.”

“Cool!” I said. “You carry them around with you?”

“I had a gig last night, and I was too lazy to drag them in,” he said.

“Looks like a lot of shit,” I said, since the back was pretty jammed.

“Would have been a lot easier if I’d played the guitar,” he joked. “Probably a good thing I won’t get too fucked up tonight. It would suck lugging them in all hungover.”

I laughed. “Sounds like it would have been a fun party.”

“Probably would have been,” he said sadly. “I should go.”

“So tell me about this party we’re missing,” I said, to keep him engaged. He was pretty bummed and did not need to be alone.

“I usually get together with my friends and we head to the beach, or at least try to find one where we won’t get kicked out,” he said. “Then we party and play music.”

“You take your drums down to the beach?” I asked, trying to visualize that.

“No,” he said, rolling his eyes at me like I was an idiot. Like I would know. He opened the back door and pulled out a pair of bongo drums and pounded on them a bit. “Bongos.”

“Cool,” I said.

“That’s how I got my nickname: Bongo.”

I laughed. “That’s a lot cooler than Arthur.”

“Yeah, well Bongo doesn’t really work in a nicer restaurant,” he said.

“Actually, it does,” I disagreed. “Most people would think it was cool and would ask you about it. Your manager doesn’t understand his customers.”

“That’s for sure,” he said. He was getting ready to blow me off again, so I jumped in before he could.

“What if I told you there was a beach you could go to where no one would give you shit?”

“I suppose you have your own private beach?” he asked in a taunting kind of way.

“Dude, you know the rules on beaches here,” I said. “They’re all public.”

“That’s what I mean,” he said.

“Getting to them, on the other hand, can be tough if there’s no public trail,” I said. That’s how people kept beaches private, and that’s why our beach was rarely used by other people. It would take quite a hike for someone to get to there, not to mention that since it was a cove, they’d have to climb some rocks as well. “To the degree that you can have a private beach, yeah, I’ve got one.”

“Where?”

“North of town,” I said. I gave him basic directions, which didn’t seem to register until his eyes finally lit up.

“Is that where those gates are?” he asked.

“That’s it,” I said. “How many friends you usually have with you?”

“Maybe ten,” he said.

“Invite them over,” I said. “Then it’s your ex-girlfriend who’s out in the cold, not you.”

“Seriously?” he asked.

“Seriously,” I said. “Come on. We can head up there now and then you can make the call on whether to invite them.” He struggled with that for a bit, then seemed to get resolved.

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll follow you.”

“If I lose you, you can call me and I’ll talk you in,” I said.

“Right,” he said skeptically. I ignored him and walked back to the front of the restaurant and hit my fob, making the lights of the Ferrari blink in a welcoming way. I got in it and fired up just as he drove up next to me. “A fucking Ferrari?”

“Try to keep up,” I said, closed the window, and took off. He kept up just fine because I kept the Ferrari dialed back and he was a pretty fast driver. My transponder opened the gates and he was sharp enough to follow right behind me before they closed. I pulled into the garage while he parked off to the side. I was trying to decide if it was creepy or ironic that he parked where Danny had.

“Holy shit!” he said as he got out of his truck. “There’s no other houses around here for miles!”

“Closest place is a mile north of here,” I said, gesturing off into the darkness. “Come on.” I led him into the house and gave him a brief tour. We chuckled when we walked by my dad’s room and heard moaning. We went outside and sat on the deck. I pulled out my one-hitter, packed a hit, and offered it to him.

“I can do that,” he said with a grin. We sat there getting really stoned, mostly laughing our asses off. After about twenty minutes, it dawned on our wasted minds that it was fucking cold, so we went inside.

“Dude, how were you going to party on the beach dressed like that?” I asked.

“See, there’s this new thing where you can bring different clothes with you, take off the old clothes, and put the different ones on,” he said, being a smartass.

“Really? Show me how that works!” I said, pretending to be amazed.

“You just want to get me out of my clothes,” he said, kind of flirting.

I rolled my eyes at him. “I’m pickier than that.”

“Oh,” he said, and got all dejected. I was trying to figure out his deal. He was almost acting like he was ugly and undesirable. Maybe his ego was wounded by this break up.

“I was just joking,” I said, and put my arm on his shoulder. He looked at me shyly. “I’ll blow you any time you want, but I have to get to know you a little better before I let you fuck me.”

“You’re into that?” he asked curiously.

“Into what?”

“Getting fucked up the ass,” he said.

“You’ve never done that before?” I asked. He got really uptight and seemed not a little freaked out. “What?”

“I’ve fucked around with a couple of friends, and none of us could do that. Hurt too much,” he said.

“So you just blew each other,” I concluded.

“Pretty much,” he said. “They say dudes suck cock better than chicks, but I always end up feeling teeth no matter what.”

“Show me your dick,” I ordered.

“What?” he asked. I was stunned that he actually unbuckled his pants and dropped them, along with his boxers. He had a pretty small dick, but then again, we’d just been out in the cold. I reached down and grabbed it, making him jump a bit, but then he relaxed and let me stroke it.

“I’ll bet you won’t feel teeth this time,” I said, and dropped to my knees. I heard him sigh as I all but inhaled his cock. His dick had seemed really small when he’d first taken it out, but I felt it growing in my mouth to the point that I was almost gagged. After I got him hard, I pulled off of him and studied his organ. It was about five and a half inches long, which was nice but not exceptional, but it was really thick. I had to damn near dislocate my jaw to open wide enough to take him without accidentally biting him. No wonder he always felt teeth.

“Holy fuck!” he moaned, and gently rocked back and forth, nudging his dick in and out of my mouth. He seemed to like slow but even thrusts, so I let him set the pace. It didn’t take long before he tensed up, then hurriedly tried to pull out of my mouth. It was a sweet gesture, but instead I reached around and grabbed his smooth ass cheeks and forced his cock into my mouth. “Ungh!” he grunted, then shot his load down my throat. I made sure to get every last drop, then I stood up and smiled at him.

“Teeth?”

“No teeth,” he said. “That was amazing. It was like that was the first blow job I ever got.”

“You going to call your friends?” I asked.

“No, I’m going to stay here and fuck you,” he said. He laughed, I laughed, then he did what he said he’d do.