Gap Year - 43. Chapter 43

February 26, 2004

Hotel Bel Air

Bel Air, CA

 

Will

The drive back to the hotel ended up calming me down. Back by the pier I’d been damn near having a panic attack, but chilling here on my patio and smoking a few bowls of my prime weed had mellowed me out considerably. Darius was the dude I needed to talk to. I’d tried to call him but got no answer and assumed he was in class. Somehow after having made the effort to track him down, I mellowed out about the whole situation, realizing that this wasn’t something I had to solve right now. I probably wouldn’t see Cam or Jeff for the rest of this trip anyway.

My phone rang and I saw that it was Darius. I had been pretty desperate for his input before, but it was something that would be better as a face-to-face conversation, so I decided not to go into it now. “Hey,” I said pleasantly.

“Hey,” he said a little cautiously. “Thanks for letting me use the hot tub last night.”

“No problem,” I said. “So how did it go?”

“Let’s just say my spaceship landed on Saturn,” he said, cracking me up.

“So what’s the plan for tonight?” I asked. Darius didn’t like long phone calls, so I tried to be as direct as possible.

“I’ve got another space mission, so I was wondering if you’d let me bail on you tonight,” he said a bit nervously. Darius was always like this when he started dating someone: he put everyone else on hold. He gave my dad shit for doing the same thing when he was no better. It was annoying because now I had no plans for tonight, but giving him a bunch of crap wouldn’t do any good, it would just make him feel bad.

“I can do that on one condition,” I said.

“What?”

“You come over and hang out with me for an hour,” I said. I could almost sense that he was trying to figure out a way to weasel out of it. “I really need your advice on something.”

“Alright,” he said. “Be there in a few.”

It took him a lot longer to get to the hotel than I thought it would, but I smirked to myself and decided he’d probably gotten lost. “Hey,” I said, and ushered him into the room then onto the patio. I brought us both beers and sat down at the table with him.

“S’up?” he asked.

“I have a dilemma, and I want you to help me decide what to do,” I said. He just stared at me, telling me to go on, so I basically replayed my entire experience with Cam Squires, from the moment I met him at the party to my final conversation with Cody.

“You were right about Cody,” he said, as if he were a judge issuing a decree. “He should have prepped you for that.”

“I think I did okay with Jeff anyway,” I said. It was funny that now that Darius had validated my outrage, I my fury at Cody ebbed a bit.

“Here are your choices,” he said. “First option is you say nothing to Jeff about this and let it play out.”

“If I do that, then I have to carry that guilt around with me,” I said.

“Why the fuck would you feel guilty about this?” he demanded. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You do that, you blame yourself for shit, then make stupid decisions.”

“Right,” I said, which was exactly the opposite of how I felt about his statement and my tone let him know that. I did blame myself for stupid shit, but I didn’t think that I made bad decisions about things.

“Option two is that you wait a month until this business shit gets nailed down,” Darius said.

“That works great for Cody, but if I wait a month and then tell Jeff, he’ll be pissed at me for keeping this from him,” I said. “It seems a little too manipulative.”

“The third option is that you tell Jeff now,” he said.

“If I do that, then I could really fuck things up for Cody,” I told him. He nodded. “What do you think I should do?”

“I’m not going to tell you what to do,” he countered strongly, which was bullshit.

“I’m not asking you to tell me what to do,” I countered just as strongly. “I’m asking you to tell me what you’d do in this situation.”

He got annoyed because that meant I was forcing him to give me his opinion. “How close are you and Jeff?” he asked. “And don’t talk to me about having butt sex with him.”

I laughed at that, and so did he. “He’s a good friend,” I said. “He’s part of our family, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Then you have to tell him,” Darius said. “If he was just some dude you fucked, or someone who wasn’t a big deal to you, then I’d just blow it off and let him find out on his own. But this guy is way more important to you than that.”

“I see your point,” I said, pretending to be reluctant.

“You knew that’s what you had to do from the very beginning, didn’t you?” he asked me in an accusatory way.

“Maybe,” I said, as I thought about it. He was right. In the end, my psyche demanded that I tell Jeff what happened. If I didn’t tell him, I was being a shitty friend, and fucking over friends was wrong on so many levels.

“Bullshit,” he said. “You knew. You were letting all these other people like Cody and Cam pull your strings.”

I thought about that. “No, I wasn’t,” I said. “You’re right, I pretty much knew that I had to do it, but I didn’t want to go off and fuck things up without getting an expert opinion.”

“That’s why I’m here,” he said, smiling at me.

“Thanks,” I said, and gave him an appreciative smile.

“I really am sorry I’m bailing on you tonight,” he said.

“It’s fine,” I told him.

“I told my brothers that you were in town, so you’re welcome to go over and party with them,” he suggested.

“I’ll think about it,” I said. There was no way I was going over to party with a bunch of Betas alone. That scene would be way too heterosexual for me.

“I ran into Zach today and he asked if you were in town. I told him where you were, so maybe he’ll call,” Darius said.

“Cool,” I said. Zach already knew I was in town, so why the fuck was he asking Darius instead of returning my call? Why did he have to make this so fucking complicated?

“See you tomorrow,” he said. He gave me a quick hug, then left.

I pulled out my phone and called Jeff. I was pretty shocked that he actually answered; he was usually pretty busy. “Hey,” he said pleasantly.

“Hey,” I said back. “What are you up to?”

“Had to go back to fucking campus,” he said. “The fucking commute sucks.”

“No shit,” I said. “I need to talk to you. I’m staying at the Hotel Bel Air. Can you stop by?”

“Now?” he asked. I could tell he so didn’t want to do that.

“Now,” I confirmed. “It’s important.”

“I’ll be there in an hour,” he grumbled.

“Jeff,” I said quickly, to keep him from hanging up. “Promise me you won’t tell Cam or Cody you’re coming over here.”

“Why not?” he asked in a bitchy way.

“Because I asked you to,” I said firmly.

“Fine,” he said. I was tired from being up late last night and getting up early today, and worn out from all the drama, so I went inside and collapsed on my bed. I heard someone loudly banging on my door and looked at the clock to see it had been almost three hours since I talked to Jeff.

“Just a minute,” I shouted, so annoyed. I tried to wipe the drowsiness out of my eyes as I walked to the door. I opened it and Jeff pushed the door open and barged in.

“You asshole,” he spat at me. I just blinked at him as I shut the door and followed him back into my room. “You fucked Cam!”

“It would be more accurate to say he fucked me, and even more accurate to say I was fucked by a dude who turned out to be your boyfriend,” I said, my tone getting severer with each word.

“He said you threw yourself at him,” Jeff accused.

“When I called you, I asked you not to talk to him about this,” I said. “You promised me you wouldn’t.”

“You just wanted to ambush me and feed me a bunch of shit,” he said.

I walked over to the door and put my hand on it, ready to open it. “I wanted to tell you what happened. I could have said nothing, but you were too good a friend for me to keep that a secret.”

“Were?” he asked with a snarky tone.

“Were,” I confirmed. “You violated my trust and broke your word. I have nothing else to say to you.” I opened the door and held it open. “Get the fuck out of here.”

“You’re throwing me out?” he asked all outraged. “You’re throwing ME out?” He clearly still thought I was the bad guy in this whole thing.

“I am,” I said. “Get the fuck out of here, or security will do it for me.” He stared at me. “Now!” I shouted.

He walked out of the hotel room then turned to say something to me, but I just slammed the door in his face. What a bunch of shit. I went back to bed, trying to figure out how this had turned out so badly. I had expected that he’d hear me out, and that he’d believe me. The same bond of friendship I labored over evidently meant nothing to him.

I was even more annoyed that he thought I’d thrown myself at Cam. I allowed myself to be a little arrogant and think that I didn’t have to throw myself at anyone, especially not to get laid. That was just a small part of it. Even if I had thrown myself at Cam, it should have been real easy for him to just blow me off. I wondered if this was one of those things that were not as black and white as I saw them, but then decided there really wasn’t gray in this issue. I didn’t throw myself at Cam, but he’d told Jeff that’s what happened. Jeff believed him, even though it went against everything he knew about me.

I ran that around for a while in my brain and then my attitude changed a little bit. Jeff believed Cam’s bullshit even though he knew I wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t seduce Cam, especially if I knew he had a boyfriend. For him to do that, he must be really into Cam. He was probably mad at me for rocking his world and ruining his happy relationship dream. He’d believe Cam’s story, but now he’d be watching Cam. I decided that he’d figure it out in the end. Having worked that through, I allowed myself to fall back asleep.

I woke up a couple of hours later to find that it was dark out. I didn’t have any plans, and I really didn’t want to go out. All of this bullshit with Cam and Jeff and Cody had worn me out. I was toying with my options, trying to figure out what to do, when there was another knock on my door. This knock was definitely softer.

I was so spacy that I opened it without looking to see who it was. “Hey,” Zach said nervously, even as he pushed his way into my suite. I shut the door and looked at him, and I couldn’t stop the smile spreading across my face. He was so fucking handsome it should be illegal.

“Hey,” I said. I approached him, gave him a big hug, then felt him freeze as I did. I felt my heart sink at this physical rejection, made even worse as he pulled himself away from me. He hurried over to the window and closed the curtains, then walked back to me.

“Sorry,” he said. This time he initiated the hug, letting me sink into him, but I was too freaked out by his initial reaction to enjoy our embrace.

“What was that all about?” I asked. I led him over to the bed and we both sat on the edge. I mentally noted that we could have sat in the chairs, but with Zach, the bed seemed like a better choice. That made me chuckle to myself.

“I have to be careful,” he said.

“I get that, but you seem a little paranoid,” I said. He gave me a dirty look, while I just raised an eyebrow.

“Taylor’s father is a nosy bastard,” Zach said. “I think he’s got people tailing me, keeping tabs on what I’m doing.”

“And you put up with that?” I asked.

“I can’t prove anything, it’s just a hunch, so if I’m doing something that could get me into trouble, I’m extra careful,” he said.

“So coming to see me could get you into trouble?” I asked seductively.

“Maybe,” he said. And then much like he’d done the first time we’d hooked up, he moved like a leopard, smooth and fast, and his lips connected to mine. I surrendered to the love that I had for him, and as the action moved from our mouths to our bodies, the intensity increased exponentially. We both stood up and started taking off our clothes, then got playful and did it with a gusto, tossing pants and shirts and socks all over the room. I stood there admiring his naked body, the one that seemed to get more ripped every time I saw him, and his handsome features that made it seem like his last name should be Hemsworth. He kissed me again, pushing me back onto the bed. I stopped long enough to grab a condom and lube, and then I was in his amazing, throbbing ass. I took him on a long ride, until I couldn’t stand it anymore, then I made us both cum. I collapsed on the bed next to him, and oblivious to his cum that was splattered all over his chest, I rolled over and snuggled up to him. He wrapped his arm around me, stroked my back, and made all my worries about Cam, Jeff, and Cody just vanish. Unfortunately, while we had bonded physically, the emotional distance between us became more and more apparent as we lay there together. I wasn’t used to that; I was used to sex being a bonding experience for us.

“You didn’t call me,” I said to force a discussion. I knew that until we worked things out at an emotional level, I wouldn’t be able to fully appreciate him physically.

“I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see you or not,” he said. I rolled off of him, or actually slid off of him since his cum was like body lube. I lay on my side so I could look at him.

“Why?”

“I was worried it would fuck me up,” he said. I wanted to flame him for that, but I’d been pretty off the wall today with my anger and my moods so it was time to show a little restraint. Besides, I could tell this was bothering him, and I loved him too much to torture him.

“How would being with me fuck you up?” I asked. “I thought you liked being with me.”

“I love being with you,” he said. “It’s not you, it’s me.”

“I don’t get it,” I said, and was genuinely confused.

“I have my life pretty much set up with a routine,” he said. “I spend most of my time with Taylor, but if I get desperate for some man love, there’s a dude who helps me out.”

I felt the green monster of jealousy try to inflame me and make me say something I would regret, and I had to work hard to force him back into his cage. “Who’s the dude?”

“I can’t tell you,” he said nervously, then quickly hurried to try and make sure I wasn’t angry. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, I do. I trust you completely. But I made a promise that I wouldn’t, so I can’t break my word.”

I smiled at him, which damn near stunned him. “I understand,” I said, and gave him a nice kiss.

“You do?” he asked, confused.

“I just had some major drama over something like that,” I told him. “I’d rather you keep the secret than break your word.”

“What happened?” he asked, probably hoping to change the subject, but there was no way I was letting go of this now.

“I’ll tell you in a little bit,” I said. “So if you’ve got your life pretty much set up, and these two people are taking care of your needs, why am I a problem?”

“Because when I’m with you, my feelings for you eclipse those I have for Taylor, and when I have sex with you, you make the other dude look like a total novice,” he said. “I will always love you.”

I gazed into his eyes. “And I will always love you.” He kissed me, but I still needed answers. “So seeing me, being with me, fucks with your psyche?”

“You’re like an electric bug zapper and I’m a moth,” he said, making me chuckle. “You draw me in, and then I get hurt.”

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” I objected.

“I know you’re not,” he said, and leaned in to kiss me. “I know you’d never do that to me. It’s not you, it’s just me.”

“I spent a lot of time trying to decide whether I should even call you and tell you I was coming down here,” I said.

“You did?”

“I did,” I answered. “I was torn between wanting desperately to see you and reconnect with you, and not wanting to see you at all. I spent the last few months trying to not think about you all the time, and I was worried that if we were together, it would be that way again.”

“I figured thinking about me all the time would make you horny, not upset,” he joked. I smiled at him to thank him for trying to make this conversation less intense.

“I didn’t want to go through that pain all over again,” I said.

“Then you understand exactly how I feel,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t call you. That’s why I don’t call you.” When he said that, he just confirmed that Stef had been right. He hadn’t ignored me because he didn’t love me anymore, he ignored me because he loved me too much. I’d thought he was a callous asshole, just tossing me aside, but he was just trying to defend himself against the pain of separation.

“It really bothers me when you don’t call me,” I said, like that was some major admission. “It seems like you always have one person in your life that you anchor yourself to, one person that you confide in. I used to be that person, but when we never talk, it makes me think that I’m not the person for you anymore.”

He sighed. “I kind of have and I kind of haven’t,” he admitted. “I really care about Taylor, and we’re tight. I talk to her about my bullshit issues, and she tells me about hers. You’re worried that she replaced you in my mind and my heart?”

“Yes,” I said sadly.

“I don’t usually have soul searching problems,” he said. “Like I said, most of the stuff is minor bullshit, and for that I talk to her. Shit like guys on the team who piss me off, or a teacher who’s busting my balls, or some crap that happened at a party that annoyed me; that’s the kind of stuff I talk to her about.”

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“When I really need to talk to someone who knows me, when I really need to connect my soul to someone, that’s when I call you,” he said. I smiled, even as a tear fell out of my eye.

“I love you,” I told him, and I meant it, I completely meant it.

“And I love you,” he said, and I could tell he was as sincere as I was.

“So being here with me exposes how shallow your two other relationships are?" I asked. He nodded. "So why are you here?"

"Because I needed to be with you. It was worth taking the risk, both for getting caught and for the pain I’ll probably feel later,” he said. “I also assumed you’d be at the Beta party and we’re going, plus you’ll probably be at Big’s party and I’ll be there.”

“And you thought it was better for us to deal with things now as opposed to running into each other in a public setting,” I concluded, and looked away from him. That took some of the joy out of this because it made me wonder if he was just doing this to make sure there were no embarrassing scenes. I was ready to let that take me on a deadly spiral to a land of unhappiness, when I looked into his eyes again.

“I did,” he said. “I didn’t think you’d want surprises.”

“You think I’ve have made a scene?” I asked, acting like I’d never done that before.

“I wasn’t worried about that. I knew you’d handle it like the class act you are, just like your grandmother would. You’d just smile and fool the world.” I laughed at that, even though it was a major compliment to be compared to Grandmaman.

“It’s harder for me to do that when it’s you,” I said.

“It’s harder for me to do that when it’s you,” he said, reiterating my words and reminding me we were in the same boat.

“That was a pretty smart decision,” I said.

“I’m a pretty smart guy,” he said in his cocky way, which made him even cuter.

“That’s why you came up here to spend the night with me,” I said, putting pressure on him to stay. He got a little nervous, then caved.

“I can do that,” he said.

“Wait, won’t it look suspicious if your Expedition is parked here overnight?” I was back in my mode when I was with Zach, where I tried really hard to make sure he wasn’t outed.

“I walked up here. It’s only a mile. I just have to make it back to campus for my 10am class,” he said.

“You hungry?” I asked.

“Why?”

“I’m thinking we should make love, then order room service,” I said.

“I can definitely do that,” he agreed. “You been tested lately?”

“Been about a month,” I said, “but I’ve been safe.”

“Me too,” he said.

“Then it’s your turn to fuck me,” I said. His eyes got really big. He made love to me, blasting his load in my ass, then I held it in, keeping my ass clenched tightly shut to keep as much in as possible.

“No one is as sexy as you are,” he said. “No one.” I felt my ego soar.

“That’s not true,” I corrected. He gave me a questioning look. “You are.”

“I want you to be my nasty boy,” I said in my sultriest voice. That fired him up, so I turned around and played with his dick while he used his tongue to suck his load out of my ass. I enjoyed that amazing experience until he was done, and then I bent his legs back behind his head and plunged back into him. I had never fucked anyone with an ass like his; one that was so muscular it seemed to grab my cock and just pulse around it. When I came, it was so intense I damn near blacked out. I collapsed, flat on my back, panting. “That was good,” he said, and gave me a sweet kiss on the cheek.

“That was un-fucking-believable,” I said, getting a chuckle from him. “You know why I took the risk and called you?”

“Why?” he asked.

“This,” I said. “How good we are together, and how we connect so well, not just our bodies, but our hearts and minds.”

“And that’s why I’m here,” he said.

“I think the thing that bothers me the most when we’re apart is that I get insecure and worry that you’ll just blow me off, that you’ll avoid me for the same reasons you talked about,” I said, opening up to him.

“That’s why when I don’t talk to you it bothers you so much,” he concluded. “What do we need to do to make that better?”

“Have a decent conversation once a week,” I said. “That means I’m not running to catch a plane, and you’re not heading to a party. It means we actually talk about shit.”

“How about Sunday nights at 10pm?” he asked. I was pretty surprised that he completely embraced my idea to the point that he proposed a specific time.

“Sunday nights at 10pm,” I confirmed. I didn’t have to write that down; there’s no way I could forget that.

We ordered a ton of food from room service, so much that the delivery dude asked me to confirm there were only two people eating. It wasn’t surprising that with our voracious appetites we ate almost all of it. We made love again then lay in the bed, intertwined, enjoying the afterglow. A knock at the door disturbed me. I put my finger over his lips and we lay there silently until the knocking stopped. “Who was that?” he asked.

“The only people who know I’m in this room are Jeff and Darius,” I told him. “And Darius sure as fuck isn’t going to come over right now. He’s got some astronomy thing he’s working on.”

“Astronomy?”

“Yeah, he’s fucking some chick named Saturn,” I said, making us both laugh.

“So that means it was Jeff,” he said, and I could see his jealous monster rise up just like mine had a while ago. “Was he over here earlier?”

“He was,” I said. “We had a big argument.”

“What was it about?” he asked. He seemed happy that we’d argued and not fucked. I almost laughed at myself, as if I wouldn’t have had the same reaction. Then I got serious, and I told him the whole story pretty much like I’d laid it out for Darius.

“He’s so hung up on this dude that he’s blocking out reality,” I concluded sadly. He seemed annoyed with me. “Do you think I made the right decision by telling him?”

“Yeah, knowing you, that’s really the only choice,” he said.

“What’s bothering you, then?”

“Was Cam a good fuck?” he asked.

“He was,” I said. “I mean, not even close to you, but he was good.” He looked away from me and I pulled his head around. “I’m not trying to make you jealous, but I needed you to have the backstory.”

“I know, and it’s stupid, but it still makes me jealous to hear about you being with other people,” he said sadly.

“If it’s stupid, then we’re both stupid,” I said. “I get jealous too.”

He laughed at that, which was a bit irritating. “No shit.”

“Whatever,” I said grumpily, then focused my eyes on him. “If I had a choice, and it was possible, I would be with you, and only you.”

He just looked at me, and seemed really uptight, and I totally didn’t get his mood until a tear fell out of his eye. “I know,” he said, and then he hugged me tightly, almost desperately. As I was holding him, I got that his avoiding me, in addition to his worrying about the feeling of pain dealing with a future separation, was also his attempt to dodge the guilt he felt for putting football ahead of us so we couldn’t be an out couple. It was such a shitty situation, and I really hated it, but the thought of not having him in my life was so much worse.