Gap Year - 44. Chapter 44

February 26, 2004

Hotel Bel Air

Bel Air, CA

 

Will

“Fuck!” Zach said, as he looked at his phone. “I have to make a quick call.” We’d finished our sexual extravaganza, at least for now, and that had prompted both of us to check our phones. I had a bunch of messages, while he only had one. He got up from the bed and started to head to the bathroom to make his call.

“Remember you’re not leaving until tomorrow,” I said firmly.

He stopped and looked down at me, since I was still sitting on the bed. “You know, you project power almost as well as your father does.”

“Right,” I said. “I’m nowhere near as good as he is.”

“You’re Luke Skywalker and he’s Obi-Wan Kenobi,” he said, cracking me up.

“Good to know,” I said dismissively.

“You’re not listening to me,” he said, a little too intensely.

“Alright,” I said, and focused on him.

“It can be a little intimidating,” he said.

“Fine, I’m an asshole,” I said defensively.

“Dude, I am not dissing you,” he said, getting a little pissed at me. “I’m just saying that if you meet someone kind of shy, you have to tone it down. It’s like you need to find your volume knob for your power mode.”

I laughed at that. “Yeah, that’s something my father never learned.” I thought about what he said. “I think I do that most of the time.”

“I think you do too,” he said, which made me wonder why the fuck he brought it up in the first place. “But the other part of it is that you can turn the volume up too.”

“You mean use that to be an asshole?” I asked. He had me totally confused.

“You’re all pissed off at these dudes and they’re playing you. Shit, your family could send any or all of those guys screaming out of town like a little bitch,” he said. He was telling me to quit playing the victim, and to explain shit to these guys. It was amazing how he could sometimes do this, just reach in my brain and rearrange things, and making things so much clearer.

“I got it,” I said. I stood up and kissed him. “Thanks.”

“I’m going to make a call then take a shower,” he said. I watched his gorgeous ass as he walked away and didn’t take out my phone until he turned the corner and was out of sight.

I saw that I got a call from Cam, so I played that message first. “Just wanted to tell you that I had a chance to educate Jeff on our encounter.” His smarmy tone took me from curious to enraged. I thought about my strategy for a few minutes, then dialed his number.

“Hello,” I heard him say in a clipped way.

“Look asshole, I’m going to explain a few things to you,” I said, turning my power knob up to maximum.

“Not interested,” he said. It was funny that he didn’t hang up.

“You are going to tell Jeff the truth or I am going to hunt you down and drive you out of this fucking town,” I said loudly, but stayed within Grand’s approved volume range.

“Right,” he said dismissively. “You don’t know anyone in the recording industry.”

“You are so fucking stupid,” I said. “My family is worth billions of dollars. You don’t think that money is power?”

“You’d do that to me over this shit?” he asked. I almost laughed at him, because he’d all but agreed that I could do what we promised.

“Jeff is a member of my extended family. You’re fucking with his mind. No one does that shit to my family and gets away with it,” I said.

“Alright, what do you want me to do?” he asked.

“I want you to tell him the real story,” I said.

“I…” he began, but stopped himself. His big issue was telling Jeff he’d lied. There really wasn’t a way around that.

“You’re going to tell him that you invited me to come back to your place and that you didn’t tell me you were dating someone else,” I said. “Then you’re going to tell him how hard this kind of relationship is for you, and you’re going to talk about it and work it out, or if you can’t do that, tell him you’re done.”

“You’re giving me orders on how to handle my personal life?” he asked outraged. I was going to argue with that, but that wasn’t full power mode.

“I am, and you better do exactly what I fucking told you to do,” I snapped at him. “So here’s the deal. You have Jeff leave me a message within the next three hours telling me he has a different understanding of the situation, and that he now knows that I didn’t seduce you.” He ended the call and I smiled. I was pretty sure I’d gotten my point across and that made me happy, because if that didn’t work, I’d have to bring up the age thing. I’d found out that he was 34, which made me half his age. I hated the thought of even threatening him with that, but I maybe could do that. Still, it would be a feeble threat, because I knew in my heart that I couldn’t cause him legal problems over having sex with me. I’d claimed to be able to handle relationships with older guys, so it was bullshit that I’d suddenly do an about face and turn a dude in.

I put that aside and walked to the bathroom, but stopped outside the door when I heard Zach talking. “How the fuck did you find out I’m at the Hotel Bel Air?” he demanded. It didn’t take me long to figure out he was talking to Taylor. “It does matter how you found out,” he said. He wasn’t being overly wimpy, but he was showing her a lot of respect, making it almost seem that she was in charge. “You tell me who you found this out from, and I’ll tell you who I’m with.” He spotted me and rolled his eyes. “I knew it was your fucking father,” he said, making me assume that Taylor told him that. “Why the fuck was he spying on me?” She rambled on for a while. “Whatever. I’m here with Will Schluter. He came down for a couple of days, so this is our night to hang.” He looked at me. “Taylor says hi.”

“Tell her I said ‘hi’ back,” I said, loud enough that she could hear. She chattered on for a bit, then Zach rolled his eyes again and handed me the phone.

“Hey Tay!” I said enthusiastically, sounding totally gay.

“Shoots!” she said, using my nickname. “You’re in town!”

“I am, and I hear I get to hit two parties with you. I am so stoked!” I said, putting on my clubbing act.

“I am so looking forward to it!” she said. “Have fun with my man, but not too much fun.”

I laughed. “Dude, I’ve spent the last hour hearing about how awesome you are. That killed any foreplay I had planned.” She laughed with me, and I took that opportunity to hand the phone back to Zach.

“I have to go,” he told her, then ended the call. “Fuck.”

“Her father was tracking you?” I asked. “How?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Let’s figure it out,” I said. I went back to the main room and started grabbing his clothes. He sat next to me and we inspected every garment, although we weren’t sure what we were looking for. What the fuck did a transmitter even look like? We’d gone through everything and I was kind of clueless about it until Zach pulled out his phone. “That’s how,” I said, pointing at it. Why I didn’t think about that first made me feel like a moron.

“They’re using my phone to track me,” he said, jumping to the solution that had been staring us in the face.

“As long as you have your phone with you, that asshole can track you. I guess we’re good at the hotel tonight, since Taylor’s cool with it,” I said.

“It just bugs me,” he said. “It creeps me out.”

“The other option is that we leave your phone here and we go up to Malibu,” I said. “Then tomorrow we find out who can clean the spyware off it for you.”

“I kind of need my phone,” he said.

“Leave it with me while you go to class,” I said. “I’ll get it fixed then you can pick it up before the party.”

“You’re just trying to lure me into your lair so you can fuck me,” he said in a playful way, cracking up both of us, then he suddenly got serious. “Let’s go to Malibu.” We took a quick shower, threw on our clothes, and left his cell phone on the nightstand. Before he did, he changed his voicemail to tell people to email him instead.

We got into the Toyota and he was completely relaxed. Being tracked had a much bigger impact on him than I thought. “What the fuck is her father’s deal?” I asked.

“He keeps tabs on all three of his kids, and probably his ex-wife, at least according to her,” he said. “Then when he has dinner with them or some other gathering like that, he pulls out all this data and beats them up about it.”

“How?”

He chuckled. “He caught Big going to a strip club. Made a big deal about it. Taylor went to a party in a sketch neighborhood, so she got ripped about that. T usually doesn’t get in trouble,” Zach said, then grinned. “He’s the best at dodging the system.”

“Why do they put up with that?” I asked.

“Money,” he said. “They get nothing from their trusts until they’re 25, except room and board at college, so if he cuts them off, they’re broke.”

“I would be so pissed off if I were them,” I said, feeling the sheer rage at that kind of dependency.

“Ya think?” he asked, and laughed. “That’s like the understatement of the century.”

“Fuck you,” I said to him playfully. I thought about this situation, and my anger changed to concern. “Dude, this is really dangerous for you.”

“Not really,” he said. “I can do the things I need to do in places I’m supposed to be.” That meant that this dude he fucked around with probably lived on campus, maybe in the same dorm.

“That works, for now,” I said. “Her father is not going to change.”

“It’s not like Taylor and I are getting married,” he said. “If we break up, he’ll spend his time and effort on the next dude.”

“Unless you hurt her,” I said. He swallowed kind of hard at that. I hoped he was being careful with this dude he found. If he fucked that up and Taylor found out, Zach would be dead meat.

“Guess I should have dated some broke-ass ho,” he said, shaking his head. I laughed at that.

“Probably would have been safer,” I said.

“I like Taylor, so that’s why I put up with him,” he said, and the way he said it told me he was really into her. I tried to decide if it bothered me that he had feelings for her. I mean, he’d more or less told me that already, but being here in the middle of this situation, I could see that he really meant it. I decided it was only an issue if his feelings for her got so strong that he ended us, and at least right now, that didn’t seem like a huge risk.

I pulled into the garage and we got out, happy to be in this relative sanctuary. We walked into the house and found Cody in the kitchen. “Hey,” he said to us.

“Hey,” Zach said. I just glared at Cody.

“That didn’t work out like you planned, did it?” I asked Cody in a pretty nasty tone.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” he asked. He was a little fired up, but not as mad as me.

“This was supposed to stay dark for about a month until you got your deal done,” I said. “That’s why you won’t say shit to Jeff about this.”

“I set you up to find out,” he said, but I could tell he was full of shit.

“No, you didn’t. You sent me in there to see if I’d blow things up. You wanted me to be calm about it. You wanted me to leave Jeff in the dark for a month. Never mind how much this could hurt him. Never mind that he falls for a guy almost never, and he’s all in on this one. None of that matters as long as you get your deal done.”

“That’s not true.” But he didn’t seem to be able to convince himself, much less me.

“I want you to go back to your room and stay out of my way for the next 12 hours. Think you can swing that?” I demanded.

“Fine,” he said, and trudged up the stairs. Our rooms were almost next to each other, so I wanted to wait a bit before I went up. Zach and I walked over to the huge windows that overlooked the beach. The Pacific was such a thing of beauty.

After I heard Cody shut his door, I nudged Zach with my arm and led him upstairs to my room, which was the bomb. My room was in the front part of the house, and it was narrow but had two levels. The upper level was a little over half the size of the lower level because it was open to the downstairs. That meant that I had two solid stories of windows looking out at the Pacific. It was incredible. On the lower level, where we walked in, I had a sitting area, a bathroom, and a huge closet. “See my new stairs?” I pointed off to the side of the room where a sleek modern staircase jutted out just a bit.

“Pretty slick,” he said.

“Stef decided that a circular staircase would be easier to use and would look more chic. He was right,” I said. When they’d first built my room out, they’d put in a ladder, but the stairs were so much better.

An elevator pad whisked us up to the second floor, and that contained my bedroom. “This is different,” Zach said, noting a new room off to the left of the bedroom.

“They did some renovations for Cody and Kevin, so while they were at it, I asked Stef to work in a small bathroom on this floor too, since there was plenty of room,” I explained. I opened the door to show him. It was a small room with just a toilet and a sink in it. It had been a royal pain in the ass if I woke up and had to pee, because that meant going down to the first level. Now it was just a few steps away from the bed.

“Good idea,” he said. We took off our clothes and made love again. It was weird, but it was like there was this primal need for us to physically bond after being separated for a while. When we were done, we slipped on boxers and went down to the first level of my room. Zach flipped on the television to catch the end of Friends.

“Dude, I am really gay, but Jennifer Aniston is so hot I’d do her in a heartbeat,” I said, cracking him up.

“This is your show,” he said, teasing me, as Will and Grace came on after Friends.

“The character that I really like is Karen,” I told him.

He laughed at that. “Hey, you mind if I use your computer to check my emails?”

“No problem,” I said. I hated to be disconnected from the world, so I could totally relate to his need to get online. “Hang on.” I got my laptop and logged in for him.

“I’m going to scrounge for some munchies and call Stef back,” I said.

“Tell him I said ‘hi’,” he said, even as he started typing on my keyboard.

I put on some sweatpants and a hoodie, then went downstairs and out onto the deck. I took out my one-hitter and smoked some pot, letting the weed relax me. The patio door opened, getting my attention. I wasn’t too surprised to see it was Cody. He came out and sat down at the table with me. I packed him a hit and handed to him. We didn’t say anything, we just got high together while enjoying the sound of the surf. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You were right.”

It almost bothered me that he said that, because it reminded me of JJ and how he was when he was mad at people. Maybe I was as bad as JJ, in that I wouldn’t let people back into my good graces until they fell on a sword. I put that internal rambling aside and answered Cody. “What happened to you?”

“I had just met with Cam and heard his pitch on this new group he wants to put together. He’s a good salesman, and he had me all fired up about it,” he said. “And I think you have to be fair and note that I didn’t have a whole bunch of time to think about this.”

“I would have cut you some slack on that if you’d have come clean with it after I got back from lunch,” I said. “That made it a more planned deal than a knee-jerk reaction.”

“You know, not all of us are as quick as you are,” he said. His flattery made it seem like he was sucking up to me, and that threatened to drag me back to my prior internal microanalysis.

“What are you going to do about it?” I asked. He was too smart to say ‘nothing’ even though that had been his plan. I just waited for him to figure out what he had to do.

“I’m going to talk to Jeff and tell him what I think happened,” he said. I stared at him, because I wanted him to do it now so I could end this nightmare. “I need to have that talk in person, and he won’t come home until you’re gone.”

I looked at my watch. “Well if I don’t hear from him in about an hour, I have to plot to ruin Cam Squires’ life.”

“Ruin his life?” Cody asked, not a little worried.

“My first step is to have all of his clients banned from the Met Gala in New York,” I said. Bellona Carter ran the guest list for that event, and she’d be willing to do just that if Stef asked her to. Nothing would screw up Cam’s relationship with his clients more than being banned from a prestige event like that. Cody knew we had enough influence to pull that off.

“That should send a message,” Cody said, even as he pondered the impact. This was the kind of thing Alex Danvers could have done to Cody if Alex had his shit together. “J-Lo is one of his biggest clients, and she usually goes.”

“If it doesn’t, then I think I’ll bring my father in for help,” I said. His eyes bulged at that. “Have a good night.” I got up and went into the kitchen and grabbed a bunch of junk food, then lugged it back up to my room.

“Dude, Cheetos!” Zach said excitedly when I walked through the door. I tossed him that bag. I thought about calling Stef or Grand to update them on this deal, but I decided to spend my time enjoying Zach instead. He was watching the Apprentice.

“Stef hates this show,” I said.

“Why?” Zach asked. “He’s not jealous because he’d not doing it, is he?”

I laughed. “No way would he want to do this,” I said. “He says it teaches people horrible management skills.”

Zach shrugged. “Basically they have to get their shit together or they get fired. What’s wrong with that?”

“First of all, they get put into teams with other apprentices and the project manager has no real authority over anyone. My father stresses that you never want responsibility without authority,” I said, remembering their arguments.

“So. In the show you have to persuade people instead of ordering them around,” he said. “Isn’t that a better approach?”

“You have to persuade people who want you to fail?” I countered, then went on to the next problem. “When you watch those boardroom scenes, everyone agrees with Trump. No one argues with him.”

“He listens to them,” Zach said.

“My father says by watching the people you can tell they’re afraid of Trump,” I explained. “No one knows this power shit better than my father.”

He laughed. “Alright, that’s a given.”

“So these other people aren’t trying to decide about the apprentice, they’re trying to decide what Trump thinks so they can just parrot him,” I said.

“He is kind of an asshole,” Zach agreed. That was an understatement.

“The thing that really gets both of them going, though, is how Trump penalizes them for taking risks. If they do something unorthodox, he’ll only like it if they win,” I said.

“Yeah, but doesn’t that mean they took a stupid risk?”

“No,” I said, rolling my eyes at him. “Think about what kind of culture that breeds in his organization. No one but Trump can have any ideas or any creativity. If you come up with something good, it becomes his idea and you won’t get any credit. If you come up with something bad, it may cost you your job.”

“I see what you mean,” he said, and turned off the television. “I’m kind of bored with TV. I’d rather fuck.”

 

February 27, 2004

Malibu, CA

 

Will

Zach and I went down the stairs like it was a race, making way too much noise. “We have time to stop for breakfast?” I asked him.

He looked at his watch. “I don’t want to be late.”

“Alright,” I said. We went in the kitchen and grabbed a few energy bars, and we were about to leave when Cody came in.

“Morning,” he said.

“Morning,” Zach and I responded.

“Will, you think you can stick around for a bit?” he asked me.

“I’ve got to take Zach back to campus,” I said. I could sense that I had about five minutes of time here before Zach started to lose it.

“Jeff’s coming home,” he said. “It might be good if you were around after I talk to him.” I sighed, so annoyed that they were cutting into the very rare together time Zach and I had. I put that aside and went into problem solving mode.

“Why don’t you take the truck and you can drop it off at the hotel when you’re done,” I said to Zach. “Cody can drive me into town after the meeting.”

“I can do that,” Zach said. I handed him the keys, gave him a kiss, and let him escape back to campus.

I looked to Cody to expand on things. “I talked to Cam last night and gave him some clarity. He seemed to think that putting Kalibra together was a big enough deal to rein you in.”

I laughed. “There are other music producers.”

“There are, and I think he gets that now. I mentioned your Met Gala comment about J-Lo, and that definitely got through,” he said. We both laughed at that.

“So he told Jeff?”

“I think so. When I talked to Jeff this morning, he sounded pretty down,” Cody said, a bit worried. “He should be here any minute.”

“You want me to vanish?” I asked. He nodded. “I’ll be in my room if you guys need me.”

I went upstairs and called Jake. This time he answered. “Hey! Sorry I missed your call yesterday!”

“No big deal,” I said. “I have a problem, and I’m wondering if you can get our tech people to help me out.” Jake was handling our security now, so the phones we used were under his purview.

“I’ll try,” he said.

“Zach is dating Taylor Buck, and her father is a major asshole. He tracks their cellphones so he can see where they go,” I said.

“Tracks whose phones?” he asked.

“Well, his three kids, probably his ex-wife, and Zach,” I said. “At least those are the people I know about.”

“Did Zach know he was being tracked?” Jake asked.

“No, he found out because he came over to see me at the hotel yesterday,” I said.

“Was it a good visit?” he asked.

“It was a great visit,” I confirmed, and my euphoric tone made him chuckle. “I’ll tell you all about it later, but right now I have to figure out a way to fix Zach’s phone so he isn’t being tracked.”

“Probably the best thing for him is to just get a new phone,” he said.

“Yeah, but what if Mr. Buck decides to track that one too?” I asked.

He was silent for a minute, then spoke with a new level of resolve. “We’ll give him a phone like yours, and that can’t be tracked,” he said. “Well, that’s not entirely true, because if we want, we can get location info on our network phones.”

“So you guys are tracking me?” I demanded, not a little pissed off.

“Will, no one looks at what you’re doing,” he said, and seemed a little annoyed. “It’s part of your SWAT key system. The only way it would be tracked is if you vanished and we were desperate to find you.”

“You mean like the situation where Dad escaped to Santa Cruz and no one seemed to know where he was?” I asked acidly.

“No, I don’t think it would have been used even then,” he said. “Remember that Grace knew where he was.”

“So there’s like a protocol on how this information is used?” I asked.

“Not a formal one,” he said.

“There will be, as soon as I get home,” I told him, and not all that nicely. “In the meantime, can you get Zach a new phone and he can take his choice over who’s tracking him?”

“I can do that,” he said. “Where will you be?”

“I’ll be here in Malibu for a while, then I’m going to the Hotel Bel Air,” I said. I gave him my room number.

“I’ll call you back,” he said, then ended the call. I had no idea that they could get information on where I was, or where I’d been. I was seriously pissed about that, but there were so many other things for me to deal with, I put that on the backburner to handle when I got back to Escorial.

My next call was much more fun. “Morning,” Patrick answered.

“Hey there,” I said cheerfully. “You got plans for next weekend?”

“I’ve got a few events to go to,” he said. “Why?”

“I was thinking of coming to town, and thought maybe I could crash with you,” I said. I was wondering if this would be one of those deals where he already had a date or a weekend hookup, so even though I said that with a hint of cockiness, I was pretty nervous about his potential response. It took me no time to realize I was worrying about nothing.

“No shit? That would be awesome!” he said enthusiastically. He told me about a party and a fashion show he was going to go to, and I agreed to go with him.

I called Stef next. “Hello,” he said, but I heard voices in the background.

“I’m sorry if I caught you at a bad time,” I said. “I can call back later.”

“We can talk more later,” he said. “You can tell me what is going on down there. I understand you have created some drama.”

I laughed. “Dude, this is not my drama. Anyway, I wanted to give you a head’s up that Darius and I are going to New York next weekend.”

“To see JJ?” he asked. It amazed me how perceptive he was.

“Yeah, but Patrick’s there too,” I said, making him giggle.

“I am wondering if you’d be willing to stay in LA until Wednesday?” he asked.

“Why?”

“There is a fashion show there that I would like to attend. I thought I would come down on Sunday night and then show up for the show on Tuesday,” he said.

“Maybe I’ll go with you, if that’s ok?” I asked.

“It is most certainly alright,” he said. “I have meetings on Monday, but you are welcome to join me then as well.”

“I’ll block off Monday and Tuesday for you,” I promised, then ended the call.