Gap Year - 45. Chapter 45

February 27, 2004

Malibu, CA

 

Will

I was lounging on the sofa in my room, snarfing down the leftover junk food from last night. I’d promised Cody I’d stay out of the way, but stupidly forgot that meant I couldn’t go into the kitchen. I frowned at the pretzels, which were kind of stale, then ate them anyway.

I’d just finished talking to Stef and decided to lay a little groundwork for my trip to New York. I flipped through my contacts until I found Susannah’s number.

“Hello,” she answered, sounding like she was forcing herself to be pleasant.

“Zanie, it’s Will,” I said.

“I am glad it is you, since that is what my caller ID indicated,” she said playfully, sounding very British and very proper.

“I wanted to apologize for being so rude to you in New York. I should have called earlier,” I said. “I was frustrated and took it out on you and JJ. I truly am sorry.”

“That’s fine, Will,” she said pleasantly. “I assumed it was something like that.” For some reason, it was so much easier to apologize to her than it would be to JJ.

“Well, I’m planning to come to town next weekend to make sure you’ve forgiven me,” I said.

“That is great news!” she said enthusiastically.

“Darius is coming with me,” I told her.

“We’ll have a fun weekend,” she said. “Call me back and let me know what your schedule is.”

“I’ll do that,” I promised, then ended the call. Determined to see this through, I clicked on JJ’s number.

“What?” he asked rudely as he answered.

“I’m calling to apologize for being a douche to you and Zanie when I was in New York,” I said.

“You had no right to be that obnoxious,” he bitched. “You gave me all kinds of crap about not being nice to Carullo, telling me I couldn’t be rude to people who were our guests. You acted like fucking Emily Post when you were ranting at me about that. As if. And now you have the nerve to do the same thing to me and to Zanie?”

“I know,” I said. “I was wrong. That’s why I called to tell you I’m sorry.” I could almost feel his complete frustration. I knew that’s all he really needed to hear, and he knew that if he kept bitching at me about this, I’d just say the same three sentences back to him.

“You still have to apologize to Zanie,” he said.

“I already did that,” I said.

“You called her before you called me?” he asked, acting all outraged. It was hilarious because he wanted to bitch at me some more, and was desperately trying to find new reasons to do just that.

“I was always taught that ladies are first,” I said, neatly explaining my position with an argument he really couldn’t rebut.

“Fine,” he said.

“Darius and I are going to be in town next weekend,” I said. “Zanie said she’d see if we could work it out so we could hang out. You up for that?”

“We have a busy schedule this weekend,” he said. I thought it was cute that he said ‘we’.

“Well, find some time so I can tell you that I’m sorry in person. I feel bad that this is only a phone call,” I said. That should melt him. There was a long pause as he let that rummage around in his brain for a bit.

“It will be good to spend some time with you guys,” he said, totally relenting. “Let me know what the schedule is too.”

“You got it,” I said, and ended the call. I thought about both of those conversations, and I was right: dealing with JJ was so much worse than dealing with Susannah. The tradeoff, though, was that I pretty much knew what JJ was thinking and what he’d do. I had no idea how Zanie’s brain worked. While it was much easier to apologize to her than it was to JJ, it made me nervous that I had no idea if she was sincere. With JJ, once he’d forgiven me like he’d just done, it was over. I wondered ruefully if Zanie carried grudges.

A soft knock at my door dragged me out of my introspection. “Come in!”

I saw Jeff walk through the door, looking completely defeated. “You got a sec?” he asked. His voice was so sad he made me want to cry. I got up and walked over to him and pulled him into a big hug. He didn’t respond for a bit, then he relented and latched on to me like he was a drowning man. I held him like that for a while, trying to transfer my strength to him.

“Come on,” I said as I led him over to the sofa. I got each of us a Pepsi from my fridge and handed him his.

“Thanks,” he said, as we popped the cans open.

“You OK?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Every time I do this, I get fucked over,” he said. “Every fucking time. I let myself fall for a dude, and I get shit on.”

“It’s because you pick the wrong dudes,” I said, suddenly getting clarity on how this worked for him.

“I pick hot dudes,” he said, cracking me up.

“Yeah, but they’re wrong for you,” I said. “You’re setting yourself up for failure. Why?”

“I do not do that,” he objected strongly.

“You went all in with Wade,” I told him. He gave me about the meanest look he could for bringing up that painful issue and piling it on to this new one, but I ignored him since it was important and relevant. “You knew he was with Matt; you knew it wasn’t going to work, but you totally fell for him.”

“It might have worked out. It wasn’t impossible,” he said.

I raised an eyebrow to challenge him. He knew I was right. “Then you decide to dive back in with Cam. You know he has a reputation as a total player, and you know that he’s one of the best tops in town, after you, of course.”

“After me?” he asked. “You think I’m better?”

“I don’t really remember, it’s been so long,” I said. He grinned shyly, and I could tell his ego had taken a major hit. I decided to go off on a tangent to try and help him recover a bit of his cockiness. “You ever hear about how my father learned to be a good fuck?” He blinked at my change in topic.

“I think I heard him mention that once,” he said. “Didn’t he fuck some movie star?”

“It was actually in this very house,” I said, chuckling. “He hooked up with Armand de Guipry, who was fucking gorgeous. He told me that Armand was the one who taught him how to be a lover.”

“Must have been hot,” he said, not getting my point.

“Armand died of AIDS,” I said, and got a little somber about that, even though I’d never met him. “He left my father a note and told him that teaching him how to be good in bed was one of the coolest things he ever got to do.”

“No shit?” Jeff asked.

“So if I were being interviewed and was asked who my version of Armand was, you know who I’d say?”

“I’m guessing Zach,” he said. He was so depressed he was obtuse.

“No, you idiot,” I said in a slightly playful way. “I’d tell them you were the one who taught me how to be an awesome fuck.” He rolled his eyes at my bravado.

“Me?” he asked, surprised.

“You. I’ll give you an example. Remember when we were in Hamar Norway at JJ’s skating contest? I think it was the Grand Prix.”

“I remember that,” he said, chuckling. “That’s when you damn near ate your father alive.” I chuckled with him.

“I deal with fools badly,” I said, since my father had been a complete idiot when we’d been there. “I was about to go fuck around with those two skaters and didn’t know how to handle it. You told me how to make a threesome work. Then you explained that I should start off gentle and pay attention to how the dude reacted, and ramp up my aggressiveness based on what he seemed to like? Don’t you remember that?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. I knew that pulling out a specific example would appeal to him, and it did. “Now, whenever I go to fuck a dude, I do just that. There are so many times I’ve been with a guy and I use what you taught me and find myself thinking of you and smiling.”

“I now understand how Armand felt,” he said, and gave me a loving look one that faded pretty fast.

“So what happened?” I asked.

“I got a call from Cody this morning, telling me he needed to see me,” he said. “He was pretty adamant that he meant ‘now’.”

“I’m glad you listened to him, otherwise I might have missed you,” I said. He seemed surprised that I wasn’t pissed off at him after what an ass he was yesterday at the hotel, but I knew he was sorry, and I didn’t need to hear him say it. Of course, that thought reminded me of JJ, and that threated to derail my brain from this conversation, so I pushed it aside.

“I told Cam, and he freaked out and told me we needed to talk,” he said. “He told me that you were pissed off and were threatening to destroy him.”

“At least he got the message,” I said.

“Why were you pissed at him?” he asked, instinctively sticking up for him.

“I’ll tell you when we’re done talking about this,” I said, to prompt him to go on.

“He admitted to me that he lied to me, and that he picked you up, not the other way around. He said you were incredibly sexy and you were new,” he said.

“I am sexy,” I said, getting a grin from him. “What does he mean by ‘new’?”

“He’d never seen you before,” he said. “If you think about it, the same people mostly go to those parties.”

“So I was the new kid in town and he needed to break me in?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Looks like I still have a lot to teach you.”

“Cool,” I said, then jumped up and started taking off my pants.

“Later,” he said, and chuckled. If nothing else I was helping his mood a bit. “Don’t you get it? That’s part of being a wolf.”

“Finding and eating the new game?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He shook his head at me like I was an idiot. “For me, for Cam, and for Cody that’s a total rush. You go out and you spot someone hot and new. You’re wondering what’s different about that guy, and what sex with him would be like. Does he have a big dick? Is he a top or a bottom? Does he blow in ten seconds or does it take an hour to get him off?”

“I agree,” I said. “It is a total rush. I don’t see how that’s part of being a wolf.” I wasn’t like he was and I got off on doing that, so I didn’t understand what he was talking about.

“I want to be first, and I want to do a good job,” he said. “Being first is basically me in competition with all the other wolves out there. If I nail him first, before Cam or Cody, I look like a bigger stud than them.”

“So it’s a hunt, and the rush is catching the prey,” I summarized.

“Yeah,” he said. “Only eating the prey is pretty fun too.” I laughed at that.

“I guess the reason for being good is obvious,” I said, remembering his other point.

“Being good isn’t so much about competing with other dudes, it’s about my reputation. It gives me bragging rights,” he said. “Even more important, though, is that everyone talks about who they fuck and how it was. If I come up in those conversations in a positive way, then nailing someone I want to fuck becomes a lot easier.”

“Dudes want you,” I summarized.

“That’s right,” he said.

“So that’s why Cam was into me,” I concluded.

“I think you turned out to be more fun than that,” Jeff said. “It was weird, because I was all pissed off when he told me what a good fuck you are, but after you told me about that Armand guy and all that stuff, now it makes me proud.”

That was so funny we both cracked up, then the laughter died down and we got serious again. “I guess that’s a pretty big ego stroke to have one of the top players in LA say I’m a good fuck.”

“It is,” he said seriously. “So he told me this, and told me that he didn’t think we’d work out. He didn’t think he could stop being a player.” He got really sad when he said that, and my heart went out to him.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and reached over to hold his hand briefly. “You knew that, but you thought you could tame him. You thought you’d be enough to satisfy him.”

“I’m obviously not,” he said.

“Dude, you just told me all about this catch and release shit he has going on,” I said. “Don’t you get it? You will never make him happy because you won’t be new. You will never be happy with a dude like that.”

He looked straight into my eyes, and I could see his shock, the shock that comes from having a light bulb go off in his head and revealing damn near what’s inside. “I’d never be new,” he said. He contemplated that for a bit. “I wonder why I let that cloud my mind. I should have seen that.”

“Or maybe you want something new too, and that’s why you set yourself up for failure,” I said, sounding like a fucking shrink.

“Maybe,” he said, thinking about it. He glanced at the wall and saw my clock. “Fuck!”

“What?”

“I have to be downtown in an hour,” he said.

“Can you drop me off at the hotel on the way?” I asked. He did some mental calculations.

“If we leave in three minutes,” he said.

“Meet you downstairs,” I said, and hurriedly pulled the stuff together that I needed and rushed down to meet him. Cody was waiting for me. “Jeff’s taking me back to the hotel but I have to run.”

“I’ll see you later,” he said, winking at me. I gave him a quick hug and a kiss, then hurried out to get in Jeff’s car. Stef had bought him a BMW when he’d transferred to USC, but even though it was a couple of years old, it looked like it was new. He was pretty organized and good at taking care of things.

He focused on the road until we got onto PCH, then he seemed ready to start a conversation. “Are we cool?”

“Well, I figured this apology you were going to give me would be in the form of sexual healing,” I said. “So we’re not quite cool yet.”

He laughed. “I’ll work on that.”

“I mean, I get that I’m not new, so I’m not that exciting,” I bantered at him.

“That’s when you’re first hooking up with a dude,” he said. “Getting with someone you’ve been with in the past can be just as big of a rush.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Let’s assume we’re not talking about the emotional part of it, of the dude being someone you’re still in love with or were in love with,” he said. “Think of the tension and the excitement of hooking up with a guy you were with before, even if you were only fuck buddies.”

“Explain that,” I said, still not getting a clue.

“You first wonder if you’ll be able to convince him to fuck around with you. And if he’s with someone else, that makes it a bigger challenge, and also makes it even hotter, because then you’re breaking the rules together, and that’s a whole different kind of intimacy,” he said.

“I can see that,” I said.

“Then it’s a total trip to see if they’ve changed,” he said. “Did the dude learn some new tricks, or get into something different? Can I still push his boundaries? Shit like that.”

“Which makes me wonder why your dick isn’t in my ass,” I said, making him laugh hysterically.

“Because I have a meeting to get to,” he said.

“You know, I can see how that’s a rush, and how I get off on that too, but I think the big difference between me and Cam is that I’m actually looking for a relationship, and he just wants a fuck.”

“You mean that every dude you hook up with you want to marry?” he asked.

“No,” I said, my tone telling him I thought he was an idiot. “I want to get to know more than his dick, otherwise it’s not as much fun.”

“So why were you going to fuck Cam’s life up over this?” he asked as we drove up to the hotel.

“Because you’re part of our family, and he was fucking with your mind,” I said.

“Thanks,” he said, and got a little choked up. “I’ll call you when I’m done.”

“Sounds good,” I said. I leaned in and gave him a quick kiss, then got out of the car and went to the front desk to extend my stay until Wednesday. They started checking inventory and shit, so I left them to work it out while I went back to my room and crashed.

About an hour later my phone rang, and the caller ID said it was Jake. “Hey,” he said as soon as I answered. “I need you to be in your hotel room at 1:00 today.”

“Why?” I asked.

“A guy named Chris Hammersmith is going to show up with a new phone for Zach, and he wants to look at his old one,” he said. “Block out an hour for him to get that done.”

“An hour?” I asked.

“He’ll probably need to spend some time with Zach explaining how things work too,” he said.

“Fine,” I agreed.

“Ask him for his identification and make sure it’s him,” he said. “Then call me as soon as he gets there.”

“Alright,” I said, thinking that was just a little bit too much overkill. He ended the call and I sighed. He probably had good reasons for asking me to do that, so I went with the flow. I was curious what time Zach was planning to get here so I instinctively called his phone. I felt pretty stupid when it rang and vibrated on the dresser in the room.

It was only 10:30, but I was fucking starving, so I ordered room service again. I was halfway through my brunch when Zach showed up. “Here’s your keys,” he said, handing me the keys to the Toyota. He closed the curtains then gave me a nice kiss. “Food?”

“I got extra so I could share,” I said, which wasn’t entirely true, but it made me seem smart. “There’s a dude coming here at 1:00 to meet with you about your phone.”

“So we have about an hour and a half to kill?” he asked. Our clothes were off in no time and I was back in his pulsating ass, pumping us both to another amazing orgasm. Sometimes it was so good I thought it would kill me, but what a way to die.

We lay in bed, enjoying the afterglow, something Cam Squires should try. “They’re bringing you a phone like mine,” I told him. “It even has the SWAT key.”

“Dude, my father is a garbage man. I don’t need a SWAT key,” he said. He thought our phone security was a little extreme, which was annoying since he’d all but vanished on me when we’d fought our big battle with Sabrina Granger. He hadn’t seen the devastation of the attack on Goodwell and hadn’t really been overly concerned about my near-death experience. I decided not to be bitchy and ruin our time together.

“It’s useful, and you’re worth it,” I said lovingly. “The only problem is that the new phone will be trackable too, only by our family.”

I’d referenced ‘our family’ to make him feel less threatened, but it still bothered him. “So either Curtis Buck stalks me, or you guys do?” He looked at me apologetically as soon as he said it. Sometimes he just blurted things out without thinking.

He started to freak out about it, afraid he’d offended me, but I stopped him. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’m not thrilled about it either.”

“What do you mean?”

“I had no idea that I was being tracked,” I told him. “When I get back to Escorial, I’m going to pin them down on how that works, and when they can use that information without my approval. Or yours.”

“That’s going to be a fun conversation,” he said, and scrunched up his mouth as he thought about it.

“I wouldn’t have put it that way,” I said. “Sometimes they go off and do this shit, and don’t bother to tell the rest of us. So I’m going to find out who set it up and who’s tracking us.”

“Good luck with that,” he said. “I really appreciate you doing this for me. I don’t mean to sound like an ingrate.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “We should get dressed.” We got ourselves together then cleaned up the room. I opened the patio door to let in some fresh air so it didn’t smell like sex.

At exactly 1:00 there was a knock on the door. I opened it to find a guy who was probably in his mid to late twenties. He was dressed like you’d expect a Secret Service guy to be attired, and since he was so dweeby, it made him look pretty ridiculous. His dark brown hair and freckles were kind of cute and helped offset the rest of his dorkiness. “I’m Chris Hammersmith,” he said officially.

“Can I see some ID?” I asked. He looked a little surprised by that but showed me his driver’s license. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” he said. Zach gave him his phone to look at while I called Jake.

“He’s here,” I said.

“Put him on the phone,” Jake ordered.

I handed the phone to Chris and he listened for a bit. “Code 4309Q,” he said. He handed the phone back to me.

“He’s good,” Jake said. I looked at Zach and rolled my eyes as I ended the call.

“Who’d you get this phone from?” Chris asked Zach.

“It was a Christmas present from my girlfriend,” he said. That was a pretty easy way for Curtis Buck to get him to carry around a tracking device: give him a free phone and tell him it’s a present. “She told me the monthly fees and shit are covered.”

“Their system isn’t all that much different than the one we use,” Chris said to us. “It’s a little less sophisticated.”

“So what do I do?” Zach asked.

“You can keep your old phone and use it as a reference for your contacts. When you don’t want to be tracked, leave it at home or wherever. You can use this phone,” he said, handing Zach a slick new phone, “when you don’t want to be tracked.”

“That’s pretty cool,” Zach said. I thought so too. I started thinking of things we could do to freak Curtis Buck out.

“You can forward calls from your old phone to your new phone when you’re out and about, but don’t answer them,” he said. “I don’t know if they can track the call to your new phone or not. So just let people leave a message and call them back.”

“I can do that,” Zach said. Chris finished briefing us then left. “I need to get going.”

“Can’t you stay for a few more minutes?” I asked, even as I dropped my pants.

“A few more minutes,” he said, smiling. We made love again, and then we both got dressed.

“I’m going to be here until Wednesday,” I told him.

“Seriously?” he asked, and looked happy about it.

“Yeah, so we can have our first Sunday night conversation in person,” I said.

“I’ll see you tonight,” he said, and gave me a kiss. He walked out of the room leaving me smiling, in a blissful state. I knew this wouldn’t last, and that I’d probably have hell to pay emotionally, but these moments with him were worth it.

I’d set up a car for tonight and it would pick me up at 7:00. I planned out my wardrobe and decided to crash until 5, then I’d eat and get ready. It was a good thing the food at the hotel was good. I’d almost fallen asleep when my phone rang again. I got annoyed at my recent popularity until I saw it was Jeff. “Hey,” I said groggily.

“Hey,” he said. “Thought I’d stop by. Almost there.”

“Awesome,” I said. I barely had time to brush my teeth when there was knock on my door. “Come in,” I said, opening the door for Jeff.

“Nice room,” he said. “Didn’t really notice it last time I was here.”

“Yeah, that was a pretty short visit,” I said, and could see the guilt overwhelm him. “It’s over and we’re good, or at least we will be.”

He grinned and shook his head, while I led him over to the bed. I could tell he was nervous. He probably didn’t want to be intimate with anyone, but that’s exactly what he needed. I decided to apply the lessons he’d taught me on him. I stripped off his clothes, then took off mine, and all but pushed him into the bed. Instead of trying to fuck him, I laid on my back and pulled him to me, letting him rest his head on my chest. We didn’t say anything, I just slowly stroked his back until both of us actually drifted off to sleep. He moved around and woke me up, and a glance at the clock told me we’d crashed for an hour. “I can’t believe I’m in bed with one of the hottest dudes I know and I fell asleep.”

I laughed. “I like spending time with you, no matter what we do,” I said, and gave him a gentle kiss.

“This whole thing has completely fucked me up,” he said bitterly. “I’ve totally lost my libido.”

“You are under no pressure to do anything,” I said firmly. “Besides, I’ve been so fucking busy the last few days, I’m totally drained.” That wasn’t entirely true, but it worked to relieve the tension.

“You know, it’s been so long since we’ve spent time together, I forgot what a good friend you are,” he said.

“I’m way smarter than you,” I said. “I never forgot that.” He gave me a dour look then chuckled.

“So was Cam a good fuck?” he asked.

“He was,” I said. “He moves his body in a really fluid, almost rhythmic way.”

“He does,” he said, as if realizing that for the first time.

“After we had this amazing sexual interlude, he all but jumped out of bed,” I grumbled. “It was such a buzz kill.” I told him about that and made him laugh.

“He’s a wolf,” Jeff said. “He made the conquest then he was done.”

“Yeah, but that makes him seem like a shitty lover,” I said. “It’s like he took this awesome time and totally ruined it.”

“You sleep with wolves, you better toughen up,” he said, partly teasing me, partly not.

“Seems to me that a good wolf would worry about his reputation,” I said.

“Maybe,” he said. “Look, you chose to go after that type of dude. You’re the one who likes the wolves.”

I thought about that for a bit. “I don’t like wolves,” I said. “I like guys who think they’re wolves but really aren’t.”

“Like me,” he said, as if that was a big epiphany.

“Like you,” I agreed, then we drifted off back to sleep.