Paternity - 86. Chapter 86

December 17, 2000

Palo Alto, CA

Will

The plane lifted off from Palo Alto and I hid how nervous I was. I really didn’t want to go back into that environment in Malibu. I didn’t want the stress. But my dad asked me to back him up; I said I would, so I was going to. Still, it was pretty frustrating to see him looking all calm. He looked happy, almost glowing. Then I connected all the dots. “You did it again,” I accused.

“What are you talking about?” he asked, getting defensive.

“You fucked Wade again.” He gave me a dirty look, but I just raised an eyebrow, telling him I already knew the answer.

“I figured that if I fucked up once, one more time wasn’t going to hurt.”

I laughed. “Good rationalizing skills.”

He frowned at me. “It’s not just about that.”

“He probably begged you to do it.”

“What do you mean?” he asked curiously.

“He said you were amazing. Said you were completely in control, and knew just how to push his buttons. He said that he trusted you enough to totally let you have your way with him.” I watched him blush. How cute was that?

“That’s very flattering,” he said.

“I asked him if he wanted to try out the younger model,” I joked, and watched that annoy him. “He turned me down.”

“Smart move.”

“So you say. I haven’t had any complaints.” He gave me a weird look. “I told Wade that sleeping with old men sounded kind of hot.”

“Old men?” he asked, slightly outraged.

“I told him that I was going to have to raise my target age. That these eighteen to twenty–year-old guys just weren’t doing it for me.”

“That’s not funny,” he growled.

“No, but it’s kind of hot,” I teased. He shook his head and ignored me. “So what does that mean, you fucking him again?”

“It means I liked it the first time,” he said playfully, cracking me up. Then he got serious. “It means that I have some real issues to work out in my relationship with Robbie.”

“You already knew that.”

“Yeah, I did,” he agreed. “I just didn’t know how bad things were.”

“You know, I’ll be gone soon. Maybe with me out of the way, things will be easier.” I could hear the guilt dripping out of my mouth as I said that.

“Will, all the drama with you and JJ hasn’t helped things between us, but it’s not your fault. I think that if we were at a good place, we’d be able to deal with this stuff as a team, as partners, and work it out together. Instead, we’re on opposite sides.”

“But if I’m gone, there won’t be opposite sides.”

“It’s not all about you,” he said, and wasn’t all that nice about it. “Look, even when you’re gone, there are still fundamental issues to deal with about JJ. He’s botched up this semester pretty bad. He’s not doing his homework, and he’s not doing well on tests. He’s looking at C’s and D’s on his report card, and that’s assuming he does reasonably well on finals.”

“Wow,” I said, stunned. I had no idea JJ was doing that badly. I’d always been an A student, because I just couldn’t stand to not do well. School was my job, and I wasn’t going to fail at my job. JJ didn’t have that work ethic or drive when it came to school, but he had it with skating. Only even then, at school, he’d pulled off mostly B’s, with some A’s thrown in from time to time. “What’s that all about? He usually does better than that.”

“He says Harvard-Westlake is too hard, and that there’s too much work,” Dad said.

“He’s right, but he’s smart enough to make it.”

“I don’t think he wants to make it. I don’t think he gives a shit about school. All he cares about is skating.” That really bothered Dad.

“So? It’s important to him. He’s good at it. He’s on track to really be successful,” I pointed out. “He could make it to the Olympics.”

“He could, but he has no balance, and that makes him fragile,” Dad noted. “He’s got everything invested in the ice, everything.”

“How did he react to you pulling him from the Scotland trip?” I asked.

“Not well. I got a major temper-tantrum, complete with stomping feet and slamming doors.”

I chuckled at the thought of what JJ looked like when he threw a tantrum. It was actually hysterical. “Better hope your car is alright.”

“He’s not like you. He’s not that rebellious, and he doesn’t buck authority. He’ll rant and rave, but he’ll ultimately toe the line.” I marveled at how well my dad understood him.

“You do well with a kid like that, who will do what you say and not challenge you,” I said, giving him shit.

“Ha ha ha.” He paused. “I think I understand him better because I understand you better.”

“You know, I get JJ, but I don’t get Pop. He didn’t care about JJ’s grades?”

“Not really. I think he’s looking at JJ’s skating career as the important thing.”

“You should have Grand talk to him,” I said.

“Robbie’s not listening to anyone right now. Right now, he’s in this mode where he’s decided what’s best, what’s right, and he’s focused on making it happen. And that means that he’s going to be there for JJ, and support him in his skating.”

“You know, Dad, if we were talking about anyone else, that would probably make sense. But JJ’s pretty obsessed about skating. Is that a good thing?” He didn’t say anything. “I mean, I guess if you’re going to be that good, you have to be dedicated, but it seems to go beyond that with JJ.”

“It does. But to come to that conclusion, you have to make a lot of subjective calls, based on observations about JJ and how he’s behaving. In Robbie’s case, he’s actually looking at things from a more basic, factual level. He’s not looking at the deeper meaning. Plus, he’s used to working with child stars, with divas like your brother. He doesn’t think that JJ’s behavior is abnormal.”

“It’s probably not abnormal for other divas, but it is for JJ,” I said. “I remember that before he was skating, he was always this happy, easygoing kid. Now he’s all high-strung and bitchy.”

“Why?” he asked me.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly.

“Neither do I, but I’m going to find out.” The plane landed and Tish was there to greet us. The back of the SUV was full of all my stuff.

“I got your message and packed up for you,” she said.

“Thanks!” I said sincerely.

“That was very thoughtful of you,” Dad said politely. I sat in back with him while Tish drove us back to Malibu. We drove up to the front of the house and the tension soared, but Dad and I both kept it under wraps. We walked in and things seemed familiar, yet strange. And everything was quiet.

“Robbie! JJ!” Dad shouted, something he usually didn’t do, but there was no response.

“Looks like no one is home,” I observed unnecessarily. I shrugged, put my backpack over my shoulder, and walked up the stairs to my room. I opened the door and stared at it, stunned. There was crap all over the place. A pizza box was on the table with a few slices left uneaten, and one with a big bite out of it. There were books on the table, and papers strewn around. “What the fuck?” I asked of no one in particular. “What the fuck?” I asked more loudly.

I heard feet on the steps and my dad came in and stood next to me. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“I’d like to know that myself,” I said, all pissed off. “Who fucked up my room?” I walked back to the bathroom and closet, and found clothes hanging in there. “Who the fuck moved into my room?”

“I don’t know,” Dad said uncomfortably.

“I didn’t know you guys were going to just give my room away,” I said. “I thought that was the deal, that it would be here for me when I came back to visit.”

“That’s what was supposed to happen,” he said, only he was as pissed off as I was.

We heard footsteps on the stairs, heavy footsteps, and turned to the door just as Cody came in. He looked at us, at the room, and then at us again. “Hey! Welcome home!” he said cheerfully. He gave us both nice hugs, and nice kisses. God, was he a good kisser.

“Any idea what happened to my room?” I asked, trying not to be bitchy. “You bring some boy toy home and let him stay here?”

“JJ was staying over here. He didn’t want to be over in the other house all by himself, so Robbie said he could stay in your room since you weren’t using it,” Cody said nonchalantly, even though he knew this was a big deal.

“You want me to burn his stuff on the beach, or the patio?” I asked my dad.

“Will,” Dad said, trying to calm me down. “Just gather up JJ’s stuff and put it in the guest room, alright.”

“I’ll gather it up, alright,” I said.

“It’s not his fault,” Dad said emphatically.

“I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t we both go downstairs and get back in the car and go stay at the hotel,” I said.

“Because I’m not there,” Cody said, flirting with me.

“You offering me an incentive to stay?” I asked, flirting back with him.

“Enough,” Dad said, pissed off and frustrated.

“I’ll help you get his stuff together and move it,” Cody said to me. It really didn’t take that long. I picked up the garbage, the papers, and the books, and put them into the guest room in a much more organized way than they’d been. Dad and Cody took care of the clothes and other shit. I went up to the upper level and found the bed unmade, so I changed the sheets and got that all tidied up. Tish and Armando, the pool guy, hauled my stuff up and I put away just the things that I needed. The rest of it I stacked in the closet, where it would sit, patiently waiting until the end of the week when I could finally escape from here.

Dad and Cody came in and sat down with me. “I’m sorry about that,” Dad said.

“It’s alright,” I lied. “Thanks for helping me get things all cleaned up.”

“No problem,” Cody said. “I’ve got to run. Got a hot date.”

“You could have one of those just by staying here,” I flirted. He smiled and winked at me, then left us alone.

“I’m going to go unpack,” Dad said, and then he left me as well. I sat there in my room, gazing out at the ocean that I loved so much, trying to enjoy being here. It was an idyllic scene, with the surf crashing off in the distance, and the fire going in the fireplace. I lay down on the couch and drifted off to sleep.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I heard JJ’s shrill voice demand.

I opened my eyes slowly, and saw him standing there with Robbie behind him. “Fuck off.”

“Pop said I could stay over here since you moved out,” JJ asserted.

“Well it’s not his room to give away. It’s my room. You fucking trashed it, and I had to clean up all your shit.”

“Since you weren’t here, JJ came over and stayed here so he wouldn’t be all alone,” Robbie said, jumping into the argument.

I stood up and walked over to them. “If he wants to stay over here, that’s fine. He can stay in your room, or the guest room. Not in my room.”

“If you’re moving out, it’s not your room, now is it?” JJ asked.

“It’s my room as long as Dad says it’s my room, because he owns the house. And he says it’s my room.” I threw that statement mostly at Robbie, to irritate him. It worked. “Really nice thing for you to do, especially after I saved your ass at that board meeting.”

“Very funny,” he said.

“Shall we call another one?” I challenged. He stormed off in a huff. I turned to JJ. “Your shit is in the guest room, more organized than it was before. You come into my room again, I’m going to throw you out that window.”

“Right,” JJ said, but he was a little daunted by my anger.

“And I won’t open it before I do,” I said. I grabbed his arm, squeezing hard enough to make him yelp, spun him around and pushed him out the door and down the short flight of steps. He whined and cried, but I just slammed the door in his face. God, he pissed me off.

I lay back down on my couch and heard loud, deep voices yelling as my dad and Robbie argued, no doubt about me being back here. I called Stef to fill him in on this latest round of events, because I needed someone to vent to, and because I knew he liked to hear all the gossip. We ended our conversation because he had to go eat dinner, which was my cue to go downstairs as well.

It was Sunday, Rosa’s day off, which meant we usually ordered something in, ate out, or ate leftovers. I looked in the fridge and found nothing, so I pushed the button on the intercom and called my dad. “What?” he asked, all pissed off.

“It’s dinner time. There’s no food here. You want me to order pizzas?”

“Fine,” he snapped, and then I heard him yelling again before the intercom went mute. I called Round Table and ordered pizzas. I loved Round Table, but JJ didn’t, which made me smile. I made myself something to drink, set out plates for us to use, and then rummaged around for some chips to snack on while I waited for the pizza. The place was pretty devoid of groceries. I guess Rosa hadn’t been shopping lately.

The pizzas arrived, so I set them out and then buzzed my dad’s room and JJ to let them know. JJ was down first. “Round Table?” he asked with a sneer.

“Yep. I like them.”

“I don’t,” he said.

“I know,” I responded with an evil grin. “You don’t have to eat any. Order your own if you want something different.”

He sat down, giving me a dirty look, and snagged a piece of Pepperoni pizza. We had just started eating when Dad and Robbie came into the room, both of them looking angry. They sat down at the table and started eating. “This pizza sucks,” Robbie said after he took a bite. He was just humoring JJ. He wasn’t all that picky about food.

I got up and took his plate with his pizza on it and threw it away, then moved the box over closer to me. “Then order your own fucking pizza.” I was so not putting up with any shit from him.

“If you’re going to be living here, you need to learn some manners,” he said.

“I’m not the ingrate that slammed the food put in front of him,” I said. “I ordered dinner, paid for it, set it all up, got plates and shit out, and you think it’s polite to come down and bitch about it?”

“It’s crappy pizza,” he said.

“The smart thing for you to do is to stay the fuck out of my way, and to not say shit to me,” I said to him coldly.

He just glared at me. “Can I have some pizza?”

“No. You bitched about it, so now you can starve.” He got up and stormed out of the room, and I heard the garage door open and his Ferrari rev as he took off. “This is fun,” I said to Dad.

“It certainly is.”

“You’re the one who came in here trying to start a fight,” JJ said.

“My advice to you is the same as my advice to Robbie. Stay the fuck out of my way, and don’t say shit to me,” I said.

“Whatever,” he said.

“Are you ready for finals?” Dad asked us.

“I am,” I said. “Tomorrow is English. That’s my toughest class.”

“What about you, JJ?” Dad asked.

“I’m ready,” he said grumpily.

“It’s important that you do well,” Dad said.

“I said I was ready!” JJ snapped. “It’s not like it matters anyway.”

“It matters. Your education matters,” Dad said evenly.

“Skating matters,” JJ said. “School is stupid.”

“We had this talk last week. I told you that if you don’t do well, you don’t get to go to tournaments. It’s that simple.”

“Pop agrees with me,” JJ said smugly. What a little bitch. Now he was going to drive a wedge between Dad and Robbie.

“You’re an obnoxious person,” I said. “You go around and try to make people hate each other.”

“I do not!” JJ objected. Dad gave me a look that said I should shut the fuck up, so I did.

“JJ, I’m dead serious,” Dad said. “You don’t do well on your finals, and you won’t go to Boston next month.”

“You can’t do that!” he said, and stood up as he did. “You can’t ruin my career!”

“If you don’t do well on your finals, you’re not going to Boston,” Dad reiterated firmly.

“Things were a lot better when you two weren’t around,” he said, and stomped out of the room. We didn’t say anything for a few minutes, we just sat there. I realized that if I wouldn’t have come home with Dad, the same thing would have happened; only he’d be sitting here all by himself. This is why he wanted me around.

“Another piece of pizza?” I offered. He nodded his head, and took another piece of pizza.

“I’m supposed to go to DC on the 21^st. You’re not leaving for Paly until the 22^nd,” Dad said. “You can stay at the hotel on the 21^st if you want to avoid all of this.”

“I can take care of myself,” I told him.

“Evidently,” he said with a smile.

 

December 21, 2000

Malibu, CA

Will

“Buenas tardes,” I said to Rosa cheerfully as I strolled into the kitchen. “What’s for dinner?”

“Whatever I make, with you around, I make a lot of it,” she said.

I swallowed hard before broaching the next topic. “I’m moving up to Palo Alto tomorrow after school. I’ll miss you.”

She nodded and looked away, then wiped a tear away. “I will miss you too,” she said, trying to be pleasant, “but I am sure you will visit often.”

“I’m sure,” I said, and then gave her a warm hug. I went into the dining room and sat down. JJ and Robbie joined me shortly. After our blow out on Sunday, we’d all operated pretty much like I’d prescribed. No one really said much to me that wasn’t bullshit small talk, and I didn’t say anything to them that didn’t fall into the same category. They eyed me warily, as if trying to decide whether I was weak without my dad here. They should have known better.

“So tomorrow you move up to Paly,” Robbie said. His voice contained no warmth, and showed no regret that I was leaving.

“Yep,” I said simply.

“I should have asked you before I let JJ move into your room,” he said. JJ gave him a contemptuous look, as if Robbie shouldn’t have even admitted that much. I said nothing. “But since you’ll be gone, it would be nice for him to be over here with us.”

“He’s staying over here now,” I noted. He was pretty much living in the guest room.

“Can’t you let him use your room while you’re gone?” he asked. It would have been so easy to give in to him, but the last time I’d done that, over the party, I’d ended up regretting it. And I was still pissed off at him for not even acknowledging my efforts to heal our rift. He hadn’t said shit about me coming down to Anders-Hayes and not being allowed to see him, and he hadn’t said shit to me about backing him up in the board meeting.

“No,” I said flatly. “I’m sure I’ll be down here quite a bit to see Dad, especially when the weather gets better and I can surf. It’s my room, and I want it here, just like I left it, for when I come back.”

“There will always be a room here for you,” he promised.

“I know that,” I said. I didn’t need him to tell me that. It was my dad’s house. “But it’s my room, and I’m not giving it up, or loaning it out.”

“I thought you would be more reasonable about this,” he groused.

“No, you thought I would be easier about this. You thought that you’d pretend to be nice to me, and I’d give in to you. That’s why you waited to broach this issue until Dad wasn’t here,” I said crisply.

“I’m raising this now because you’re leaving, not because your father isn’t here,” Robbie said in a very irritated tone.

“That’s fine. You asked me, and I said no. Would you pass the salad, please?”

“You are so selfish!” JJ spat at me.

I eyed him coldly. “No, I’m just not doing favors, or giving things up, to people who treat me like shit.”

“I didn’t treat you like shit,” JJ said.

“Well, you did,” I said in a smarmy way, contradicting him. “But you weren’t the one who asked me.” I moved my eyes to Robbie, and then ignored them, focused on eating.

“What did I do to you?” he demanded loudly.

“Don’t yell at me,” I said firmly.

“I wasn’t yelling,” he said more softly.

I ignored them both, and just focused on enjoying the dinner Rosa had made. It was amazing, and clearly she was trying to give me a nice send-off. When I was done, fully bloated, only then did I deign to answer him. “You have had everyone in this family tell you that you’re being a flaming asshole, but you still don’t get it,” I told Robbie. “I’m not sure what more I can say that will have any impact at all, but I’ll try.”

“I don’t need a lecture,” he said.

“Yeah, you do,” I said in a smarmy way. “Even after all that crap that you pulled about Mom and JJ’s birthday, I loved you enough to try and make things right between us. I went down to see you at your office, and found out you’d barred me from the company. Then, when they called a board meeting to toss your ass out, I was the one who stood up for you, and said you deserved a chance.”

“They weren’t going to throw me out,” he said.

“Really? You think that Stef makes idle threats? You really think that? Let’s ask him about that, and see if he was just playing some big game.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“The week after all that happened, a day didn’t go by that Stef and Dad didn’t ask if you’d called me. And every day I’d look at my phone and tell them that you hadn’t.”

“Why would I call you?”

“Because you’re an asshole, and you treated me like shit,” I said. “And real men apologize when they fuck up. Real men fix their mistakes.”

“Whatever,” he said, and sounded like me when I was being a pouty teenager.

“So when you asked me for a favor, to let JJ use my room when I was gone, I said no. You’ve done nothing to show me that you deserve any favors from me, because when I’ve done stuff for you in the past, you just shit on me.” I stood up and leaned over the table, so I clearly had his attention. “I’ve been nice to you so far. I’ve tried to make things good between us. That ends now. I’m done with you. I’m not doing a single thing for you from now on. Don’t bother talking to me, because I won’t be listening. And if the time comes when you realize what a shithead you’ve been, don’t come talk to me unless you’re ready to grovel.” I walked away, and paused to turn before I left the room. “One more thing. The next board meeting, if I’m there, you’d better show some amazing results. Because if it’s up to me, they’ll send your worthless ass packing.”

I went up to my room and called my dad, but he didn’t answer so I left him a message, telling him what happened. I wasn’t whining or bitching, I just didn’t want him to get blindsided when Robbie called. Then I called Stef, and relayed my dinner conversation with Robbie. I couldn’t wait to get up there, to be around people who loved me and cared about me, and who I loved and cared about.

 

 

December 22, 2000

Westwood, CA

Will

“Dude, it’s going to suck without you around next year,” Ryan said at lunch. I’d gone out to the fire road to eat with my friends on this, my last day at Harvard-Westlake.

“I’ll miss you guys,” I said, lying just as he’d done. This was all so much bullshit. They didn’t really want me around, and I really didn’t want to be around. Now we were just going through the motions so we could all still say we were friends. I got up to go and gave Morgan and Shiloh brief hugs, and fist-bumped the guys. I was walking toward my class when I felt something tug at my arm. I turned to find Alistair looking at me.

“Hey,” I said to him pleasantly.

“Hi,” he said shyly. “Got a second?” I nodded, and followed him into the bowels of the library, where no one else was around. “I just wanted to tell you, uh, to thank you, uh, for inviting me over to see you.” He was nervous, and blushing, and stammering. It was adorable.

“You don’t have to thank me. I had a nice time,” I said. “I was kind of disappointed that you never made it back over to see me again.”

“I’m sorry about that,” he said. “It really upset Jeremy that I spent time with you. He’s been pretty high-strung lately. I didn’t want to upset him any more.”

“More high-strung than normal?” I asked. He nodded. “Why?”

“I don’t know. He just says that his coach is all over him about his skating, and that he has to do better.”

“That’s pretty fucked up,” I observed.

“I don’t know how well he did on his finals,” Alistair said. Clearly he was worried about JJ. I was almost jealous that JJ had a friend like him that gave a shit. My friends were all shallow and self-absorbed. “He didn’t study at all.”

“He didn’t study?” I asked, amazed.

“That’s what he told me. I asked him if he wanted to come over and work on stuff with me, but he turned me down. He said he had to skate. He said that’s all that matters, and that school is bullshit.”

“Wow,” I said, even as I digested that statement. “If he bombs them, my dad said he can’t go to the Nationals in Boston. He’s going to freak out about that.”

He gave me a quizzical look. “He says you don’t give a shit about him, but you seem to.”

“It’s hard to care about someone who goes out of his way to piss you off, but yeah, I still care,” I agreed. I let that roil through my mind, and thought about what Dad had said. He’d said that I let the anger cloud my feelings, and then when it faded, I would realize that I still cared about people. He was probably right. I wondered if, when I was done being pissed off at Robbie, if I’d still care about him.

“Take care of yourself,” he said, and walked away quickly, as if he was trying not to show me how upset he was about me leaving. I thought about the people I’d leave behind here, and of the group, the only two that really mattered at this point were Alistair and Rosa. I walked to my next class in a somber mood, a mood that stayed with me until I was finally released.

I walked out to the familiar SUV and hopped in, smiling at Tish. “You all ready to go?”

“I’m all packed up and ready to go,” she said. “I’m going to drive my car up after I drop you off.”

“We could have had it shipped up,” I said.

She shrugged. “I’ll like the time to myself.” We didn’t say anything on the way to the airport; it was like we were both in these intensely introspective moods. She pulled up to the plane and the pilots and ground crew loaded all of my shit, all of my boxes, into the Falcon. I tried to help them, but they just directed me into the plane.

“I’ll see you in a day or two,” I said to Tish. She gave me a nice hug, and then I boarded the plane. I had closed a chapter in my life, and a new one was opening up in front of me. I hoped that this next one would be happier for me.

I’d been so busy this past week, what with getting things organized for my move and studying for finals, that I just paused to enjoy this time, this tranquility. I let my mind wander aimlessly as I stared out the window at the earth so far below me, thinking of nothing and everything. I watched the land rise to meet the plane as we descended, then felt the jarring thud as the Falcon touched down in Palo Alto. The enormity of that suddenly broke through, that I was here, and now it was permanent. In the past, I’d come up to visit. Now, I was coming home.

I bounded down the steps in a great mood, a mood that expanded when I saw Stef waiting to greet me. “You came to get me!” I said, stating the obvious.

“You are quite observant,” he joked. “I wanted to welcome you in person.”

“That was really thoughtful,” I said sincerely, and gave him a really big hug. “I am so glad to be here.”

We sat in the limo and waited while they loaded all my stuff in, then drove off toward Escorial. “I am sorry you had such an unpleasant week.”

“It wasn’t so bad. We just didn’t really say anything to each other until last night, when Robbie wanted me to let JJ move into my room. Can you believe he did that?”

Stef rolled his eyes to humor me as I vented about this stuff all over again. “That just shows how poorly his mind is working these days.”

“Seriously,” I agreed. “If JJ wasn’t such a bitch and hadn’t trashed my room when he was using it before; and if Robbie didn’t treat me like shit, it wouldn’t have been a big deal.”

“Perhaps you will be able to forget how much they annoy you now that you are here,” he said.

“Perhaps,” I agreed, and then smiled. “I’ll probably find someone else to annoy me instead.”

“Undoubtedly,” he said, cracking me up. We got to Escorial and Grand was there to greet me.

“Welcome home,” he said. I gave him a huge hug, one he returned with more fervor than usual.

“Thanks. It’s good to be home.” I made to walk down to my room, when Stef stopped me.

“You are going the wrong way.”

“What?” It was a huge house, but I knew it like the back of my hand.

“We have had some changes over the past few weeks,” Grand said. “Your uncle has taken over managing the winery in Almaden, and he, Cass, and Courtney have moved into the house down there.”

“That’s awesome!” I said. The winery was really cool, and had been resurrected almost from the dead by Roger Burton, a guy who had been with both Stef and Grand. Uncle Ace would do well with it.

“We have decided that since you are now a permanent resident, we would give you more appropriate quarters,” Stef said. They led me down a different hallway to a different room. Stef opened the door for me and stepped aside.

I walked into a room that was not terribly unlike my room in Malibu. It was ultra-modern, a style both Stef and I liked, with many of the same amenities. A king-size waterbed, a fireplace, and a kick ass shower. It was on the ground floor, so it had a door that opened out onto a small patio, a patio that looked out at Palo Alto. I could see Hoover Tower at Stanford looming off in the distance. “This is amazing. This is spectacular!” I said.

“I am glad that you like it,” Stef said. I felt tears flowing out of my eyes, and cursed myself for being emotional. Stef looked at me, concerned, until I smiled.

“I’m sorry. It’s just such a good feeling to be so loved.”

Grand reached up and put his hand on my shoulder. “It is a good feeling, and you are much loved.”