Turning Point Club Box Set

by JA Huss

  “You’re getting this all wrong. I’m trying to help you, Jordan.”

  “Help me do what?” I ask.

  “Help you navigate your way through the… through the personality issues you have, son.”

  I actually laugh. “Personality issues? Is that what you’re calling it? No,” I say, shaking my head. “We’re not gonna talk in code tonight. It’s called bisexual, Dad. I’m bisexual.”

  He puts his hand up and says, “Just wait a minute. That’s not what it was about.”

  “No? Funny. Marie Sara told me that’s exactly what it was about. I’m supposed to like girls, right? Well, newsflash, I do like girls. I just like them with guys.”

  “I’m not judging you, Jordan. I just wanted to make things easier for you than they were for me. What’s wrong with that?”

  And that’s when all the shit Darrel just told me slides into place. That folder is thick with evidence he’s collected. My father’s past. His history.

  And it looks uncomfortably similar to mine.

  “I didn’t judge you when you got involved with those people in LA. I didn’t judge you when you joined that club. I didn’t judge you when you started up this game business. And do you know why I didn’t judge you, Jordan?”

  I swallow. Because I do. Only I don’t want to hear it.

  “That’s right,” he says. “I had those relationships too. I had clubs like that too. I played my own games back in my day.”

  “You killed her,” I say, hurling the accusation with absolute calm. “You killed her, and you killed her family, and then… then what? Did you somehow convince me to buy that house? Is there evidence there? Was that…” Oh, shit. I want to throw up. “Was that house your… club?”

  He glances at my mother again. And now I’m sure she knows we’re in here discussing things. I’m sure she’s hiding in her kitchen. I’m sure she’s pretending she can’t hear this conversation.

  Because she’s been doing it her whole adult life. Pretending that Jack Wells was a pretty good catch.

  I don’t need an answer. Because I already know. In the three seconds since those words came out of my mouth everything fell into place.

  My father had a sex club. Only it wasn’t husbands and wives looking to swing or add a third or fourth. It wasn’t consensual. It was… something sick. Something poisonous. Something that led to Marie Sara being driven up to the Washakie Ten cabin to service a twelve-year-old when she was only a kid herself.

  It was games, all right. It was dark secrets, and dark places, and my mother. Here, in this house, pretending it wasn’t happening.

  I just stand up and say, “Mom. I can’t stay. I just got a call and I…I have to take it. It’s an emergency. But I’ll… I’ll come by next weekend or something, I promise.”

  “Jordan!” she calls after me.

  But my father cuts her off with a sharp, “Go back in the kitchen, Janet,” and follows me to the front door.

  I swing it open, letting it bang hard against the doorstop, and just hop down the front steps towards my car.

  “It’s not what you think,” my father says. “And frankly, some of what you’re saying sounds insane. Just ludicrous.”

  “Is it?” I say, halting my escape so I can turn to face him one last time. “Then tell me what I’m missing.”

  He shakes his head a few times. Standing there, looking down at me from just across the threshold of the doorway, trying to find the words.

  He’s never going to find them.

  There are no words that can excuse what he is.

  “I didn’t have anything to do with you buying that house. I have no idea what possessed you to purchase it.” He stops to stare at me. And for a second I see the dad I thought I knew. The one who taught me how to play t-ball with me in the back yard. The one who showed up for parent-teacher conferences in second grade. The one who took me turkey hunting the fall I turned ten.

  “Where did you go?” I ask him. “What happened to you? How could you do this? To me? To them? How?”

  “I… I don’t know what you’re talking about. Just… Jordan, listen to me. Just… just let it go. Dragging things up from the past rarely fixes things. I know that better than most. But I was desperate, that’s all. I’m sorry. Just move on and forget about them. You got along just fine before they came back. You can do it again. Just—”

  “Wait, what? What did you just say?”

  “I said you got along just fine. You were doing just fine. I’m sorry. I should’ve left well enough alone. I see that now. I just… I didn’t want you to buy that building.”

  “What?”

  “You need to let that place go, Jordan. Just like I did when my partners and I sold it.”

  “What? You and your—”

  Holy fucking shit.

  I did have it wrong. My father wasn’t running a sex club in the mansion.

  He was one of the original owners of Turning Point.

  I just shake my head at him. “I feel sorry for you.” And then movement over his shoulder catches my attention… and there’s my mother, standing in the hallway, wiping her hands on her apron. Her eyes lock onto mine and she frowns.

  My father follows my line of sight, turns, and snaps, “Go back to the kitchen, Janet!”

  She turns away without a word and then he’s talking again.

  “I had to keep them away from you. All of them. Your… your entire future was at stake, Jordan. You knew that as well as I did. That’s why you blamed Ixion.”

  At the mention of Ix’s name I freeze. I lose time. I… I don’t know what happens to me, other than that sick feeling in my gut turns into something even more revolting.

  “You,” I say, looking up at my father and meeting his gaze.

  “I did what I had to. Just like you did.”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “No…”

  “I need you to take over the firm, Jordan. Do you think that my partners will continue my legacy? Do you think I built this empire just to let it fade with my death? No,” he says. “No. You were born for a reason, son. And now it’s time to take your place.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “He was going to turn you in. You would’ve been kicked out of law school. Banned from practicing even before you got your degree. What you did was a felony, Jordan. That’s why you blamed him in the first place. You knew he’d be confused and take the fall. Because you two were tight. You practically groomed him from childhood to be your fall guy. And I know you think you loved him, hell, maybe you think he loved you back. I don’t know. But this was not a forever kind of deal. This was a heat-of-the-moment deal. You knew he would sell you out. The minute he got word that his father disowned him and wrote him out of the will, he would’ve sold. You. Out.”

  “No,” I whisper, shaking my head. “No. Never.”

  I don’t even feel the need to fight about it.

  It just is.

  Never would Ixion ever do to me what I did to him.

  So I turn, and walk away, and don’t look back.

  Because my father isn’t worth the breath it would take to explain how I know that.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I don’t know how I feel about this… this… strange multi-generational story that I have unwittingly become a part of. The circle of deceit, and lust, and game-playing rocks me back on my heels and begs for a solution.

  But what kind of solution?

  The most disturbing thing of this whole day might be that I can’t think straight. Can’t make sense of any of it.

  I am the one who always has the answer. I am the game master. I am the one who controls all the pieces on the chessboard. I am the one who determines the winners and losers.

  And now I find out all these years I’ve been nothing but a player in his sick game.

  I don’t even know what that game is. I don’t want to know what that game is.

  I just want out.

  My phone rings and when I loo
k at the screen it’s Alexander.

  I don’t answer it, not because I don’t want to. I do. I want to tell them everything. I want to tell everyone everything.

  But I’m driving and… I just don’t know how to start that conversation. Because I don’t even know what I’m into.

  I have no fucking clue.

  So I drive over to their house, park on the crowded street a few blocks down, and walk to their building by way of the park, texting him back to let him know I’m on my way.

  When I get up to their floor, the double doors to the penthouse are already open. Augustine is standing there, backlit by the setting sun, frowning.

  “Fuck,” I say, running my hands through my hair.

  “Where have you been? We’ve been looking for you for two days!”

  “Out,” I say.

  “You haven’t been home,” she says, taking my arm and pulling me inside.

  “No,” I say.

  Because that mansion isn’t my home. That mansion was Marie Sara’s home. Her and her husband, Chad Thompson. And her teen boy, my half-brother, Chris. And her little girl, Rylee.

  And little baby Abbey.

  And now, because of my father, they are all dead.

  And for some sick, sick reason… I bought that house and now I live in it.

  Why the fuck did I buy that house?

  How did I even hear about it? Law? Someone else?

  No… no, it was an email. It was just a stupid LuxuryHouseHunt.com email. We have a home you might be interested in…

  “Jordan!” Augustine snaps.

  “What?” I say, snapping out of my introspection.

  “Are you even hearing me? Come inside.”

  I do, I follow her inside and focus on Alexander, standing in front of the window that overlooks the park and the downtown skyline.

  “You have to let us explain,” he says, just as I hear the definitive click of the doors closing.

  “Dude, I don’t even know where to start with this shit. I mean…”

  “It wasn’t our fault,” Augustine says. “We had to.”

  “Wait. What?” And that’s when the feeling comes back. That heavy stone in the pit of my stomach.

  “We were going to get that building for you,” Alexander says. “It was just gonna take some time. And that’s why we needed the three weeks, OK? It isn’t what it looks like, I swear, it isn’t.” His words are spilling out too fast as he paces back and forth across the living room space.

  “We were just playing along, Jordan,” Augustine says. “We were… we had a plan. And I know it looks bad now, but if you let us explain, you’ll see we had no choice. We had to.”

  “What. The fuck. Are you talking about?”

  But I already know. Have known this whole time, haven’t I?

  They came looking for me only after I brought Ixion home.

  “No,” I say, shaking my head at them. “No.”

  But it’s a just a reflex to help me process. Or wishful thinking. Or one last attempt to make the food go down and pretend none of this is happening.

  “You don’t own that building, do you?”

  “You have to let us explain,” Augustine says.

  “DO YOU OWN THAT BUILDING?” I scream it.

  “He made us, Jordan. You don’t understand. He made us play along and—”

  “He made you… he made you… fuck me? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Listen,” Alexander says.

  “No, you fucking listen! Who owns that building?”

  Augustine just shakes her head.

  “My father, he owns it, doesn’t he? You were never going to sell it to me, were you? This whole thing is just another part of his sick game. Did he pay you? Did you sit up at night, all those months while I was ignoring you, and plot how to make me believe you… you… fucking loved me?”

  “Jordan,” Augustine says. “You have to let us explain. We—”

  “Fuck you,” I say. “Just fuck you both.”

  I have no house. I can’t go back to that house.

  I have no job. I won’t go back to that job.

  I have no family. Probably never did. I was just a pawn in some sick game I don’t even understand and never want to.

  I never want to know what they were planning for me.

  Ever.

  So I go to the only person I have left.

  Ixion opens the door to the penthouse he shares with Evangeline overlooking the 16th Street Mall, frowning.

  “Dude,” he says.

  But I just step forward into the apartment, unable to meet Evangeline’s obviously concerned gaze, and stop in front of the window. Press my hands and forehead against the glass, and say, “Who the fuck am I?”

  Because I don’t know anymore.

  I tell them the whole story. I don’t leave a single thing out. I don’t keep a single secret locked up inside me.

  I tell. The whole. Story.

  At some point I realize I left that folder of evidence on the coffee table in my parents’ living room. But it doesn’t matter. It was just copies Darrel gave me.

  And when I’m done talking I turn around and face them. “I quit,” I say. “I quit. Because a very smart woman once told me sometimes the only way to win the game is to quit the game. So I just… quit.”

  I walk over to their couch, slump down against the cushions, and just stare at the ceiling as they talk, or ask me questions, or whatever.

  Because I check out.

  The one person you never want on your side is the person who can’t accept themselves for who they are. The one who was like you, but pretends he isn’t.

  It’s the smoker who quit and then berates everyone else about smoking.

  It’s the newly converted vegan who turns their nose up at your burger.

  It’s the alcoholic who thinks they have it under control, but you don’t.

  The one person you never want on your side is the hypocrite.

  And the hypocrite is me.

  At some point, Chella and Smith show up. And Chella sits on the couch next to me and just folds me into her arms. She just hugs me.

  I don’t even know how long we stay like that, but eventually she’s leading me down to her car in the closest parking garage, and then we’re at her house down on Little Raven Street. And I’m walked up to their second-floor guest room and put to bed.

  I think I sleep, but I’m not sure.

  I think I wake up, but I’m not sure about that either.

  I think I’m just… existing.

  I could deal with having a father who disappoints. I think most men have that father these days. I think I could even deal with the fact that I’m just like him. That’s pretty common too. The whole apple and the tree thing, right?

  But what I cannot deal with is Ixion.

  How can he even look at me now that he knows it really was all my fault?

  Ixion appears in my bedroom one day.

  I have no idea how long I’ve been here at Smith and Chella’s house. Days, at least. Maybe even longer. Chella brings me meals. I sometimes eat them. Smith brings me alcohol. I don’t drink it, but he does. He turns a chair to the window and sits there, sipping expensive Scotch, looking out at the view of Coors Field with his back to me, and talks.

  Smith talks about his parents. About his childhood up in Aspen. His whole story is fucked up and sorta magical at the same time. He talks about the Club too. Why he agreed to sell it, though he says he had no idea who bought it and neither did Bric or Quin. He talks about his new career saving at-risk teens using boxing as the vehicle. He talks about his stupid dogs, and Chella’s tea room, and the baby.

  I think he just talks to like… put it all in perspective. Help me do the same.

  But Smith has had years to decipher the meaning of his life. Over a decade since his parents died and left him all their money. And I’m just too new at this to fully appreciate it yet.

  I don’t miss the fact that he and Ixion are sort of
the same guy with similar stories. I don’t think my father killed Smith’s parents, but at this point, who the fuck knows?

  Anyway, Ixion throws the curtains aside, letting the sunshine hit me in the face. I turn away, like it stings. And it does. The light is so much harder to deal with than the night.

  He says, “I have news for you. I mean, I’m totally OK with you checking out for a while. Hell, I did it for eight years so I’m no one to judge.”

  I huff at that. Because he’s not a hypocrite. Never was.

  “But you should know your dad died yesterday morning.”

  “What?” I say, turning over to look at him.

  “Yeah, massive heart attack, I think. I don’t have any details. Your mom called me looking for you. I didn’t tell her where you were and I suppose she got tired of playing my game, because she finally just told me. So…” Ixion shrugs with his hands. “He’s dead.”

  I sit up in bed. “He’s dead?”

  Ixion nods. “I’m sorry.”

  “And my mom?” I ask. “Do you know where she is?”

  He shakes his head. “No. Home, maybe? You should try there first.” And then he points to a suit hanging on the bathroom door. “Smith left you a suit. You should get up now, Jordan. Because…” He shrugs again. “It’s over.”

  He leaves without further comment.

  I spy my phone on the bedside table and reach for it. Find the battery dead. And decide to get up.

  She isn’t at home. No one is. I go inside to look around, thinking maybe she’s just hiding in her bedroom being sad or something, but she isn’t. No one’s home.

  And she’s not at the hospital, even though I called up Lucinda and asked her to check for me. She left, from what Lucinda can deduce, right after my father died and didn’t come back.

  So the really sad thing that hits me now is… I don’t know her well enough to think of another place she’d go. I have no idea where she’d go.

  So I go to work. I park my car in the garage and walk over to the building, and take the elevator up and enter to complete and utter chaos.

  Well, what did I expect? The founding partner just died.