Lance nodded. “But disgusting. Don’t forget that.”
I made an effort to drag the conversation off such serious topics after that, and Caden gleefully helped. But as the clock struck midnight and the traditional “Auld Lang Syne” nonsense rolled around, I couldn’t help but think that new acquaintances were something special, too.
I spent New Year’s Day packing and visiting with my grandparents. Apparently they customarily passed the day calling on friends, but I had to wonder. If they called on friends, and if their friends similarly called on each other, how did they find anyone at home to receive visitors? I didn’t bring this up. Some things were best left to puzzle out alone.
Before I left, my grandparents sat me down to talk. “We need to discuss money, dear.”
Grandpa nodded. “It’s a subject that makes a lot of people uncomfortable, I’ve noticed, but that doesn’t make it any less important. Your grandmother and I established trust funds for you and your brother when you were born, and there’ll be more for you when we’re gone.”
I made a noise. Suddenly I couldn’t think about that.
Grandma patted my hand. “I know, dear. It’s not my favorite subject, either, but if you think about it, it’s been there since the beginning. We’ve had a good run, your grandfather and I, and with a little luck and proper healthcare, we’ll have a number of good years ahead of us before we start drooling into our oatmeal.”
“We wanted you to know about this, not to depress you.” Grandpa chuckled. “The point is, we don’t want you and Geoff to worry about money later in life. Our lawyer will know how to reach you, even if it’s at your parents’ house.”
“I… thank you. I hardly know what to say.” I didn’t think Hallmark made a card for your loaded grandparents promising to set you up for life with their deaths. Awkward.
“Now, how are you set for school?” Grandma said.
This I could handle. “I’m doing very well as far as that goes. I’m on a full-ride scholarship, so it’s basically living expenses and spending money. Did I mention the scholarship? I think I mentioned the scholarship. I’ve been in a constant state of overwhelm this entire trip, so I can’t remember who I told what to.”
“What about your car? Is it reliable?” Grandpa said.
I laughed. “It’s a Civic. So long as I maintain it, it will never die. Geoff got the new-to-him used car when he graduated.”
“Well, just in case, here’s a credit card for emergencies, dear.” I looked at the card Grandma handed me. It was a copy of their Amex Black, the Centurion Card. Amex, the one card no merchant took. Bad, Remy, bad. Don’t be ungrateful. “We know Steven’s your father, but we also know he can be difficult. If he cuts you off because of this feud you’ve had since October, use it and call us. We’re not going to let you leave that school that’s made you so happy. Of course, if it comes to it, you can always transfer to the University of Chicago or anyplace else you need to. Education’s too important to let your father’s temper get in the way of it.”
“Wow. This is all so much. I hardly know what to say. But thank you.” They overwhelmed me with their generosity, but they also knew the score. It wasn’t my fault I’d been a stranger. “Tomorrow will be… interesting. I’m so glad I had this time with you to buffer the ulcer I’m sure to develop.”
“You let us deal with our daughter and her husband. I’ll call her to let her know you’ve been with us this whole time and that you’ll be home tomorrow afternoon. By the time I’m done, she won’t know what hit her. They don’t call it Jewish guilt for nothing, dear. I can play her like a violin.”
I’m pretty sure Grandpa’s eyes were glistening. “You must come back.”
“Every time I can, Grandpa.” And now I knew where I’d spend every break in school I had.
PENGUINS AND polar bears would’ve found the atmosphere at my parents’ house congenial when I returned, but that was okay. I was the Ice Princess, right? I found it all too easy to slide back into my previous role of sullen teen, despite my talk with my grandparents. I admitted, at least to myself, that my parents and brother—him most of all—had wounded me terribly that fall, and I froze them out in response. I was surprised I didn’t see frost on the walls. I spent the first week home sculling at Cap City, alone or in a double with Lodestone, or pointedly ignoring my family. Earbuds were truly a miracle of modern design.
Dad brought it all to a head after I’d been home for almost a week.
“I’m amazed at how long you can hold a grudge, Jeremy.”
I felt Geoff watching from the door out of the kitchen. Mom lurked somewhere on the margins. Grandma must’ve done a number on her, because she lived on eggshells where I was concerned.
I threw the stack of plates in my hands on the floor. Hard. It was on. “And I’m amazed at how badly you can misjudge a relationship, most of which is conducted far away from your gaze. Tell me, where and when did you get your data about Michael and me? The summer before school started? Michael and I spent it rowing. I didn’t see you at the boathouse.
“Or Geoff? That’s rich. His girlfriend keeps his balls in a jar on her dresser, to say nothing of the fact that he left for school a month after I did. He knows nothing about how my boyfriend and I interact. If you’re going to bitch me out, you’d better include his codependency issues or face the fact that you’re nothing but homophobes despite your protestations to the contrary.”
Dead silence.
Oh my God. They were homophobes despite their liberal protestations to the contrary and couldn’t cop to it.
“That’s it, isn’t it? You’re treating me differently because my relationship’s with another man.” Suspecting it was one thing, knowing the truth of it was something else, and I’d had no idea.
Dad gritted his teeth in a way I found wholly irritating. “That’s the problem, Jeremy. He’s not a man. He’s legally a minor.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Nothing about our relationship changed the day I turned eighteen.”
“Yes, your relationship to Michael did change. I wish it hadn’t, but the Brennan trial taught us that.” Mom looked worried.
I wanted to throw up. “Did either of you bother talking to Detective Nakimoto? To the lawyers?”
“No, just to the Castelreighs.” My dad looked like a thunderstorm.
“I will ruin them.”
The silence crashed around us.
Mom looked like she needed a Xanax. “What exactly do you mean?”
“Beware the vengeance of a patient man, Mom.” I glared at her like a basilisk. “That’s all I’m saying.”
Dad pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jeremy….”
“No, Dad. I’ve had it with every goddamn one of you. Everything was fine before I turned eighteen. Then suddenly I’m a threat to Michael’s tender years. Have they actually met their son? Have you? This is unfuckingbelievable. How much of this is a smokescreen for fears about HIV, do you think?”
Dad didn’t answer right away. “I’m not sure I can answer that, and before you explode—again—I’m not bullshitting you. I truly hadn’t considered that.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me in the least, Jeremy.” Mom shook her head slowly. “The Castelreighs, especially Michael’s mother, can be… different… where health issues are concerned. She knows I’m a drug rep, so you can imagine what she thinks I do for a living. She and I got into it one day about vaccinations, of all things. It’s a thoroughly academic topic, since Michael’s far beyond needing childhood immunizations, but if she’s not an antivaxxer, she’s the next best thing. AIDS-phobic? I’m not a gambling woman, but I don’t think I’d lose money on this one.”
That was just ducky. And Michael hadn’t said a thing. I wondered if he even knew? How could he not know his parents were barking mad? But that certainly explained why they turned crazypants on finding his Truvada. Crazypantser?
It was January, it was cold as fuck outside, and dark on top of it. “I’m out of here. I’ll be b
ack later.”
“Where are you going? You can’t run off like this.” Dad looked outraged. Welcome to the club, old man.
“Sure I can.”
I took the stairs up to my room three at a time. I had so much old rowing kit here, there had to be something I could wear, and I wouldn’t be cold very long once I started sculling.
After I’d escaped, I pulled over and texted Lodestone.
R: Sculling. It’s that or kill the fam. Just FYI.
He replied a few minutes later, so I pulled over again.
L: Want company?
R: Sure. No therapy tho. See U at Cap City.
As I drove on, I thought about my grandparents’ advice about angry teenagers. I needed to calm down and approach all of this rationally, if only for Michael’s sake. When I returned to my parents’ house, I resolved to stop stomping around and start being the passionate young man with righteous arguments that my grandmother told me to be.
I HAD just finished dressing in a pair of comfy sweats and a new Head of the Charles tee shirt when Geoff—I didn’t intend to call him Goff, not for a long time, maybe not ever again—knocked on my bedroom door.
“So I thought about what you said.”
“Which time?” I sat on my bed and rolled sweat socks up my feet.
“Boston.” He pulled out my desk chair and sat down. Sure, Geoff. Have a seat.
“You thought about it? Or did Laurel make you?” I knew the difference by now.
Geoff glared at me. I saw venom in his eyes, something I’d never seen before. “Sometimes I really hate you.”
“I can live with that. Can you?” I used a calm, flat tone I knew he hated. “And you didn’t answer my question.”
“Laurel.”
I didn’t smirk at him. I didn’t have to. “And?”
“She sat me down and reminded me how it went back in July when we visited campus. You were right. We matched our schedules as closely as possible.”
I stared at him. I felt the steel crawling up my spine. I had a boyfriend whom I loved to protect. Magnanimous in victory? Not hardly, not when the damage had been done to Michael, to me.
“And?”
“God damn you! What more do you want?”
Geoff stood up abruptly, stomping off to his bedroom, stopping at the bathroom door.
“I want what you’re not telling me.” I stood up, too.
My brother stared at me, chest heaving. He was livid. “Laurel’s furious. She’s barely spoken to me since then. Since the middle of October, Remy! We haven’t seen each other at all since we’ve been home. This is your fault, and you’d better fix it.”
“My fault? I think not.” I was up and in his face in a second, my teeth bared. “You can’t pin this on me and you know it. Don’t you dare project your own guilt onto me. If your girlfriend’s pissed at you, you’d better be prepared to grovel. You backed our parents against me, you hypocrite, and you have to live with that.”
Geoff looked like he was about to hit me.
“Go for it. Gimme your best shot.”
Then he swung.
I danced sideways and grabbed his fist, spinning him around. I pulled his arm up behind him and then shoved him into the wall.
“You’ve been out of football for a year, and you’re soft. Meanwhile, I’m still training. Actually, I’m being eyed by USRowing for the national team, so chew on that for a while,” I hissed in his ear. “You and the people who spawned us? Y’all made my boyfriend cry. That’s not suave.”
Then I pulled his arm higher up his back.
“Dammit, that hurts! Let me go.”
“If I pull your arm high enough, something will break. Or you’ll dislocate your shoulder. I can’t remember which.”
Then my bedroom door flew open. “Jeremy? Geoffrey! What’s the meaning of this?” Dad demanded. Mom was close behind him, her mouth an O of horror.
I turned Geoff around and shoved him at Dad. “The next time your oldest son decides to take a swing at me, make sure he’s physically up to the challenge. If this happens again, I’ll damage more than his pride.”
“Geoffrey?” Mom said.
Geoff sighed, glaring at me again. “Yeah, I tried to hit him. I don’t feel like going into it right now.”
“Fighting in our home is unacceptable, and I don’t care who started it.” Dad looked furious, and I couldn’t blame him.
“I’m sorry, Dad. Mom, I apologize for getting into a fight with my brother under your roof. This is obviously much more serious than our childhood squabbles, if only because we have men’s bodies and strength now,” I said as sincerely as I could. “Geoff and I were rehashing something that happened between us right after Head of the Charles, something we let fester longer than we should’ve. Geoff, I’m still very hurt and angry about what you said, both then and tonight, but we need to settle this like adults, not street brawlers. Right now, I think you need to call Laurel. Your apologies should start there, but that’s only my opinion.” I swept them all with a hard look. “That the three of you have upset Michael as much as you have will take me a long time to move past, but I’m a lot angrier about that than I realized, and that’s something I need to work on before revisiting the subject.”
The three of them stared at me until it unsettled me. “What?”
“Thank you, Jeremy. I appreciate what you said. That showed a lot of insight and maturity. Yes, we’re going to have to discuss this, but I think you’re right—not right now.” Dad exchanged a look with Mom, but hell if I knew what it meant.
Mom looked at Geoff and at me. “Are you boys all right? Really?”
“No, but we will be.” Geoff sighed. “I think you’re wrong, Remy. Right now, my priority is to apologize to you. Will you excuse us?” he said to our parents.
Mom and Dad looked at us one more time and then left my room, albeit reluctantly, as if they thought fisticuffs would break out again the moment they left us alone.
“We’ll be okay.” I glanced at Geoff.
He sighed again. “I promise, no more beatings. My ego can’t take it.”
Once the door shut behind our parents, Geoff turned and looked at me. “You’re not going to make this easy on me, are you?”
“Geoff, I spent this fall bereft. My own twin turned on me. It was a terrible time. Mom and Dad I can take or leave, you know that. But you? That hurt.” I put all my cards on the table. “I need to know that you’re on my side, that you have my back. I don’t know what happened, and maybe it didn’t matter, but never let it happen again.”
As I spoke, Geoff hung his head. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I… I worry about you. Between the HIV and what felt like a major change in your personality, I got scared. You seemed like you’d junked a major part of who you are to be with Michael, and I didn’t recognize you anymore.”
“And this fall didn’t teach you otherwise?” I said dryly.
He laughed. “That’s about what Laurel said. Something along the lines of ‘You were worried about him going soft? He cut you off like a gangrenous toe and you’re freaking out. Who’s soft, now?’”
“Ouch.”
“I know, but she didn’t stop there. ‘You dared to question whether or not his relationship with Michael was healthy and real, and then he kicked you in the teeth before booting you out of his life. What did you think would happen? Michael’s not a bad influence. He’s the best thing that ever happened to your brother.’ It went downhill from there, actually.” Geoff looked miserable.
“Downhill? How?” I knew Laurel was the stronger of the two of them, but wow.
“There’s no point in repeating it. I was wrong, and she made sure I knew it.” He shook his head. “Look, I said some things I shouldn’t have, and I was wrong, Remy. I’m sorry.”
“Apology conditionally accepted.” Geoff met my eyes. He was about to speak, but I shook my head. “For myself, I’ll get over it, but Michael’s had a shitty fall. The three of you have a lot to do to fix that. You want
my forgiveness? Make peace with my boyfriend. He may come across as resilient, but in some ways he’s quite fragile, and you in particular dragged him into the middle instead of contacting me directly.”
Geoff nodded slowly. “Understood. I’ll call him tomorrow.”
“I hope his parents let him out of solitary.”
“That poor guy.” Geoff hesitated. “Will you text Laurel to let her know we’ve made up? I don’t know if she’ll believe me.”
I frowned. “It’s gotten that bad?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Shit. You… you’re not going to break up, are you?”
Geoff bit his lip. “I really hope not.”
I did the only thing I could. I engulfed him in the biggest hug I had. “That can’t happen. You two are supposed to be together for the rest of your lives.”
“Thanks, Remy.” No, his eyes weren’t suspiciously wet or anything. “So… will you text her?”
I whipped out my phone and fired off a text, hoping that Geoff’s brother interceding would speak for itself. She called me back within a minute.
“Yes, Laurel. It’s really me. We’re speaking, we’ve made up, it’s beautiful…. No, he still has to grovel to Michael, but give the man a break. It’s been a lot for one night. … I’m worried about you two. … Michael may have to wait a few days. His parents are insane, or at least his mom is. They found his Truvada.” I actually had to hold the phone away from my ear, she screeched so loudly. “No, my boy’s on lockdown. Took all electronics. I had to send him a burner phone so he wasn’t cut off from the world. … Right. Geoff’ll see you soon.”
“Get out of here.” I said to Geoff. “I’d apologize to Mom and Dad on the way out. I think we’re both in trouble.” I thought about it. “Actually, maybe you should ask if you can go see Laurel.”
Geoff laughed. “You think we’re grounded?”
“You tried to punch me, and they’re paying for school. Let’s be cautious.”
“Just like old times.” He grinned at me.
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t sneak out the window.”
“Can I borrow your car? Mine’s in San Diego.”
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air Page 19
