by T V Hartwell
When Kirby hesitated for a moment, Myla pressed. “What? What is it? Tell me. You know I’ve got your back. Talk to me,” she said with concern in her voice as she walked up to him and placed her hands on his shoulders and leaned down to face him at close range.
Kirby kept his head down as he folded his arms and sighed once again. Then he looked up at his cousin with teary eyes. “I’m in love with a dude, Myla.”
* * *
Chapter Thirty-Five
In the aftermath of his dustup with Kirby, Jake began to develop an even tighter bond with Will. He had other friends that he’d known longer, since prep school, but those were friends that he mutually shared with Kirby. Since they would typically get together as a group, Jake started to hang with them less to avoid having to interact with Kirby. So instead of joining that group for their annual New Year’s Eve rendezvous, he’d decided to usher in 2011 with Will and his fiancée, Kerry, at a house party being thrown by a mutual friend from their Stanford days.
Jake hadn’t seen a number of the people at the party since before his wedding cancellation and it gave him a chance to catch up. When he arrived alone just before eleven in the evening, he was greeted warmly, receiving flirtatious hugs from girls and bear hugs and high fives from the guys. “Jake, how have you been, man?” and “What’s the scoop, bro?” were common refrains as different people commandeered him for conversation and a good laugh, reminiscing about old times in college, talking future plans, and trading gossip. “I can only imagine what you guys must be saying about me when I’m not around,” Jake joked as he huddled with three fraternity brothers off to a corner with beers in hand.
Knowing to what Jake was referring, one of them replied, “Oh, don’t worry about it, bro. We’ve got your back. Some say you got cold feet, but to be honest, I just think you finally came to your senses. Who needs marriage at your age anyway? Live a little. There’s too much pussy to be had still.”
“Hear, hear,” the other two guys in the circle said before they all raised their beer bottles in the air to clink them together.
Jake felt a sense of relief to be around friends who were supportive, at least to his face. But then the conversation turned awkward when they started bantering about a fraternity brother who had come out as gay and developed a docu-series about it on YouTube, generating thousands of hits and followers. Apparently, this person had stated in one of his videos that there were other guys in the fraternity he believed to be gay and closeted during college and that he hoped they’d find the strength to come out at some point too. Jake, of course, knew the guy and had suspected along with others that he might’ve been gay, so he wasn’t terribly surprised upon hearing this, but the topic made him uncomfortable nevertheless. He chuckled along somewhat nervously as the guys jokingly began to guess who else might’ve been a closet case during college. Although none would’ve suspected Jake, the chief stud among them during college, the conversation hit a little too close to home, and Jake thought of a way to tactfully slip away. “Have you guys seen Will?” he asked abruptly.
“Yeah, he’s here,” one answered. “I think he’s outside on the deck with Kerry and some other folks.”
“Okay, I’m going to go find them. I haven’t seen them yet,” he said, as he stepped away.
Jake made his way through the crowd of nearly a hundred people, stopping to say hello and exchange words with a few more folks he recognized, including, Lyle Spiegelman, the owner of the swanky, contemporary style beach house which sat on The Strand in Manhattan Beach. A classmate and fellow fraternity brother, Lyle, like so many other famous Stanford alums, had left college before completing his degree to launch a tech start-up that now had a market valuation of more than a billion dollars and was about to go public with an IPO scheduled for shortly after the New Year.
“Jake, hey, buddy, good to see you,” Lyle said, interrupting a conversation he was having to grab and shake Jake’s hand then pulling him in for a hug.
“Lyle, Happy New Year! This is quite the pad, man.”
“Yeah I just closed on it not that long ago . . . a little Christmas present to myself. You know, I thought I’d celebrate New Year’s and turn this into a little house warming party at the same time.”
“Not bad. What did you do, take out a loan against the billions in cash and stock you’re about to be worth after your IPO?”
“Something like that,” Lyle said with a chuckle. “Hey, by the way, sorry about not using your firm to do the IPO deal.”
“Hey, no worries.”
“One of our investors insisted we use Latham. I guess he has a long history with them, but my team and I were really impressed with Mike Wallace and this chick he’d had with him when they came to present to us. I think her name was Janice—”
“Julie Pate,” Jake interjected. “Yeah, I work with both of them very closely.”
“Oh yeah? That Julie chick was pretty hot. Super smart too, really knows her stuff, but those legs and that height, wow.”
“Yep, I know all about it,” Jake said, tongue in cheek.
After Lyle introduced Jake to the two people with whom he was speaking before he and Jake caught each other’s eye, a few polite words were exchanged and then Jake continued on his journey to connect with Will and Kerry, eventually finding them outside on the large deck overlooking The Strand and the beach.
“There you guys are,” he said as he walked toward them.
“Yeah, we’re staking out our spot to catch the fireworks,” Will said as he and Jake shook hands and hugged.
“Fireworks? What fireworks?” Jake asked as he turned to hug Kerry too.
“Hi, Jakey poo,” Kerry said holding on to him affectionately. Since his breakup with Amanda, he and Kerry had started to get along a little better.
“Lyle has paid for us to have our own little fireworks show to celebrate the New Year. See that barge out there in the ocean?”
“Oh my God. No way,” Jake said.
“Yes, way,” Will retorted with a grin. “I work for him, so I’m starting to get used to his extravagant ways. This is nothing in comparison to the Christmas party cruise to Catalina Island.”
“It’s amazing that his investors haven’t dinged him for his spending habits, especially considering that you’re not even profitable yet.”
“Yeah, but the market’s very bullish on us and our product, so people are willing to throw money at us anyway. Did you hear that because there’s such huge interest and demand among private equity firms and mutual funds that the pre-IPO placement price is projected to be more than $30 a share?”
“That’s crazy. So what will the actual IPO price be, like, $50 a share?”
“That would be insane, but probably not impossible. Why should I care, anyway? Since I wasn’t part of the founding team of employees, I’m one of the peons who won’t share in the spoils. Had I left college when Lyle did and joined him when he first got started, working out of his apartment, it would be a different story.”
“Yeah, I think we’re all regretting that now. But it seemed a bit too risky and uncertain at the time. My parents would’ve freaked had I dropped out of Stanford to help a classmate launch a start-up. That takes guts and confidence. Being an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart.”
“That’s for sure. And fainthearted Lyle is not. He’s a madman who has no fear. That’s why he’s so freaking successful and was able to convince all of those early stage investors to give him over a half billion in venture funding.”
“So I here there’s a new girl in your life,” Kerry said, cutting in.
Jake looked at Will knowingly with a smirk on his face. “Dude, why’d you say anything? I told you it’s not serious.”
Will smirked back, “Not serious? You brought her home to meet your family on Thanksgiving for God’s sake.”
“You did? Oh my God,” Kerry screeched. “Who is she? You guys work together?”
Jake sighed, closed his eyes, and shook his head with a degree o
f embarrassment before answering, “Yes, we work together, but we’re just friends.”
Will snickered, having heard more of the details about this “friendship” in private conversation with Jake, but he kept quiet.
“Just friends. I’ve heard that one before,” Kerry said with a roll of the eyes. “What’s she like?”
“She’s older,” Will blurted as Jake gave him the death stare.
“Really? How old?” Kerry asked with piqued interest.
“She’s thirty-three,” Jake answered.
“She’s got seven years on him. Dude, that’s so gnarly. Does that technically make her a cougar?” Will said with a chuckle, clearly enjoying ribbing his buddy and making him sweat a little.
Kerry laughed at the dynamic evident between Will and Jake before saying, “You know, I actually can see you dating an older woman.”
“Really? Why?”
Kerry pondered her words for a moment and then went for the dagger. “You always did seem to have a mommy complex,” she said with a laugh and then covered her mouth bashfully as Jake turned his death stare on her.
Fuck you, he said in his head, rolling his eyes before taking a sip of his beer.
“No, seriously, I’m kidding, Jake. Don’t be mad. Are you mad?”
“No, I’m not mad,” he said in nonchalant fashion, all too familiar with Kerry and her way of pushing people’s buttons.
“Why didn’t you bring her? I’d love to meet her.”
“She’s back in Jersey for the holidays to visit her family. That’s where she’s from.”
“Oh . . . how nice.”
“Not really,” Will said. “Have you been to New Jersey?”
Kerry simply ignored Will’s comment as she continued to speak to Jake. “Well, it looks like you and Amanda are both moving on with your lives.”
“Have you spoken to her recently?” Jake asked, curious.
“No, I haven’t spoken to her since September. I tried reaching out to her a couple of times since, but I didn’t hear back. I think she’s lumped me in with the Jake camp.”
“What?” Will said, incredulous while Jake just smirked.
“Well, yeah. I mean . . . I think two camps have clearly formed since your breakup. There’s Amanda’s camp, and they all hate you, but I’m sure you know that by now, and then there’s yours. And since you and Will are like best friends, I don’t think she wants to speak to me anymore. I doubt that she’ll even come to our wedding now.”
“Hmmm,” Jake uttered contemplatively as he continued to nurse his beer.
“Our little wedding would probably be beneath her anyway. She’s like becoming this big celebrity now.”
“Oh, yeah,” Will said as if he knew where Kerry was going with this and had forgotten to mention it to Jake himself.
“What do you mean?” Jake asked.
“Well, you know who she’s dating, right?”
“No,” Jake said flatly.
“She’s dating that guy she’d dated before . . . when you two had broken up before you got engaged. What’s his name . . . the producer guy?”
“Adam Weinstock?”
“Yes! That’s it. Adam Weinstock. He has a new film out. In fact, we went to see it on Christmas Day. Mr. Henry’s Book Club. Good film. Creepy and sad, but really good. I think it even got nominated for a Golden Globe Award recently. Tom Field is the lead and he—”
“How do you know they’re dating?” Jake asked, cutting her off as she nattered on about the movie.
“Where have you been, under a rock? They’ve been all over the news, entertainment news that is, making appearances together in New York and LA and going to movie premieres and being photographed by the paparazzi every time they step out and go anywhere. And Amanda looks different. I don’t know exactly what she’s done. I can’t imagine she’d have plastic surgery at her age, but she looks like she had some sort of makeover or facelift. Seriously, you didn’t know about any of this?”
Jake frowned, feeling confused, caught off guard, and too tongue-tied to offer up a response.
“You should check it out. Just do a Google search,” Kerry added.
“It looks kind of suspicious to me,” Will said. “Didn’t you tell me that he was trying to make a move on her right before your wedding?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jake said dismissively.
“I don’t know. It seems kind of fishy. You think that might’ve had anything to do with—”
“Will, I broke up with her, remember?” Jake said sharply, cutting him off.
Seeing that Jake appeared agitated, Will and Kerry both just stared at him for a moment as Jake did his best to maintain his cool and composure. And then Will finally spoke up to ask him, “What are you thinking?”
“Nothing,” Jake said, trying to shrug off the surprising and unexpected news as if to show he wasn’t bothered or affected by it, but deep down he felt as though he’d been sideswiped. “It’s just interesting. That’s all. Very interesting,” he continued, before changing the subject. “So who do you have your money down on to win the BCS Championship, the Ducks or Auburn?”
* * *
Chapter Thirty-Six
Jake, Will, Kerry, and some other friends had left the party shortly after three in the morning New Year’s Day. Feeling hungry and craving breakfast, some of them wanted to find a twenty-four-hour diner to grab a bite to eat, but Jake, who’d driven himself to the party alone, decided not to join them. He’d told them that he was feeling tired and wanted to hit the sack, but in actuality was on his way for a hookup with someone he’d been chatting with through a dating app earlier, before he’d left for the New Year’s Eve party.
Later on New Year’s Day as he chilled at home alone watching college football, he recalled his conversation with Will and Kerry about Amanda, having temporarily pushed it out of his mind. Partying and drinking into the wee hours along with a random, early morning hookup—something he’d done for the first time using a dating app—had served as good enough distractions.
He hopped up from the new sofa he’d recently bought, along with some other furnishings for his apartment, and went to grab his laptop. After retrieving it, he returned to the sofa and began Googling Adam Weinstock. Initially, he saw and perused articles about Adam’s new film and its Golden Globe nomination for best picture in the drama category. He eventually entered Amanda’s name in the search field along with Adam’s and lo and behold a whole new slew of articles and photos appeared, mostly from celebrity gossip blog sites. Jake froze as he stared hard at a photo of Amanda and Adam along with Lucy and her beau Cass at the New York premiere of Adam’s film. Lucy and Cass make a pretty good-looking couple, he thought, having not seen the two of them together before. “Would’ve been cool to meet you, Cass, but oh well,” Jake said looking at him in the photo and realizing that he and Cass likely would have gotten to know each other well in light of Amanda and Lucy’s closeness. He then turned his attention back to Amanda, noticing that she indeed did look a little different, slightly more mature. At first he reckoned it was the makeup and her hairstyle, but then he blurted aloud, “What’d you do to your lips? It’s the lips! She did something to her lips!” He said it in aha fashion as if he were having a conversation with someone other than himself. “Her lips used to be thinner. I would know,” he continued with a chuckle. He looked at a few more shots of her. “Not bad,” he commented, feeling a sense of pride and love for her as if she were still his girl.
Jake’s mood altered, however, when he shifted his gaze to Adam. “What a douchebag.” And then he landed on Debbie Does Hollywood’s blog site and began to read the article that had been published the day after the LA premiere. Once Jake got to the part where Amanda was mentioned as Adam’s new squeeze he started to read aloud. “Field and his Oscar worthy performance were the talk of the night until he was upstaged by the film’s producer Adam Weinstock or more precisely by the young, attractive woman who accompanied him to the premiere. None other than sociali
te Amanda Climent, who he dated more than a year before. Remember her? They had made a brief splash as Hollywood’s new glamour couple with rumors of a looming marriage proposal until she shocked everyone and broke things off to marry her college sweetheart instead. It now appears that the wealthy heiress dubbed the ‘Platinum Princess’ may have reassumed her place in Adam’s heart after her million dollar plus wedding was mysteriously called off late last summer.”
“Looming marriage proposal, my ass,” Jake smirked as he read over that passage again and stared at the photos of Amanda and Adam, looking all happy. “Don’t get too comfortable, sucker. Daddy Warbucks will be calling you soon to pay you off too. That’s unless Amanda’s alter ego, little Maggie, rears her ugly head to chop off yours before then. Hope she does,” Jake said before slapping his laptop shut and returning his attention to the football game on TV. Then his phone pinged indicating that he’d received a new text message. Jake picked up the phone sitting flat beside him on the sofa to see who it was from. He had been exchanging Happy New Year messages off and on with friends on Facebook and via text so he expected it to be yet another one.
Happy New Year, bro. I see you’re still not talking to me. Here with the crew in Vegas. They all get messages from you and not me? I hear you didn’t want to come with us to avoid seeing me. Really? How long are we going to keep this up? It’s a new year already.
Just like the texts he’d received from Kirby on Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, Jake didn’t feel compelled to respond to this one either. He’d deleted the other two message and was about to delete this one as well, but stopped himself and waited. About ten minutes later, another text from Kirby.