Undue Influence

by Jenny Holiday

“That’s a fake name if I ever heard one. There isn’t a friend.” God, he’d forgotten how conniving Rusty could be when he had an active cause.

  Rusty glared at Adam. “I’ll have you know that Harry was in the restaurant business, just like your precious Freddy. He’s newly retired, but he’s got connections, and he thinks he can get me a guest run at a drag bar.” He sniffed. “So I’ll just go by myself.”

  Shit. Adam might have been experiencing an uncharacteristic flare of anger here, but the fact remained that Rusty was his best friend. The only person he could really rely on in this town—and hence, in the world. “Rusty, wait.” Rusty paused halfway to the bay where his first car of the day was waiting but did not turn. He was hurt but trying not to show it.

  “I’m sorry,” Adam said quietly.

  That was enough to get Rusty to turn around.

  “I would actually love to get away for a while,” he added. It was true. Even if Rusty’s motivations were suspect, and even if it meant a return to having to deal with his mother and sister. Hadn’t he just been wishing for a magical taxi to transport him out of town?

  And hadn’t the whole point of that wish been to spare himself the pain of being so near to Freddy? Of having to be constantly reminded of what he couldn’t have?

  So who cared how it got granted? And damn Rusty; he might actually be right about the wisdom of putting some distance between Adam and Freddy. This time. “Give me the dates, and I’ll book my ticket tonight.”

  Rusty was clearly surprised by Adam’s acquiescence but covered it quickly. “Flying’s too much of a pain. We’d have to drive to Rochester, and then when we land, rent a car and drive out to Long Island. So we might as well just drive the whole way. I’m working on a pretty boy who will get us there in style.” He jerked his head at his work bay.

  “That’s yours?” Adam had assumed it belonged to one of the wealthy summer people. While Rusty liked to drive in style, and had a collection of personal vehicles, the vintage red convertible was outlandish even for him.

  He smirked. “It’s a little red Miata.”

  “Shouldn’t it be a little red Corvette?” Adam teased, glad they were back on friendly footing.

  “Close enough.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Eight years ago

  This might have been a mistake.

  Freddy’s whole modus operandi when it came to Adam was not to push. To let things unfold. To let it be easy, because it was easy.

  Well, it was easy if you stripped away everything and everyone else. If they’d existed in a vacuum, which would have suited Freddy fine, honestly. His opinion about most people ranged from indifference to outright hostility.

  It was just that he’d been starting to worry. A little bit. There was a hint of chill in the air when the sun went down. What was going to happen when they couldn’t hang out for endless hours outside? So he’d been…not pushing exactly, but expressing little bits of what he was thinking. It was fun that one time we went out to dinner—we should do that again. I wish I could see your freckles during the day. Asking more questions about Adam’s family, and about Rusty Anderson, who seemed to be more of a father to Adam than his own. Both because he genuinely wanted to know about the people in Adam’s life, but also because he secretly wanted to probe a bit, to see if his fear that Adam was hiding Freddy from them was justified.

  And his pushy not-pushing must have worked, because out of the blue, Adam invited him for dinner.

  Which was why he was pulling up to Kellynch for the first time in a car. In the daylight—well, in the late August twilight, but close enough.

  But the minute he walked in, he understood. If their relationship was going to work long term, he was going to have to get Adam away from his family.

  Adam’s relatives were…not like him. His mother and siblings were snobby, to begin with. The chill in the air was palpable as they offered him limp hands to shake. Adam was always raving about TV shows that ran on Masterpiece Theatre, and Freddy, wanting always to know Adam more and better, had watched one recently. This reminded him of it. It was like everyone was saying one thing but communicating another as they sat around and made pained conversation.

  Adam’s dad wasn’t so bad. He was quiet, like Adam, and mostly drowned out by his wife and kids, but for a while, Freddy had gotten him talking animatedly about the vineyard. He watched Adam come to life, too, during this conversation. Adam had told Freddy about his wish to take over when his dad retired—and also that his dad had good-naturedly rebuffed all his attempts to help with the grapes or the winemaking. It was hard to fathom what was going on in his father’s mind. Clearly neither of the other two siblings had any interest in anything beyond their own noses. He tried probing a little bit, asking questions he knew Adam could answer to try to paint him in a good light. But it wasn’t long before Wilhelmina, whom he’d come to understand was the head of the family in every way that mattered, redirected the conversation.

  He excused himself to go to the bathroom at one point. On his way back, he lingered for a moment in the hallway, looking at the family pictures hanging there but also just catching his breath, when she appeared.

  “I have a lovely family, don’t I?”

  She stood in the narrow corridor with one scarlet-tipped hand on each wall, blocking the way back to the dining room.

  Freddy pasted a smile on his face. “You do.”

  An uncomfortable silence descended. He felt like she was trying to see into his soul, and irrationally, like she might be able to do it.

  And possibly also steal it.

  “I get the sense, Freddy Wentworth, that you’re not the sort of man who appreciates platitudes.”

  “Uh…” Shit. What was happening? He had no idea what to say.

  “So I’m just going to say what I have to say, which is stay away from my son.”

  “Excuse me?” Well, there. That had come out sounding confrontational and pissy, but at least he’d found his voice. He’d tried to be on his best behavior this evening, but still, he was not interested in or accustomed to being cowed. He might not have as much money, or education, as the Elliots, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have his pride.

  But, okay. He needed to think strategically. He needed to not let his anger show. He couldn’t make a scene right now. He couldn’t put Adam in that position if he had any hope of creating something lasting with him. So as difficult as it was, he schooled his expression to a mild bewilderment, smiled, and said, “You say that like I’m after him romantically.”

  “And aren’t you?”

  “Of course not.”

  Wilhelmina pursed her lips. She was a smart woman. She had no doubt heard about the town square incident. She knew how to put two and two together.

  Freddy smiled placidly. “Adam and I are just friends.”

  Freddy wasn’t the type to get himself worked up over lying. He’d manufactured a lot of fake sick notes back in his school days, and he regularly promised his mother he was studying for his GED, which he most decidedly was not. But to say those words? We’re just friends. Something inside him died a little, something fragile but alive he hadn’t even been aware of. And even as it was gasping for breath, it raised a hand and said, No!

  He is mine.

  He quashed that part. Killed it conclusively. If he wanted it to be true, he had to get out of this situation. Sometimes you had to make a strategic retreat in the name of winning the larger war. The Elliots would have to be confronted at some point, but not by him and not now.

  Wilhelmina tapped her long nails on the walls. “Even so, I think you can appreciate that there is a certain…social gap between you and my son. Regardless of the precise nature of your relationship, I think it’s better for all parties if you stay away from him.”

  “Mom?”

  That was Adam’s voice. It was followed by his head peeking around the corner into the hallway.

  “Freddy? Everything okay?” His brow furrowed.

  Fr
eddy wanted to smooth it with his fingers. With his mouth. But he couldn’t, so he did the next best thing, and said, “Yes. Everything’s okay.”

  And it was, he assured himself. He’d made a misstep, by coming here. They’d go back to the way things were, walking, talking, fucking in their own little bubble. For now.

  And somehow, they’d figure out another way.

  They’d have to, because he already knew that as much as he loved Adam, the bubble wasn’t going to be enough, not indefinitely.

  Present day

  And so Adam found himself in the Hamptons. He and Rusty were staying in the pool house of one Mr. Harry Smith—who had, somewhat to Adam’s surprise, turned out to be an actual person.

  “How are you both doing crammed in there?” Harry was serving glasses of rosé by the pool, as he often did in the evenings. He was newly retired from a career managing high-end restaurants and professed to need something to do with himself—hence the daily poolside happy hours. It was no hardship for Adam, though, because he genuinely enjoyed Harry’s company. In the week they’d been in town, he had spent most of his days reading and walking—and avoiding his mother and sister as much as possible—but he’d come to enjoy hanging out with Rusty and Harry for a while before the two of them headed out for dinner, either in nearby East Hampton or in one of the other towns in the area. Harry was well connected and seemed to have made it his mission to show Rusty a good time. He’d gotten Rusty a twice-weekly residency at a drag night that was decidedly more upscale than Whine, so Lady Merlot was enjoying herself, too.

  “I’m sorry the pool house is so tiny. Remember there’s always the guest room in the main house if one of you would like to move in there.”

  Was it Adam’s imagination or did Harry kind of…smolder at Rusty when he said that?

  As far as he could tell, Harry and Rusty had had some kind of summer fling in their youth and had recently reconnected through Facebook. The official story was that they’d met when Harry, who seemed to come from money, had vacationed near Bishop’s Glen with his family. Beyond that, Adam could extract no details—which was weird. Usually Rusty was more than forthcoming about his present and past adventures, be they sexual or otherwise. He was a natural storyteller. But his lips were sealed, apparently, when it came to Harry. Regardless, whatever was in their past, they had fallen into an easy camaraderie.

  The pool house was a two-bedroom retreat fifty yards or so from the main house. Despite Harry’s apologies for its being small, Adam was delighted with the arrangement, not least because it meant he didn’t have to stay with his mom and Betsy, who were currently staying at a house in Amagansett—the next town over—that was way too big and no doubt too expensive. He had been worried about them overstaying their welcome at Charlie’s. On the one hand, he was relieved that hadn’t happened, but on the other, how were they possibly paying for their new place?

  Determined to find out, he invited them over for drinks one evening after Rusty and Harry had headed out. He had hoped one good thing that might come from the foreclosure would be that it wouldn’t be his job anymore to worry about the family finances. Apparently, he’d been wrong.

  “Well.” His mother swept into the small pool house and surveyed the open-concept living area with her eyes only—her head stayed perfect still. “Isn’t this…cute?” Wilhelmina had a way of using words to convey the opposite of their actual meaning.

  “It’s hardly bigger than your trailer, Adam!” Betsy teased.

  “It’s actually quite a bit bigger.” The “trailer” was also not a trailer: an RV and a trailer were not the same thing. But why was he bothering? They had a limited capacity to see reason, and he needed to focus on the task at hand.

  He let them talk for a while he made martinis. The topic du jour was Gwyneth Paltrow. Despite his mother’s tendency toward fickleness, Gwyneth had been an evergreen topic since Adam had arrived. She apparently owned the house “seventeen doors down” from their place, and they were obsessed with the idea of running into her. They had lately moved on to debating the wisdom of just marching up and ringing her doorbell. They were neighbors, after all. The problem was her place was so well contained, they had no way of knowing if she was even in town, much less any way to actually reach the doorbell.

  “I ordered the these amazing biofrequency stickers from goop.” Betsy rolled up her sleeve to reveal some stickers with weird symbols on them affixed to her upper arm. “I can already feel the healing happening.”

  “Hasn’t all that stuff been debunked?” Adam asked. “Like, by NASA?”

  His sister just rolled her eyes at him.

  All right. He could only take so much. He had a new Julian Fellowes waiting, and the sooner he did this, the sooner they’d leave. He’d taken to curling up with a book by the pool in the evenings. It wasn’t the lake at Kellynch, but it was nice. So, in the name of moving things along, he came right out with it. “How are you affording the place you’re renting?”

  He’d shocked them. They both blinked rapidly.

  His mother recovered first. “Adam, I’m sure that’s not relevant to—”

  “It is, though. It is relevant. You don’t have any money.”

  His mother sucked in a breath, apparently gobsmacked that he would utter such a thing. Her surprise was probably justified, because he hadn’t, historically, been this blunt with her. But how had that worked out for everyone?

  “You’re bankrupt,” he added, just to make sure she understood him. Hell, if he was going there, he might as well go there.

  “Adam!” she scolded.

  “What? It’s the truth. You have no source of income that I can tell. You blew through everything Dad left. You ran Kellynch into the ground. How are you affording a place in the Hamptons? How are you affording anything?”

  His mother glanced at Betsy, whose eyes were wide.

  “If you must know, we’re housesitting.” Betsy whispered the last word like it was a dirty one, like she was confessing to a heinous crime.

  “Oh!” Adam was honestly shocked. That was actually a huge relief. He’d been picturing tens of thousands—hundreds of thousands—going on credit cards, since no bank worth its salt would extend his mother any additional credit. “How did you manage to get a housesitting gig…seventeen doors down from Gwyneth Paltrow?” His relatives were wily, but he wouldn’t have thought them well connected enough, at least in this rarified social scene, to stumble into a situation like that.

  “Our friend arranged it.” His mother’s words were short and clipped as she glared at Betsy. She clearly hadn’t wanted Betsy to spill the beans about their housing situation. “He’s very well connected.”

  “What friend?” he asked. “Charlie?”

  “Oh! Mom!” Betsy cried.

  “I told you not to call me that here.”

  “Right. Sorry. Wilhelmina.”

  Adam raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  “People think we’re sisters,” his mother said haughtily. “I see no reason to call their attention to the fact that that’s not the case.”

  He chuckled. That was so her. It softened him a little, too, for some reason. “Look. I’m not trying to be a pain. I just don’t want you to get into any trouble.”

  “Wilhelmina!” Betsy said urgently, before his mother could respond.

  “Yes? What is it?”

  “I’ve had the most delicious idea. We should introduce Adam to William Ellison.”

  The notion was clearly new to his mother. She furrowed her brow, but then, slowly, she seemed to warm to the idea. Her face softened, and she cocked her head. “You know, I think we should.” She turned to Adam, and he physically recoiled a little. He knew that look. His mother could be as stubborn as Rusty when she wanted to. It was just that Adam was not usually the focus of her manipulations. She would offhandedly criticize his appearance, but she usually didn’t bother with actual scheming when it came to him.

  “The friend who set us up with the housesit is Wil
liam Ellison,” she said. “He owns a vineyard on the North Fork—isn’t that the funniest coincidence? We met at a party Charlie took us to shortly after we arrived, and of course you can imagine that when he learned we were both winemakers, we became fast friends. We’ve had so many long chats about winemaking.”

  Adam didn’t point out that Dad had been the actual winemaker and that she had never taken any particular interest in the process except to the extent that it yielded the wine she liked to drink and the money she liked to spend.

  “He’s down here quite a bit because he acts as his vineyard’s distributor and sales director. He has friends who are in Europe for the summer, so he arranged for us to housesit until Labor Day.”

  “He’s much better connected than Charlie is,” Betsy said. “He knows everyone.”

  “Even Gwyneth?” Adam couldn’t help asking.

  “Oh, shut up,” Betsy said.

  “So this guy William set you up with this housesitting gig,” he said. That didn’t seem unreasonable. Of course, what Adam wanted was for his family to face reality. Which meant getting jobs. But since that didn’t seem like it was going to happen anytime this century, a free place to stay wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

  “He did,” Betsy confirmed. “And the place seemed ever so much more suitable to us, given our sensibilities, than Charlie’s was. We had to share the guest room at Charlie’s.”

  And of course, Charlie didn’t have Gwyneth seventeen doors down the street. “Well, you can hardly be expected to stand for that.”

  “Right?” Betsy had missed his sarcasm.

  His mother had been tapping her fingernails—perfectly manicured, as ever—on the table and looking off into space. Suddenly, seeming to have decided something, she turned to him. “I would very much like to introduce you to our new friend. I’m going to see if he’s free tomorrow evening. Will you join us?”

  He was surprised that she’d asked, and so politely, too. Usually his mother simply told him what she expected from him. “Sure.” Of course, he’d rather curl up with a book by the pool, but since part of his rationale for coming here had been to check up on his relatives, it couldn’t hurt to meet their fairy godfather, the mysterious and well-connected William.