Schooner’s tone was terse, “With all due respect,” he threw her words back at her, “maybe I know my son a bit better than you do.”
Liz was shaking her head vigorously as tears flew off her cheeks, “No, you don’t or you’d be defending him now.”
Schooner leveled Liz a glance that made her catch her breath before addressing his son again, “Finish packing. I’ll be waiting in the car.” He’d had enough of Zac’s friends depicting him as some sort of Robin Hood. Turning on his heel, he walked past Liz out of the room.
“I can’t believe that.” Liz stood there in shock.
Zac sat down on his bed, “I’ve put him through the ringer on more than one occasion, Liz. He’s been a better father than I’ve been a son. I know it’s been a string of disappointments for him. Maybe he’s just finally reached the end of his rope with me.”
“We’ve all done fucked up shit.” Liz sat down on Brian’s bed facing Zac.
Zac smiled his beautiful smile, “Yeah, but I kind of set the bar.
Liz raised her eyebrows, urging him to elaborate.
“I almost killed his wife and my little brother when I got into this thing with her and she fell backwards down a huge flight of stairs when she was pregnant with Nathaniel. I overdosed and he missed Nathaniel’s birth because of it, he found out that I’d had sex with three of my mother’s friends senior year when I was home for a semester and now I get kicked out of college,” and with a wry laugh, “and that’s only the stuff he knows.”
Liz was silent for a moment, processing Zac’s list of infractions. Her smile appeared as if she’d just remembered a joke. “At least you’re not boring. Now that would have truly been a crime.”
As she watched Zac pack his belongings, reality sunk in. “What am I going to do here without you?”
He wanted to tell her that she was the best friend he’d ever had in his life, that she understood him better than anyone, and that he too could not imagine a day without her in it. He longed to say that he was going to miss her, that he felt like he was losing a part of himself.
“I dunno,” he continued to pack, already feeling alone and grieving the loss of a life he had really loved.
Brian helped him out to the car with the last of his belongings. “So the word is that it was Prescott.”
“We already knew that,” Zac shrugged.
“Want me to do anything about it?” Brian asked in slightly more than a whisper.
Nodding, “Three things,” Zac advised.
“Name it.”
“Beat him to within an inch of his life. Tell him I carved my initials into the insides of Britt’s thighs. And don’t get caught.”
“Done, done and done.” Brian promised, his eyes glinting.
And with a final fist bump, the hot boy roommate team of Zac Moore and Brian Brown officially ended.
Chapter Nine
The Next Morning
The Moore’s SoHo Loft
New York, NY
He felt them climb up onto his bed, trying their hardest to stifle irrepressible giggles. Every morning over the summer they’d had a routine. First he’d open one eye and look at Natie, then he’d open the other eye and look at Po. Their huge smiles were the most amazing thing to wake up to every morning. They looked like night and day. Po with her big soulful brown eyes and ebony skin and Natie with his sky blue eyes and blonde curls. He’d close his eyes back up, pretending he’d fallen back to sleep, and then would grab the two of them and their giggles and kicking would become uncontrollable.
They hadn’t been expecting him home just quite yet, so this was a treat for the kids. Zac decided to change up the routine a little this morning and didn’t open his eyes at all. He could feel their eyes on him, staring at him. Willing him to wake up.
With the surprise of a serpent striking, his arms shot out, each grabbing one of them. They shrieked with delight as he pulled them down onto either side of his chest.
“Heckle and Jeckle, what are you doing here?”
They loved his nickname for them and immediately began crawling all over him.
“Where’s my hello kiss?” he asked and the two complied, before laying a head on each of his muscular shoulders. Becoming a big brother for the first time at seventeen rocked his world. Never before had he felt so truly loved and adored. The way these two looked up to him and wanted to be everywhere that he was made Zac feel like he was part of something very special. Being their older brother was like a secret club that only the three of them would ever have admission to and he would always be the club’s leader.
“Zac are you home for the summer?” Portia asked.
“I am,” he turned to her, nodding.
“Daddy’s really mad at you,” she informed him. It wasn’t the first time she’d shared that news.
He turned to Nathaniel, who nodded his head in agreement.
“What did Dad say?” Zac was dying to know. Their car ride from Boston had been shrouded in silence.
“He says he’s going to send you to the Army.” Po was very serious in delivering the news to her big brother.
Zac laughed, “The Army, huh?”
Po nodded.
“And what about your mom? What did she say?” He wondered where Mia sat with all that went down.
“She says you’re an engrener.” The little girl was proud to be able to relate all the news to her big brother.
“An engrener?” he asked, perplexed.
Po nodded, again.
He repeated the word a few times. “Engrener, engrener?” and then it hit him, “Did she say “Entrepreneur?”
With a big smile and a vigorous head nod, Portia was excited. “Yes, that’s what she said. You’re an engrener.”
Smiling, Zac got a kick of it. His stepmom was probably more in his corner than any other adult in his life, which was an amazing thing since he and Mia had started out on the wrong foot.
“Entrepreneur. I like that.” Zac smiled.
“Daddy says the Army will straighten you out and make a man out of you.”
Zac laughed, “Well, I have a surprise for you. I’m not going into the Army.”
There was a soft knock on the door and Mia poked her head in. “I tried to keep them out for as long as possible. Let you sleep.”
“It’s OK,” Zac hugged them closer to him. “They’ve been filling me in on things.”
Mia laughed, “There are no secrets in this house with these two. OK, you two, your cartoons are on. Go watch TV.”
Mia sat down in a chair across from Zac’s bed and just smiled at him her devil grin.
“How pissed is he?” Zac asked.
“I’ve seen worse.”
“Does he hate me?”
“Just the opposite, Zac. You know how much he loves you. He’s just scared for you. He wants the best for you and frankly, he worries about you and blames himself for not being a good father.”
Zac sat up in bed, propping himself up on a pillow. “That’s ridiculous.”
Mia nodded in agreement.
“Mia, the guy who ratted me out was infatuated with this girl I sometimes see. The dating thing, which by the way, I did not make any money on, was just to help my friend Tara have the money she needed so that she wouldn’t lose her spot in grad school. There was no sex or anything. And then we opened up the service to a couple of other people.”
“So you set this up to help friends?” Mia’s brows were knit questioningly.
“Yeah. Tara’s scholarships and grants didn’t come through and she was going to lose her spot at BU if she didn’t have the money to pay. I first offered to lend her the money, but she wouldn’t take it. And Liz and I knew this guy from her parent’s country club who really wanted someone to take to business and social events, so I thought they could help each other. Tara got the money she needed for grad school and Perry had dates for his business and social engagements.”
Mia looked amazed. “And the gambling business?”
Zac
smiled and shrugged, “Hey, if some assholes want to give me their money.”
Mia’s laugh was instantaneous. “You really are quite the entrepreneur. You actually have more in common with your father than you think.”
“Not easy to be his son.” Zac looked down.
“Why is that?”
“He’s kind of larger than life in every respect.”
“Like I said, you have more in common with him than you think. Maybe you want to give some thought to going over to Zambia and working for a while at the physical therapy rehab center your dad helped create. A change of scenery and time overseas might be good for you.”
“Beats the Army,” Zac laughed.
Laughing, Mia shook her head, “Nothing is sacred that is said around Portia.”
“Zambia is his thing, Mia. I don’t want to go there and be some lackey doing grunt work for a bunch of doctors. And I don’t want to go there and be Schooner Moore’s son.”
“I understand.” Mia stood up.
As she reached the door, he asked, “Mia, can I stay here?”
This time her brows knit tightly, thrown off by his question, “Of course you can, Zac. This is your home.”
He was glad when she was on the other side of the door, not wanting her to see the effect her last statement had on him. His home. His family. He knew he had to work hard not to fuck this up. Again. With Nathaniel and Portia now as part of the equation, the stakes had been raised. He was the big brother they looked up to and he wasn’t going to let them down.
Chapter Ten
Summer after Sophomore Year
New York City
Mia was out on Fire Island with the kids full-time for the summer and his father spent weekends out there with them. Zac joined them when he wasn’t working at either of his jobs, doing personal training at Level 9, his father’s health club, or as a barista at Starbucks.”
“Check it out,” Zac walked into his father’s office and tossed a letter across the desk to his dad.
Scanning the letter, Schooner looked up with a smile. “Good deal. And they accepted all of your credits from Bryson. This is excellent news.”
There it was, City College of New York’s Grove School of Engineering had accepted him. He was surprised at how much more excited he was to get into CCNY than he had been when he was accepted at Bryson. He couldn’t wait to get back into school. Zac had something to prove, not only to his father, but to himself.
His first week home, Zac had secured an appointment with the Dean of the undergraduate engineering program, knowing that he’d have a better chance of being accepted at this late date if he had the opportunity to have a face-to-face meeting. Taking a proactive stance in securing himself a spot, at least on the waitlist, would show his father that he was serious about his education and getting an engineering degree.
What happened at Bryson was unfortunate and Zac was really feeling the effects of it this summer. Working as a trainer was getting tedious. There was a waiting list of women who wanted him to train them. Most were giggly college girls home for the summer and each of their stories were interchangeable. The one good thing was, he was in the best shape of his life.
“Let’s celebrate tonight at the Old Homestead,” Schooner suggested one of their favorite steakhouses that felt like a boy’s club.
Hitting the showers after his last training session of the day, Zac kept thinking about the letter from CCNY and couldn’t wait to start looking through the course catalogue. With a very thoughtful letter to the Engineering School’s Dean, he had been able to secure a meeting to pick the Dean’s brain about direction and, as he hoped, the conversation led to the Dean committing to keep Zac’s name in mind if any of the coveted slots opened up.
The whole experience was going to be very different this time. He’d be commuting versus living in a dorm and that would pull out the whole social aspect of college life for him. No Liz, no Brian, no Tara. He was alone in the equation now, and focusing on his engineering courses was going to be his whole life. His feelings of ambivalence kept wavering between excitement at his fresh start to sadness that he wouldn’t be enjoying his upper classmen years with his friends.
Stepping out of the shower, he grabbed a towel and as he began to dry off, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His usual athletic build had become so much more defined, his muscles forming hard sinewy planes. He looked good, better than he ever had. I look so normal, he thought, for a moment saddened by the fact that his relationships outside of friendships were anything but normal, but he swept that thought out of his consciousness.
He was in New York now. A city with eight million people. And they didn’t know him. He had no past. No history. Zac Moore, engineering student, from a wealthy California family, heir to the L9 Health & Entertainment Centers fortune. That was all anyone would know. The rest of the canvas was his to paint. The thought was liberating.
As he entered his father’s office, a dark haired man in a suit was sitting across the desk from Schooner. His back was to the door.
“Zac, come on in,” he motioned to his son. “You remember Dr. Castillo, don’t you?”
“Yes, we met at the wedding.” Zac extended his hand to the older man who rose from his chair. Lily’s dad was the first thought that crossed his brain.
“Berto is on his way home to California, he just flew in from Africa.”
Zac assumed Dr. Castillo had been visiting the physical therapy center that he and his dad had established in Zambia and hoped his father didn’t use this as another opportunity to try and talk to him about going over there to do grunt work for the doctors.
“A long trip from the Congo.” Berto looked wasted from the travel.
“The Congo?” Zac was surprised. Were they putting up another clinic?
“It’s a long story. Let’s just say that daughter of mine will be the death of me.”
Schooner chuckled, “That’s how I feel about this one.” He tilted his head toward Zac with a smile. “Why don’t you fill us in on Liliana’s latest exploits over dinner? Zac and I were going to the Old Homestead to celebrate his acceptance to the Grove School of Engineering.” And with an assumptive close, “let me change the reservation to three people.”
Zac stood there speechless. Lily wasn’t at Yale? She was in the Congo? Just hearing the sound of her name made his heart race. He couldn’t wait to hear every detail of her father’s trip.
“Engineering school, that’s quite impressive,” Berto was congratulating him and although Zac was responding appropriately, he didn’t hear the words.
Nearly two years later and just the thought of Liliana Castillo still profoundly affected him. What was it about that girl?
“You actually got to Zambia and she wasn’t there?” Schooner had a bemused look on his face as he sipped his scotch, leaning back in the wooden slat chair. Turning to Zac, he laughed, “That sounds like something you would do.”
“It really does,” Zac’s smile was wide as he learned about Lily’s escapades. He knew she was extremely headstrong, but he had a new found respect for the uber-serious Yalie’s rebellious side. This was clearly a girl after his own heart.
“She had taken the semester off from school and gone over to intern at the PT center in Zambia. She had worked it out so that she was able to get school field credits for her work over there since she’s pre-med and it was in a healthcare facility,”
Berto paused and shook his head. “It appears a young British engineer was passing through on his way to the Congo to head up field ops for a group of water projects and he told Lily what they were doing over there and that they could use someone bright and dedicated like her. The projects are very hands on, building new water systems or repairing old ones for the remote villages, and she thought it sounded interesting.”
Schooner’s eyes were wide, “How safe is it there?”
“Not anywhere near safe enough for me to sleep through another night.” Berto’s pride in his willful daughter was
overshadowed by real fear for her safety. “And she signed on for a six month TDY,” he took a long draw on his bourbon. “Tour of Duty,” he explained the TDY acronym to Zac, who just nodded.
“So, did she follow this Brit?” Schooner was fascinated.
“No, I don’t think so. Though he’s clearly enamored with her. I think it was the hands on work and the ability to bring something really tangible to these villages that was the draw for her. You know Lily, if she thinks she can make an impact, she’s there.”
This Brit. This engineer. Smitten with Lily. Zac took a sip of his beer, sat back and disappeared into his head. He wanted this man away from her. Jealous feelings were not a familiar or comfortable place for him. It was like a craw in his gut and he felt instant hatred toward this faceless man.
“I can understand why she went and I’m so proud of her. There’s 70 million people out there who have lost access to water because of a failed source.”
“And it’s just like Lily to want to fix it,” Schooner cut into his Porterhouse. “She’s really very special, Berto.”
“So is it new systems that need to be built or existing systems that are in need of repair?” Zac asked, genuinely interested in the infrastructure in these villages.
“It’s a combination of both,” Berto explained. “In some sub-Saharan areas of Africa, up to 70% of the hand pumps that were installed are no longer in working order.”
“Which leads to water-borne disease and outrageously high mortality rates, I’m sure.” Zac was quickly creating a picture in his mind of these dire circumstances and could understand why Lily jumped ship and headed to the Congo - he absolutely would have done the same thing. Go Lils! He silently cheered.
Zac couldn’t help but think of Portia, his baby sister who’d been adopted from Zambia. She had been in an orphanage that luckily had very good living conditions, but for every Portia, there were countless thousands who were not so lucky and that thought affected him profoundly. It suddenly all became very, very personal.
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