Bad Son Rising (4 page)

Liz sat back, smug smile on her face and shook her head. “You dumbass. I seriously give you too much credit for knowing women. This girl was totally feeling everything you were. She’s just shy and probably not overly experienced with guys, and face it, your looks can be totally intimidating.”

“Nah, she wasn’t into me, Liz.”

“Dumbass, she was totally smitten. And scared. Falling for a guy like you is just like staring into the face of heartbreak and if she wasn’t one of these cheerleader bitches like we go to school with, then she was just overwhelmed and went into protect mode.”

Elisabeth Pierpont van der Heyden may as well have thrown a bucket of ice water over Zac Moore’s head. For the first time in his life, he realized that he did in fact have the longing to deeply love someone, and with that realization, came a new found fear.

Zac shivered in the dank Parisian night air as he wondered if he was just too fucked up by his jaded past to ever successfully understand or relate to another person with any true level of intimacy.

Zac walked into the elite country club’s banquet room with Liz’s mom, Neelie van der Heyden, on his arm. The older woman smiled up at him, proud to have such a handsome young man escorting her in.

“Did you know it wasn’t until 1999 that women had full usage of this club?”

“I’m sure you were behind that change, Mrs. V,” Zac whispered conspiratorially.

“Truth is, I hate this place,” she confided as Zac brought her to their table.

“There are other clubs in Darien.”

“Yes, but not for us.”

Zac nodded, understanding that their old money and social register position meant certain protocol must be followed. Things were expected. Generation after generation. And membership at Wee Burn Country Club was one of those things. Just as it was expected of Liz and other members of the younger generation to be present at certain Wee Burn events throughout the year.

“Mrs. V, Liz and I need to bust you loose. You need a lost weekend. A weekend where we all have secrets to keep.”

Smiling, she squeezed his hand. “You are a breath of fresh air, Zac Moore. If I were thirty years younger, I’d give that daughter of mine a run for her money with a boy like you.”

Squeezing her hand back, Zac leaned over and kissed her cheek. Between his dad’s new family and the van der Heyden’s, Zac had learned more about family in the past two years than he’d ever known. Here was this sophisticated lady paying him compliments and not trying to get in his pants. She was truly thrilled that he and her daughter were inseparable and treated him like a son, not a boy toy. Moments like this made Zac wish he’d grown up in another family or in a social circle where there were boundaries between the parents and children.

Growing up in affluent Newport Beach, California, there was no graceful aging of the women. They needed the next high after their latest trip to the plastic surgeon. And if that fix happened to be a thirteen year old boy, so be it. If said thirteen year old was the son of a friend, even better. Access granted.

As the room began to fill, Zac wondered about the stories of the club’s members. At Wee Burn Country Club, he could assume they were all old money like the van der Heyden’s. As if sensing his curiosity, Neelie quietly started to narrate in his ear. “Next table over, the ginger-haired man is a descendent of Cornelius Vanderbilt, next to him on his right, is a second or third cousin of George Bush.”

She continued her monologue until they were approached by a tall thin woman with an aquiline nose. Zac immediately pegged her for the horsey set. “Edie, this is Elisabeth’s close friend, Zac Moore,” she introduced Zac.

The woman extended her hand, “From which line of the Moore family?”

Before he could answer, Neelie had taken over, “Zac was raised on the west coast, but he’s of the Moores that settled Southold.”

“Oh really,” Edie’s crepe-skinned eyes widened, “your line dates way back.”

Neelie continued, “Yes, they settled Long Island in the 1630’s coming from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.”

“Fascinating,” Edie’s eyes bore into Zac as if he were a rare species. “Do you plan to stay on the east coast?”

Zac hadn’t considered it until that moment when it came out of his mouth, “Absolutely. I’m much happier here. I’ve been on the east coast for a while now. I went to school in New Hampshire. Exeter. And my father is living in the city.”

“East side?” Edie was becoming more and more interested with Mr. Zac Moore.

Zac laughed. “No. A loft in SoHo. I think he’s going through a delayed Bohemian stage.”

The woman was completely charmed.

Liz came and sat down on Zac’s left. To her left, a twenty-something Connecticut blueblood sat down. Zac was introduced to Perry Baker, who then monopolized Liz for the entire dinner.

At dinner’s end, Zac could feel Liz’s fingers digging into his leg, just above his knee. “Hit the bar?” he suggested.

“Hell yeah,” she muttered under her breath, just loud enough for him to hear.

Taking her by the arm, Zac ushered her out of the room and down the hall to the deep crimson darkness of the bar.

“This is why I’m gay,” she hissed in his ear as soon as they were perched on bar stools. “The men my mother would deem socially acceptable are either arrogant, master of the universe bores or drunken dilettantes.”

“And you want?” he smiled at her, awaiting her honest answer in this setting that was anything but.

“Smart, hot, dirty-mouthed pussy.”

“We have so much in common,” Zac laughed. “You know you’re the perfect woman.”

Liz let out a sigh as she leaned into the wooden back of the barstool, “Yeah, I know. If only you didn’t have that big thick swinging dick.”

“How do you know it’s big, thick and swinging?” Zac challenged.

“Moore, you live in your damn boxers. Your legs are always spread wide and you can’t miss that thing.”

Zac was surprised, “Wow, so you’ve really been checking out my package?”

Liz leaned close and leveled a very serious look at him. “I could pick it out in a line up,” and they both descended into uncontrollable laughter.

When they looked up, Perry Baker was standing next to them with a bemused look on his face as if he were waiting to get let in on the joke.

“So, how long have you two been together?” He stood between their bar stools.

“Define together?” Liz challenged, still laughing.

“A couple.”

“We’re not a couple,” Liz corrected, “we’re best friends.”

“With benefits?” Perry wasn’t going to let up until he had the whole story, not realizing that Liz and Zac would offer up a homogenized version of the truth.

“She has the benefit of my company,” Zac actually snickered.

“Oh puhleeeze, don’t flatter yourself,” Liz sneered back.

“So you’re just friends?” Perry was having a seemingly hard time with the concept.

“Just friends,” Zac confirmed.

“That’s why you have so much fun together.”

“You’re probably right,” they both agreed.

“I wish I had a friend I could take to these things to help make it bearable. A girlfriend would be even nicer, but it would still be great to have a friend to hang out with.” The guy seemed sincere.

“Isn’t there anyone from work?” Liz was thinking he was not a bad looking guy, did well, and came from a good family.

“No one at my level. And everything is considered sexual harassment these days.”

“That’s the damn truth,” Zac agreed, wondering what it would be like to not be able to get a date. Perry’s plight was so far out of his realm of reality. “You could always pay for one, I guess,” Zac kidded.

Nodding, Perry gave a sad smile, “Don’t think I haven’t thought of it. If I could find a woman who was bright and cultured and could mix in with this crowd, I’d gladly compensate her for her time.”

“To deal with this crowd, you’d need to compensate her well,” Liz made a face, bringing laughter to both men.

Afterwards, Liz shot Zac a glance and he could tell she felt sad for the guy. His mandatory attendance at these events was much harder on him than it was on either her or Zac.

“Time for reinforcements,” Brian burst into the dorm room.

“What’s up?” Zac looked up from his laptop. Engrossed in a project for his mechanical engineering class, Zac had finally found a class that he found fascinating and the assignments were so interesting and challenging that he’d begun to miss drinking nights with the boys and blow job nights with the girls.

“Those geeks over at Delta Psi are trying to bag out on what they owe us from the Duke game.”

Zac just shook his head, “Maybe we need to remind them of their commitment.” Saving his work and shutting down his laptop, he grabbed his LeBron 11 basketball shoes and laced them up. “Who’d you talk to over there? That little snot-nose Prescott?”

“Yeah, that little piece of shit.”

With snow still crunching underfoot as they crossed campus toward Frat Row, Zac wondered what exactly was the appeal of fraternity life. The Sigma Chi’s had practically begged him to rush freshman year. He had considered it for a nanosecond, flattered on some deep level that he never let his conscious dwell for too long. But in the end, although moved by the need to be wanted, he knew it wasn’t his thing and made more than a few enemies when he turned them down. He looked like a frat boy, had the prep school education of a frat boy, came from a family with the financial means, but where Zac Moore differed was he was a well-masked lone wolf. Keeping a small group of close friends that he could trust implicitly, his pack, around him, was the way he preferred to roll. Being a member of a frat or a sports team, having a big group of drinking buddies, was the antithesis of his comfort zone, although someone casually meeting him would assume the opposite just based on his looks and education. Zac Moore was the pilot of his own fleet and bowing down to upper classmen “brothers” was not in his DNA. Zac turned his back so that she could change in privacy.

“Thank you,” her voice was soft.

Turning to face her, his heart melted at the sight of her in his shirt, hanging around her loosely like a dress.

Unconsciously, she hugged it to herself. “You might not geClimbing the steps of the red brick Delta Psi house, they entered into the vast two-story foyer. In a large community room off the foyer, raucous laughter pealed to the slapstick antics of one of
The Hangover
movies playing on a large screen projection TV.

As if anticipating their arrival, Prescott Lodge emerged from the room, two wingmen flanking him.

“I understand we have a little issue.” Zac was the first to speak.

“We don’t have any issues.” Prescott looked from side-to-side getting a nod of corroboration from each of his frat brothers.

Zac and Brian physically dwarfed the Delta Psi brothers.

Sighing, Brian rolled his eyes, “Lodge, you know what you owe us, so what’s the bullshit about?”

The scrawny intellectual actually sneered as he turned to Zac, “You treat Britt Logan like shit.”

Zac’s eyes grew wide, first with surprise, only to quickly be supplanted with mirth. “Pussy? This is about pussy?”

The wingmen simultaneously put a hand on each of Prescott’s arms as his body tensed for a lunge toward the much larger Zac Moore.

“She’s not pussy. She’s one of the sweetest girls on campus and you treat her like shit.”

“And you owe us a shitload of money, which you are going to pay us.”

“I don’t think so,” challenged Prescott.

With the agility of a mountain lion, Zac was on him in a flash, Prescott’s wingmen falling away like booster rockets from a space shuttle launch.

His prey’s back to the wall, the tall blonde looked the other man dead in the eyes, “If you want to ask Britt out, go right ahead. I don’t own the girl. She’s free to go out with whomever she wants. But don’t use that as an excuse to get out of your debts.” And in barely a whisper, “Now give me my money.”

“I could screw you, Moore. Get you kicked out of school for this.”

Without moving his body away from where he had the smaller man trapped, he turned his head to Brian, “I thought this was the smart frat?”

“Obviously not that smart.” Brian’s toothpaste smile was gleaming with amusement.

“Obviously.” Zac laughed and then to Prescott, “Go ahead, get us kicked out, dumbshit, ‘cause you’re all coming right along with us.”

A hand appeared from the left as one of the wingmen handed Zac an envelope.

Quickly perusing the contents, he seemed satisfied. Pulling out a twenty dollar bill, he shoved it into the front pocket of Prescott’s jeans.

“If you expect Britt to touch your dick, you’re going to need that.” Zac’s smile was smug and self-satisfied.

“Are you calling her a whore?” Prescott’s face turned red as he became enraged.

“No, not at all, dumbshit. I’m calling you coyote ugly.”

Turning on his heel, he tossed the envelope to Brian, “Let’s roll,” and they were back into the cold early spring night air.

Their trademark fist bump ensued, and as they moved away from the Delta Psi house, Brian chuckled, “Damn that little altercation made me horny.”

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Zac laughed. “Definitely got the testosterone flowing.”

Pulling his phone out of his pocket, Zac quickly scrolled for a number, “Hey Britt, whatcha up to? … Oh yeah, well, I have something you can study,” he laughed, “but only if you want to study hard … ok, I’ll see you in about five.” He hung up.

“Think Prescott would appreciate a pic of me buried inside of her?”

“Dare you.” Brian’s smile was wide.

“You know better than to dare me, dude,” Zac laughed.

With another of their patented fist-bumps, Zac and Brian headed to different ends of the campus, each to have their testosterone rush tended to and their needs sated.