Collision Course Chapter 11 (part 2)

This was, Ryan decided, the stiffest Newport party that he'd ever had to attend. Julie had done herself proud; every aspect was polished, slick, and completely artificial. Ryan didn't even think the people looked real. They stood around, posing like mannequins, wearing incredibly uncomfortable clothing, punctuating empty conversations with air kisses, and nibbling canapés that appeared as elaborate and edible as Julie's jewelry. At least when the Cohens hosted parties, they invited human beings, and served real food. Besides, anytime Ryan wanted, he could always retreat to the poolhouse. Here at Palace Nichol, he had no idea where to find sanctuary.

Sidling toward the patio, Ryan bumped into somebody. Liquid sloshed over his wrist.

"Excuse me," he muttered, darting a glanced sideways. The woman he had jostled, a slim, severe brunette, maybe in her thirties, didn't look familiar, and she didn't appear upset, but she was staring at him with avid interest.

"Oh darling," she drawled. "Don't apologize. These things happen." She signaled a waiter for a napkin, dabbed her own cleavage—although Ryan saw no sign of moisture there—and then wrapped the square of linen around his wrist. After a moment, Ryan attempted to ease his hand away, but she held the cloth firmly in place. Her gaze swept over him, changing from curious to appraising to frankly predatory. "I don't believe we've met. I'm Alyse Clairmont. My husband Douglas works for the Newport Group finance department."

Before Ryan could introduce himself, Alyse tightened her grip and added, "And you must be Ryan, the boy I've heard so much about. You're the Cohens' . . . that is, you stay with the Cohens, don't you?"

Ryan managed a nod. "Nice to meet you, Mrs. Clairmont."

"Please. Alyse."

"Alyse," Ryan amended ". . . It's dry, by the way."

"Hmm?"

"My wrist. It's dry now. Thanks."

"Oh, of course." Alyse laughed lightly and unwrapped the napkin, her nails grazing Ryan's pulse point. "Would you care to join me, Ryan? Doug seems to have deserted me again, and I'm sure it must be uncomfortable for you to have to stand for very long." Her fingers trailed along his inner thigh meaningfully, just above the brace. "We could find a place to relax."

Ryan flushed and sucked in his upper lip, embarrassed and annoyed to find himself responding to this woman. Her type didn't interest him. She was too obvious, too immediately proprietary, but the fact that his pants suddenly felt too small indicated that Ryan's dick had missed the memo.

"No . . . thanks, but I have to . . . " He cocked his head toward the terrace, hoping to indicate that he was supposed to meet someone there.

Alyse sighed. She removed her hand from Ryan's leg, bit into a small canapé and delicately brushed an imaginary crumb from her mouth. "Are you sure, Ryan?" Her voice caressed his name, breathed it like a forbidden kiss. "After all, we're just getting to know each other." Alyse broke off a piece of cracker and fed it to him a little forcibly, purring, "Hungry? These are delicious, aren't they?" Her index finger brushed stray morsels off his upper lip and swirled them into his mouth.

Ryan swallowed, trying not to let his tongue touch Alyse's finger, which was difficult, since she seemed in no hurry to remove it.

"Chino! There you are!"

Ryan blinked in surprise, as Summer broke Alyse's hold and slid in next to him, linking her arm with his and smiling brightly at the older woman.

"Hi, Mrs. Clairmont," she chirped. "Remember me? I'm Summer Roberts. Your daughter Madison and I took gymnastics together. How does she like college, by the way? She's, what, a senior now, isn't she?"

"Sophomore. Madison just loves Brown," Alyse said tightly, grabbing a fresh drink from the nearest tray. "Well, Ryan, it was so nice meeting you. So enjoy the evening. And remember, my offer stands. Anytime. Summer, lovely to see you."

"You too. Say hi to Maddie for me," Summer caroled, waving as Alyse walked away. Then she swatted Ryan's arm and glared at him, her hands planted accusingly on her hips. "Exactly what do you think you were doing, Atwood?"

"I wasn't doing anything, Summer. At least I was trying not to."

Summer glanced meaningfully at his crotch. "Yeah? Well, try harder."

"Summer," Ryan groaned, his ears burning.

"Just get this straight, Chino. I do not let people mess with my friends, and Lindsay is a friend of mine. And I thought she was something more than a friend to you."

"She is. Summer, come on, that was just . . ."

"You having an encounter of the Mrs. Robinson kind? Playing a round of MILF all by yourself?" Summer concluded.

"Come on, I wasn't . . ." Ryan protested.

"You were everything but, Chino. And you're just lucky Lindsay didn't see you." Summer looked around the room innocently. "Where is Lindsay anyway?"

Ryan sighed. "She's not here," he admitted.

"No? Why not? You two aren't having problems or anything, are you?"

"No," Ryan claimed. When Summer frowned at him skeptically, he clarified, "I mean, not problems exactly. It's just that . . . well, things have been pretty tense and complicated at the Cohen house, and I don't want to drag Lindsay through all that . . ."

"Chino, hello, look around. We're not at the Cohen house."

Ryan raised his eyebrows. "Oh yeah, and things are never tense or complicated here. I just thought that Lindsay didn't need all the pressure, you know?"

"You thought. What about Lindsay? What did she think? Did she want to come?"

Ryan shrugged one shoulder and twisted his watchband. "I don't know. I mean, she said she'd come with me if I wanted her to. . ." He ran a hand through his hair, murmuring under his breath. "God, I wish she had come."

"Hmm." Summer nodded decisively. Then she spun around, so abruptly that Ryan had to catch his balance. "Okay, well, it's been fun, Chino. Gotta go find Zach now."

"Summer?"

"I'll see you around. Ciao!" she called as she walked away.

Ryan shook his head. Maybe Seth understood Summer, but he certainly never did.

Thinking that the party would be easier to handle outdoors, Ryan began to work his way toward the patio. He felt clumsy and conspicuous. Every time he moved, his fucking crutch called attention to him. People who were unaware of the circumstances raised their eyebrows questioningly when they noticed him; those who knew what happened pursed their lips in sympathy. Real or feigned, Ryan wanted no part of it. He definitely didn't want to be the topic of any conversation, and he hoped he was just imagining the whispers that followed him as he made his way through the crowd.

It felt a lot like navigating a minefield. Ryan kept checking the ground, afraid that he would accidentally plant the tip of his crutch on someone's expensively shod toe. If the someone was another Alyse, the misstep could be fatal.

Across the terrace Ryan spotted Marissa and Alex. He paused, considering. Maybe he should join them. That would be safe. It would also be boring; Ryan couldn't imagine what they would talk about. Both girls had visited him regularly, and he supposed that they were friends, but they'd pretty much exhausted all their shared interests. He and Alex never had much to say to each other, and as for Marissa . . . Ryan had finally realized that their entire relationship had been based on his need to save her from becoming Dawn Atwood, and Marissa's desire to distance herself from Julie's social-climbing master plan.

Those topics didn't exactly lend themselves to polite party conversation..

His decision made, Ryan slid behind a palm tree strung with golden fairy lights before the girls could spot him. When he turned around, he caught sight of Kirsten approaching. She looked anxious and lonely and like home. Ryan chewed the inside of his cheek, debating. He felt like a four year-old, wanting to hide himself behind his mother's knees, something that had never worked when he was actually four, and the knees belonged to Dawn Atwood. But Kirsten was different, and she was alone, after all. Maybe they could keep each other company, at least for a while.

Just as he was about to step out of the shadows, Ryan saw Kirsten sit down at an empty table, motioning wearily for a waiter. Before the man could reach her, Caleb appeared. He intercepted the server, took two glasses off the tray and pulled up a chair next to his daughter. Ryan swallowed the greeting he'd already formed and moved further back behind the tree, out of sight, but not earshot.

"Great party, Dad," Kirsten murmured, taking a grateful sip.

Caleb scanned the area approvingly. "Yes, indeed. Juju did a fabulous job . . . Kirsten, do you have any idea where my grandson is? I saw him before, but Kellum Meyers pulled me over, and when I finally got away from his boring gall bladder surgery stories, I couldn't find Seth anywhere."

"I'm sure he's with his friends. And Dad, if this is about the 'talk' you've been threatening to have with Seth, don't," Kirsten warned. "Just . . . don't."

"I have his best interests at heart, Kiki," Caleb claimed.

Kirsten took another, deeper, sip of her drink. "I'm sure you do, in your own way. But I'm Seth's mother, and I'm telling you now, leave him alone. Don't criticize him, don't offer him advice, don't give him orders. Is that clear?"

"Very clear, Kiki," Caleb conceded with offended disapproval. "Your son is off limits to his own grandfather."

Kirsten sighed. "Of course he's not 'off limits', Dad. Just . . . try to be a loving grandfather when you see him, all right?"

"That's all I ever intended," Caleb assured her. He adjusted his tie slightly and sat back in his chair. "You look tired, Kiki. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. I'm just not in the mood for a party, that's all."

"You haven't been in the mood for work either. Have you even been to the office in the last two weeks?"

Kirsten reached for the centerpiece and began rearranging the flowers restively. "You know I haven't, Dad. But you also know that I've been getting my work done. It's just . . . Ryan's still housebound, and Seth is grounded, so Sandy and I feel that one of us should be around as much as possible."

"And you volunteered," Caleb concluded. "Look Kiki, I know Seth acted badly and the accident was traumatic for you, but this all should have blown over by now. That boy is just milking the situation, isn't he, preying on your guilt? I told you when you first took him in that he'd be trouble . . ."

Ryan stiffened, listening.

"Dad!"

"This is just the sort of thing he'd try to turn to his advantage. If he's been making demands . . ."

"Demands?" Kirsten scoffed. "Ryan barely asks for a glass of water when he's thirsty. He doesn't make demands. He's not you, Dad," she added pointedly. Kirsten stood up, giving her father a dismissive glare. She started to leave, then turned back to add, "Oh. I changed my mind. Until you develop some compassion and understanding, Seth is off limits to you. Both of my sons are."

Ryan could hear his own hectic breaths, and he felt his nails biting into his palm. The last few times he'd seen Caleb, the man had been aloof, but polite. He hadn't made any inland street thug remarks, hadn't flung barbed comments about car theft or arson into the conversation. Ryan had assumed that they'd reached some level of wary peace. Now he knew it had just been a temporary cease-fire, and he hated the fact that he had made Kirsten a target for her father's criticism.

He couldn't stand any more of this. Ryan turned his back on the entire gathering, and walked away.

Across the patio, Sandy saw Kirsten sweep away from Caleb, noticed the rigid set of her shoulders, and excused himself from the conversation he had been having. He thought he caught a glimpse of Ryan too, but when he looked again, the boy was gone.

"Honey?" Sandy called, taking long strides to catch up with her. "Is everything all right?"

"Oh Sandy, my father . . ." Kirsten began, her voice shaking.

"Say no more." Sandy pulled his wife close. "I thought I recognized the Caleb Nichol effect. Come on, sweetheart. Let's find a quiet corner and sit for a while, just you and me. All right?"

-

Ryan drifted as far away from the milling guests as he could and still remain nominally at the party. His eyes tracked Kirsten as she moved through the crowd, watched with relief as Sandy caught up to her and draped a supportive arm around her waist.

That was good. Ryan liked seeing them stand together.

He eased himself up onto the waist-high wall that rimmed the driveway, stretching his bad knee and wishing that he'd thought to bring a drink with him.

Maybe, he mused, a real drink.

He remembered his first Newport party, the way he'd assumed his most blasé adult face to order a seven and seven, and the way Kirsten had called him on it, saying "I want my husband to be right about you."

Ryan had relinquished the drink, no argument. He had wanted Sandy to be right too. But even now, more than a year and so many reassurances later, he still wasn't sure what he needed to do to be that person, whoever it was, that Sandy believed him to be.

Rolling his head around on his neck, Ryan inspected the distant clusters of people and tried to remember why he was here in the first place. He wished again that he had accepted Lindsay's offer to come along. Her presence—or, Ryan admitted, Seth's—always grounded him. Without either of them, Ryan felt curiously raw, all exposed edges and sharp, unexpected angles.

"Hey, Atwood!"

Ryan followed the sound of his name down to the end of the driveway where a small group had gathered. He recognized the boy waving to him as a forward on his soccer team last year. They had barely spoken during the entire season, but this year the guy—Eric, that was his name—had begun talking to Ryan during their shared Western Civ class, commiserating over the terminally dull lectures and the teacher's daily insistence that "We find our future in our past."

Ryan hoped to God that he was wrong.

Eric beckoned again, swinging a bottle in an arc above his head.

"Come on down, man! The real party's right here."

Ryan cocked his head, considering. He could hear spurts of raucous laughter, see the stumbling forms, the smoke drifting around their heads, and if he couldn't actually smell the weed from this distance, his imagination was doing a good job of producing the aroma for him.

Behind him was the Nichol estate, shimmering like some gilded mirage. Inside it and around it were the people who really knew him in Newport, who had visited him at the Cohen house and who would, when they saw Ryan tonight, ask the same questions, offer the same advice, pointedly avoid the same uncomfortable subjects.

He was so sick of all of it.

All at once, Ryan became aware that the ache was back behind his eyes, throbbing. He looked again at the elaborately decorated house: overlit, overloud, overcrowded, faux-gold, a fucking Julie Cooper Nichol paradise. Kirsten and Sandy seemed to have disappeared into the throng; Ryan searched, but he couldn't see them anywhere.

When they were driving over earlier, Sandy had suggested, "What do you say, honey? We get to the party, we go in the front door, out the back door, and call it a night. Satisfy our social obligations with a cameo appearance."

Kirsten had playfully slapped his arm, scolding "Sandy! It's not just a social obligation. It's business too. Remember, I'm counting on you to be nice tonight," and Seth had warned, "Better not be counting too high then, Mom."

Ryan wished it hadn't been a joke, and that it wasn't too early for him to suggest that they go home, but he knew that coming at all had been hard for Kirsten. They had to stay long enough to justify her efforts. But he desperately needed a refuge, somewhere to hide until it was time to leave.

Ryan turned back toward the road. It was blessedly dark by the sculpted bushes at the bottom of the driveway, and quiet except for staccato bursts of laughter. No music, no lights, no prying eyes.

A few of the kids milling around at the end of the driveway looked familiar from the Harbor campus. One of the girls, Jamie, had the locker next to his, and flirted casually whenever they met, but the rest were, essentially, strangers. Ryan realized that they would have heard about the accident—it would be common Harbor gossip-but they wouldn't know or care about anything that really mattered.

"Atwood!" Eric called again from the crowd of kids. "What do you say? We got room for one more!"

"And we're a lot more fun than anybody up there," Jamie added, waving a joint-holding hand like a semaphore, then taking a drag and blowing him a kiss along with the smoke.

It was a bad idea. Maybe even a dangerous idea. Ryan knew it, but he didn't care. He was tired of being alone, tired of feeling alone even when he was with the people he cared about the most.

He slid off the retaining wall and started down the driveway.

TBC