“Why?” he spluttered unconvincingly.
“— so he’s worried something needs to change if you have kids, like you’d need to get a different job or leave the city, otherwise you guys will end up making your kids nuts —”
“I might not have kids,” Carver interrupted.
Chip’s eyebrows went up. “No?”
“Yeah. I told him that yesterday. It might not be in the cards. It’s not even something I’m particularly interested in other than as, like, a duty.” It was a relief to admit this to someone other than his dad.
“Shit. Okay.”
“Are you gonna try to argue me out of that?”
“Fuck no,” Chip said. “No, I, uh —” He laughed. “I love my kids, but, like, I did it out of duty too, and I guess I had this romantic idea of being a dad and teaching them stuff and them thinking I’m the shit. And that is part of it, but mostly it’s, like, never getting to be selfish. And I’m a selfish guy, I realized. Oops. When Maggie told me she was pregnant with Aaron, I had this, like — I was waking up in cold sweats, getting bad road rage, going out for fast food at two a.m., I had that thing with that girl from work.” He shrugged. “You don’t want kids? Don’t have kids. Easy. Don’t listen to Mom and Dad. They’re running their own game, you have to focus on yours.”
Carver sat there somewhat stunned. It wasn’t a secret that Chip had stepped out on Maggie a few times, but he’d never heard him speak with such self-awareness. “Okay,” he said.
“I fell on the sword so you don’t have to,” Chip said. “You or Connie. Grandkids are secured, legacy is secured. You’re fucking welcome.” He slapped his thighs and got to his feet. “Just enjoy that smokeshow Viking wife of yours in peace.”
“Enough about my wife.”
“I’m trying to pay you a compliment,” Chip said, adjusting his left cufflink, “one which you are too gay and mentally unsound to appreciate —”
“— fuck you —”
“But seriously, congratulations as always —”
“— go fuck yourself —”
“And she’s a pistol, too, a little bit mental in her own way, so she must be incredible in bed.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Carver snapped, “before I break your nose for real.”
Chip grinned at him. “Shall we?” he said, gesturing toward the door.
CHAPTER TEN
Carver drove Lillian and Conway in the Maybach, following Doug in the Range Rover, and spaced out for the duration of the familiar drive as his wife and sister chatted across the seats. He hadn’t allowed himself to think about Scott all day, but now, with his body occupied by the task of driving, his mind wandered. Almost against his will he remembered Scott’s thumbs digging into the flesh of his inner thighs, the wet sound as he went in and out of him, his feeling of glorious displacement as he lay there in the grass.
He was unhappy to have to shake himself out of these thoughts as he drove down the country club’s winding driveway, feeling like a heartsick teenager made to take off his headphones and greet his grandparents. He loved Letty, and he was happy for her, but he didn’t particularly want to celebrate her marriage. He didn’t even feel like he was part of the same world she was. Since when did people choose freely and manage to find a love that was uncomplicated, peaceful and deep all at once? His parents’ union had been strategic and shrewd, almost like an arranged marriage set up by the participants. They started out at the same law firm and noticed they were the two smartest first-year associates there; they went on a few dates and realized their life plans and personal values aligned almost perfectly. Theywere married a little more than a year later, and Chip was born a year after that.
Carver had always been told to find a suitable partner young so you could start building together early, and he’d done that, and they’d worked their way up together while accumulating tens of millions across cash holdings, investments and real estate. But he’d done it wrong, hadn’t he? He’d done something wrong. Maybe it was time to take Chip seriously, for once. Maybe the deal had been renegotiated at some point without him realizing.
They all stepped out of the Maybach, and a light breeze whipped them. Carver checked his reflection in the driver’s side window, then glanced up. Lillian was looking at him across the top of the car, then took her sunglasses off. Her expression was curious. She was wondering about him. Maybe he’d been too quiet in the car.
Carver looked at Conway, who smiled at him. “Ready?” she said.
“Yeah,” he said, and gestured for them to go ahead of him, then followed them through the rows of cars and up the rest of the driveway to the clubhouse.
Other guests swarmed around them, and a few of them let their glances linger on Carver and Lillian, who were a cut above even Bitterfeld’s old gentry in terms of apparel and grooming. Carver could barely bring himself to be flattered. He found himself glancing at his sister, who looked sweetly beautiful but a little melancholy, a little distant. She wouldn’t answer him seriously if he asked what was wrong, she never did, although he knew she’d gone through a breakup earlier this year and could guess a wedding might reopen that wound.
Maybe if he told her what was wrong with him first, she would open up, but what was wrong with him? Everything?
Carver was so lost in himself that when they walked into the reception hall to take their seats (right side, second row) he was inexplicably surprised to see Scott off to the side with his bassist, playing an electric arrangement of one of Bach’s cello suites as guests filed in. His heart sped up at the sight of him, but the Xanax muted the feeling while the modafinil zeroed him in. He stood there staring at Scott, calm but fixated, watching his beautiful fingers work the guitar. He could have stood there all day. He didn’t, because his wife took him by the shoulders and started steering him to their seats.
Lillian sat on his left, Doug on his right. Carver shifted around, trying to get comfortable on the tiny white folding chair, and his dad offered him a piece of gum. He accepted it gratefully. His mouth was so fucking dry.
Josie, who was sitting right in front of him, turned around and beamed at them. “Hi guys. How’s your morning going?”
