THE WIFE OR THE MISTRESS CHAPTER 4:
BLAKE
“You have to tell him Blake.”
“He’s right Blake. You have to tell Ted.”
Both Drew and Diane have been on me since we got back to the hotel early this morning to call Ted. Now it’s one in the afternoon and they still won’t let it go. Okay, so deep down, I know they’re right. But all I can think is that he’ll run and tell Michael. Then I’ll not only be the broke Tweaked-Out Twinkie but now I’ll be Trust-fund Tweaked-Out Twinkie. If he shits all over my grandfather’s memory like that, I know I’ll be using part of my newfound riches to bail me out and get a criminal lawyer. I’ll surely kill the little fuckwad!
“Okay so how about this… we tell Brian, Justin, Em, or Ben to tell Ted?” Drew suggests. “That way they will know if Michael is around not to say anything.”
“But shouldn’t it come from me?” I ask.
“Yeah it should! But since you aren’t of a mind to do what’s right, your friends are willing to help you out. Let them!” Diane yells at me.
“Okay, okay. Fine, let’s get Justin on the phone. I trust his judgment on how to keep that little whining turd away from the financial part of a relationship.”
“How do you figure?” Drew asks, and I smile.
“He still hasn’t figured out Justin’s individual net worth yet. When he does, he’ll shit bricks and piss buckets. All he sees is Justin living off of Brian. When he figures out that the kid, who was tossed out of his home with basically nothing but the clothes on his back, and blocked access to his trust fund, manages to make seven figures a year and has been doing so for at least the last six years, there won’t be enough Scott tissue in the Northeast to wipe his scrawny ass.”
Drew and Diane fell out laughing at the imagery. “Well then, I guess we should call Justin. I know he’s been worried about you.”
“And I appreciate it. He is more than Ted obviously.” I drop my eyes, staring into my coffee.
“I doubt it. Ted is probably calls himself giving you your space. You and he didn’t exactly part ways under the best of circumstances. I can guarantee you that it’s not like it was when we couldn’t reach them while they were away during their cursed vacation. I’m still mad at Emmett, don’t get me wrong, but I refuse to let that conniving weasel he calls a friend win. Em told me that he spoke to Melanie…”
“Who’s Melanie?” Diane asks.
“She’s the judge who ordered us into couples counseling. We’ve known her for a long time and then she moved to Canada with her ex-partner Lindsay. She’s since moved back to the Pitts and has taken a family court judicial position. We all used to be really close but…”
“Things happen and people change,” I finish for him.
“I think it took her getting away from the ‘family’ to really get a clear picture of everyone,” Drew tells us.
“Maybe,” I say quietly, thinking that maybe I should…
“No you shouldn’t,” Drew cuts into my thoughts.
“But…”
“No buts, Squirt. Most days, you and Ben are our voices of reason. Without you, I think Justin would have resorted to murder, especially last weekend. I still don’t know how you kept him from knocking the fuck out of Michael.”
I chuckled. “It was a close call, let me tell you. I just mentioned that his little blond ass couldn’t go to prison because they didn’t allow conjugal visits from Brian. Calmed his furious ass down to a slow simmer.”
“Yeah, I guess it would have.”
“Who’s Brian?” Diane asks. Instead of trying to tell her, I pulled up an article about Brian Kinney and Justin Taylor from a Fortune 500 article done about them a few years back. “Yowsers! That’s them?!”
“Yeah it is.”
“Jesus! They make me want to turn straight just to sample the goods,” Diane says.
“Wait a minute? You’re… you’re…”
“A ‘lipstick’ lesbian, a carpet-muncher, a dyke- you can take your pick of what to call me. Grampy’s gift did so much more for me than you will ever know.”
“Did he know?” Drew asks as I’m still in shock.
“Yeah he did. But unlike Blake, it was easier for me to hide it. I tend to go for the pretty type instead of the bonafide butch, so it made bringing them around as ‘friends’ a lot more believable.”
“So is there someone special then?” I ask, finally recovering my voice.
“There was someone who I thought was special, but she isn’t. Besides, she’s deeply entrenched in the closet, even though she isn’t married with kids or anything. She doesn’t want to leave here and I certainly don’t want to stay. We’re still friends but we want different things. She’s currently waiting for her father to die off so she can inherit his millions and live the way she wants to. If Gramps didn’t get so sick suddenly, he was going to arrange for me to move to Chicago at the end of the year. So I guess everything worked out as it should have.” She finished sadly. And yeah, I know exactly how she feels. There’s always going to be a hole in my heart for that man. Snapping out of her melancholy, she pushes my phone back to me. “You need to make that phone call now, Blakie. No more stalling.”
I sigh deeply, preparing myself for it. It’s not just having to utter the words about Grampy’s death, but having to face my new reality as a millionaire that is daunting. I’ve never been the type of person who even dreamed of being a millionaire; was just happy to be good old Blake. So this is something that I have to get used to and quickly. I wait for the phone to ring, wondering if he’s in a meeting or not. It’s the middle of the week and I know that the schedule is usually set up like that. So I’m actually surprised when he answers the phone.
“Hey Ted. Listen... I’m a millionaire…”