CHAPTER 39 Charlie
CHAPTER 39
Charlie
I lie next to Rowan, catching my breath after our reunion-after-a-whole-twelve-hours-apart sex, sneaking looks at him when I hope he’s not paying attention.
He’s changed in the past few days. While he’s naked now, he walked in transformed into some kind of couture-wearing twink. He’d hate it if I called him a twink. But he looks great in his new clothes. He’s always looked otherworldly, with that shiny, messy pink hair and those big, navy blue eyes. He’s got a little bit of Marilyn Monroe to his look—that sexy innocence with a mole on his cheek under his eye. He should be sitting on a throne with a gold crown while everyone falls at his tiny, imperious feet. Princeling indeed.
He hops out of bed, absolutely perky after being fucked within an inch of his life. “I want to give you presents.”
“Are these early Christmas presents or to make up for the fact that you still haven’t returned my suede jacket?”
Rowan blinks up at me all faux innocent. “What suede jacket?”
“You know exactly which one. ”
“No, they’re not to make up for it, nor are they Christmas presents,” he says. “If you want your jacket back, I can return it.” His grin is too quick, and he doesn’t meet my eyes.
“I like that you have it,” I admit.
Rowan smiles a sweet, sad smile. His voice gets very small, his most vulnerable voice. It’s my favorite. I’ve seen him bluff and bluster and puff his chest out. But this voice means he’s exposing his true heart’s desire. “Can I stay here with you, even now that I have another house to go to?”
“Yep.”
“Cool,” he says quietly. I tug him closer. Even if having a family—and what a family!—has changed him, he still wants me.
I want him, too.
We get up, and he hands me several wrapped boxes. I undo the ribbon that’s embossed with the name of the upscale department store and open the lid. Inside, nestled in thick black tissue paper, is a dark brown crewneck cashmere sweater from a very expensive brand. Rowan’s eyes are full of excitement as he watches me pull it out and hold it up. The fine yarn is soft, and when I put it on, it fits perfectly.
“Thank you so much. This is awesome. You have really good taste, baby boy,” I say.
“I know, Daddy.”
I laugh and open the next present.
Late Saturday morning, I drive us to Rowan’s great-aunt’s house, which is in Laurel Canyon, a hilly, tree-filled, secluded part of LA full of artists. I’m dressed in a soft sweater Rowan bought me that feels like wearing a cloud. Rowan’s bodyguard from some security service follows us. Rowan explained why he was necessary, but it still feels like a waste. I have a feeling that a lot of the St. Thomas wealth is used wastefully, and he’s still figuring out how to change that.
Rowan asks me whether I’ve made any progress toward trying different types of art or doing other things that I enjoy. “I edited some old footage before you came back down from Montecito,” I volunteer, “of Cam’s painting projects. He’s got a plan for the next things he wants to do to his house. Once we finish his place, we’ll get going more on mine.”
“Can I help you sometime?” Rowan’s voice is both eager and tentative.
“With editing?”
“No, with a DIY project.”
I look at him. “You’re welcome to come and watch. You don’t have to do anything.”
“What if I want to? You don’t think I can wield a sledgehammer?”
I’m imagining tiny Rowan building up a sweat while he demos Cam’s house, and while part of me thinks it’s cute, the rest of me thinks I should save his energy for something else. Something more important. Like being chased through the woods.
Seeing him bend over to demo something with a large tool, though … that would be enjoyable.
Rowan catches the look on my face. “What are you thinking about?” he asks, with a wide grin. “It seems like it might be me doing something without my clothes on.”
“Pretty much,” I admit.
“Ohhh, you mean you want to shoot that kind of video.”
I signal to turn up Crescent Heights. “Sure. When we get home, strip naked and I’ll film you. But that’s just for me.”
While I expect Rowan to laugh, he doesn’t. Instead, when I glance over at him, he licks his lips. “You can film me,” he murmurs, “any time you want. What would you like? Me to use a toy? Or two? Or three? I could have one in my ass and another on my cock, and I could wear a cock ring?— ”
I cut him off. “Oh my god, you are so sexy. If you were anyone else, I’d say I can’t believe you’re up for this, but it’s you. As far as I can tell, you’re up for anything.” Then I glare at him. “Don’t turn me on when we’re going to go meet your elderly relative. I don’t want to, like, offend her.”
“I wonder what she’s like. From what Remi’s said, I get the idea that she’s a character. And seriously, while you can film me however you like, I meant I could help you with actually doing the work or holding the camera or whatever.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
He pauses while we go around a curve, then says, “Remi asked if I want to change my last name to St. Thomas.”
“It does seem like you old money types are very much into tradition and your name.”
He huffs. “I’ve been an old money type for less than a week. Give me a little time to adjust. I said yes, though.” He reaches over and squeezes my hand. “I told him to have the lawyers get started on it. Unless you want me to change it to Cooper, Daddy.” He flutters his eyelashes and wiggles in his seat.
Rowan Cooper. While part of me thinks it seems wrong for Rowan, another part of me likes the sound of it. “You belong to me no matter what your name is. We don’t have to formalize it that way. You’re mine.”
“I’m definitely yours no matter what,” Rowan says. His words make my heart tingle with something. I think it might be happiness.
The gates of Rowan’s great-aunt’s estate open for us, and we continue up a long, winding driveway that’s super lush. Red velvet bows decorate the handrails of patio stairs leading up to a concrete gazebo, and white twinkle lights are neatly wrapped around the trunks of small trees. We pass a huge, gilded mirror posed under a tree, surrounded by plants, and I see the slow-moving reflection of our car going by. I whistle, noting how green everything is. While December is what passes for the rainy season in LA, this is an oasis .
“What even is this?” Rowan asks, his voice in a tone of wonder. “I’m totally out of my element.”
“That makes two of us.”
“I felt out of place at the Montecito house, but I’m just starting to get the scope of how much the St. Thomas family has.” He pulls out his phone and googles the address. “Remi told me this was once Harry Houdini’s home, and there’s a whole article on it. It says there are natural springs, which is why this area is so full of plants. She must need fifteen gardeners just to take care of it all.” He pauses. “She probably has thirty, huh? God, this is a different world.”
We pull up to a main house that’s late Edwardian style, per Rowan’s continued reading. There are palm trees and fountains and an inordinate number of plants, and the grounds are terraced, with all kinds of pathways. In addition to the plants, funny little statues are situated here and there. And mosaics. Mirrors. Glass balls. All kinds of whimsical things. It makes you want to stop and look. I hope we get the chance to wander around some.
Rowan does his usual squaring of his shoulders when he’s bracing himself to do something he’s nervous about. I lean over and kiss him. “You got this. And I’ll be right next to you.”
“Yeah.” He swallows hard. Then his perky grin resurfaces. “Oh my god, I kind of have a grandma. Let’s meet her.”
I turn off the car, and hand in hand, we walk up to the front door, which opens immediately. A sturdy woman with very short, spiky white-gray hair, wearing a yellow pantsuit, stands there, smiling. The first thing that catches my eye are the tattoos on her forearms. They’re faded, and they seem of an era when women didn’t get tattoos. Rowan’s Nana gives no fucks, that’s for sure. I can tell that before she even says a word.
“Rowan?” she says in an excited whisper.
“That’s me!”
“Rowan, baby, come give me a hug.” She opens her arms, and he steps forward so she can wrap him in them. She closes her eyes tight, clearly overwhelmed by emotion.
Something happens to my throat. Rowan needed a solid person to be his family. Someone besides me or one of his old friends from a group home. Someone from a different generation. Someone who can connect him to the bigger picture of who he is.
All his life, Rowan thought he was alone. He wasn’t, though. He just didn’t know where they were hiding. Which was—among other places—apparently at Houdini’s estate.
Rowan’s Nana steps back and does the stiff upper lip thing, although she sniffles once. “It’s so good to finally meet you, Rowan. We’ve been looking for you for a very long time.”
He nods, and now he’s trying to be all tough. Damn, he’s cute. He glances up at me. “I’ve brought my boyfriend, Charlie Cooper.”
We shake hands. “I’m Rhonda,” she says. “But you can be like everyone else in the family and call me Nana, which is what I prefer. And Charlie, I can’t thank you enough for taking care of Rowan. Remi told me that you let him stay with you when he was having issues with his last place. I can’t believe all that’s happened. But come in, come in. Let’s get you drinks, and we can sit down and chat.”
Nana is a combination of old-world manners and fuck it, I can do what I want attitude. I love her immediately, and I can see Rowan feeling safe here. We go into a parlor where one of the old leather chairs has “Conquer Fear” painted on its back. A woman who isn’t as old as Nana but isn’t young, either, comes in carrying a tray laden with mugs, a few carafes, and a plate of cookies. She’s trailed by a blond man who looks to be maybe five or ten years older than me.
Nana kisses the woman on the cheek. “This is my partner, Barbara. Barbara, this is the long-lost Rowan John and his boyfriend, Charlie. ”
Barbara sets down her tray and shakes first Rowan’s hand and then mine. “Nice to meet you,” I say.
“Likewise,” she replies. “This is my son, Gideon.”
I offer him my hand, and he squeezes it in an immediate challenge. What the fuck? I don’t have a weak grip—old-school lawyer training teaches you to not show weakness anywhere. But aren’t we just having tea?
Oblivious to the weirdness, Barbara beams.
Pointing to the tray, Nana says, “I may never have had children of my own, nor did I want them, but I’m completely comfortable being everyone’s grandma now.” She grins. “Especially when it involves cookies.”
Rowan and I each take a cookie, and when I bite into mine, I barely stifle a moan. It’s the perfect shortbread, melt-in-your-mouth good. We pour ourselves cups of coffee and tea and settle in.
“Remi has told me a bit about your upbringing,” Nana says gently to Rowan. “I’m very sorry we were unable to find you until now.”
“That makes two of us.”
“More than two.” Nana leans in closer to him. “You will find, however, that some of the family are less easy to get along with than Barbara and I are. C’est la vie.”
“Well, when you’re talking about that much money,” Barbara says, “you can understand why people are vying for it.”
Gideon crosses his arms over his chest but doesn’t say anything.
“It all goes to you, though,” Nana says, her voice breezy, though I can’t tell whether her tone indicates true acceptance or is an attempt to cover something else: hurt or frustration, perhaps. “Or it will. The rest of us live off the interest.”
“What do you mean?” Rowan asks.
“The money goes to the oldest child in each generation. That’s Remi, because he’s my older brother’s son, and soon it will be you. Nowadays, people tend to do things differently—split the money among all the children—but that’s not how my father set things up.”
“No, what do you mean about you living on the interest?”
“Oh!” Nana laughs without humor. “For tax reasons, interest from my father’s fortune goes into a number of subsidiary trusts, and the family members, except Remi, live off that. It’s not insignificant. While Father certainly provided for me and the rest of the family as far as basic needs, most of this,” she sweeps her hand out, indicating the estate, I think, “is from my late ex-husband.” I’m sure her idea of basic needs and mine differ. She sniffs. “He had enough to rival Father anyway. Did Remi tell you about the parameters of the St. Thomas family trust?”
“He said I would inherit when I turn twenty-five.”
Gideon shifts in his seat.
“That’s true, but it’s only one of the ways to satisfy the requirements. The other is to get married. If you did that, the trust funds would transfer immediately,” Nana says.
“Why would your father have structured the trust that way?” Rowan asks.
“I think in part because he had a happy marriage with my mother. And in part because he could be very controlling and he wanted to make sure that his legacy—his bloodline, that is—continued on. Undivided money can be more powerful, and having wealth long enough to raise a child to marriage age should enable the parents to set up their own assets before the seed money was passed on to the next generation. My father started investing young and believed that was the right way to do it. If people made mistakes, so be it. For my part, I married at eighteen because, back then, that was what women were supposed to do. I was never going to be in line for the bulk of the St. Thomas fortune, so I could make my own choices… which included divorcing in my mid-twenties. My ex-husband later died without remarrying or changing his trust. ”
Rowan opens his mouth to ask another question but shuts it again.
Nana reads him, though. “Yes, I knew I was lesbian when I was young. I had no interest in boys. I grew up at a time when people like us had ‘roommates.’ Ever since my twenties, I’ve done whatever the hell I wanted, and I’m fully aware that the ability to do so was a privilege. And a scandal. But Barbara was worth any scandal.” She looks fondly at her partner. “We’ve been together almost fifty years.”
“Much to our respective families’ displeasure,” Barbara says, and I wonder about her story. Is she independently wealthy, too? Or does she rely on Nana’s ex-husband’s money?
“Because of some legal rules, the trust will end with you,” Nana tells Rowan.
She must be talking about the rule against perpetuities—that control over an estate can last no longer than the lifespans of a certain group of people living at the time the trust was created, plus twenty-one years. At some point there has to be a final beneficiary; the estate can’t just go on forever. I haven’t thought about that since law school.
Which means, once the money is Rowan’s, he can do whatever the hell he wants with it.
“You will receive the funds without any further strings attached,” she continues, echoing my thoughts.
I can read the look in Rowan’s eyes. He doesn’t want to make a wrong step here. And he’s overwhelmed by possibilities.
“I say don’t rock the boat,” Gideon says. “Leave things as they are.”
Nana studies Rowan. “How old are you? Twenty-two?”
Rowan sets down his mug. “Twenty-three. I’ll be twenty-five in less than a year and a half.”
If Remi dies before Rowan turns twenty-five, the money will stay in trust for Rowan until then. That should be no problem, especially given how Remi has taken care of so many of his material needs already.
“Or you could get married and the trust would end now,” Nana says. She looks at me. “Any interest? If you married Rowan—and yes, I know this is presumptuous when I’ve just met you, but still—if you married him, he could become a billionaire right away.”