2003
North Las Vegas, Nevada
Desert Wind Coffee Roasters & Cafe
Ding!
“Okay, everyone switch!” Denise chirps.
Haley trades practice tests with the girl next to him. She'd said her name this morning but he was too tired to remember it and she seemed equally too tired to be offended.
She gets a 90% on the practice test while he gets a 70%.
“Okay, ladies…oh, and Haley,” Denise says, clapping her hands “Let’s take a 15 minute break. Then we’ll go over the questions we got wrong as a group and then move on to the flash round.”
Haley stands up and looks at the eight bleary eyed women sitting around the coffee shop table covered in NCLEX practice tests and study guides.
“Does anyone want another coffee ? On me?,” he asks.
He felt generous—he’d had a busy weekend at The Ranch and had made almost double what he usually did. He shouldn’t have gone out last weekend but it was peak vacation season and it would have been leaving money on the table.
Two girls take him up on the coffee offer and Haley goes to the counter to order. He never drank coffee until he started his nursing program but it helped him manage schoolwork, Virtue jobs and side work at the brothels.
It would all be worth it.
He was days away from finishing his program with no debt and already had a part time job lined up at the AIDS clinic. All he needed to do was pass the damn licensing exam.
Rumor had it every student who completed the insane 12 hours marathon study session hosted by Denise Price passed the test and Luce insisted he sign up.
Haley stuck out in the study group and in most of his classes-- he was
older than most of the other students and the only boy. He’d outed himself pretty quickly in class because his favorite phrase
for the last year was “my boyfriend” and he’d let it slip
multiple times.
Luce and Sara were busy launching Fallwater so he and Luce's relationship came down
to the essentials; endless kinky roleplay and takeout. Which made it hard when people asked him what they did over the weekend.
“Can you please sign the receipt ?” the barista says when Haley pays for the coffees.
“Oh, I paid in cash--”
“Can you sign the receipt ?,” the barista asks pointedly. “Please.”
Haley looks up at the young female barista and she gives him a small shrug. He’d never stop being surprised when he got recognized by the least suspecting people.
Haley signs the receipt and when the
barista brings the coffees he notices she’d
drawn angel wings on the cup. It makes Haley laugh—he’d started feeling more
attached to his porn identity now that it’s end was nearing.
“What’s so funny ?,” a girl in the study group asks.
“Oh, nothing,” Haley says quickly. “Just the stress making me crack.”
As far as his classmates were concerned, his dayjob was at a dotcom.
His pocket buzzes and he pulls out the his cell phone. Luce had begrudgingly got one after they stopped making his pager model and decided Haley needed one too—in an anxiety induced spiral Haley had bedazzled it with a glue gun and clear rhinestones.
He excuses himself from the group and takes the call outside the coffee shop.
“I’m so sorry, Denise,” Haley says, his voice quivering. “I-I-I have to leave early.”
“Yes,” he lies. “Everyone is fine...I just have to…I’m so sorry. Good luck on the test, everyone!”
He calls a cab to pick him up because he can’t wait for the bus. His leg bounces and his mind races during the ride and when the cab pulls up to Virtue he rushes inside.
Luce still came by Virtue twice a week to update something or the other Haley hadn’t bothered to learn about. He just knew it meant Luce might come up to his apartment, drag him out of bed to tie him up in some constraining position and leave him like that until he finished working.
“Hey,” Luce frowns when he walks into the production office. “You're supposed to be at your study session right now--”
“Lansing Prescott called me.”
Luce's eyes narrow. “What does that prick want ?”
Luce had never met Lansing but he’d made his own judgements based on what Haley had told him.
“To tell me Maxwell is dead.”
---
-2-
Haley discovers the back row of funerals are reserved for jaded ex-lovers. Beside him was Lansing and next to Lansing was Maxwell’s ex-wife Cassia and beside her was Maxwell’s most recent ex-girlfriend—a different young Vibrance actress than the one he’d had last seen Maxwell with.
Haley didn’t give a shit about Maxwell. He was here for Sky, who was sitting in the front row with Maxwell’s parents and Gemma-- Maxwell’s estranged 24-year-old daughter.
It was a full military funeral, held in a breathtakingly beautiful cemetery overlooking the coast line in Monterey. Haley had forgotten how beautiful California could be.
The man described by the priests and
Maxwell’s family was foreign to him. They painted him as accomplished, loving and
successful businessman—though no one from Vibrance had attended. The say he
died in a terrible accident enjoying life and not from a cocaine fueled fall from a balcony during a fetish party in Palm Springs.
The only other person who seems to notice these inaccuracies is Lansing--who snickers and mumbles under his breath during the eulogies.
When the funeral ends Haley hangs at the edges, waiting for a moment where he can speak to Sky. Lansing wanders over to him and Haley can tell the man had started drinking early. Still, he looked sharp in his military dress uniform. Haley had noticed other men in uniform saluting him. A few frowned.
“I didn’t expect you to come,” Lansing says.
“I just wanted to be here for Sky and
leave.”
“I’m glad you came,” Lansing smiles and then calls loudly across the grave site. “Vera! Vera!”
Heads turn and the tall older woman that Haley had surmised was Maxwell’s mother quickly walks over, clutching Gemma and Sky on either side of her.
“Vera, this is Alex Haley!,” Lansing says with faux excitement. “The one Max left me for. Can you believe he lived with Maxwell for 7 years and you never met ? You were what , Haley? 18-years-old when Maxwell started fucking you ?”
The woman looks horrified at his language and doesn’t even bother acknowledging Haley. Sky looks at the ground.
“Lansing, you are very dear to this family,” Vera says and then whispers. “Please don’t make me have you escorted out.”
“Yes, yes, yes. I am so dear to the Maxwells,” Lansing says menacingly. “So dear you all conspired in keeping my son from me for those same 7 god damn years.”
Haley opens his arms to Sky and the 13-year-old steps away from his grandmother to hug him. Sky was several inches taller than him now.
“Are you okay, honey ?,” Haley asks him.
Sky makes a non-committal sound.
“It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to be…sad,” Haley tells him. “He was your Dad. You loved him and…He loved you.”
“Okay,” Sky says. He looks like he wants to say more but is pulled away by his grandmother to another set of mourners.
“That was mature of you,” Lansing says leading them away from the burial and pulling out a flask. “You know what ? What the hell. Sky is spending the week with those fucking assholes. Do you want to come back to my hotel room with me ?”
“Are you asking how much I charge or saying you’re attracted to me ?”
“Both.”
“You should know I’m HIV positive.”
“Shit. Did Maxwell know ?”
“He infected me.”
Lansing takes a long swig on his flask.
“Fuck,” Lansing coughs. “I don’t get it. How the hell are you so zen with all this Maxwell shit ?”
“I’ve moved onto better things.” Haley shrugs and then smiles to himself. “I’m having a baby.”
Lansing frowns.
“You ? How--”
“I'm looking at egg donors-”
“You’re doing it alone ?”
“All on my own,” Haley says proudly. “Well, my sister agreed to carry it and I have a boyfriend but I’ve been saving up the money before we were even together. Not like I have to tie all my decision to him…I learned my lesson about that.”
“It’s a big fucking decision. You’re so young--”
“I haven’t even picked a donor egg or anything. By the time we go through all the steps I’ll be around the age you were when Sky was born and…I’ll be a nurse.”
“Nurse ?”
He nods. “….I’m actually supposed to be at my nursing school graduation right now.”
“And you came to this shitshow ?”
“It’s not exactly how I imagined starting my new chapter but--”
“Look, I get what it's like to be alone and want a family but you’re being insane,” Lansing tells him. “Before you get too far into this you should know raising a kid on your own is expensive as hell and hard as fuck. I hope this boy your dating understands that--”
“He does--”
“They always fucking say that. But having a kid means they come second and men can’t handle that,” Lansing warns. “I'm…I’m glad you made an honest man out of yourself--”
“I was never dishonest,” Haley frowns. “I worked hard. Porn and prostitution is the only reason I can even afford to do any of this. My video royalties’ will support me so I can take some time off whenever the baby comes…I don’t think I’m interested in going back to your hotel with you. ”
Lansing folds his arms and looks apologetic but keeps tight lipped.
“Lansing…are you okay ?”
“This just…isn’t my best day. I’m sorry,” he sighs. “Well, I need to go speak to Cassia. We’re making plans to deface the gravestone later. Want to join ?”
“No, my boyfriend drove me and we have to go back tomorrow….also I don’t think it’s a good time to risk arrest. Except for seeing Sky I am washing Kenneth Maxwell out of my life.”
“Hm. Well,” Lansing shrugs. “Good luck with that.”
----
CP!Shawna: No, seriously, you can stop now...
When I first wrote So We Meet ( back when I had no intention of writing Years) I knew Maxwell had existed and that he was dead. You math sleuths out there know Grayson is born in 2004, which is the upcoming year. In my head Haley's relationship with Sky and the time he spends with Luce's nieces has made him think about fatherhood a lot. I'm glad someone picked up on it in the last comment section.
I have more story but I think this is a good pausing place for the first "arc" of Years. I'm going to take a super short break and hopefully see if another story idea comes of it !