Welcome to Alistaire's college years! For new readers, this is Chapter One, but in what is Book Four of this character's adventures. You might want to go back and start from the very beginning, but you might not. You do you.
Sorry this took so long, but this is the longest segment of all the Alistaire Cycle, and spans the longest period of time. More new partners just kept stepping up as I wrote, and Alistaire also has a variety of recurring partners who had things to say and do as well. Also, Alistaire started out as my take on the shy nerd with a humongous scepter trope, but he has largely outgrown his own trope, and it takes some balance to make sure he is still the same person, only evolved. I hope you find that I've done a good job with the whole thing! I intend for there to be some surprises, and some chapters that stem from popular demand as well. On with the show!
As with all my work, always remember, that I'm not trying to be realistic. I simply aspire to the plausibly ridiculous. Go with me on this.
By the way, sometimes you write yourself into a corner. I had never intended to write about Alistaire's college years, so I did not hide the name of USC. If you attended the University of Southern California, I apologize in advance. I have only so much as set foot on that campus once, and my memories are hazy. I doubt my depiction of USC will ring true if you have attended there. Sorry!
For everyone else, this is EXACTLY what USC is like!
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The One During Orientation
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When the summer ended, and college finally beckoned, the hardest woman to say goodbye to was, of course, my mother. An 18, almost 19 year-old guy should not snivel when he hugs his freaking mom goodbye. Mom is a good solid foot shorter than me and I felt like I was bending in half to hug her. She probably felt my tears, darn her.
"Let the boy go, Sophia," my dad rumbled in fond amusement. "We have to get in a lot of miles today. And I want a hug too!"
I reluctantly let go of Mom, and she turned to my Dad. "Please, Dennis! Don't rush my goodbye with my baby boy! You are the one who wanted to wait until after rush hour to get on the road!"
Dad held out his arms to her, ignoring her sally. But Mom smiled and dodged away. "And you got your 'squeezing' already this morning! Get in the car, you two!"
Did I hear fucking air quotes around 'squeezing'?
Oh, God. Suddenly, I could not separate my parents fast enough.
Rather than endure their inevitable smooch which was coming as soon as she was done enjoying her 'joke', I went out to my car. (My Car! Fuck, yeah.) I slid in behind the wheel, because even though I knew my dad would do the majority of the driving of my laden vehicle, I was by God going to start and finish each day's travel behind the wheel.
Dad followed me out and hopped in the passenger seat. Mom was right behind him. He rolled down the window for her and she leaned in to deliver one last, lingering kiss of the sort I was absolutely never going to be comfortable with them enjoying in front of me. The two of them had internalized my discomfort and were now flat-out making out in front of me regularly.
I could not get going quickly enough.
"Say hi to Owen for me," Dad said, as their lips parted. "Is he there the whole time?"
"No, I only need him for a day, so he will stay just the one night," Mom replied. "I'll tell him to swing by and take you golfing soon."
"Thanks. Now go catch your own flight, Dear," Dad said. "And bring home the bacon!"
"I always do," Mom said easily, stepping back.
"Love you, Mom!" I called, then started backing out before she and Dad could decide to get amorous again.
I was pretty comfortable with my new car by now, and I smoothly headed for the highway. The nav was on but I hardly needed it for the start of the trip. It was a four-day drive out to Los Angeles, but we were going to give ourselves five for the trip. When Dad had seen that we would make a natural overnight stop in Flagstaff, AZ, he excitedly insisted that we spend a whole extra day there. The city is right by the Grand Canyon, and it turned out that my father had never seen the big hole.
Neither had I, of course, but it amazed me that he had never visited. That said, I was as excited as he was to see the incredible wonder.
But between our house and Flagstaff, and from there on to LA, there was a whole lot of, um, America to get through. Amber waves of grain can get tedious fast. Even purple mountains' majesty gets old in between new reveals.
Dad had plenty of work to do on his laptop while I drove. He had spent a lot of time with the chief judge of his circuit, learning the ropes of how a judge can manage to take a week's vacation without using a week's vacation. He even held three meetings on the first day in virtual 'chambers' via Zoom. But there were still a few times on the trip when I think he regretted not bringing even more work. Airlines make us forget how freaking big America is.
I had my Freshman Summer Reading to help pass the miles when Dad was taking his turns behind the wheel. I had intended all along to hoard those books for the trip out, despite occasionally tart commentary from my mom. The fact that I had better uses for my free time when I was still at home, like having sex with Mary... or Maddie, or their mom Jessica, or Charlotte, or Carrie, had nothing to do with putting off the tedious, boring books.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
But fending off tedious, boring hours of drive time with tedious, boring books turned out not to be the sound plan I had envisioned. I had a lot of time to think. To remember.
But as I said, Dad also ran out of work pretty soon, and this all meant that there was a lot of free time for us to talk.
Mostly, this was great. Dad and I have a lot of the same interests. He got me into many of them, after all. We solved the problems of the Braves' iffy season several times over, and even listened to a day game that was on while I drove. We were less successful in solving all the problems of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The MCU needs a lot more than just a right-handed middle reliever and a left-handed bat.
But I kept waiting for the hammer to fall. Dad had not mentioned girls once on the trip yet, and that was very much unlike the gleefully torturous man I had lived with all summer long. I waited and waited. And he just seemed more inclined to nap or be otherwise bored, than to bring it up.
It was making me nervous.
"I'm surprised you aren't peppering me with more questions, Dad," I said at last, unable to bear the waiting.
"Questions about what?" the man asked mildly, with an innocence that he had not possessed since he was two.
And maybe not then...
I was not prepared for that reply.
"I... uh... well, like classes," I temporized. "I mean, neither you nor Mom have even asked me what classes I'm taking."
Dad looked at me and shrugged. "That is for a bunch of reasons. Mostly because we both know you will have to have a bunch of required classes this year that we don't want to talk about because they will bore us to tears just hearing about them."
"Yeah, but," I started uncertainly. Now that I mentioned it, this was weird. All my friends had bitched and moaned about one or both parents arguing with them about every minutia of class selection.
"Alistaire, for the record," Dad went on, "your mother and I have left you alone on the class selection thing because you don't need us. You may not have noticed, but we mostly left you on your own for class selection in high school too, since your freshman year. You have mentioned several times that you like the academic advisor that USC has assigned you, so you obviously don't feel that you need our help. And this is your first semester. If you mess up and select a class or even two that you won't need, you have plenty of time to maneuver around that. You have four years, at least."
