Copyright © 2026 by Julien Gregg
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The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.
TEN
"How long will we be on the road?" Dustin asked as we drove out of Janus that evening.
"Twenty-four hours," I said. "I figure when I get tired you can drive."
"Yeah," he said. "You think Kevin's going to let Alex drive his truck?"
"He said he was," I said. "We have walkie talkies to communicate with each other. Robby has one, too. That way if we decide to stop at a hotel and sleep we can let them know what we're doing."
"Sounds good," he said. "We're going to have to stop for gas and stuff eventually."
"Yeah," I said. "I'm glad we're going together."
"Me, too," he said. "Are we all pledging Alpha Beta Omega?"
"Robby and Pug are already brothers," I said. "Alex is legacy. His dad was a member of the frat."
"In Osage?" Dustin asked.
"No at Link," I said. "In Fayettville."
"Oh," he said. "Why didn't we go to Link? It's owned by Saguaro, too."
"I didn't want to go to Link," I said. "Saguaro has a better computer program than Link."
"That makes sense," he said. "I just wondered why we were all going to Osage. We could have stayed closer to home, but if it has a better program for you then I understand."
"Did you not want to go to Saguaro?" I asked, worried that I was forcing him.
"I wanted to be with you and our friends," he said. "I can study accounting anywhere."
"That's true, but if you really wanted to go to Link, I'd have gone there," I said. "I never want to be away from you, Dustin."
"I'm happy to go to Saguaro," he said. "I hate winter."
"There is that," I said. "Osage gets snow about every ten years or so. It never sticks. It's going to be very hot there."
"I can take the heat," he said. "It's the cold I can't tolerate. We used to have baseball practice in the cold."
"Yes, we did," I said. "We won't now."
"No, it'll be hot and we'll probably get heat stroke," he said.
"I doubt it," I said. "Just stay hydrated."
"Right," he said. "When do classes begin again?"
"Monday, September fourth," I said. "How could you forget?"
"I'm not as organized as you," he laughed. "You know everything."
"I don't know everything," I said, chuckling.
"Sometimes it seems like you do," he said.
"It only seems that way, I assure you," I said. "I don't know much about Saguaro."
"None of us do but Robby and Pug," he said. "We'll be happy there."
"I'll be happy because I'll be with you," I said.
"That's a nice thing to say," he said. "I'll be happy with you, too."
We drove in silence after that. About eight hours into the trip we all pulled over and switched drivers. I dozed in the seat next to Dustin as he drove. I dreamt of the future, not the one I had come from but the one I was going to live in. It was peaceful, and we were together with children running around the yard. It was a good dream. I didn't want to leave it, but Dustin shook me awake. I looked at him and stretched. How long had I been asleep?
"We're pulling into a gas station," he said. "I thought you might need the bathroom."
"I do, actually," I said. "Plus I want some snacks and soda."
"Me, too," he said.
We all got out and used the bathroom. We filled up on gas and got snacks and soda. Then we were back on the road, but Dustin told me he wanted to find a hotel. I told the others and we found one. It was a nice place. We got three rooms and went in to go to bed. Dustin started to kiss my neck, and I rubbed his crotch. If he wanted to make love then I was up for it. We pulled our clothes off and then we used our mouths to pleasure each other. He dug in his bag and handed me a bottle of lube. Then he put his heels on my shoulders and we became one. I made love to him slowly and carefully. He moaned a lot. I found his prostate and rode that for a while. He jerked and moaned. Then his body tensed and he shot cum up his torso. I switched to long strokes and got myself to my orgasm. I shoved all the way inside of him and let go. Then he went to the bathroom to clean up and out. He came back and snuggled with me until we fell asleep.
Several hours later we got up, showered and headed to the restaurant to have breakfast. It was morning. We got back on the road and I drove. He held my hand. Kevin said he needed more snacks and soda, so in the next town we got more of each. Then we drove on. We were about half way there. Dustin watched the scenery change as we drove. I just held his hand and kept driving. We pulled into Osage at about noon. We went to the registrar's office and presented ourselves. We got our meal cards with our pictures on them. Mine and Kevin's would be perpetual. Dustin and the others had to pay to replenish theirs each month.
Then we went to the dorms and moved in. I didn't unpack because very soon I planned to be at the frat house. Kevin didn't unpack either. We went to bed. The next day we all went to the baseball coach and presented ourselves. He talked to me and Kevin because we were the scholarship kids. He told Kevin that he'd work with Coach Miller on batting. He told me I'd work with Coach Franklin on short stop. He released us and told us to pick up order forms for the uniforms and take them with us. Then he talked to the others.
Back in the dorm, we filled out the uniform forms and wrote checks to send them in. I ordered three of the home uniforms and three of the away uniforms. Kevin did the same. Dustin came with his form. He'd filled in his size and I marked him down for three and three and wrote another check to put with his. He thanked me with a kiss. Then we took them to the outgoing mail. We went to the cafeteria and got food from the Nifty Fifty. We sat in the dining room to eat it. There weren't a lot of other students on campus yet. We still had a week before classes would start.
Saguaro University Arizona was a series of what looked like sandstone buildings. Some were multiple stories. We walked around campus with bottles of water and checked out our classes. We found them all. We went to the bookstore and I bought books for my classes. Kevin got his, too. Dustin and the others got theirs as well. Then we drove past the fraternity house. It was a three story sandstone building with a lip of overhang. Pillars held it up. The letters for the fraternity were on the edge of that lip. A sign in the yard announced that this was Alpha Beta Omega. Omega Beta Zeta was across the street. It looked just like the other buildings on Fraternity Row.
Back in the dorm we put our books on the desks and went through the syllabus for each class. There were assignments due on the first day of classes. I quickly got them done. I went to the computer lab to write the code for the computer assignment. Then we went back to the cafeteria and had dinner. We hung out in the common room of the dorm. Robby and Pug were already at the frat house. Chad was in the dorm with us, and he found us after a few minutes. I shook his hand and told him it was good to see him.
"Thalia isn't here yet," he said. "She's flying in today."
"Okay," I said. "How'd you get here so early?"
"I got here yesterday," he said. "My parents were happy to see me go."
"Why is that?" I asked.
"I'm eighteen," he said. "They told me and my brother that when we turned eighteen we were out. They were done with us. They paid for college and that's all they're going to do. If I want extra money I have to get a job."
"That's harsh," I said. "You plan to play baseball?"
"No," he said. "I'm a football player, and I'm not playing while I'm in college. I need to focus on my classes."
"What classes do you have?" I asked.
"Rhet and Comp, Algebra, and one computer class," he said.
We figured out that we had the same computer class. He asked if I had done the assignment. I told him that I had. He nodded. We went to our rooms around nine and went to bed. The next morning, Thalia was with us. She hugged me and I went off to breakfast with her, Dustin, and Chad. She got a kick out of the fact that my meal card had my picture on it. I told her Kevin's did, too. She said she'd had to buy hers and would have to refill it every month. I told her it was the same for Dustin and Alex.
We talked about classes and pledging the greek houses. We talked about how Dustin would pay his dues and rent at the frat house. He said David would cover those. Then we talked about how we knew we'd make it into the frat. I told him that Robby had told me that the trials were a breeze if you just followed directions. He said it was vitally important to put money with the money that a brother gives us to get items on the shopping list to get all of the items. He said we'd lose points if we didn't.
"Robby is a great resource for all things frat related," Dustin said.
"They had a lot of seniors graduate last year," I said. "There are open rooms in the fraternity."
"Are you going to room with Kevin?" he asked.
"No," I said. "I'm going to room with you."
"Thank you," he said. "Sometimes you and Kevin are a force to be reckoned with and I don't know where I stand."
"Dustin," I said and stopped. "I am going to love you for the rest of my life. You never have to wonder where you stand with me. You are my heart. I love you so much that I know that I'll be with you for the rest of my life and I can be happy in that knowledge, because what we have is perfect. We communicate, we make time for each other, and if at any time you feel left out by me and Kevin, just let me know. I'll fix it."
He kissed me. That afternoon I wrote a song. I'd never written a song before, but I thought of Dustin. I just thought of him and wrote. I'd sing it at open mic night in the student center. I even had music in mind for it. I spent some time in the music room, playing the song on the piano. Kevin asked me what I was doing. I just smiled at him. I told all of my friends and Dustin to be at open mic night that Saturday. They said they'd be there.
The Student Center was a large building with an auditorium, an art room, a music room, and a classroom for Show Quire. The auditorium had two hundred seats. The students filed in to that red and black auditorium. I saw my friends sitting with Dustin in the front. They announced me and I walked out on stage and sat at the piano. I started to play, and then I started to sing.
"There goes my heart beating, and you are the reason," I sang in my most haunted voice. "I'm losin' my sleep. Please come back now.
"And there goes my mind racing, and you are the reason that I'm still breathing," I sang. "I'm hopeless now.
"I'd climb every mountain and swim every ocean just to be near you and fix what I've broken, oh, 'cause I need you to see that you are the reason.
"There goes my hands shaking, and you are the reason my heart keeps bleeding," I sang. "I need you now. And if I could turn back the clock I'd make sure the light defeated the dark. I'd spend every hour of every day, keeping you safe.
"And I'd climb every mountain, and swim every ocean just to be with you and fix what I've broken," I sang. "Oh, 'cause I need you to see that you are the reason.
"I don't wanna fight no more," I sang louder. "I don't wanna hide no more. I don't wanna cry no more. Come back I need you to hold me. You are the reason.
"And I'd climb every mountain and swim every ocean just to be near you and fix what I've broken, oh, 'cause I need you to see that you are the reason."
I stopped playing and singing, and the lights went out. The applause was deafening. They were on their feet. I came to the front of the stage and looked right at Dustin and bowed. Then I left the stage. I walked off the stage and joined them in the front row. They talked excitedly about the song and my singing. I told Dustin that was for him. He cried as he held me. I just held on to him and soaked up the love. We watched the others. Some were poets, and some sang. Some were comedians. It was a great night.
When we got back to the dorm it was all anyone could talk about. I was told over and over again that I had a great voice. I told them I had no plans to sing for a living. I was going to open an electronics store. They all patted me on the back. My friends sat and stared at me in the common room. Thalia asked me where that song had come from. I told her that I was just thinking about something Dustin said and I wrote the song. She hugged me. She said it was beautiful. I thanked her. Dustin wouldn't let go of me.
The dreams started that very night. In the dream I was standing in the apartment above the bar that I had lived in when I came back in time. My future self was sitting in a chair, staring at me. He stood up and walked up to me. He took me in his arms and told me that I was doing the right thing with the life that God gave me a second chance at. He was worried about some of the things I had planned, but so far I was doing fine. I woke up gasping. I thought about that dream the whole day. Time travel and dreams of my future self. In truth, it was completely possible that I was receiving messages from my future self, but why didn't he reflect the changes that I'd made? Where was Dustin?
That bugged me for a long time. The next night I had the dream again. He told me more. He said that Dustin and I were married and that we had two children. Boys. He said that Kevin was married with two boys and April was married with two boys. He said that Richard was doing well. They weren't with him because he only needed to talk to me. The others didn't need to talk to me. They had me. He was watching, he said.
"So far, you're doing fine," he said. "You and Kevin are close, Kevin's alive, Richard is having children and getting married, April is whole and in love. You did so much. The world is changing around you for the better because you did what you did. I'm proud of you."
"Why am I dreaming of myself in this apartment?" I asked.
"Because this would be easier for you to accept than where we really are in life," he said. "Things are going to work out for you, and you'll be happy. Just be careful with what you do in the future. There's a cliff that you're headed for and if you don't pay attention you will fall right off the edge."
After that I had that dream now and then. It wasn't every night. I spent my time divided between Dustin and Kevin. I hung out with Thalia and Chad. I hung out with Robby and Pug separately and together. I loved that Robby and Pug were in love with each other. They were going strong. Classes started and with them came the first party at Alpha Beta Omega. We wrote essays. I wrote about surviving child abuse and finding love. I wrote about four children who were afraid of life for so long and how I'd gotten Hank our of our lives. I wrote about my grandmother and Jason and how he was the light in our lives. I turned it in at nine the next morning.
The second party was the big one. We met so many brothers. I talked with a lot of them about my plans for the future, playing baseball, and just living my life to the fullest. They gave us alcohol, but they made sure that we were merely tipsy when we left the party that night. They passed out the questionnaires that night. We went back to the dorm and filled them out. We were supposed to return them before classes the next day. I was there bright and early at six to put the packet in the hands of the Fraternity President. He nodded at me. Then I went to breakfast. The names of the ten went up later that day. My name, Kevin's name, Dustin and Alex's name was on there along with Chad's. We were happy. We were told to dress in formal attire for the third party which was held Tuesday night.
We met fraternity alum. There were two congressmen there along with a singer that was popular. Two businessmen were there. I had conversations with each of them. The singer told me that he had heard about my singing at open mic night. He said I had a chance in the music world, and I would be a great singer. I told him I wasn't interested in that. We talked for a bit about what I was really interested in and he said it was a pleasure to talk to me.
"You're going to sing again?" Thalia asked.
"No," I said. "That was a one time thing. I'm not wanting to be a singer. I'm opening an electronics store and a company to stock it."
"Right," she said. "It's just that you have a wonderful voice."
"Thank you," I said. "Right now I'm trying to get into Alpha Beta Omega."
"You've got one more party and then you'll be in the Trials," she said. "It's the same for me."
"Yeah, Sunday night we'll be servers and then in the basement for the trials," I said.
"Well, we'll be in the attic," she said. "Omega Beta Zeta doesn't have a basement."
"Listen," I said. "When the trials are over and we're both members of our esteemed greek organizations, I'd like to talk to you, Chad, Pug, and Robby about a product I'd like to build. It's going to take a lot of tech and a lot of circuitry. We can do it, and I want us to be the ones who do it so no one else can claim it. Kevin and I are going to register our patent and the business soon."
"That sounds great," she said with a smile. "I look forward to it."
"I do, too," I said. "I have a lot of notes that I've been written down for a lot of things that will make us rich."
"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked.
"Sure," I said. "I have a mock up of a watch that can take your blood pressure, your heart rate, and your blood oxygen. I also want to work on a operating system for a computer. That would be me, you, Chad, and Robby. We'd have to work together to get it up, but then we'll build computers to install it in. We'll sell them at the store. I also want to figure out how to make music on plastic discs that will play on a player that we'll build. It would require a laser reader."
"That all sounds amazing," she said. "We'll start with what?"
"The Study Buddy," I said. "It's going be a device that you can put notes in to study. We could even add textbooks to it if we give it enough memory."
"That sounds really cool," she said. "I can't wait to work on it."
"We'll have to code it," I said. "Then when it works we'll build it and start selling it to the students here."
"Where do you get these ideas?" she asked, looking at me with a smile.
"I don't know," I lied. "They just keep coming to me."
"That's amazing," she said. "I'll tell Chad about them when we go to eat."
"All right," I said. "I'll tell Robby about them when I see him."
"He'll be here in a little while," she said. "He told me that until you get into the frat, he's just going to track you down."
"All right," I laughed.
I spent that week going to classes and talking to Chad and Robby about my ideas. They were up for them just like Thalia. We spent our spare time coding for the Study Buddy. We didn't get it done before the party and going into the trials. It would have to wait. We went to the party that night, put on the monkey suits and served sliders to the brothers while the pledges from Omega Beta Zeta served drinks. They played cards. We were at it until midnight. Then we were downstairs getting naked after the pledge master told us to be naked. Then he twinned us. I got Chad which was funny at first. He told us that we could never leave each other for the week. We had to be together. If we had classes that would break us apart we'd get proxies. He told us to learn all we could about our twin and tomorrow we'd tell him what we learned. Then he showed us the pledge room. There were five beds and ten of us. We would sleep, shower, and shit together. He said this was a building brotherhood between us.
Chad and I looked at the bed and then at each other. We laughed. But it was a nervous laugh. Dustin got Alex, and Kevin got Andrew Bass. He was a blond with blue eyes and a killer body. Kevin kept looking at Alex, and I kept looking at Dustin. We smiled at each other and then we sat on the bed and got to know each other. I asked Chad about himself, his goals, and his outlook on life. When I was done he did the same thing. Then we got our assignments from classes done, and studied until the lights went out. Then we used the toilet and washed our hands. We climbed into the small bed and held on to each other. Chad apologized for his erection and I apologized for mine.
"We're going to really get to know each other," he laughed.
"Yeah," I said. "This is a bit homoerotic."
"Something like that," he laughed.
"We should try to sleep," I said.
We must have because the lights came on in the morning. We showered and then dressed. We told the pledge master that we had classes that would take us away from each other and we got surrogates. I got Robby I smiled at this. We went to my computer programming class and Robby talked with the professor who was delighted to see him again. After that class we went to my business class. He stayed with me until the end of that class and then until another brother came to take his place. I hugged Robby and then went on to my math class. The new brother was Vince Patterson. He was from Ohio, and he told me that he'd been at open mic night and heard me sing. He said it was great.
Back at the fraternity I was reunited with Chad. He told me he'd had a good day. We got ready to head to the basement, but the pledge master told us to stay in the dining room. Then brothers came with lists and envelopes. This was a shopping expedition. Robby handed me his list and the envelope of money. It was Vince who handed Chad his list and envelope. We headed out in my truck to the five and dime store. I got everything on the list and went with Chad to get things on Vince's list. I had to put money with Robby's, but Vince had given Chad too much. We headed back to the frat and I handed my bag and list to Robby. He asked for change and I told him I had to put my own money in to get the items on the list. He smiled. Vince counted his change in front of us and then smiled.
Back in the basement, we were naked again. I was really getting to know Chad's body. We also really got to know each other that week. He told me he was happy to be with me, but he was starting to have strange dreams. I told him it was natural and to go with it. I told him it was obvious when he was around her that he loved Thalia. I told him to focus on that. This was a brotherhood building thing not a gay thing. He laughed. We got the history of this branch of the fraternity. We were told to study it and that there would be a test on Friday. Then we had to tell the pledge master about our twin. I told him all about Chad, what he liked and didn't like, what he wanted out of life, and about his relationship with Thalia. I told him a lot. He smiled at me. Then Chad told him all about me. He was very thorough and detailed in his description of what I liked and didn't like, he covered my singing and baseball, and he told the pledge master that I was a business and technical guy. He didn't lose a point.
A few of them lost points, but my core group did not. We were happy. We sat on the bed and read through the book on the frat. Then we did assignments and just studied. We dressed and went upstairs for dinner which was hot dogs, chips, and iced tea. Then we were back in the basement to study. I used the toilet and Chad did, too. We washed our hands and went back to the bed. We were putting our books away as the lights went out. We cuddled up on the bed. It was easier now. We just snuggled up to each other and went to sleep.
The week was spent going on shopping expeditions and studying. We went to classes with proxies and did very well. On Friday they gave us the test on the frat. Some lost more points and we lost our first pledge. His name was Jerry Dandritch. We watched him get dressed and head out of the pledge room. The pledge master handed out look books. Inside were pictures of each brother in the frat. Their names were printed under their picture. He told us to know the brothers. Then he walked away from us. I studied the book for a while. Then I did assignments and then went back to the look book.
Brothers started to wear t-shirts with the words, "Who am I?" printed on the front. They would trap us and make us identify them. If we couldn't they would take a point. I lost no points and neither did Chad, but on Sunday we went to trios. I got Dustin and Alex. We continued to identify brothers and go on shopping expeditions. We lost more pledges that week. By the end of the week, we'd taken the test on the National Fraternity and were down to five pledges. There would be no more losing points. The next week we were paired with our Big Brothers in the frat. I got Pug. I was happy with that. We hung out a lot and talked about the code for the operating system and the study buddy. He thought it was amazing. I stayed in Pug and Robby's room. They slept in one bed and I slept in the other.
On Friday they held a party to induct us into the fraternity. They asked if we were moving in. All five of us said we were. Dustin and I asked to be roommates. Kevin and Alex asked to be roommates. Then I paid my dues and rent right then. We were shown to our rooms. Dustin and I were right next door to Pug and Robby. Kevin and Alex were next to us. I didn't know where Chad went. He was rooming with his big brother, so he was fine.
Once we moved in to the frat, we found boxes on our bed. Inside were a t-shirt, a hat, and a can coozy. There was also a catalogue for all things fraternity related. I ordered three of everything in all three colors. I added a check to the envelope. Then I told Dustin to do the same thing. I added a check to his envelope. He tried to protest, but I told him to shut up. We got started on the study buddy. It took a month of coding to get it to work. Then we built one. Then we built another. Pretty soon we had two hundred of them. I had the patent. We sold them to students at fifty dollars a unit. Robby was thrilled when I gave him his cut. We made more and sold them. Money got passed out. We continued to make them, got others involved in the making and paid them. Then we started to code the watch. It took longer to code because it did specific things. Sensors needed to be installed and connected. We made the prototype and it worked. I shopped for a company that would buy the watch. It was medical, and I wasn't stupid. It needed to be in the world, not a store that sold gadgets to make life easier and more fun.
We registered the company. It turned out to be easy. Jason came to sign contacts for me and Kevin. He saw the Study Buddy and smiled. Then he saw the watch and asked what it was. When I explained he looked at me like he'd never seen me before. He finally just shook his head and said I was going to be filthy stinking rich. I laughed. The company was started and we were still shopping. Then a multi million dollar medical tech company bought the watch and the associated code for four hundred eighty million dollars. We all sat in the cafeteria looking at the letter in silence. They paid the money and we handed over the watch and all of our code and notes. We split the money between seven people. We were all very rich. Dustin tried to tell me he wasn't part of the company, but he'd signed the contract. That made him a partner in the company. He as the CFO.
Professors talked about the sale, and students asked us a million questions. We were king rats in the fraternity. We worked on another project. We made musical plastic disks. They were CDs but that's not what I called them. I called them Music Discs. We purchased rights to put music on the disc. We used a laser to add the music to the disc. We paid an artist to make the cover art. Then we made two hundred of the discs. It was a popular singer's new album. We sold them to the kids at school. We also sold them the player that they played on. We made even more money. Of course the singer had to be paid. We opened a factory in Osage, hired workers and they made Study Buddies, Music Discs and Players, and they made other gadgets that I thought up.
We flew to St. Louis and rented cars to take us back to Janus for Winter Break. Grandma was happy to see us. We moved into the house and played with Phillip and the dog. She asked about the company and what we were doing. I told her that with the release of the internet we were doing a lot of things. She smiled. We had a meal cooked by Grandma's new cook and house keeper, Laura. She made Philly Cheese Steaks with fries. We ate well. She was a younger woman with long dark hair and blue eyes. She told us that she'd read all about our company and the sale of our Blood Pressure Watch. She said we'd made a lot of money.
We talked about what was next for Flynn Enterprises. I told Grandma that I had wanted to wait until after college, but it was happening fast. She said that it was all over the Janus papers. I told her that once we had enough electronics we'd open a store here in Janus for Richard to run. He was looking forward to it. I told him we were looking for a place for the store and factory that would make the things we'd sell in the store. He was excited.
We scoured the city for land to buy. We found a place on the other side of the city. We purchased it and hired a construction crew to build the warehouse where the assembly lines would be. Richard was happy. Grandma asked about the warehouse. I told her they would make the things we'd sell in the store that I'd open as soon as I could. She smiled at this. She hugged me and then Kevin. We sat with her in the kitchen after lunch.
"You two are already successful," she said. "You blow me away with all of this stuff."
"We're blown away by some of it, too," I said.
"You know, April will be at Saguaro next year," she said.
"Yes," I said. "Thalia is waiting for her to pledge Omega Beta Zeta."
"Jesse says he's going to pledge Alpha Beta Omega," she said. "That's your fraternity."
"Well, it isn't mine," I laughed. "I'm a brother and so is Kevin. Dustin and I share a room in the fraternity."
"Alex and I share a room there, too," Kevin said. "He's a little upset because he's not part of Flynn Enterprises."
"Well, he wasn't with us when the company was founded," I said. "Robby, Pug, Thalia, Chad, and Dustin have taken active rolls in the company. Tell Alex that if he wants to join the company all he has to do is pitch the right idea to them and they'll include him."
"He wanted to be a founder," Kevin said.
"Well, I'm sorry, but he wasn't in on the discussions about founding the company," I said. "Kevin, Alex can be a part of it. He just has to realize that he's coming to the table late."
"I told him all of this," he said. "He's thinking it over."
"What are you guys working on now?" Grandma asked.
"An operating system for our computers and a game that's going to change the way people game," I said. "Thalia, Chad, and I are working on the operating system, and Robby and Pug are working on the game. It's a simulated life game, and it's going to revolutionize the gaming industry."
"Honey, that's exciting," she said.
That night I sat with Kevin and really talked to him about how Alex was feeling. He told me that Alex felt left out. I told him once again that Alex wasn't in on the planning phase or the induction. He said he knew that, and he wasn't bitching about it. He was just trying to do right by his boyfriend. I told him I understood that. We agreed that we would sit Alex down and talk with him about what he could bring to the company. In the end we decided to give him a job in the warehouse. We built the warehouse and started the assembly line. We hired people, and I included Alex in the interview phase. He was happy. We hired a great group of people in Janus. They went to work on making Music Discs and Study Buddies. They even made the players that played the music discs. I told Richard that they were making the things that would sell in the store here in Janus. I told him to start looking for a place close to the warehouse to build Flynn Electronics. He got on it.
Grandma had a health scare. She went to the doctor and they found a lump on her lymph node. It was benign so she had surgery to remove it. She was in recovery on Christmas. We sat with her and had as good a Christmas as we could. We were back at school when Grandma died in her sleep. We returned to Janus for the funeral. The will was read and the house went into Richard's name. He was beside himself with grief. Ann tried to comfort him.
We went back to school and I threw myself into the operating system and classes. I participated in philanthropic events hosted by the fraternity, adopted a resident to take care of for a month. I got him his candy, news magazines, and sat with him. I even did his laundry. When that was over we went back to the operating system. It worked better than I'd hoped. It could use programs from Windows and Lynix. We made copies of it and stored them carefully. We had them boxed and the cover art done. The warehouse began building computers. Our software people installed the operating system on each one.
We broke ground for the warehouse in Los Angeles. The building went up quickly. We opened the store in Janus and then the one in Los Angeles. We had Music Discs and deals with recording studios to release music on our Music Discs. They were copied by other companies, and they took off like wild fire. People still wanted the originals and we sold them in the store. We had Study Buddies, hand held tablets that could load books and small games. "Life by Design" was released, and it was a hit. We sold it in the store. Richard was happy with the store in Janus. He hired associates that stocked the shelves and waited on customers. In Los Angeles we did the same thing. We took trips to Los Angeles to make sure they were all doing what we wanted. We took trips to Janus to make sure they were all doing what we wanted.
We were successful long before I had intended to make us successful. I was still mourning the loss of my grandmother. Now we visited Richard and Jason when we came home. That summer we didn't go to Janus. We went to Chicago and opened a store and warehouse there. I purchased a condo in a new building. Kevin purchased one there, too. Chad surprised me by purchasing a condo in the same building. Even Robby purchased one. It seemed we were all moving to Chicago when we graduated.
For our sophomore year at Saguaro we worked on new gadgets. Cell phones were starting to take off, and of course we got in on the market. In Los Angels and Chicago I paid for massive cell equipment and got at T3 connection in Janus, Los Angels, and Chicago. We used the towers that were already built to access the cell network, and we built a few of our own in Janus and Chicago. We introduced Flynn Mobile as a branch of Flynn Electronics. We had the cell phones in all three stores.
By the end of our sophomore year at Saguaro, we were the most popular students on campus. Students had our merchandise and had driven to Chicago to get cell phones. We opened stores in Osage, Phoenix, and New York. We were going national. The problem was we were sharing our technology with anyone. Companies called with requests to license our tech and we refused. There would be no knock offs. A lot of stores opened by the time we were in our senior year. By the time we graduated from college we had twenty-six stores in twenty-six cities all over the US.
I was not the valedictorian for my college graduation. Kevin and I were nineteen years old. Everyone was there. Jason, Sarah, the kids, April, Jesse, Gina, David, Alex's aunts, and our friends who were not graduating were all at the cerimony. We collected our degrees and joined the students in the stands. We posed for pictures, and shook hands with the dean and our advisor. We posed for Jason's pictures. Gina wanted a picture of me and Dustin together. The aunts wanted a picture of Kevin and Alex together. The entire group stood for a picture that we all wanted a copy of for our headquarters which was in Chicago.
Sarah and Gina went into planning mode for mine and Dustin's wedding. We'd picked a date, secured a venue, and even got the Scott Convention Center for the reception. We were going to Hawaii for the honeymoon. We made it to July before the dreams started again. This time my future self was angry. He berated me for putting future tech in the wrong time and upsetting the balance. I argued that I had made us rich. He said that wasn't what I was sent back in time to do. I told him that I was done with changing things. He told me to go back and fix what I'd done wrong. I cried and pleaded. He told me I'd upset the timeline so much that war would come, a war that the US was never meant to fight. He showed me a burned out city and told me it was my fault. I cried.
When I woke up, I knew what I had to do. I told no one. As my birthday neared, I got more and more depressed. Dustin tried to bring me out of it. Kevin continually asked me what was wrong. I never told anyone what was going on. On the night of my twentieth birthday, I went to Merriment Park and stood before the fountain. I was alone just like last time. I had a bottle of water. I had debated gettin drunk. I poured the water on the ground and touched the fountain. I stepped into the water and the lightning struck.
"You are the Reason" is a song by Calum Scott
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