Finding Zach (32 page)

“Oh, just what you were like as a kid and stuff. I did tell him about the nicknames.” Jeff flushed. “I hope you aren’t pissed about that.”

Nicknames? Zach stared at him a moment, then guffawed. “You didn’t tell him
yours
, did you?”

“Hell, no!” Jeff said indignantly. “I have a
little
pride!”

T
HEY
hung out together for a while, then went off to acquire some food. It being a Tyler barbeque, it wasn’t just hot dogs and hamburgers, but steak and pulled pork and ribs and corn dogs, all eaten to the competing sounds of country, blues, jazz and rock bands. Kids rode on carnival rides, couples played midway games trying to win each other stuffed animals, and as soon as it got dark, fireworks exploded overhead.

It was all way, way too much, and when David appeared at Zach’s elbow and discreetly disengaged him from his friends, he was way past ready to go find a quiet spot to sit and watch the fireworks and decompress. David, in his usual efficient manner, had found such a spot, on a rise of ground closer to the house than to the area set off for the barbeque, close enough to still hear the music, but far enough that they might have been alone in the world. “How are you doing?” David asked as they settled down on the plaid blanket he’d left there earlier.

“Okay. Despite throwing up in front of my dad this morning, it hasn’t been a horrible day. Once I got here and people started coming, it was okay. It was good to see the Jays,” Zach admitted, “and it was kind of fun to see some of the old guys that have been working at Tyler forever. Some girls flirted with me. It was weird.”

David lay down and gazed up at the fireworks. “What did you do?”

“I
think
I just flirted back,” Zach said. “Either that or I’m engaged. Can I ask you a question?”

“Since when has permission given or not stopped you? Go ahead.”

“Have you ever kissed a girl?”

“You
are
kidding, aren’t you?”

“No. Have you?”

“Duh! I dated Maggie for five years, dweeb. There was considerably more than kissing that went on.”

“Did you have
sex
with her?” Zach stared at him, wide-eyed.

David laughed. “No. Just a lot of screwing around, you know. She was kind of into the whole ‘good girl’ prom queen thing, and frankly, I wasn’t all that interested. Why?”

“Well, I’ve been spending a lot of time with Maggie lately….”

“Not thinking of switching sides?”

Zach frowned at him, then shook his head. “No. I love Maggie, she’s great, but she’s definitely not my type. Besides which, Alex can kick my ass. No, I was just wondering if you got, like, turned on by her. I mean, I don’t, but you must have, if you dated her so long and screwed around, and stuff. I’m just curious. I mean, I can’t even
imagine,
you know, being with one of the girls I was talking to today. It just… it just felt so weird to even think about it. The flirting, and all.”

“Zach, I was a teenage boy.
Everything
turns us on. I read someplace that the average teenage boy gets a dozen erections a day. Besides, I told you before that I already knew I liked blowjobs by the time Matt Brewer blew me—I just liked it a whole lot better when it was a guy on the other end.
Obviously
I’d had some experience before that.”

“Oh, okay. It’s just weird, you know. And I was just wondering about you and Maggie.”

David cocked his head. “Feeling threatened?”

“No. It’s just… weird, you know. Knowing you and she dated, and when I’m hanging around with her, I’m always wondering if she ever, you know, wanted you back or something. If Alex wasn’t just a second-best….”

“You
are
joking, right? Maggie is
nuts
about Alex. Haven’t you ever seen the two of them together?”

“Yeah, they’re friends with my folks and I’ve seen them at least once a week since I came back here. But that doesn’t mean anything. I mean, it could be she’s just good at hiding it.” Zach rested his chin on his knees, carefully not looking at David.

“Oh,” David said slowly. “I get it. You’re not really asking about Maggie, are you?”

“Of course I am. Hello? Asking about Maggie by name?”

“But that’s not really what you’re asking. What you’re asking is whether or not
you’re
second choice…. To who, I wonder?”

“Whom,” Zach said.

David ignored him. “Not Maggie—you know I love her but not in that way… Oh. Jerry. You think I screwed up with Jerry or he dumped me or something and I’m making it up by choosing
you
? You’re an idiot, Zach, you know that? And while you come by your rotten self-image honestly, it’s really annoying.”

“Fine,” Zach said, and started to get up. David grabbed his arm and yanked him back down.

“Shut up and listen to me,” he said savagely. “If anything, Jerry—and Chris and Steve and fucking Matt Brewer for that matter,
and
Maggie—have all been my second choices. All of them. Because every relationship I’ve ever had has had this big ugly lummox of a Zach Tyler hanging over it. So shut the fuck up about Maggie and Jerry and every other person I’ve ever even looked at twice, and I’ll ignore all the strangers you fucked in the ten months, okay?”

“That bothers you, doesn’t it?” Zach asked slowly.

“You bet your ass it does. Shit, Mike Pritzger bugs me, and I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone more het than he is. I’m jealous of everyone who takes your attention away from me. Okay, that sounds like a stalker, and I’m not that, but you know what I mean.”

“I think it means you love me.”

“Well, duh.”

“Okay,” Zach said. “I get it. I’m just being stupid again. And paranoid. It’s just… I guess I’m so nuts about you I can’t understand why everyone else
isn’t
.”

“Well, we’ll just blame it on taste. De gustibus non est disputandum.”

“‘There is no accounting for taste,’” Zach said.

“Glad you haven’t forgotten all the Latin tag lines I taught you.”

“Most of them. I think the only other one I remember is something else about ‘brevior saltare something something viris est vita’.”

David chuckled. “‘Brevior saltare cum deformibus viris est vita.’ ‘Life is too short to dance with ugly men.’ Good thing neither of us hot young dudes fall under that category.”

“Ego much?” Zach flopped back beside him, lacing his fingers through David’s. “When I was talking with the Jays, Muffin told me that some reporter talked to him about me a few weeks ago. Was asking about when I was a kid. He said he told him about the nicknames, but not anything else. What?” David’s hand had suddenly gone tense.

“Nothing,” David said.

“Something,” Zach corrected. “What is it?”

“Oh, I just think I ran into the same guy. He called me ‘Taff’. I shut him down, and told him to stay away from you, but he knows who you are.”

“He does.” Zach’s voice was flat.

“Yeah.” David took a breath and let it out in a long exhalation. “It was that Brian guy.”

“Brian? The surfer dude? He’s a fucking
reporter
?”

“Apparently.”

Zach was quiet a moment, then said, his voice bitter, “Well, talk about your past coming up and biting you in the ass. I know where he got the ‘Taff’ part, anyway.”

“He told me.”

The sound of the party seemed distant in the silence. Finally, Zach said, “It was before we got together. I haven’t cheated on you, Taff.”

“I never thought that,” David said in surprise.

“Oh. Good.” His fingers tightened around David’s. “He didn’t act like a reporter. He didn’t ask questions or anything. The only thing he was interested in was getting fucked.”

“I don’t know,” David mused. “He sounded like he was interested in more than that.”

“Well, I’m not. Not with him, anyway.” Zach released David’s hand and sat up, wrapping his arms around his knees.

David put his arm behind his head and his other hand on his stomach, just relaxing and staring up at the stars. “I know you’re not,” he said easily.

“Taff?”

“Haven’t gone anywhere.”

“Do you think, that maybe, if all that happened didn’t happen—that if we’d started, I dunno, seeing each other back then, that we’d be here, now, like this?”

“Probably not,” David said. “Maybe hanging out, friends or something. But not together.”

“Why not?”

“Well, even if we were together that whole next year, with you putting off going to MIT and me working at Tyler before college, sooner or later you’d end up in Boston and me at UCLA. We’d write and talk and email and videochat for a while, but separation’s hard on a relationship. Sooner or later you’d meet some hot young science geek or I’d meet some hot young actor wannabe, and we’d end up just doing the whole ‘we’ll still be friends’ crap.”

“I wouldn’t have done that.”

“Sure you would have.” David smiled at Zach when he turned to look down at him. “We were a lot younger then, and that’s how that sort of thing goes.”

“That’s why you didn’t want me in the beginning? Because you thought it was just a crush or something? That we’d end up splitting up anyway, so why waste the time?”

“Gee, zero to asshole in sixty seconds,” David complained. He sat up and imitated Zach’s posture. “For the record—and for the hundredth time—you
know
why you threw me for a loop when you kissed me.”

“I know what you said.” Zach looked over at him out of the corner of his eye. “So what’s gonna happen when I get accepted to MIT? You gonna figure I’ll take up with some hot science geek and forget about you?”

“No,” David said, “because I’m coming with you.”

“To Boston?”

“No, to Shanghai. Of course to Boston, dweeb. Someone’s gotta look out for you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Of course you can,” David said. He slung his arm around Zach’s neck and hauled his head down to rub his knuckles across the top. “Dweeb. But there’s another reason.”

“My hot bod? Cuz while I’m damaged, I’m not
deformibus
?” Zach squirmed around and leaned
until David collapsed back on the ground, then started tickling him. David smacked his hands away playfully.

“Cut it out, ya maroon.”

“Because you love me?” Zach teased, dodging David’s grasping hands and going for his ribs again.

“Forever and always,” David said.

Zach froze, then rested his hands on either side of David’s chest. The grass was warm and crisp beneath his fingers. “Forever and always,” he agreed, and kissed him, so gently David wanted to weep, then rolled over to lie beside him, gazing up at the fireworks, his fingers laced in David’s.

“
H
AVE
you seen Zach?” Jane asked Richard worriedly as they left the picnic site. Annie was staying behind to organize the staff they’d hired for the event and make sure everything got cleaned up and off the grounds by daybreak so that Tyler employees could get back in the parking lot in the morning. It was nearly that now, somewhere past three a.m., and everyone was tired, but it had been Jane and Richard who’d run the event, not Annie, so she’d shooed them on their way home, claiming not to be the slightest bit worn out.

“David told me he’d found a spot for them to watch the fireworks and that he was going to rescue Zach, but that was hours ago. I did check with Andrew and he said they had gone through the footgate up toward the house about ten o’clock. I’m sure they’re together.”

“Mm,” Jane said, taking Richard’s arm and leaning against him as they walked up the path toward the house. The moon was still up and between that and the stars and the faint glow from the lights still on at the picnic site, it was easy enough to see their way. “I’m glad about that. Do you think we’ll have repercussions from Zach coming to the party today, Richie?”

Richard shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. If we do, we’ll deal with it when it happens. What…?” He looked up the slope of lawn to the west of where they walked.

“What is that?” Jane asked curiously, also noticing the long line of shadow at the top of the rise. It was barely visible, just a patch of darkness against the star-strewn sky.

Richard took her hand and they left the path, climbing the slope up to where the shadow lay. “Oh,” Jane said softly.

It was Zach, asleep on his back on the plaid blanket David had brought to the barbeque. David lay beside him with his head on Zach’s chest and Zach’s arm around his shoulders, also deep asleep. They stood a moment looking down at the two young men. “They look like little boys,” Jane whispered. “Look at Zach’s face—he looks like he’s six again.”

Richard slid his arm around his wife. “Wouldn’t it be so much easier if he were? If we knew what was coming and how to stop it?”

“Oh, yeah,” Jane sighed. “But he isn’t, and we can’t. And I think we’d better wake them up; they’ll get all crunchy from sleeping on the ground.”

“No doubt,” Richard agreed, “though not as badly as you or I would. Zach!” he called softly. Jane bent to touch his shoulder.

Z
ACH
started awake, flinching back at the sight of a tall shadow looming over him and another crouched beside him, but there was something pinning him down. Terror rushed over him and took his breath. He gasped, trying to get enough air to scream, but then his eyes adjusted to the dark and he realized with a start that it was his mother beside him and his father standing at his feet. He breathed out a sigh of relief. “Oh! Mom. Dad.” He glanced down at the object pinning him to the ground and saw David, sound asleep on his chest. “I guess we fell asleep.”

“I guess you did,” Jane agreed. “It’s past three—you guys are going to be stiff in the morning if you stay there all night. Besides, it’s getting kind of cold out here.”

“Yeah.” He didn’t say anything for a moment, just concentrated on getting his racing heart to slow down. Then he shook David’s shoulder gently. “Taff.”

David murmured, then opened his eyes to meet Zach’s. “Hey,” he said softly.

“Audience,” Zach said.

David blinked and looked around. “Oh. Hi, guys.” He sat up, wincing, and stretched. “Guess we fell asleep.”