Finding Zach (9 page)

“Do
not
tell me he’s a helluva fuck again,” David snarled. He stared at the beer in his hands, wishing he had the nerve to get wasted, to forget what had just happened. Jesus. He hadn’t expected this. Hadn’t been ready to run into Zach, hadn’t known what to say, hadn’t expected to start burbling like an idiot. And he sure as shit hadn’t expected to see Zach not only all grown up but looking older than David himself. Older and harder. He shuddered and he didn’t know if it was fear, misery… or arousal. Shit. If he held the beer glass any tighter it would shatter in his hands.

With an effort, he eased his grip, finished his beer and said, “Well, thanks for the talk. See you around.”

“I hope so,” Brian said with a grin.

I don’t,
David thought, but only nodded and left the bar.

Z
ACH
took the south gate too fast, the opening barely wide enough for the bike when he shot through going way too fast, as if he could outrun the acid bite of panic burning the back of his throat. Going up the hill toward the garage at about eighty, he skidded to a stop beneath the overhang of the upper porch, shut off the Ducati, and raced up the outside stairs, slamming into his apartment and stopping, finally, his chest heaving as if he’d run all the way from the bar. He pulled off his leather jacket and threw it over a chair, then flung himself onto the couch and let the panic attack take over. The shrink had always told him not to fight it, to let the anxiety go, wash over and through him, but it was easier said than done. The damn shrink probably never had a panic attack, never knew what it felt like to be convinced you were dying, that the incredible pain in your chest was a massive heart attack, that the turmoil in your brain was a stroke or you finally falling over the edge into insanity…. He shivered violently, sweat pouring from his clammy skin and tears from his blurred eyes, sobbing and shuddering and crying hysterically.

It was perhaps ten minutes later that the terror finally loosed its grip, leaving Zach limp and exhausted. He lay still, tucked up in a fetal position, waiting for his heart to slow. Finally, he unclenched his fists and stared at the red half-moons his nails had bitten into his palms. “Fuck,” he whispered, and got up, going into the bathroom to wash his face with cold water.

He had only had one Scotch at the bar, so he poured himself another and sat at the kitchen table, holding the glass in both hands and searching the golden depths as if the liquor held answers. He wasn’t even sure of the questions.

No, he knew the questions. What the hell had David wanted? And why the hell had Zach been such a dick to him? He couldn’t seem to stop fucking things up. First losing all control during his therapy session this morning and upsetting his parents, now this. If he’d ever had any remote hope of rebuilding his friendship with David, that hope was as dead as… well, as dead as Esteban.

Zach rubbed the scar circling his neck from the dog collar he’d worn for five years, a habit he’d been unable to break. Feeling the rough dead skin somehow always helped him focus, help him settle.
Stupid,
he thought wearily. Like a toddler’s favorite blanket or teddy bear—only his was scarring from five years of misery. How wacked was that? Still, it was familiar. Almost comforting.

The Scotch slid down his tear-roughened throat, the burn cauterizing his emotions. He was sitting debating whether he should have one more or just drink himself into unconsciousness like he did most nights when there was a sharp rapping at the door.
Shit,
he thought, and glanced at the clock on the stove to see that it was barely past eleven. Had his parents heard him coming home and were wondering why he was so early? He left the Scotch on the table and went to answer the door.

To his shock, David stood there. He reached up and pushed gently on Zach’s chest; Zach stepped back automatically and David came in and closed the door. “Hell yes,” David said.

“What?” Zach stammered.

“Hell yes I’m interested. If it’s the only way I can get you to spend ten seconds in my company, hell, yes.” He pushed Zach back another step. “So what’s it to be? You want me to suck your dick, or you want to fuck me?”

The breath whooshed out of Zach’s lungs. “What the fuck?” he gasped. “Are you
crazy
?”

“Yeah, I think so,” David said. He dropped down onto the arm of the sofa and looked up at Zach. His eyes looked as tired as Zach felt. “I have to be fucking crazy to be here. I just—shit, Zach, I just need some closure.” He looked away. “But I’ll settle for whatever I can get.” His lips quirked in a humorless smile. “Sorry. Forgot. No talking.”

Then to Zach’s shock, he dropped to his knees in front of Zach and reached for Zach’s fly.

Zach batted his hand away. “No,” he said roughly.

“Oh, okay,” David said. He got up, moving stiffly, and unbuttoned his own jeans. “Where do you want me? I gotta warn you—I’ve never bottomed before, so I’d appreciate it if you’d take it easy….”

“No.” Zach shook his head. “No fucking way, Taff. No. Just… just get the fuck out, okay?”

Slowly David rebuttoned, not looking at Zach. His face was white and his hands shook. “Right,” he said numbly, and left.

Zach stared at the closed door a long moment, then hissed, “
Fuck
,” and shot out the door, intending to chase David.

He didn’t have to go far; just to the top of the stairs. David sat on the bottom step, his face in his arms and his shoulders shaking. “Taff?” Zach said uncertainly.

David stood, wiping his forearm across his face. “I’m going,” he said in a muffled voice. “Sorry.”

“No. Wait.”

Shoulders slumped, David turned to look up the stairs at Zach. “I just need to know,” he said wearily, “why you hate me. That’s all. I just need to know why.”

“I don’t hate you.”

David’s face closed down and he turned away. “Whatever,” he said bitterly.

“No. Wait,” Zach said again.

He watched David’s shoulders sag before he turned back. “What?”

“I’m fucked up,” Zach said. He swallowed desperately, his mouth dry and his voice rough. “I’m completely fucked up, Taff.” Then he sank down onto the top step of the stairs, his eyes on David, waiting.

David considered his words a moment, then looked up to meet Zach’s eyes. “Yeah. I guess you would be.”

“I’m in fucking therapy, you know. Twice a day, every day of my life, including Sundays. I can’t imagine what my folks are paying the shrink to come in on Sundays,” Zach babbled. “I go ’cause it makes them feel better. Makes them feel like they’re doing something, you know? But they can’t do anything. Nobody can do anything.” He met David’s eyes. They were patient and a little sad. And wet. “You want a beer?”

David considered, then nodded.

“Okay.” Zach shot to his feet. “Wait. Wait right there.” He patted the air, as if he were telling a dog to sit, then realized what he was doing, shook his hand roughly, and raced into the house. A moment later he came back with two bottles of Goose Island, relieved to see David still standing at the foot of the stairs. He came down a few steps and held out one of the bottles.

David came up a few and reached out to take the bottle. Zach retreated to the top step again; David sat down a few risers from the bottom. They opened their beers in silence.

After a few minutes of it, Zach said, “I really
don’t
hate you, you know. I mean, I know you gotta think that, after what happened at Terry’s just now—but it isn’t like that. I don’t—I don’t know why I acted that way. I wasn’t expecting to see you, I guess. I don’t….” He took a sip of beer. “I don’t respond well to unexpected things. Most people got a sort of, of, I don’t know, buffer or something, helps them figure out how to respond to stuff. I just… I just flip out. Not very mature.” He gave David a brief, humorless grin, and drank some more ale. “I’m a control freak. Things don’t go the way I plan, I freak out.”

“You didn’t expect me to show up at Terry’s.”

“I didn’t expect you to show up anywhere. Stupid of me.” Zach shook his head. “I knew you were back in town, but I just figured you’d stick close to home ’til you moved out, and you’d probably be in the city, and I wouldn’t run into you. You don’t hang out in dumps like the Dick, or Fat Charlie’s. I thought… I thought you wouldn’t be at Terry’s, either, your second night home only. Figured you’d be with DB, or Maggie and Alex.”

“You still call my mom ‘DB’?” David asked in amusement.

Zach shook his head. “I mostly don’t talk to her,” he admitted. “I mostly don’t talk to anyone. It’s… I don’t know. It’s hard.”

“You’ve been talking a blue streak here,” David pointed out.

“Sorry.”

“No. It’s nice. It’s kind of like the old days. You never shut up then. You could talk the hind leg off a burro. But you weren’t boring. You were never boring.” He gave Zach a faint smile. “Annoying as hell, sometimes, but never boring.”

Zach picked at the label on his bottle. “Yeah, I guess. It was a long time ago.”

David asked gently, “Can you talk about what happened to you, or is that, like, too sensitive or something?”

“Something,” Zach agreed bitterly.

“I met this guy tonight at Terry’s. Brian something. You know him?”

Zach shook his head. “Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

“Blond surfer dude type. Like me.”

Zach flinched. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“He called you the Ice Queen. Says you never lose your cool. Always cold.” David took a swig of beer. “Also said you were a helluva fuck.”

There was dead silence a moment, then Zach said, “Yeah. I guess so. I try, anyway. I mean, I try to make sure they’re okay, I mean, you know.”

“That they come first, you mean?”

Zach’s face was burning. “Shit.”

David chuckled. “Sorry. I guess it is a little personal.”

“It’s okay.”

“I mean, it’s hard reconciling the kid I knew with someone called ‘the Ice Queen’. It’s weird.”

“Yeah, well.” Zach hesitated, then said tiredly, “I guess the kid you knew is pretty damn dead. There’s just me left. The fucked-up crazy-assed cold-hearted Ice Queen. Battered, bruised and bewildered.”

“But still fucking beautiful,” David said.

Zach blinked. “What?” he asked in confusion.

“You’re still beautiful,” David repeated with a shrug. “Not a compliment, just a fact. You got great bones or something.”

“I am
so
not,” Zach shook his head. “Not really. The light here is pretty bad.” He gestured up at the fixture over the door above him. “You’re just projecting your memory.”

“No, I’m not,” David said dryly. “For one thing, you look way different from how you looked before. I mean, you were a pretty little kid the last time I saw you. You’re a man now, with a man’s bones and a man’s looks. Does that scar hurt?” He indicated Zach’s neck with the bottle he held.

“No. Why?”

“You keep rubbing it.”

“Oh. Habit, I guess.”

“Oh. Okay. What did they do, try to hang you or something?”

Zach shook his head. “No. It’s from a collar.”

David sat up and stared at him. “Like a fucking dog collar?”

“Exactly like a fucking dog collar,” Zach replied dryly.

“Shit,” David said.

“Yep.”

“Fuckers.”

“Yep.”

The silence this time was less strained and more companionable. They finished their beers and David held out his hand for Zach’s. Zach dropped the bottle into his hand wordlessly, and he tossed them both into the recycling bin under the stairs. Then he stood at the foot of the steps, looking up at Zach.

“Taff?”

“Yeah?”

“I need to know… you said you just wanted to know why I hated you. Why do you think I hate you?”

“Well, maybe because I heard you screaming when your parents told you that I wanted to see you? I flew all the way to North Carolina from New Zealand when I heard you’d come back. I was waiting outside in the hallway. You scared the shit out of your folks.” David picked at the paint on the banister rail. “Shit, you scared me.”

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” Zach said quietly.

“Oh, I wouldn’t call it hurt,” David said. “You can recover from hurt. But I didn’t blame you, Zach. I knew that whatever had happened to you had wrecked whatever chance we might have had. That’s okay. I get that. But what really wrecked me was that we couldn’t even be friends again.”

“I’d like to be friends again.”

David looked up and met his eyes. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. What happened at the hospital… there were reasons for that. Reasons I’m still kind of dealing with. But it was never you. I never hated you, never blamed you, never was afraid of you. It wasn’t you. Dick and Jane don’t quite get that—they still think I’ve got something against you but I never did. Even in the jungle… even then, it was never hate.” He swallowed hard. “I don’t know if I could ever be the person you wanted. Shit, I don’t even know if I can really be your friend, or anybody’s friend. I told you I’m fucked up, Taff. You can’t even begin to suspect how much.”

“You homicidal? A serial killer? Torture animals? Stalk kindergartners?”

“What? No, of course not!”

David shrugged. “Then you’ll do.”

“You’re serious? You want to be friends?”

David grinned, all the weariness in his face vanishing. “Shit, yeah.”

Zach smiled for the first time in forever. “Dad and I are going hiking up at the Peak next Saturday. You want to come with us?”

“Sure, but that’s Saturday. It’s only Tuesday. What about going running with me tomorrow? I haven’t been on the trail yet since I’ve been back.”

“I don’t have much wind yet,” Zach admitted. “I don’t know how far I’d get.”

“Then we’ll take it slow and alternate running and walking. I’ve trained a few people in my time.” David grinned again. “I’ll meet you here at seven.”

“Seven a.m. or p.m.?”

“Hardy-har-har. Seven a.m., dweeb. Just be grateful it’s not six.” He dusted his hands off and dug into his pocket for his car keys. “We’ll take it slow, Zach. I just don’t want to be afraid to run into you anymore. I don’t want to feel so guilty just because I’m staying with my mom for a while. I just… I know things can’t be what they were, but I don’t want to keep them the way they are.”