“He wasn’t the only one trying to call,” he said. Zachariah didn’t reply, just stood there, waiting for him to finish. “Your phone kept going straight to voicemail. Is something wrong with your phone?”
Is something wrong with you? Ashton wanted to ask, but he refrained. For now.
“I don’t know,” Zachariah replied. “You tell me. It’s on the kitchen table.” With that, he finally moved, turning away from him and heading deeper into the apartment.
Ashton went back to the entryway and felt around beside the door until he located a light switch. He flipped it up, and the kitchen illuminated with the almost harsh, fluorescent-like glow of the CFL bulbs in the fixture overhead. He blinked a few times, cursing under his breath as the brightness left spots in his vision, and he looked for the cellphone Zachariah had said was on the table.
He wasn’t happy with what he saw in the kitchen. Compared to his own place, Zachariah’s was a pigsty. The sink was piled high with dishes, and several cabinets hung open, revealing that most of the dishes were, in fact, dirty and in the sink. The trash can wasn’t much better off; it was overflowing with pizza boxes and Chinese takeout containers. Empty beer bottles filled a trash bag beside the can, accompanied by several vodka bottles. Ashton scowled and turned away from the sink and trash can to look at the kitchen table. It was covered with mail, all of it unopened, tossed haphazardly on the table like the addressee hadn’t given a shit about any of it. And on top of it all lay Zachariah’s cellphone, shattered, as if it’d been thrown against a wall in a fit of anger.
Ashton cursed under his breath and turned instead to the rest of the apartment. It wasn’t in great shape, either; clothes and other random bits of life lay scattered over the room, like the apartment’s owner hadn’t cared about cleanliness. The air was a bit stuffy, too, and Ashton resisted the urge to open a window.
Instead, he made his way to what he guessed was the bedroom, intending to confront Zachariah about the mess and his apparent behavior. Because it was obvious, even to Ashton, who hadn’t seen him in two months, that Zachariah was wrestling with some pretty serious emotional upheaval, which might have crossed into depression or maybe even some self-destructive behavior. And he had every intention of attempting to shake him out of it before it spiraled into something a million times worse.
Ashton found Zachariah sitting on his bed, which was a rumpled mess that looked like it hadn’t been made in the entire two months that they’d been out of commission. The room stank of weed and sweat and unwashed clothes, and Ashton struggled to not descend into a sneezing fit. He discreetly wiped at his nose and took a first good look at the man he’d been sent to track down.
Zachariah was, to put it bluntly, a hot mess. His dark hair was tangled and knotted and hung almost down to his shoulders, noticeably longer than it had been the last time he’d seen him. His skin, too, was a bit paler, like he hadn’t left his dingy apartment much, and he had dark circles under his eyes, as if he hadn’t been sleeping well. He even looked like he’d lost weight, unless his clothes were just oversized. His green eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, and he looked completely miserable. But at the same time, he looked almost infuriated at having his personal space violated.
“What have you been doing in here the past two months?” Ashton asked, doing his best to keep his voice carefully neutral. “You disappeared.”
“What do you care?”
“Because I care,” Ashton retorted. “Because you’re my friend, and I don’t like seeing my friends go through shit like this.” He watched as Zachariah picked up the joint that sat in the ashtray on the bedside table and made as if to light it. Ashton snatched both the joint and the lighter from him and shoved them in his pocket.
“Hey! What the hell, man?” Zachariah protested.
“You seriously don’t expect me to just sit here and watch you do drugs, do you?” Ashton demanded. “It won’t fucking help. If it did, you wouldn’t still be sitting here drowning in your self-pity.”
Zachariah flung himself off the bed at Ashton’s words, his hands outstretched, as if he intended to shove them into his pockets to retrieve the contraband. Instead, he grabbed the front of Ashton’s shirt in both his fists and shook him, so hard that Ashton’s head snapped back before he could steel himself against the throttling. “You son of a bitch,” Zachariah snarled, tightening his grip in Ashton’s shirt until he was almost afraid the fabric would rip. “You show up at my house, uninvited, and you have the nerve to tell me what I can and cannot do in my own house?”
“In this case, yes, I do,” Ashton replied, keeping his voice calm and level. He grasped Zachariah’s wrists, squeezing gently. “Believe me when I say that drugs are definitely not going to help you right now.”
“But they’re the only damn thing that makes me feel better right now!” Zachariah’s voice cracked as he said this, and he pulled away from Ashton, flopping onto the edge of his bed and burying his head in his hands.
Ashton stood staring at him for a moment, unsure what to do. Zachariah didn’t appear to be crying or anything; he was just sitting there, perfectly still, like he thought he could melt into the mattress. Ashton sank onto the bed beside him, keeping a respectful distance between them. “Is it…is it something you want to talk about?”
Zachariah sat up straight at his question, rubbing a hand over his face with a sigh and shaking his head. “Yeah. No. I don’t know,” he said. “I just…I guess I didn’t realize it was going to be like this.”
“What was going to be like this?” Ashton asked.
“The job,” he answered. “I’m not sure I expected it to be like this.”
“None of us ever do,” Ashton said. “This life is a hard one, and I’ve always thought the handlers didn’t do a good enough job of hammering that into our heads. It ends up with good agents like you sitting in dark, shitty apartments smoking up and drinking way too much to take the edge off the trauma.”
“I’m not a good agent,” Zachariah muttered.
“What makes you say that?” Ashton asked.
“I got caught, Ash,” he replied. “Don’t act like you didn’t notice, either, because you’re the one who pulled my ass out of the fire.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Ashton said. “I also haven’t forgotten that you pulled my ass out of the fire, and you killed a werewolf to do it.”
“So I shot something,” he said with a shrug. “It’s not that big of a deal.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. You saved my life.”
Zachariah glanced up at him, then, and Ashton was glad to see something resembling the barest of smiles on his face. “What else was I supposed to do?” he asked. “You saved my life. The least I could do was return the favor.”
Both of them fell silent at that, sliding into a comfortable silence that felt almost natural. As they sat there, Ashton was fully aware and attuned to Zachariah’s presence; he heard every breath, felt every shift of movement the man made. It was ridiculous how much his thoughts had essentially begun to revolve around the other man. He’d spent half of the past two months dwelling on him, occasionally trying to call him, all because of one single night that had taken place before the shit hit the fan and they’d gotten sucked into a hell of a new, unofficial assignment. He was wholly convinced that this ridiculous fixation on that night was turning him into a girl, at least emotionally. He had to get his head on straight again before he came back to work officially.
As he stewed over this, Zachariah stared at him expectantly, and when he didn’t say anything, he asked, “Why did you come here, by the way?”
Ashton shook himself loose from his dwellings. “Director Hartley sent me,” he explained. “He’s been trying to get in touch with you about an assignment he wants to send you on, and since you weren’t answering your phone, he asked me to come down here and make sure you were okay.”
“What made him think I wouldn’t be okay?”
Ashton bit back a snort. “Have you looked a
t your apartment lately?”
“What’s wrong with my apartment?”
“Other than the dirty dishes, the trash, the beer bottles everywhere, and the stink of weed?” Ashton listed off. “Nothing, Zach. Nothing at all.” He stood, giving Zachariah a light pat on the thigh as he did so. “Come on, get up. You need a shower, and while you’re in there, I’m going to try to clean this place up some, because it needs it badly.”
“Good luck with that,” Zachariah commented. He retreated toward a door that led to what Ashton assumed was the bathroom, leaving the door wide open as he flipped the shower curtain aside to turn the water on so it could heat up. When he started stripping his clothes off, Ashton turned away, focusing instead on the mess that littered both Zachariah’s bedroom and living room. He had no idea where to even start.
“Good luck, indeed,” he muttered, deciding to start in the kitchen. At the very least, he could get the garbage cleared away while Zachariah showered.
* * *
As water sluiced down his body, Zachariah gritted his teeth, trying to relax and let the heat of the water soothe his irritation. He hadn’t expected to have someone come knocking on his door, and he most assuredly hadn’t expected said person knocking to be Ashton. His heart had skipped a beat at the sight of the man standing in the hall outside his apartment, and he’d immediately felt embarrassed by the condition of his apartment. It had taken everything in him to not slam the door in his face. Not because he didn’t want to see him—he had wanted to, badly—but because he didn’t want Ashton to see him like this.
To say he’d let himself go over the past two months would be an understatement. He’d watched as the doctor knocked Ashton out with painkillers, and as he sat there waiting for the other man to wake up, he’d realized he couldn’t stand to sit there another minute. He’d left, stopping by his D.C. apartment just long enough to grab a suitcase of clothing before heading to his Dallas-based home to try to deal with the assorted traumas of his last assignment.
Could he really say he was dealing with it, though? Not in the slightest.
He leaned against the tile under the shower spray and eased the edge of the shower curtain away from the wall, just enough to create a crack he could peek out of. He’d left the bathroom door open on purpose, just for this reason. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Ashton. He trusted him, implicitly. He was just curious about what the man was doing. It was so weird seeing him in his home, picking up trash, stacking dishes beside the sink, wiping down counters. He’d settled into Zachariah’s apartment like he belonged there, and Zachariah wasn’t sure how he felt about it. Maybe because he liked it. He liked it a little too much. He liked how Ashton slotted so neatly into his life.
He scowled at himself and let the curtain fall closed again, enveloping himself into the steam rising from the hot water pouring from the showerhead. Closing his eyes, he tilted his head back into the stream, feeling the ends of his long hair rub against his shoulder blades.
“Everything okay in there?”
Zachariah startled. Ashton’s voice was a lot closer to his shower curtain than he’d expected it to be. He straightened and slid the curtain open enough to see Ashton standing just inside the bathroom door, that concerned little wrinkle on his forehead between his eyes.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m fine. I’m just, you know, still a little high.” He pushed his wet hair off his forehead and gave Ashton a one-shouldered shrug. “You know how it is.”
“No, not really,” Ashton said.
Zachariah raised an eyebrow. “You’ve never smoked weed before?”
“Do I look like I’ve smoked weed before?” Ashton asked. He stepped farther into the room, picked an empty beer bottle out of the sink, and dropped it into the trash bag he held.
“Geez, what are you, pure as driven snow?”
Ashton snorted. “I’m not sure I’d qualify as ‘pure,’ Zach.”
“No, you’re just the most virginal, innocent, almost naïve man I’ve ever met,” Zachariah remarked. “Absurdly so.”
The sound of the trash bag hitting the floor met his ears, and before he could react, the shower curtain was yanked from his fingers and whisked all the way open, letting in a cold breeze. Zachariah stumbled back out of reflex, bumping into the tile wall behind him, and looked, wide eyed, at Ashton, who stood staring at him, gripping the shower curtain, a look of something Zachariah couldn’t put a name to in his eyes.
“Virginal?” Ashton repeated, his eyebrow raising. He looked Zachariah up and down, blatantly, from the top of his sodden head all the way down to his feet; Zachariah felt goosebumps prickle up over his skin at the look. “I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be offended by that or what,” he commented. Then he whisked the shower curtain closed, separating them off again.
“I’ll…leave that up to you to decide,” Zachariah said, disgusted at the slight tremor in his voice. What the hell was wrong with him? He was in no place mentally or physically to be even thinking about anything but getting himself back into a good place. He pushed off the wall and grabbed the bottle of shampoo from the shower organizer with shaking hands, deciding a subject change was in the offing. “What did Director Hartley send you after me for?”
“I’m not sure.” Judging by the slight shake in Ashton’s own voice, Zachariah realized he wasn’t the only one being affected by proximity, much to his delight. “Like I said, I think he has some sort of assignment he needs you to do for him.”
“But why send you for me?” he persisted, lathering up the shampoo in his long hair. “He could have sent anybody. Why you?”
“Maybe because he knew you would be less likely to put a bullet in my skull?” Ashton suggested.
“Or he’s going to send us out on something together,” he added.
“Don’t be silly,” Ashton said. “I can’t go out in the field yet. My doctor and physical therapist haven’t cleared me.”
“Maybe the director thinks you’re about to get cleared,” Zachariah said. “Maybe he’s hedging his bets that you’ll be able to jump in on something with me shortly.”
“Maybe.”
Zachariah shut the water off, wrung out his hair, and flung the shower curtain aside. He shivered and snatched his towel off the rack to dry off before he froze half to death and suppressed a grin as he saw Ashton doing his very best to not look at him. It was almost adorable in a dorky sort of way how self-conscious Ashton was about his attraction. He hadn’t been kidding about the naïve part. He would have to break him of that once he got back in a better mindset. And he’d most assuredly enjoy every moment of it.
“I suppose this means I’m heading back to Washington with you, huh?” he said. “I’m pretty sure the director would kick your ass if you showed up without me, and we can’t have that, now can we?”
“No, we definitely cannot.”
Zachariah finished drying off—mostly—and wrapped the towel around his waist. Then he looked up at Ashton, shoving still-wet, dripping hair out of his face, and stepped up to him, really close, partially to unnerve the man and put him off balance, but mostly because he really, really wanted to feel another person close to him that he knew wouldn’t hurt him, at least not intentionally. “I really look forward to working with you,” he said quietly. “And to getting to know you better. A lot better.” Ashton licked his lips reflexively, and Zachariah grinned, taking a sudden step back from him and grabbing a second towel to dry his hair with. “So, I guess I need to pack,” he said, a tone of false cheerfulness in his voice. “Anything in particular I need to bring with me?”
“Hard to say,” Ashton replied. “I don’t know what he’s going to have you doing.”
Zachariah carefully stepped over the trash bag between him and the door and went into his bedroom. “Forget the trash, then,” he called as he collected clothes to get dressed. “Just help me grab up my personal shit.”
“What about your apartment?” Ashton came into the room as he was tugging his jeans on. He looke
d sufficiently rattled and off balance, just the way Zachariah needed him to be right now.
“You can’t actually believe I’d keep this place,” he said. “This was just where I was staying so I could get wasted without bothering my much nicer neighbors.” He didn’t look at Ashton as he said this, not wanting to see what he knew would be condemnation on the other man’s face. He tugged his shirt on over his head to block the man’s face and turned away to grab the few clothes he’d brought with him out of the rickety dresser’s drawers.
“I understand, you know,” Ashton said.
“We’ve already established that, and I’d rather not rehash it all again,” Zachariah said. He dumped the clothes on the bed then went to the closet for his suitcase. “And don’t start citing agent drug abuse statistics to me, either. I already know the rates. Brandon is particularly fond of spouting them at me whenever I fail the drug tests.”
“You’ve failed drug tests?” Ashton asked.
Zachariah slammed his suitcase down onto the bed. “Yes, Ash, I’ve failed drug tests. I also drink alcohol and have sex with women and men. I’m not a saint and never claimed to be one. Stop acting like you know me already. We had one night. That doesn’t give you some deep insight into how my brain works. And stop looking at me like I just decapitated a kitten in front of you.”
“Shit, I’m sorry,” Ashton said. “I didn’t mean anything offensive by that. I just…you don’t look like someone who’d fail multiple drug tests.”
“Yeah? And what does someone who’d fail multiple drug tests look like?”
“I have no idea.”
Zachariah snorted. “And you said you weren’t pure as driven snow.” He gathered his clothes and shoved them into his suitcase without folding them. He started to zip the bag closed but paused halfway and looked at Ashton. “I don’t want to have this discussion again, Ash. I’m twenty-five years old. In most parts of the world, that makes me an adult. And as an adult, I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.” He finished zipping the bag and dragged it off the bed. “Come on. My shoes are somewhere in the living room. Let me finish cleaning myself up, and then we can get the hell out of here.”
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