by Aiden Bates
To Nick’s chagrin, Bastian was still there.
Zachary thanked the doctor, and then explained that he and Bastian had come up with a plan. He had given Bastian permission to go into his rental and start to look through his belongings and his computer—if he could gain access—to try to find Zachary’s family.
“I told him, though,” Zachary said with a chuckle, “that I can’t remember if I’m a pervert or not, so I apologize in advance for whatever he might find.”
Bastian laughed as well. Obviously, this joke had been going on between them all morning.
Nick gritted his teeth. Why hadn’t he thought of this angle himself? He had obviously underestimated his competition.
“Sounds like a great plan,” was all Nick said.
When the nurse-practitioner arrived for her daily shift, Bastian said goodbye to the invalid, and Nick asked to speak to him.
“How are you doing, Bastian? Caring for someone in Zachary’s condition can be exhausting. You need to take care of yourself, too.” Nick’s eyes flew over Bastian’s face, but he wasn’t looking for signs of fatigue.
“Actually, not bad at all. The couch in there is pretty comfortable, and I’m getting an afternoon nap in. I’m just relieved that Zachary is in good spirits.”
“Well, good. If there’s anything you want to talk about, let me know.”
Bastian thanked him and started to walk out, but then seemed to reconsider. “Actually,” he said softly, and closed the door to the doctor’s office. “This is, uh, unrelated to Zachary, but now that I’ve got you . . . ”
To Nick’s amusement, Bastian started to confide that he was having sexual difficulties. Nick kept a straight, professional face, but inside, he was hooting with glee. Some alpha!
“That’s pretty common,” Nick told him. “Of course, not so much with our kind . . . but not unheard of.” Out of the corner of his eye, Nick thought he saw a microscopic slump in Bastian’s posture as that jab registered. “I’ll write you a prescription. I hope you can wait until the roads clear.”
Bastian was quiet as Nick scribbled out the prescription, no doubt humiliated.
As Nick handed the slip to the now red-faced man, he said, “I know you said this has nothing to do with Zachary, but I would be remiss if I didn’t say this anyway. You do realize that it would be unethical and immoral to pursue a relationship with a man in Zachary’s condition. It would be predatory.”
Bastian’s quick, sharp look caught Nick by surprise.
“Yes, I do know that, Doctor.” The words were almost spat out.
Bastian swiveled on a foot without another word and left the clinic.
Nick smirked to himself, but then forced a straight face before heading back in to see his patient.
“Dr. Nichols, my leg is turning raw where the cast is rubbing against it.”
“I’ve got something for that here. And I told you, you can call me Thomas.”
Zachary smiled with gratitude. “Thanks, Thomas.”
“Are you sure about sending Bastian into your rental to look at your personal belongings?”
Zachary’s face screwed up into a worried expression. “Why? I just don’t even know . . . ” His sentence trailed off.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Nick replied, “Bastian is a good guy. You can trust him. But I thought you would have chosen me to do it.”
“Because you’re my doctor?”
“No, silly,” Nick said. Without hesitating, he reached over and stroked the back of his hand against Zachary’s scruffy cheek. “Because I’m your boyfriend.”
Chapter Ten
Bastian inhaled deeply when he walked into Zachary’s room at the top floor of Stellar Landing.
Sandalwood, patchouli, vetiver—Zachary’s cologne or body wash, or whatever it was, was one of the first things Bastian noticed about him when they met, a masculine but natural scent that didn’t overpower his omega pheromones but instead complemented them.
Focusing on the task at hand, Bastian looked around the room. Zachary was a neat traveler, apparently, with his clothes hung in the closet and his cameras and equipment organized on the shelf. There was a large leather portfolio on the kitchen table, which was a promising sign—if Zachary was an analog guy instead of a digital guy, maybe it would be easier than Bastian hoped to track down someone, anyone, who knew Zachary.
Flipping through the pages, Bastian was struck by Zachary’s handwriting. It was all written in ink, in a looping, slanting hand that was reminiscent of letters of old, and added a romantic air to all of it—everything from Dentist, 3pm to Call Dads to New Game of Thrones somehow seemed exciting. There was one of those expensive, calligraphy-style pens lying capped on the table.
Unfortunately, there was no number for his dads, or even his dentist.
Tucked in the back, under a blue binder clip, were three photos. One was a close-up of a hummingbird, a stunning little creature with tiny feathers of silver and magenta, hovering over a white and pink flower. It looked like it was posing still for the camera. Bastian didn’t know much about birds, but he did know it took great talent and expensive equipment to capture a hummingbird so well on film. The second was of a glorious sunset on the beach, and appeared to be a family photo—Zachary with two older men. The longer Bastian looked at it, the more he was convinced the two men were his fathers. One had the same lovely eye color as Zachary, the other had the same chiseled jaw, and they both looked at Zachary with pride and love. The final photo, in the back, was of a tanned teenage boy smiling down at the camera from a perch in a tree.
Bastian looked at the back of each photo for clues, but nothing was written there, so he tucked them back into the binder clip. He felt a pang of guilt, which was ridiculous since he had explicit permission to be doing exactly what he was doing, but it was like staring into someone’s soul. These three photos were important to Zachary, and Bastian did not know why.
The photos did light a fire under Bastian, however: how tragic it would be if Zachary lost the memories of the people he cared about and who loved him back; how awful if he could not remember his travels around the world, or how to take such phenomenal photos.
The laptop next to the portfolio refused to let him in. As expected, it was password-protected. Just so that he could say he tried, Bastian entered password and password123, but then gave up. It wasn’t worth the time. However, next to the laptop, scribbled on a scrap of paper, was one phone number with an area code that he knew was from Washington DC. He would ask Zachary about it—maybe it would be the key to unlocking his memory—before attempting to call it himself when the phone lines were working.
Zachary’s digital cameras, though, did not have passwords. They looked like complicated machinery, but once Bastian got past the lenses and straps, he realized that they worked much like the point-and-shoot digital cameras that he was already familiar with. Bastian started to flip through the photos, one by one, camera by camera, and again felt like he was looking in places he wasn’t supposed to.
Nothing perverted, as Zachary joked, but intimate, certainly.
Where is this? wondered Bastian, as he looked at images of colorful birds and lizards. The terrain was unfamiliar, tropical, and the dark-skinned people looked like, well, like they were in the pages of National Geographic. An island or remote village somewhere? Zachary’s photos captured flora and fauna and humans who seemed happy to show off their native costumes for the camera, but there was also another man in the photos, a fellow traveler. A coworker?
Flip, flip, flip. A tortoise, a chameleon, a lemur. Madagascar?
And then the other man, lounging on the floor of the tent, shirtless and with the top button of his cargo shorts unbuttoned in the ultimate display of casual relaxation. He was looking straight at the camera and laughing. In the next photo, he was reaching forward as if to block the shot. In the next, his bare chest took up the frame, a blur of a bronze nipple floating near the edge.
Those photos were certainly not for the page
s of the world-renowned National Geographic. They were another intimate glimpse into the life of that conundrum that was Zachary Kelso.
There were more personal, but less intimate, photos on the cameras. One set might have been a family reunion, with attractive, smiling people sitting around in lawn chairs while children played nearby. A few selfies were of Zachary and other people, their faces pressed together or arms thrown around shoulders, and Bastian wondered if they were cousins. There were shots of water balloon fights and a three-legged race, and someone else must have grabbed the camera to get a few photos of Zachary dancing in a ring of elementary-school kids.
None of these photos provided any clues about how to reach Zachary’s family, or where he lived, but they certainly began to paint a picture of who Zachary was: an adventurous, talented man who loved to laugh and valued the companionship of family and friends.
When the first photo came up again, Bastian knew he’d viewed them all, and he made sure all of the cameras were turned off and safely placed back on the shelf. He moved on to checking the dresser drawers for any clues.
A gasp escaped Bastian’s lips when he saw the journal in the nightstand. It was a black Moleskine notebook, covered in leather and with a satin ribbon sticking out at the end like a bookmark. A loop of elastic held it shut. Pulling it out of the drawer, Bastian bit his lip. After everything he’d seen in the past hour, he was dying of curiosity about this fascinating man that was being unveiled before him, but a journal? Was this included in Zachary’s instructions to find what he could?
Bastian decided it was.
He sat down on the bed and pulled the elastic loop off the pages, then began reading in the front.
The first page was titled Volume 15. Diary-keeping must have been a habit that Zachary started in high school.
There were paragraphs and pages about business negotiations, contracts, and exciting travels. Names were mentioned—coworkers, mostly, a blind date here and there, Dad and Pop—but no phone numbers. Apparently there was a trip to China planned later in the year, and a friend’s wedding in Bali.
As he flipped through and read, Bastian got a weird sinking feeling in his gut. The most exciting thing he’d ever done was move to a small town in Alaska to live in an old Cold War-era military building . . . where he lived and worked and rarely left to even experience the beautiful landscape right outside. He felt like a lump compared to Zachary Kelso.
Another entry seemed to be about a past love.
There are days when I miss him so badly that the natural world is painful. Every leaf on every tree reminds me of how often I would see him climb them like a monkey. Every gleaming drop of the sea reminds me of his playful splashing. Wild animals remind me of his joy that time at the zoo, when he became a little boy before my very eyes, ecstatic over tigers and meerkats and rat moles all the same. Here I am, one of the luckiest people alive, to get to travel the world for free and do what I love for money, and yet I’m miserable—on those days—when the beautiful sights remind me of his beauty.
Bastian wondered if this was in reference to the man in the tent. It must have been a bad breakup.
He continued.
Last night, I dreamed about the time we made love. His hands were gentle and somehow so experienced, tracing around my body in a way that both excited and relaxed me. His light touch was electric, and even in my dream, it made my nipples peak almost painfully. When he saw that, he leaned down and teased them with the tip of his tongue, flicking them, then suckling at me in a way that blended pleasure and pain so exquisitely. I cried out and he covered my mouth quickly, gently, with a little laugh. “You don’t want them to hear, do you?” But I almost did. I wanted to share how happy I was. His lips moved down to my belly, and I remember it dawning on me that my belly was now a sexual place, and that any part of my body could be part of my sexual being, and suddenly I wanted to put my lips on his elbows and behind his knees and in the space between his shoulder blades. I tried to sit up, to show him, but he held me gently down and said, “You can do it next time. My turn.” Then his lips were at the place where my leg connects to my torso, that cleft between thigh and groin, and I thought I was going to burst. His tongue came out again, drawing a wet line as if marking a trip on a road map, and I knew I’d never forget the path he took. His tongue traced up the length of my cock, finally, and then took me into his mouth, hot and soft. The rest of my body melted into the floor of the tent, but my cock was hard and throbbing and being worshipped like a primitive god. I watched him as if I were floating above my body, like a god might watch with approval while his worshipper venerated his statue.
Bastian cleared his throat, a noise which filled the quiet room. This was . . . hot. Who was this man? There was no name. Bastian decided to stop reading at that point. He flipped quickly through the rest of the journal, looking for obvious phone numbers to jump out at him, but nothing did, and he placed the journal back inside the drawer. He would not tell Zachary that he found his journal.
He finished up his visual sweep of the room, and when nothing else seemed promising, he gathered the portfolio and the camera with the family reunion photos to bring down to Zachary. Maybe something would evoke a memory.
The elevator made its typical chugging noise as it headed down to the first floor, and Bastian realized that the stranger in the clinic no longer seemed like a stranger. When the doors slipped open, Bastian also discovered that he was looking forward to seeing Zachary again.
The doctor was gone. Bastian briefly wondered where he went since the roads to the hospital where he practiced were still blocked. Perhaps he worked from home. Bastian was just relieved, though, because he didn’t want to be reminded of his earlier conversation. No doubt, Nick would bring it up, or even just have that stupid little smirk on his lips in the future, but for now, Bastian could forget about him.
Gladys’s tinkling laugh could be heard in the hallway. She was a gift to the building, bringing sunshine and rainbows even when it was gray outside, and she certainly brought cakes and pies. She and Zachary were sharing a slice as Bastian walked in.
“Want some?” she asked Bastian, her blue eyes wide. “It’s maple-bacon cheesecake, so it’s . . . you know . . . breakfast!”
Zachary was eager to see what Bastian had found, but as they flipped through page after page of the portfolio and photo after photo on the camera, his eagerness slipped away and quietness took hold.
“This must be my family,” he murmured. He sounded sad. “I think they look like me. But I don’t know them.” He looked at the man in the tent. “Maybe this is my boyfriend or my husband?” He looked down at his ring finger, as if searching for an absent ring or tan line, but didn’t say anything.
Bastian thought of the explicit writing in the journal, but of course kept that information to himself.
Gladys piped up. “It’s never taken more than six days to get the phone lines up again. As soon as they are, we’ll start making calls. And you’ll be able to go to the hospital in a day or two.” She put her small hand on Zachary’s large one and squeezed. “You’ll be your old self in no time.”
“Whoever that is,” he said dryly.
“We liked him,” Bastian said, hoping that would cheer the somber patient up.
It didn’t.
Bastian stayed after Gladys left; his schedule was flexible on the weekends. He told himself that he wanted to cheer Zachary up, as he still felt responsible.
But he also knew that he was riveted by this man, and by what he’d learned about him from his search.
Dr. Nick’s warning, about it being predatory to pursue a relationship with a man in Zachary’s condition, rang in Bastian’s brain for perhaps the tenth time in the last ten minutes.
What no one had mentioned to Zachary was that a new storm was on its way. The residents of Stellar hoped that it would veer off, but they also knew that they had enough supplies to last through a year of storms. They were used to “hunkering down” when they had to. But wh
at did this mean for Zachary? Who was out there, not knowing that they should be worried about him?
Bastian pulled a chair up to his bed. He would be a friend and a helper.
There wasn’t anything wrong with waiting until the storm—literal and metaphorical—passed.
Chapter Eleven
Zachary pulled another thin, scratchy blanket up over himself. The nurse-practitioner said that there wasn’t anything they could do about the temperature.
He was filled with a desperate desire to go for a walk outside in the sunshine, but the nurse-practitioner told him, with a little laugh, that they couldn’t do anything about that, either, for several reasons.
For one, the snow was four-feet deep out there. And no sun. For days.
Zachary had seen the photos—he knew now that he was used to being in sunny locations, playing outside, and even if his brain didn’t remember it, his limbs seemed to remember. He longed to stretch and walk in the sun.
“Hang in there, dear,” the nurse told him. “You’ll get there. But probably not for a few more days.”
Still no phones. Still no roads. Still no memories.
His new friend Bastian was very kind, and incredibly helpful in staving off the boredom. He brought books and magazines and great conversation. Gladys was wonderful as well, and Zachary knew he’d be the first person in history to leave the hospital (or whatever one would call this place) with a few extra pounds, thanks to her desserts.
Dr. Nichols—who was apparently his boyfriend?!—tried to help, too. In addition to making sure that Zachary was healthy, and giving him pain meds for his aching head and broken ankle, he offered creature comforts, bringing a cashmere blanket from his home—“you mentioned you loved this one, how soft it was, last time you came over”—and his own Blu-ray player and movies. “Do you remember this one?” he asked, holding up a copy of something called Love Actually. “We watched it on our first date.”