Worth Waiting For

by Wendy Qualls

  He got a good grip on the second attempt. Haven’t done this since I was a kid—weird how muscle memory works. The bark was mostly smooth, enough texture to grab on to but not enough to catch at his pants legs as he swung his feet up and locked them around the branch. A fair amount of wriggling and upper-arm-strength later, Paul was crouching on the lowest branch and could see his living room window clearly from inside the tree. The curtains were still closed, but the angle looked about right. He tested the next branch with his foot before putting weight on it, grabbed the center trunk for balance—

  The texture was different under his hand. Paul carefully skirted around to the other side of the tree, bringing him face-to-face with the odd spot. The whole tree was relatively smooth, but a two-foot strip of bark along that side was totally, completely missing. The wood underneath felt like it had been practically sanded and polished. He looked down at the branch now under his feet—there was a worn section there, too. And it was about the width of a person.

  Paul stared blankly at it for a long moment. Things like this didn’t just happen to trees, did they? Danielle had always been the more adventurous one, between the two of them, but they’d both spent their fair share of time climbing various things in their neighborhood. Including a lot of trees. He couldn’t remember ever seeing damage like that to a tree they’d climbed, though, even when they’d both been clambering around for a while. If this was caused by a person sitting on the branch and leaning against the trunk, they’d had to have been there for ages. Hours at a time? Several times a week? Both?

  It didn’t take rocket science to figure out how the stalker got the photo, at least: the angle would have made it easy to take pictures without being too easily seen. The bulk of the parking lot was on the other side of the building, and the land sloped downward from there—as long as the walking trail around the lake remained more mud than trail, there was no reason for any passers-by to be on this side of his living room window. After dark, it probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

  It was also blindingly obvious that this little viewing perch was for him. His upstairs neighbors almost never opened their curtains—anyone sitting here was watching his window, his living room. Paul rarely kept his blinds closed in the evenings—why bother, when there weren’t any neighboring apartments close enough to see in? That was the whole point of having a unit with a view. All those hours he spent playing video games on his sofa… His stalker could have been watching him the whole time.

  Hell, damn, shit, motherfucking… Paul’s mental lexicon of curse words was a bit rusty, but he ran through them all the same. There wasn’t anything he could do about the picture his stalker had already taken (not without Brandon’s help, a voice in his head pointed out), but the fact that there was visible evidence of someone having been there meant he wasn’t just going crazy. That minor bit of relief wasn’t much but it was something.

  He called Brandon as soon as he got back to his car and could use the hands-free feature.

  “Hey, what’s up?” Brandon asked.

  “I found where he was hiding,” Paul said without preamble. “I’m really creeped out right now, honestly. There’s a tree down near the pond outside my window with a worn spot like someone’s been camping out there. A lot. It could have been there for years and I’d never have known.”

  “Probably not years—how long have you lived there?”

  Paul had to count the months. “About a year and a half now. Give or take.”

  “Okay.” Brandon wasn’t laughing at him, which was something at least. “And what do you mean by a worn spot? Like, a rope thrown over a branch and digging into it or something?”

  “More like a hunter’s perch, about halfway up the tree. Bark rubbed off pretty much exactly where it would be if someone were spending a lot of time leaning against the trunk and staring into my living room. The only reason I found it was because I was trying to figure out where the picture was taken from and I had the bright idea to climb a tree. The angle of the photo looks normal, but the ground slopes downward a bit the closer you get to the pond—I figured the picture had to have been taken from higher up, if it was from that far away.”

  “Well damn.” Brandon was silent for several seconds. “This really isn’t my area of expertise, but I can take a look at it later if you want. Although maybe not tonight? I really feel like you ought to stay over again, at least one more time. I don’t like the thought of you home alone when we don’t know what your secret admirer wants.”

  “Secret admirer? What happened to stalker?”

  Brandon snorted. “I was trying to be diplomatic. Whichever one convinces you to stay with me again tonight.”

  Stay with me. Paul wave of emotion at the phrase. “Yeah. Yeah, I will.”

  Chapter 8

  The take-no-prisoners tone in Brandon’s voice during their phone conversation went a long way toward helping Paul un-panic before his first class. It helped that nobody showed up for morning office hours. That wasn’t unexpected, since there weren’t any major tests or projects looming for any of his classes, but the free time meant Paul had that much more opportunity to work himself back up again.

  How the heck had he never noticed someone watching him before? He almost never bothered closing the blinds unless the sun was interfering with his ability to see the TV screen… But he never looked out the window. So much for an apartment with a good view. Paul put his head down on his keyboard and groaned. I was practically asking for it. How could I have been so blind?

  The knock on the open door caught him by surprise. When he picked his head back up, Grace was giving him an odd look.

  “I was dropping by to say hi and ask how you’re doing, but I suspect you’d lie to me.” She came into the room, then reached up and pressed the back of her hand to his forehead before he could react. “No fever?”

  “Grace.” Paul pulled back—not enough to cause offense, hopefully, but he never did like her touching him and she did it way more often than was strictly necessary. “I’m fine.”

  “No you’re not. You’re very clearly not fine.”

  “Grace…”

  She sucked in a long breath, but held her hands up in surrender. “All right, but I get to say ‘I told you so’ when you come down with the flu or something. You should go home and get some rest.”

  “I’m fine. Really.” And the last thing I want to do is to go home.

  “If you say so.” She clearly didn’t believe him, but darn it, he wasn’t sick and Grace’s mothering wasn’t going to do him any good. Dr. Kirsner’s sudden appearance at Paul’s office door felt like a reprieve.

  “Productive use of office hours, I see,” Dr. Kirsner said, ignoring any need for a polite greeting.

  “I’ll just go,” Grace murmured and fled, leaving Paul to deal with Dr. Kirsner alone. Thanks.

  Paul sat back up, already feeling his cheeks turning pink. “I, um. Most of my students prefer to e-mail. I try to be flexible.” There, that didn’t sound quite as stupid as it could have.

  Dr. Kirsner nodded, clearly not listening to a word. “I decided to stop by and make sure you touched base with that consultant. I assume you have everything worked out?”

  “Yeah, it’s going great.” Brandon was the last thing Paul wanted to discuss with his boss, especially given how even hearing Brandon’s job title in casual conversation seemed to inspire a great number of unwanted thoughts. Or perhaps they were “wanted” in a very different context, but not while Dr. Kirsner was present. “From what he said, I think he needs me for confirmation more than anything else—sounds like the project won’t take too long anyway.”

  Dr. Kirsner frowned. “Confirmation of what? I was given very little information about the initiative, which is usually a bad sign. Something I should know?”

  “Um.” Paul tried to remember how much had Brandon said in confidence and how much was public
knowledge, but ended up opting for a middle ground. “The project has something to do with data security, but it sounds like he just needed people familiar with the last several years’ worth of department staff and university policies to verify his findings as he works. He’s doing this for every department. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Previous staff—is this a legacy of the esteemed Dr. Lancaster, then?”

  Darn it, walked right into that one. No matter how much he denied it now, Dr. Kirsner would fix the blame on his predecessor and there wasn’t much Paul could do about it. Worse, it was possible the issue did stem from something under Dr. Lancaster’s reign, although that didn’t explain the strange stalker-ish perch and the mystery culprit’s obsession—was that the right word?—with Paul. If they were even related. It was quite literally a no-win scenario, and he’d stepped right into the middle.

  “Can’t talk about it?” Dr. Kirsner said, a hint of disdain in the quirk of his lips. “Please do remember that you work for me now; any lingering loyalty would be entirely misguided.”

  “Yes, sir.” Paul ducked his head in a polite acknowledgment, although all he really wanted to do was to push the smug asshole out of his office. “Anything else you need from me?” he added.

  “If I find a use for you, I’ll let you know.” Dr. Kirsner flashed a patently insincere smile and nodded a crisp dismissal.

  Right. Paul waited until the department head’s footsteps had receded to the stairwell before opening his e-mail again. Intellectually he knew there’d been no chance for his stalker to snap another photo of him in a compromising position, but the feeling of apprehension was still there and he darn well wasn’t going to run the risk of opening a second mystery e-mail with his vindictive, homophobic boss lurking in the hallway. When the inbox revealed nothing worse than a handful of departmental memos, Paul let out an actual sigh of relief.

  * * * *

  The 11:00 AM freshman lecture took forever. Either the students were abnormally thick or Paul was uncharacteristically snappish, but every single point on his outline seemed to be punctuated by stupid questions that interrupted the flow of the lecture. It didn’t help that this historical recap section was Paul’s least favorite aspect of teaching the course. Granted, they were just starting the section on behaviorism and it was important to know the historical roots, but that didn’t mean most of the early research was relevant anymore. Half of it was common sense—things any parent or dog owner could tell you—and the other half was outdated, disproved science. And yet. His students all seemed to be stuck on “How did Skinner know the pigeons were learning?” That was the entire point of the study! Or “What makes the unconditioned response unconditioned?” It wasn’t conditioned yet? Or equally inane questions which demonstrated they not only hadn’t done the reading, they hadn’t been paying attention either. For the entire semester. Paul was tempted to give a pop quiz, just to make them panic a bit.

  He didn’t, of course. It was the whole situation with Brandon and the anonymous e-mail that had set him on edge, and it wouldn’t be fair to take it out on the freshmen. But he really, really wanted to. When the end of class came, Paul was practically the first one out the door.

  The afternoon seminar was much better. He only had eight students, all but one of whom seemed to care about the subject, and they were all dedicated enough to do the assigned work and bring their questions to class. Teaching consisted of gently guiding the discussion whenever it threatened to get sidetracked. Beyond that, Paul was able to let the students take the lead. It was a nice contrast. The minutes still ticked by too slowly, though, and Paul was more than happy to skive off as soon as his actual obligations on campus were finished.

  Which left a dilemma: go back to his apartment and sit around feeling creeped out until he could meet up with Brandon later, or find somewhere else to be? There probably was something telling about how not seeing Brandon didn’t even feel like an option anymore, something worth noticing and thinking about and stressing over, but Paul ruthlessly pushed that observation to the back of his mind. He had his change of clothes already in the car, he had his laptop, and he had two hours to kill. He just didn’t have anything to do.

  After a few minutes of sitting in the parking lot and second-guessing himself, Paul finally settled on driving around until he felt like stopping. St. Benedict’s wasn’t exactly in a bustling urban area, which left plenty of space to just be. He found himself twenty minutes later at the trailhead of a small out-of-the-way county park, somewhere he and Christopher used to go walking sometimes. The forest was thin, the underbrush mostly dead and withered over the course of the winter and the leaves finally starting to come back in, but the ground was dry and the weather was finally warm enough to be comfortable without a jacket. Plus walking gave his feet something to do. Paul determinedly aimed himself toward the closest trail and started wandering.

  The exercise helped. He kept at it until his thighs hurt, then stopped for a drink at the public water fountain near the trailhead and started a second loop. The park was practically deserted—of course it was, at four in the afternoon on a Wednesday—but the quiet suited Paul’s mood perfectly. Nobody around meant nobody watching him. Nobody to question what the heck he was doing with someone like Brandon Mercer when he was supposed to be happily single and unquestionably straight and a perfect Christian role model for all the impressionable students at St. Benedict’s. Nobody to tell him what a big fat liar he was.

  So what do I do now? It’s not like Paul was completely new to the concept of a relationship with another man—the whatever-it-was with Christopher had become some sort of relationship, if not exactly a healthy one. Something not platonic. Christopher had been more comfortable with it than Paul had been, although he’d been adamant that they not let anyone guess they were more than roommates. “I want you all to myself. I can’t stand the thought of sharing you. You’re mine.” And Paul had gone along with it, had gone along with the whole ridiculous not-technically-a-relationship-because-Christopher-said-so, up until the point where he couldn’t ignore the problems any longer and they had their epic fight and he’d stormed out like a petulant five-year-old and left Christopher behind. And then he’d gotten his own apartment and Christopher had eventually gotten a new job, not on campus, and that had been that. Over. Finished. The capstone of Paul’s romantic experience, after which he’d assumed he’d end up staying single forever.

  Brandon was different, though. He wasn’t asking for a commitment, for one thing. More the opposite—he was really only interested in sex, and anything else was a distant second. I’m only a worthwhile distraction while he’s here because he finds me slightly less boring than the Hallmark channel. The really awful thing was, even if that’s all Brandon wanted from him, Paul was desperate enough to take the deal. Casual or not. Because he was truly that pathetic. Crap.

  He took a few moments to glare at the empty path ahead of him.

  Boredom wasn’t the entirety of it either, though. Not really. Paul finished the second loop of the trail and collapsed back into his car. Brandon wanted him around because they’d felt something together, once. It had been just a possibility, a hint of a different future waiting for them, but it was a something. And then Brandon had left and they hadn’t kept in touch and that was that. Maybe this “week or two” of him being in town wasn’t about some star-crossed lovers reconnecting—maybe it was merely a convenient chance to explore a bit more of that something without having to come out to anyone who didn’t already know his secret.

  A chance which was rapidly approaching, Paul noted as he started the car and saw the clock on the dashboard. He’d walked longer than he thought—rush hour traffic (such as it was) should have died down already, and the sun was now getting low on the horizon. He put the radio on the first not-terrible station he could find and headed back toward town.

  * * * *

  “I brought pizza—you
like sausage and black olives, right?”

  Brandon blinked, surprised, but his lips curled upward into a slow smile as he held the door open wider. “Don’t tell me you just guessed that.”

  “We ordered pizza once as a hall freshman year, and I remember you mentioning it. Mostly because it’s my favorite combination, too, and I never get to order it because someone else is always grossed out by either olives or Italian sausage.” Paul set the box down on the desk (which Brandon had already dragged into place at the foot of the bed, he noticed) and tossed his laptop bag into the corner next to the air conditioner. “I brought napkins, but I forgot to steal some paper plates from the break room at work today. We’re going to have to make do.”

  Brandon shrugged, the smile never wavering. “I’m amazed you remembered that—flattered, actually. What do you want to drink? I’ll be right back.”

  The pizza was good. One of the lesser-known perks of working around college students: you always knew where all the best independent pizza joints were. Paul didn’t indulge much anymore, because there’s only so many days in a row you can eat leftover pizza and there’s always a lot of leftovers when you live alone. But it was nice to not have to compromise on toppings for once. Between them they demolished most of it. Eventually Brandon leaned back in his chair with his Coke and rolled a kink out of his shoulders in a way that immediately focused Paul’s attention on the way his biceps peeked out from under his sleeves.

  “So.” He cocked his head to the side, regarding Paul with an assessing frown. “You want to talk about that thing with the tree you found today, or ignore the whole mess for a bit longer?”

  Ugh. That. Paul put down his third slice of pizza, no longer hungry. “Is there anything to talk about?”

  “How about, do you have any thoughts on who might have done it? Student with a crush? Co-worker? Total stranger you ran into at the mall one time who creeped you out?”