by Willa Okati
The best sex of his life? Absolutely. The night everything changed? One hundred percent. But what’d really shaken him was what he’d thought, then given voice to, words he’d never meant and never said. Words of love, because it was love.
He’d liked Josef, wanted to be with him, sure, but he hadn’t expected love.
Zach shook his head like a dog. He’d gotten hard, remembering that. The pounding flow of blood southward and the urgent heat tempted him to reach for his cock and jerk off fast to ease the pressure.
Yet he found himself adjusting his near-painful erection, otherwise leaving it alone. He didn’t know why. Only, as he crushed the burned-out cigarette beneath his heel, that it was what he wanted, and that the excitement made him feel alive again.
He could go back now. Could face the crowds, mix some drinks, and be a part of his life again with that memory and the prickling discomfort to keep him focused. For the first time in a year, he was glad he never would forget. It’d keep him sharp, as would the sense memory of the chafe of silver chain links fitted to his neck. What an idiot he’d been.
An idiot to put it on in the first place, or an idiot to leave him?
Zach scowled and dusted cigarette ash off his hands. He didn’t want to answer that question, not even inside his head. And he wouldn’t. Not ever.
Chapter Five
Though he should have known better than to say “not ever.”
Even if he hadn’t been keeping track of the calendar, Zach would have been able to tell with one look that the I Heart That City crowd was revving up toward a major drinking holiday. They weren’t yet through with Mardi Gras and already he saw some splashes of green -- sweaters, socks, scarves -- and one handmade T-shirt that demanded someone kiss him because he was Irish.
“Heads up, barkeep. No green beer in this establishment,” the boss said as Zach passed. “Not now, not in a few weeks, not fucking ever. Got that? Anyone asks, you show ’em the door. You smell like smoke. Don’t burn the fuckin’ roof down, would you? Thought you didn’t touch the cancer sticks.”
“Usually, I don’t.” Zach reached for and found the edges of his public personality and grinned at the boss, bright and cheerful and just a fraction on the bad-boy side of cocky. Not that he thought he fooled the boss, who grunted at him in a dubious way. “No green what, now?”
“No. Fucking. Green. Beer. That’s what you tell anybody who asks if we’re gonna have it this year.”
Zach had missed St. Patrick’s last year, barely, and had no idea why the boss had a hate-on for green ale, but didn’t think asking would be a smart move. “Message received.”
“Mix ’em a Fuck Me, I’m Irish if they bellyache. You know that one, right?”
“Not many I don’t know.”
“Freakin’ encyclopedia in your head. Green beer.” He was off again. The man could have grouched for his country. Nothing like a former New Yorker who spoke their mind, was there? “Anyone wants green beer, they can bring their own goddamn food dye, though why the hell they’d go for that is beyond me. Blasphemy against ale if you ask me.”
“Whatever you say.” Zach had moved on from slightly alarmed to amused and admiring. Man, that guy took no shit from anyone.
Amusement melted into uneasiness and uncertainty. Did he envy that or not? He couldn’t tell.
He cleared his throat. “We’re cool, boss. It’s still Mardi Gras season. I mix a mean frou-frou King Cake cocktail.”
“Sounds disgusting.”
“Hell yeah, but it’s festive.”
“Whatever. Just remember no --”
“I got it, I got it,” Zach said. “You’re the boss. I’m fine with your rules as long as I don’t have to play like I’m in Coyote Ugly and soak someone down with seltzer.”
“You’re not pretty enough. And what are you waiting around here for? You’ve got work. Go, go, go, work!” the boss growled. “You got people waiting for drinks.”
Zach tried for a charismatic wink. He failed miserably, but the thought had to count for something, didn’t it? “Good thing the mixologist is in. I’m on it.”
He’d gotten a quarter-dozen steps away before the boss called after him, “Hey! Hallie says you know that guy with the creepy stare. Would you get him to move his ass outta here already? He’s freakin’ out half the customers.”
His throat grew tight. He’s here. He came back. Josef’s here.
Zach strained to see him. Finding Josef in the crowd was easy. All Zach had to do was look for the space where the room should have been packed full of people. No one could handle Josef. People weren’t meant to be that intense. Thinking that made him feel better, more settled in his mind, and put a lift in his step -- until Josef turned smoothly on the bar stool and nodded to him, just once.
Oh God.
* * * * *
A squirt of Grand Marnier and another one bit the dust. So to speak. “Screaming Orgasm, fruity version. Screaming Orgasm, creamy version. Screaming Orgasm, creamy, fruity version. Jesus. Why’s everyone so horny tonight?”
The waitress, not Hallie, pretty as a bird of paradise with copper-bright red hair that warmed her pale skin, grinned in sympathy. “Everyone’s always horny. It’s human nature.”
“True enough.” Zach scanned the list of orders in her neat handwriting to keep himself focused and to divert the temptation to look three stools down to see if Josef had heard that, and if so, how he’d reacted. “No one ever orders a rum and Coke anymore, do they?”
“Every night. Lots of ’em. Just not from you. From you they want a dream in a glass.”
“Poetic.” Nothing else left to make. “If those three don’t hook up, let me know. Free Bittersweet Symphony for all of them on my bill.”
She wrinkled her nose at him. “Anyone ever tell you that you need to get laid?”
Zach didn’t have to look at Josef to know his former lover had gone stiller than a carved image. “From time to time,” he said, picking up a towel and wiping his hands as a polite segue out of the conversation. To his relief, she took the hint and left him alone.
The respite only lasted long enough to realize that, thanks to the wary bubble of empty space that followed Josef wherever he went when he was in this kind of mood, Zach was as close to alone with him as he could get. He sneaked a glance at Josef to see Josef watching him in three-quarter profile. He stroked the rim of his shot glass, still filled with top-shelf single-malt, and raised one shoulder to acknowledge he’d been caught.
Glad he had the towel, Zach bent to wiping stray drops of beer and sticky juices off the wooden bar. And if his cleaning happened to take him in Josef’s direction, it didn’t have to mean anything. Just doing his job.
“I’d like to request a drink,” Josef said when Zach was within close enough range to hear without his having to shout. Quiet. Powerful. Zach’s cleaning cloth fell from his grasp. “It’s a simple one. Espresso, black, with rye whiskey.”
Zach knew that drink. “A Missing You.”
Josef nodded. Once.
That was how he wanted to play, huh? Zach could tell there was something more to the request, but he had no stomach for games tonight. He wanted answers. Screw him.
“Got it,” he said out loud and turned to his treasure trove of bottles and casks. Blue Curacao, raspberry juice, vodka. One ice cube, just one.
When he slid the drink in front of Josef, Josef turned it in a neat clockwise circle, the ice floating lonely in the middle without clinking the sides of the glass. He raised an eyebrow at Zach without needing to voice the question.
Zach cleared his throat. “I took the liberty. That’s called Singing the Blues.”
Josef tipped the glass to him and took a sip. Silently.
The wary uneasiness inside him rose to a level of tension he couldn’t ignore and soared past that line. Zach knuckled the edge of the bar and leaned forward, penetrating Josef’s personal space. That close, the sharpness of the vodka stung his nose and the sourness of the juice made his m
outh water. Josef’s gaze, as blue as the Curacao, met his without flinching at the sudden movement.
“Would you cut the crap already?” Zach asked in a low, angry whisper, confused. “Quit fucking with my head and tell me what you want from me.”
Josef placed the drink neatly back on its coaster and folded his hands. “I’ve told you before.”
“Yeah, that you wanted me to come play lapdog again. And then you changed your mind and told me you needed time to think and that I shouldn’t come around. And now you’re here, so I’ve got to figure you came to your conclusions.” Zach shook with the effort it took to stand still and neither kiss Josef or push him away. “You be the one to tell me the truth this time.”
“You’re misinterpreting me from beginning to end,” Josef objected. “I’ve only ever told you the truth as I perceived it to be.” He gestured at the crowd. “You read your other customers without half trying and know what’s in their hearts. I’ve watched you tonight. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen things about you I hadn’t known before; Zach, I am not omniscient.”
Zach flinched at the sharpness of his anger. He sounded like any other frustrated guy, but that couldn’t be. He was Josef. Nothing threw him. Did it?
Josef wasn’t done. “There are things I didn’t know about you because you never told me.”
“You never asked,” Zach retorted, retreating behind anger to try and cover his uncertainty.
“And that’s my fault. It’s why you don’t understand me.”
“Wait.” Zach tugged his earlobe to clear his hearing; that couldn’t have been right. “So you’re saying this whole messed-up thing between us is my fault now?”
“Yes.” Before Zach could snap back, Josef raised a hand to stop him. “But no more than it is mine. Would you like to know why I asked for that specific drink? Because I miss you. Sometimes the answer really is that simple.”
Zach’s mouth closed, words dissipating.
“If you were willing to ask why you mixed that Singing the Blues for me, and answer yourself truthfully, that’s something I’d like to hear. But you’re not ready yet. Or won’t be.” Josef disembarked from the bar stool with his usual easy grace.
For the first time Zach saw that he wasn’t wearing a suit, or even a tie over a crisp linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up, but a sweater that hung loosely on him, the greenish gray of heather, and that he had on the same pair of artlessly casual jeans. He blinked. He never thought of Josef in anything but a suit, unless he was naked, and even then Josef gave the impression of being precisely tailored.
Not now, though. He looked…tired? Sad? He was throwing Zach so far off course Zach wasn’t sure he’d ever find his way back.
No. Neither tired nor sad. Lonely. Alone inside an aura of empty space with Zach the only one who’d cross it to meet him.
“I’d like to take a walk,” Josef said, breaking the connection first.
“I don’t get off for another couple of hours --”
Josef’s lips turned up at one corner. “I didn’t invite you. That’s not what either of us needs.” He looked obliquely at Zach. “Though from the arousal I smell on you, and what I see, you know what you want. They’re not the same, and I won’t have the one with not even a pale imitation of the other.”
“You --”
Josef met Zach’s stunned surprise with a slight incline of his head. “Don’t follow me. I’ll return tomorrow. Until then, think about what I said. If you have an answer for me, then maybe we can talk.”
“And if I don’t?” Zach asked, heart trip-hammering against his ribs, almost nauseated with adrenaline, a roaring rush filling his ears as he struggled to come to grips with Josef, lonely.
“Then I’ll ask again, and wait again.” Josef pulled on a pair of gloves, focusing intently on the leather and not on Zach’s face. He sounded far away when he added, crumbling the rest of Zach’s reserves, “What else could I do? I love you.”
* * * * *
Hallie slammed her empty tray on the bar with an almighty clatter. The abrupt, sudden noise made Zach jump. “Watch where you’re slamming that thing around, would you?” he snapped.
“That was too loud for you? I’m so sorry.” Hallie lifted her tray and lowered it with elaborate grace, padding it with her hand, and, as a cherry on top, bowed her head. “Forgive me, master.”
Zach ground his teeth together, jaw aching. “What do you want?”
“Couple of mixed drinks, and an explanation, and, oh yeah, a thank-you would be nice.” Hallie dropped the tray as well as the act and glared at him, TNT in a tiny package on a short fuse.
“Excuse me? Thank you for what, exactly? ’Cause if you’ve done me any favors, I sure as hell don’t know what they are.”
“I told the boss to keep an eye out for that scary, blue-eyed bastard who keeps stalking you, that’s what!”
Zach remembered now. “That was none of your business. You don’t have the right to mess around with my life, you got that?”
Hallie crackled with anger. “I know how it is, okay? I’ve seen this before, way too many times. They smack you around and keep you on a leash, but they say they love you, so it’s all good, right? Until they break your jaw, or maybe mostly kill you, and you get a clue.”
Zach scoffed.
“If it’s not like that, then tell me how it is.” She stood her ground, chin up. “Go on. I’m waiting.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Zach evaded, his temper burning hotter by the second. “Give me the damn drink orders already, so we can be done here.”
“But --”
“But nothing. Drinks are all we’ve got to talk about. I don’t even know you, Hallie, and you sure don’t know me, so can we cut the caring and sharing and bossing me around? In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a real big fan of being dominated.”
Her hands formed small but lethal-looking fists. “I was trying to help you!”
“I don’t need or want your help!”
They were drawing attention, the bartender and the waitress having a shouting match in the middle of the crowded bar, but Zach couldn’t stop and doubted Hallie could have either. Nor did he want to. She could hold her own and the release was lancing something malignant. Painful bliss. Yet beneath his irritation, Zach was startled by how furious Hallie was. His anger didn’t compare to her wrath.
“What happened to you?” he asked, deliberately goading her. “I know what’s wrong with me, but what gave you a permanent hate-on for the world?”
Hallie’s fist collided with his jaw.
No matter how much strength her rage gave her, Hallie wasn’t big enough to cause serious damage, but she took Zach by surprise and he staggered, catching himself only by virtue of banging his elbow on the bar.
“Hey!” A man caught Zach by the shoulder and shook him like a dog. “How about you leave the lady alone?”
“How about you stay out of it?” Hallie switched focus with the neatness of a hawk in flight, diving talons first at the guy who’d tried to break up their fight. He was an inoffensive sort, nothing to differentiate him from a half-dozen other guys who frequented I Heart That City. Thirtyish, dirty blond, a ball cap, and a goatee. Nothing special about him, except that he’d just named himself Public Enemy Number Two. He flashed a glance at Zach, asking for help.
Zach dragged the back of his hand over his mouth and tasted blood. He shook his head. You got yourself into this, pal. Good luck.
The man’s lips twitched with frustration, but when he turned back to Hallie, he was all penitence and -- heartache? “Hallie, please. Would you just talk to me? Five minutes.”
Hallie stiffened and shrank almost imperceptibly. “No. Get out of here, Phil. I’ll call the cops, I swear.”
Wait. Zach replayed the fight on fast-forward and came to a conclusion that turned his stomach. He searched the crowd for the bouncer and caught his eye, waving him over. “Do like the lady said,” he ordered, to get things moving. “Hit the road.”
“I would suggest you do as they say.” Zach hadn’t seen Josef coming before he was there, twisting the man’s arm up behind his back and hissing in his ear.
“Screw you.” The man butted his head backward, catching Josef on the nose. No man could take a head shot like that without an instinctive response; Josef shouted and let go of him in surprise and pain. Quick like a rabbit and crazy like a fox, Baseball Cap clouted Hallie, and he was big enough to knock her down.
Zach thought fast. He wasn’t much bigger than Hallie when it came down to it and breaking a bottle over the guy’s head would get him sued. Hell with it. Sometimes Coyote Ugly did come in handy. The seltzer hose slid naturally into his hand. He took aim and fired, the blast of bitter fizz soaking the bastard’s head. The dick let go immediately, yelping and trying to cover his eyes.
Hallie took advantage and jumped Mr. Baseball Cap, turning her fists and nails on him.
“Fuck no, she won’t go!” Zach shouted.
“What the hell is going on around here?” the boss bellowed.
Uninvolved bar patrons backed off at warp speed, clearing a circle around the four of them. Hallie, as wet from the seltzer as Baseball Cap, spitting and seething. Baseball Cap, gagging on seltzer, dazed stupid from the shock of being challenged -- and beaten. Josef, hand over his bleeding nose. Zach, still behind the bar, the last of the seltzer trickling from the nozzle over the flooded plains.