“No,” David said, “because I’m coming with you.”
“To Boston?”
“No, to Shanghai. Of course to Boston, dweeb. Someone’s gotta look out for you.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Of course you can,” David said. He slung his arm around Zach’s neck and hauled his head down to rub his knuckles across the top. “Dweeb. But there’s another reason.”
“My hot bod? Cuz while I’m damaged, I’m not deformibus?” Zach squirmed around and leaned until David collapsed back on the ground, then started tickling him. David smacked his hands away playfully.
“Cut it out, ya maroon.”
“Because you love me?” Zach teased, dodging David’s grasping hands and going for his ribs again.
“Forever and always,” David said.
Zach froze, then rested his hands on either side of David’s chest. The grass was warm and crisp beneath his fingers. “Forever and always,” he agreed, and kissed him, so gently David wanted to weep, then rolled over to lie beside him, gazing up at the fireworks, his fingers laced in David’s.
“HAVE YOU seen Zach?” Jane asked Richard worriedly as they left the picnic site. Annie was staying behind to organize the staff they’d hired for the event and make sure everything got cleaned up and off the grounds by daybreak so that Tyler employees could get back in the parking lot in the morning. It was nearly that now, somewhere past three a.m., and everyone was tired, but it had been Jane and Richard who’d run the event, not Annie, so she’d shooed them on their way home, claiming not to be the slightest bit worn out.
“David told me he’d found a spot for them to watch the fireworks and that he was going to rescue Zach, but that was hours ago. I did check with Andrew and he said they had gone through the footgate up toward the house about ten o’clock. I’m sure they’re together.”
“Mm,” Jane said, taking Richard’s arm and leaning against him as they walked up the path toward the house. The moon was still up and between that and the stars and the faint glow from the lights still on at the picnic site, it was easy enough to see their way. “I’m glad about that. Do you think we’ll have repercussions from Zach coming to the party today, Richie?”
Richard shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. If we do, we’ll deal with it when it happens. What…?” He looked up the slope of lawn to the west of where they walked.
“What is that?” Jane asked curiously, also noticing the long line of shadow at the top of the rise. It was barely visible, just a patch of darkness against the star-strewn sky.
Richard took her hand and they left the path, climbing the slope up to where the shadow lay. “Oh,” Jane said softly.
It was Zach, asleep on his back on the plaid blanket David had brought to the barbeque. David lay beside him with his head on Zach’s chest and Zach’s arm around his shoulders, also deep asleep. They stood a moment looking down at the two young men. “They look like little boys,” Jane whispered. “Look at Zach’s face—he looks like he’s six again.”
Richard slid his arm around his wife. “Wouldn’t it be so much easier if he were? If we knew what was coming and how to stop it?”
“Oh, yeah,” Jane sighed. “But he isn’t, and we can’t. And I think we’d better wake them up; they’ll get all crunchy from sleeping on the ground.”
“No doubt,” Richard agreed, “though not as badly as you or I would. Zach!” he called softly. Jane bent to touch his shoulder.
ZACH STARTED awake, flinching back at the sight of a tall shadow looming over him and another crouched beside him, but there was something pinning him down. Terror rushed over him and took his breath. He gasped, trying to get enough air to scream, but then his eyes adjusted to the dark and he realized with a start that it was his mother beside him and his father standing at his feet. He breathed out a sigh of relief. “Oh! Mom. Dad.” He glanced down at the object pinning him to the ground and saw David, sound asleep on his chest. “I guess we fell asleep.”
“I guess you did,” Jane agreed. “It’s past three—you guys are going to be stiff in the morning if you stay there all night. Besides, it’s getting kind of cold out here.”
“Yeah.” He didn’t say anything for a moment, just concentrated on getting his racing heart to slow down. Then he shook David’s shoulder gently. “Taff.”
David murmured, then opened his eyes to meet Zach’s. “Hey,” he said softly.
“Audience,” Zach said.
David blinked and looked around. “Oh. Hi, guys.” He sat up, wincing, and stretched. “Guess we fell asleep.”
“That’s what I said,” Zach said. “What time is it, anyway?”
“Goblin hour,” Richard said. “Roughly around three. Party’s over and we’re going home. You boys have a good time today?”
“I did,” David said.
“Me too,” Zach admitted. “After I stopped freaking out. People weren’t as bad as I expected; most of them were pretty cool. The ones that talked to me, anyway. The ones that just stared at me like I was a wild animal escaped from a zoo—them I ignored.” He gave them a twisted grin and folded his arms behind his head.
“Lot of them?” Richard asked carefully.
“A few. Relatives of employees, mostly, I think. Most of your people just came up to me and told me how well I was looking.” Zach made a face. “I know they meant well, but it got old fast. Fortunately, you only have so many employees, so once I’d shaken everyone’s hand, they left me alone. You remember the Jays?”
Richard frowned. “Pete Wilmot’s boy Jesse and that other one?”
“Yeah. They were there. I talked to them for a while. I think we might be getting together sometime in the next few weeks for beer and pizza or something. Maybe a Broncos preseason game if I knew anyone who could get tickets.” Zach batted his eyes at Richard, who snorted in amusement.
“The crowds didn’t bother you, honey?” Jane asked in concern.
Zach sat up and leaned against David’s shoulder. “A little,” he admitted. “I got a little claustrophobic at times, but just was careful not to let myself get anyplace I couldn’t get out of, so I was okay.”
“And he didn’t need his hand held all day long, either,” David said. Zach stuck his tongue out at him. “I left him for hours at a time and he was fine.” He grinned back at Zach. “I don’t say I wasn’t watching him the whole time, but he didn’t know I was.”
“You’re like an old fusspot,” Zach said. “I was fine.”
“I know,” David said. “Didn’t I just get done saying that?” He poked him. “Come on, I’m tired and I have to teach tomorrow.”
Zach scrambled to his feet and David followed.
“Still,” Jane said, smiling, “I’d say that was a pretty successful experiment, don’t you, honey?”
“Yes, Mom,” the two younger men chorused.
Jane laughed.
“AND THEN, Frankie says ‘But Sister, I thought you were a guy!’”
The table exploded with laughter. Zach pounded Jesse’s shoulder with his open palm. “You jackasses! You set Frankie up, didn’t you?” he demanded, grinning widely.
“You bet your ass we did,” Billy Krepwith, one of their old school friends, said from across the table. “Frankie needed to get taken down a peg or two, especially with that John Marshall crap.”
“So what did the nun say?” David asked as he poured himself another glass of beer from the rapidly diminishing pitcher.
“She laughed her butt off,” Jesse said. “Good thing she had a sense of humor about it, or Frankie’d be on his way to hell right now. Anybody hear from him lately, anyway?”
“Yeah, I got an email from him a couple of days ago,” Zach said. “Taff got Frankie’s from his dad at the college, so I emailed him and he sent back.” He pulled out his phone and queued up his email. “‘Wish I could be there’—I told him we were going out for pizza tonight—‘and had the chance to kick Muffin’s ass for getting me drunk last time I was in town. Didn’t g
et rid of the hangover for three days.’”
They laughed again. Zach glanced around the table in satisfaction. There were six of them: himself, David, Jesse, Jeff, Billy, and Taiwan Burgess, who’d played forward on their soccer team the last season before Zach’s ‘adventure’. That was what he’d taken to calling it to himself, in his attempt to get beyond the nightmare of it. Dr. Barrett wasn’t so sure that it was a good thing to lighten it up that way, but it gave him a non-threatening frame of reference. Dr. Barrett was pleased about this evening out, as well as the reason for it: Zach had not only passed his GED with flying colors, but an interview with a pair of professors from UCo who had connections at MIT had resulted in Zach not only getting set up for tutoring by the pair, but a letter of interest from Admissions at MIT. If he got through the program the UCo professors had set up for him, he’d be starting at MIT in September of next year, just a little over a year from now. The thought had his heart beating a little faster, and he wasn’t sure if it was excitement or fear.
David glanced over at him and gave him a quick grin. “Thinkin’ about MIT again?”
“How could you tell?”
“I dunno,” Tai said, “maybe the way you get even whiter than you are normally, white boy?”
The guys laughed, and Billy shoved the pizza over his way. “Come on, eat up. Gotta get your strength back—you’re wastin’ away from the stress.”
Laughing, Zach said, “Fuck you!” and took some more pizza.
Jeff drained the pitcher and said, “More beer?”
“Yes!” they chorused.
Zach laughed happily.
IT WAS well past midnight when they finally finished up, and Zach was ready to go home. It had been a good time; it was great reconnecting with his old friends and none of them seemed too judgmental or curious. Billy and Tai had both commented on the scars around his neck; Billy had declared them “heinous” and Tai “wicked,” but both were more interested in finding out his workout schedule and how the hell he’d gotten so big. Tai was working at an advertising firm in the Springs; Billy at NORAD in their data analysis department, so they’d kept in touch with each other over the last couple of years. They’d greeted Zach exactly as if he’d just been away at school for a while, with friendly punches and smart remarks. He grinned to himself as he said goodbye to them and wondered why the heck he’d been so hesitant about seeing any of his old friends again.
“Yeah, guess I better get going too,” Jesse said. “Lynda’ll be pissed if I’m home too late, and that is not a pretty sight, Lynda pissed. You’re lucky you don’t have those issues, Zach. Sometimes I wish I was gay too. It’d be a lot easier.”
Zach froze. “What?”
Billy hooted. “You think we didn’t know you were gay, girly-man? Since, like, fifth grade!”
He glanced at each of his friends, wide-eyed. “You…. What?” He looked at David, who just covered his smile discreetly with his hand. “Did you know about this?”
“That you were gay?” David asked cheerfully. “Oh, I’d suspected.”
“No! That they all knew!”
Jeff laughed. “Yeah, well, like Billy said, we’ve known since about fifth grade. About the time we all started getting interested in girls and you didn’t. We didn’t say anything, cuz frankly, it wasn’t anybody’s business at the time, and I don’t think anyone else knew, but shit, Zach, we all hung around together for years! You think we’re stupid or something?”
Zach shook his head slowly. “No…. No, of course not. I just didn’t think…. Well, I didn’t think I acted gay or anything….”
“You didn’t,” Jesse assured him. “Like Muffin said, nobody else knew. Well, maybe Coach Faber, but he didn’t say anything either. Broke a lot of little girls’ hearts, though, you know, never paying attention to any of them. Everyone said you had a major crush on Maggie Richards, Taff’s girlfriend, and that’s why you never went out with any other girl.”
“You guys are wacked,” Zach said, shaking his head in amazement. “You knew, but nobody else at school did?”
“Hell,” Jeff said, “we were your best buds. I don’t think anyone else even suspected, though.”
“And it didn’t bother you?”
Jeff’s face went all thoughtful. “Maybe at the beginning we thought it was a little weird. And once we actually knew what ‘being gay’ meant—I mean, eww. But to each his own, I guess, and if you think about it, sex in general is kind of weird and gross anyway.” He grinned and slung an arm around Zach’s neck. “So when I say ‘I love you, man’—you take it the right way, okay? Cuz I’m not into butt-munchin’.”
Tai made gagging noises.
“You guys,” Zach said, “are all assholes. And I love ya. Not in the butt-munching way, of course.”
His four friends were laughing when they left the restaurant.
David looked around. The pizza joint they were in was Bella’s, one they’d all hung out at in school; but he hadn’t been here in years. It had been like practically every other pizza joint he’d ever been in, from New Zealand to New York: dark, a bit grungy, noisy, and comforting in its sameness. It still was. He felt a beer-infused sentimental affection for the place, even though neither the beer nor the pizza was impressive in its quality. “Good place, huh, Zach?”
“What? Taff, I think you’re drunk.”
“I think you’re right. Are you?”
“I don’t think so. I only had two beers.”
“How come? I mean, used to be two beers was your warm-up to the evening of pounding Scotch. You haven’t drunk any Scotch lately, either, from what I remember.” He stood, and clutched the back of his chair as the room swayed gently. “How come you haven’t drunk any Scotch lately? That I remember?”
“I don’t know.” Zach regarded him with an amused look on his face. “Don’t need to. I sleep okay these days.”
“It’s cuz you’re sleeping with me,” David said confidentially, in an undertone.
“I think you’re right. Look, I gotta take a piss. You gonna be okay while I’m gone?”
“I’m not that drunk,” David said dryly. “You go ahead. I’ll wait for the bill.”
“Don’t try and pay it,” Zach chuckled. “God only knows what you’ll come up with.”
“Fuck you,” David retorted with a grin, and sat back down.
ZACH WAS coming out of the bathroom when someone stepped in front of him. He stopped, frowning, then recognized the sun-streaked blond hair and handsome face.
“Hi,” Brian said. “How you doing, Zach?”
“Fine,” Zach said curtly, and went to step around him.
Brian put out a hand. “No, wait. I’ve been hoping I’d run into you. Do you have a minute?”
“No.”
Brian touched his arm gently. “Not even a minute. A second. I just want to talk to you.”
“I know what you want to talk about, and I’m not interested.” Zach took another step to the side.
“I’ve seen the reports,” Brian said.
Zach froze. His eyes flicked to Brian’s face. The man’s expression was sympathetic. “What reports?”
“The reports about what happened to you. What happened to Esteban. What really happened in Venezuela.” He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and put a card in Zach’s hand. “I want to hear about it, Zach. Please. Now—later—whenever you’re ready.”
DAVID TOOK the bill from the middle-aged waitress and thanked her for putting up with the rowdy crowd. “Aw, you guys weren’t bad,” she said with a smile. “Loud, is about all. Celebrating something?”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“Well, whenever you’re ready, you pay me. Need any change?”
“No. In fact,” David dug into his hip pocket for his wallet and gave her his Visa card. “Put it on this.”
She took the card and the leatherette folder with the check. A few minutes later, she was back, and he signed the credit slip, adding a twenty-five percent tip for her g
ood-natured and patient service. “Thanks,” she said, giving him a glowing smile as she took the folder.
He watched her head back to the server’s station; then his eyes went past to where Zach stood, talking to a tall blond man in a tan blazer. A bit dressy for a pizza joint, he was just thinking, and then he recognized him. No. Oh, no. Not tonight, not when Zach was still glowing from a great evening out with friends like normal people took for granted, not when he was feeling so happy and positive and normal…. He lunged to his feet and stormed over to where they stood, shouldering Zach gently aside so that he faced the journalist.
“I THOUGHT I told you to stay away from him,” David said savagely, reaching over and taking the business card from Zach. Fury radiated off him; even stunned and numb as Zach was, he recognized the barely suppressed rage. It just added to the air of unreality about him, feeling David so furious; David, who was always so calm, so easy-going, except when he was fighting with Zach. Distantly, Zach wondered why David was so angry. He was never angry with anyone except Zach.
“I’m not talking to you,” Brian said calmly. “I’m talking to Zach.”
“You’re not talking to Zach,” David retorted. “I’m not letting you.”
“I sort of think that should be Zach’s decision.” The journalist’s voice was reasonable. He glanced beyond David to Zach. “What about it?”
“What do you want?” Zach asked unwillingly.
“I want a story. I want the whole story. I want the truth.” He met Zach’s eyes. “I want to know what really happened.”
“Learn to live with disappointment,” David snarled. “It’s none of your fucking business.”
“Look, Taff,” Brian shot back, “Zach doesn’t need you running interference for him. He’s perfectly capable of defending himself. He’s capable of a lot more than you give him credit for. Aren’t you, Zach? You can take care of yourself.”
Dreamspinner Press Year Four Greatest Hits Page 25