by Dawn Sister
“So I decided if I grew a beard, it’d make me look older, and there’re other reasons too.” He looks away in embarrassment again.
Why is he so embarrassed all of a sudden, and what other reasons would he have to grow a beard, or look older, anyway?
He scratches again, and I pull his hand away from his face, running the fingers of my free hand across the light growth of hair now covering his usually smooth chin. It feels soft, not bristly as I would have expected.
“The itching will stop after about a week, week and a half,” I assure him.
“Really? That long?” He groans, inadvertently leaning against my hand as he moves his head. “And how would you know, anyway?”
“I used to have a beard,” I state. “I’m forty-three, remember? In forty-three years, you don’t think I could have grown at least one beard?”
“Why’d you shave it off?” He’s smirking, and I realise he’s still holding my hand, or am I holding his? I can’t remember, since my senses are suddenly bombarded: by his smirk, his hand in mine, my fingers lightly touching the developing fluff on his face.
“I-I w-w-wanted to look y-younger.” I pull away and turn before I can do anything stupid like curl my fingers around his, or cup the back of his neck and pull him into a kiss. Where did all those feelings come from? I thought I had them buried deep.
“So you shaved yours off because it made you look too old, and I’m trying to grow one because I look too young.” Zak chuckles lightly. “That’s kind of ironic, huh? You could’ve donated your beard to me. I’m sure it looked a thousand times better than mine will.”
“Yours will look fine,” I assure him. “I think you’ll suit a beard.”
I think he’ll suit a beard very well—a little too well. The thought is making me hot under the collar.
Zak has an unreadable expression on his face, and I’m sure he knows what I’m thinking. He succumbs to Zen’s insistence that he play another game of fetch. But I’m sure, once again, he’s using the dog as an excuse not to look at me.
I go back to making dinner, thankful that I was able to avoid making a complete fool of myself. What the hell was I thinking anyway? If I’m not careful I’ll scare him off.
Chapter 12
In which some things can sometimes be too nice
“I took Zen for a walk.” Zak settles down at the breakfast bench after grabbing himself a coffee and helping himself to a cookie.
There is never any formality when he just walks into my house now. I guess he feels as at home here as Zen does over at his place. Zen spends more time with him than with me some days.
“What’re you doing tonight, Niall? Any plans?” This is not the usual bubbly Zak; he looks and sounds a little down.
He never asks such concise questions. He usually takes about ten minutes to tell me the events of the day, or something funny Zen has done, before he asks me about my day. I regard him with narrowed eyes as he tries to look nonchalant. He’s not fooling anyone. I know why he’s over here. He and his mum had a fight. A rather loud one.
I was down at the bottom of the garden, turning over the compost heap, so I didn’t mean to overhear, and I tried not to listen, but my name was mentioned. Why I would feature in an argument between Zak and his mum is beyond me.
“No plans!” I inform him, “Cooking dinner. Want some?”
“Sure, what are you making?” Zak is suddenly right behind me, looking over my shoulder. He’s standing close enough for me to smell his shower gel again. It’s a familiar, comfortable scent.
“Sp-sp-spa…P-p-p…” I groan in frustration.
I am so comfortable with his presence I speak without thinking—and without stuttering most of the time, but it still rears its ugly head enough times to remind me it will never really go away. Zak never loses his patience, though, when I get stuck. He just waits.
Most of the time I manage to get across what I’m saying without too much problem. This time I just show him the recipe book. He lays his hands lightly on my shoulders, with a soft laugh before taking the recipe card from me. I try to ignore the tingling in my shoulders where his hands made contact.
I suspected he’d be round. I’m sure I’ll hear about the argument with his mum soon enough. He knows I’ll listen.
Zak makes a fuss of Zen and plays a game of fetch with him, while I get on with dinner. He’s relatively quiet, but I know why this time. I just need to wait.
After ten minutes he’s still not said anything, which is some sort of record, so I decide to make the opener this time.
“How’s work?” He’s been at his new job for a month now.
“Urgh!” He sits back on his heels and rubs his hand over his face with a groan. “It’s okay, I guess.” He shrugs. “It’s a job. It’s stacking shelves and other mundane stuff. The people I’m working with are all pretty nice, though, so that makes it a little better.”
“M-made some new f-friends?” Now why does that question make my heart suddenly feel like it is made of lead?
“A few!” He grins. “There’s this one guy…”
Oh, no! My heart is suddenly a ton weight in my chest. Why did it have to be a guy? Why couldn’t it have been a girl? Why am I even thinking like this?
Zak goes on to tell me about this guy in detail and with a broad grin on his face the entire time. I concentrate on cooking dinner because if I listen to him I’ll probably burn it all.
“Mom’s mad at me again.”
It takes me a second to realise Zak has veered off the subject of this ‘guy’ at work. I snap out of my stupor and turn to face him.
“So I g-gather,” I comment, then turn back to my task.
Sometimes I talk better when I don’t have to look someone, him, in the eye. He knows this by now, so me turning my back doesn’t offend him in the slightest.
“Oh, you heard, huh?”
I think the entire neighbourhood heard, but I don’t say this. “Sound carries further at night.”
“Shit!” he cusses, heaving a deep sigh. “See, Mom thinks I should get out more. She won’t accept I’m perfectly happy with the way things are. She says it isn’t healthy, whatever that means. I stay fit. We take Zen for a walk every day.”
I know this is one of the things Rachel isn’t happy about—I heard her shout it just ten minutes ago—and I know she isn’t saying Zak’s activities are physically unhealthy. Wasn’t he just telling me about a ‘guy’? Hasn’t he made some plans with his new friends from work? Did I miss something while I zoned out?
“She says I’m stealing your dog from you, or something,” Zak continues, looking troubled and uncertain. “She seems to think you’d be mad about it. I told her she could just come over and ask you, but she said you would just say it was okay out of politeness. I’m not stealing Zen from you. You don’t think that, do you? Most of the time we take him out together, so he’s with you as well as me.”
“I d-don’t think that you’re stealing him. I-I’m okay w-with the walking thing,” I assure him, and he nods and throws his hands up in the air in apparent frustration.
“See? She could just ask you, but no. She says I shouldn’t bother you. I figured you’d tell me to fuck off if you felt bothered.”
“I-I w-would never tell you to f-f-f…” I sigh, roll my eyes and turn back to stirring my spaghetti sauce. “I would never say that.”
Zak chuckles and steps up behind me.
“I know.” He takes a deep breath and groans. “Mmm! Spaghetti Bolognese is my favourite, Niall.” He grins at me as I glance at him over my shoulder, and the effort I made seems all worthwhile. “My dad used to make Bolognese for me on nights Mom was at work.” He so rarely talks about his dad, I feel myself holding my breath in case it stops him from revealing more. “We’d see how many stains we could get on our shirts. Mom would go crazy, but I think it made her laugh too. She doesn’t laugh so much now, I wish she…”
He stops with a gasp, and I turn in shock, since he never stops mid-sen
tence. He never stops between sentences either. A break means there’s something wrong, and I’d be right. Oh, god. He’s crying.
“Zak!” I exclaim as he turns away from me, wiping his eyes.
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” he whispers, but I know he’s not. I can feel that he’s not.
I don’t even think about it, I move to his side and wrap my arms around him, wondering if he’s ever really cried since his dad died, wondering if he’s ever allowed himself to. It’s like he’s made it a taboo subject.
I hold him as he sobs, and he melts against me, my shoulder the perfect place for him to lay his head. He fits so well there, it’s like we were moulded together. As I stroke his hair and whisper soothing nothings, he weeps, and I just let him work through it. His arms find their way around me, and for a moment time stands still, and so does my breath, heart, everything because holding him feels so damn good. The heat of his body merges with mine, sending signals everywhere at once. He feels great. He smells great. I can’t help turning my face into his neck and taking a deep breath…
“Sorry!” He pulls away so fast I almost overbalance. “Shit, I’m a bundle of laughs tonight, huh? I didn’t come here to offload my problems.” He won’t meet my eye. I think he knows what was happening just now. I think he knows what I just did.
“Zak!” I shake my head, too affected by the embrace to say anything constructive. I should apologise, but that would mean admitting what I’ve done, and I can’t even admit it to myself even though my body sure as hell knows what was going on.
Apologising would run the risk of alerting him to what I was doing, when his embarrassment could simply be due to his emotional outburst. I want to tell him I am fine with it, that he can come here anytime and talk, that I’ll always be here for him. That he’s made my life so much brighter since he blasted into it two months ago.
But how can I tell him without it taking me a month? And without it seeming completely inappropriate. I want to reach out to him and pull him back into my arms, where I can convey all these things with a touch, with a kiss… Oh god, where did that thought come from? That’s not what he needs from me at all.
“Niall, I think maybe I should go.” He looks unhappy, his eyes are red, and still bright with tears, but there’s something else in his expression that I can’t read. I don’t want to look too closely either, in case it’s something I don’t want to find, like revulsion, or anger.
I think it probably is best that he goes, so I nod instead of protesting. He bites his lip, looking disappointed. Why would that be? Maybe I read the situation wrong. Maybe he hasn’t noticed how I reacted to the embrace.
“I-I shouldn’t’ve come.” He sniffs. “I-I’m sorry, Niall.” Now he’s stuttering. What the hell?
“B-but dinner?”
God, get over yourself, Niall. He’s not bothered how long you’ve spent cooking something you already knew was his favourite. He’s upset, and he’s probably freaked out by the fact that his neighbour is basically a pervert, holding him too tight, and breathing in his scent like a crazy stalker.
“Your Bolognese will probably taste better without me here to spoil it for you.” He gives me a weak smile. “Thanks for listening, Niall.” Then he leaves before I can stop him. God, I think he was still upset. I heard his voice hitch when he said my name.
I don’t go after him. I don’t dare. Anything I say will simply highlight what I did.
I guess time will tell if he’s coming back.
Chapter 13
In which there is no fallout whatsoever
and that’s just more confusing, not less
“Have you had dinner yet?” Zak calls as he walks in with Zen, presumably at his heels since I haven’t seen my traitorous dog since early this morning.
I can hear Zak helping himself to coffee.
I haven’t seen him since that night when I hugged him a little too long and too closely. It’s only been a few days, and now he’s working it’s not that unusual a gap between visits, but it was still the longest two days of my life waiting for the fallout.
“I-I h-haven’t st-started anything,” I call from my office.
What the heck? He just swans in like there’s nothing wrong. So maybe there isn’t, and maybe his leaving so abruptly two nights ago really was due to his embarrassment over having me see him cry rather than anything else.
He usually comes straight through to the office when he hears I’m in there, but he doesn’t, and I can hear him clattering around in my kitchen. What the hell is he doing in there?
When I wander in, armed with an empty coffee mug so it doesn’t look like I’m just in there to check on him, he seems to have an entire three-course dinner set out on the bench.
“Aw, man, I was gonna surprise you.” He grins as he takes my mug from me and fills it from a freshly made pot of coffee.
“D-did you make dinner?” I am absolutely blown away. He wanted to surprise me, and he has. I’m surprised beyond belief.
“Do you think I did?” Zak flicks his eyebrows comically, and I laugh.
“Somebody did. If it wasn’t you, then who?”
“Maybe it was Zen.” He smirks as he turns away to rearrange something on the bench.
Zak is being very coy as he fetches more trays of food from two bags on the floor while Zen sniffs around them eagerly.
“I know it wasn’t Zen, b-because Zen can’t c-cook.” I meet his gaze. “I t-tried t-teaching him, but he kept drooling in the sauce.”
Zak laughs and his blue eyes twinkle. What is he up to? When his eyes twinkle like that, he’s up to something, and it makes my heart skip a beat as I wonder what it might be.
“You’re always cooking for me, Niall, and I love your cooking, don’t get me wrong. But I didn’t want you to think I was taking you for granted.” His smile has morphed into something far more gentle. “Also, I was an ass running out on you the other night. I didn’t call, either, because I was so wrapped up in myself. Stupid, huh?” He shakes his head, not waiting for an answer.
I don’t think he really wants one, even though the answer would be that he is most definitely not stupid.
“Anyway,” he continues, “Mom catered for a wedding at lunchtime, and she came back laden with all this food. She had to go back out to do a buffet somewhere else, so she left this all for me. There’s too much for one—too much for ten, actually—but I thought we’d share. And it’s my way of saying sorry for dropping all that emotional crap at your feet then running off like a total drama queen. I also wanted to say thanks for being so damn sweet about it all. You’re the best, Niall!”
“Oh!” That’s all I can think of to say? Jesus, how bloody lame and ungrateful do I sound? But after what he’s just said I think my brain might just have gone pop.
His words are muffled by chunks of pulled pork while he gives his lengthy explanation, most of which sweeps over my head. All I can concentrate on is the fact he thinks I’m sweet, and that I’m the best.
God, how bloody soft am I? I might as well get myself a kitten and paint my house pink.
He’s apologising to me? I was the perverted one that sniffed his hair while he was crying on my shoulder. He doesn’t seem to be in any way affected by that. Was it all imagined on my part? I didn’t imagine how great his hair smelled, or how amazing it felt to hold him so close, but am I worrying about nothing? He certainly doesn’t seem to think I was doing anything wrong. Maybe I wasn’t. Maybe I just smelled his hair because it was there, and I got a little caught up in the moment because holding him felt so fucking fantastic…
“…so how would you like it?” Zak is licking his lips as he says this, and I think I might implode. I suddenly can’t breathe, and I know he didn’t mean it the way I’m thinking. “I mean your dinner, Niall.” He clicks his tongue, and I feel my face heat up to burning because he read my expression. Of course he did, because he can read my bloody mind.
“D-d-d-d…” I let out a frustrated breath and turn away. I was doing
so well, and then it all went downhill when I let my libido take over my brain.
“Niall?” Zak sounds concerned as he steps closer to me.
God, the last thing I want is him closer to me. That’ll just make it worse.
He is standing right behind me, one hand laying gently on my shoulder. His touch infuses my entire body with a warmth I haven’t felt in a long time—in fact, a warmth I haven’t ever felt.
“Do you want me to serve the food up?” he asks, oblivious to my turmoil. “In here, or in the living room so we can eat off our laps and watch a movie?”
I nod and move away, giving my answer by walking into the living room rather than saying it out loud and taking so long the food will get cold.
What is going on here? What exactly is our relationship? What exactly can it be? Was Zak flirting with me? If he wants things to progress beyond friendship, why doesn’t he make a move? Does he think I’ll reject him? This is all so confusing, and it’s not as if we can actually sit down and have a proper in-depth conversation about it. It would take me a year to ask all those questions and, because of his tendency to use a hundred words where one would suffice, another year for him to answer.
“You know, Mom suggested I try cooking sometime. I mean more than just opening a can and nuking shit in the microwave.” Zak flicks his eyebrows as he enters carrying two plates laden with food. “I could try, but I doubt you’d let me loose in your kitchen, right?”
I want to laugh at the assumption his first real adventures in cooking would take place in my kitchen. His mum is a professional caterer. Why can she not teach him to cook?
“I told her you like to cook. Is that okay? I mean, that I just let you get on with it? I said I help sometimes.” He regards me with an eager expression.
I nod in agreement because cooking is a pleasure, doubly so when I have someone to cook for. I’m still stuck on the fact that he thinks he’d be using my kitchen to cook in. He does make me laugh sometimes, well, lots of times, actually.
“I guess I should start cooking some stuff myself.” He continues, interrupting my thoughts. “But then I think I’ve got a good deal goin’ on here, Niall. What d’ya think?”