Chapter 22
“I CAN handle this,” Zach said, staring at the pale, hollow-eyed reflection staring back at him. “I can handle this, no problem. It’s just a barbeque, right? Hot dogs, brats, chicken, steaks, corn on the cob, apple pie, all-American tradition, fireworks, music, people, crowds of people, hundreds of people, thousands of people… oh, shit. I can’t do this.” He leaned forward, resting his head on the bathroom mirror, trying to decide if he should puke first or panic first. Puking had a distinct lead, but the tingling in his fingers and the shortness of breath told him that panic was gaining.
“Zach?” his father’s voice called from the living room.
Zach hauled in a breath and tried to answer but nothing came out. A moment later Richard appeared in the bathroom door and said, “I thought I’d find you hiding in here.”
A squeak emerged from Zach’s throat. He gave Richard a desperate look, then lunged for the toilet, where he brought up his breakfast. That, oddly, staved off the panic attack, so when he raised his pale, sweaty face to his father’s concerned one, he was breathing normally and more or less calm. “I think I have the flu,” he said hopefully.
“I think you have acute butterflied stomach,” Richard corrected. “Done?”
“I guess.” Zach straightened and reached for a paper cup to rinse out his mouth. “Now I have to brush my teeth again,” he complained.
“Poor baby,” his father jeered gently. “Seriously, Zach. Flu or nerves?”
“Nerves,” Zach said. “I think.”
“Brush your teeth.”
Zach obeyed, making as big a production out of it as he could manage to waste time. His father stood in the doorway the whole time, his arms folded and a wry expression on his face. Finally, Zach said, “Okay, I guess I’m ready.”
“You don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” Richard pointed out. “You were the one who said you thought you were ready. If you really don’t think you are, you don’t have to do this.”
“Yeah, I do,” Zach said with a sigh. “I need to be able to handle people around me.”
“You’ve been going out for several months now to clubs and stuff,” Richard said. “There are people there.”
“Yeah, but not people who know me,” Zach said. “Not people who work with my dad and knew me when I was a little kid, and stuff like that.” He rubbed his stomach with his fist. “They’re not quite strangers and not quite friends. I can handle either of those. It’s the in-between kind that I have trouble with.”
“It’s not just you,” Richard assured him. “Right now your mother’s in the bathroom redoing her makeup for the fourteenth time. She’s already had on eight different outfits and is back to the one she put on originally.” He shook his head. “We’ve done this Fourth of July barbeque for the last fifteen years with only a couple years’ exception, but to your mother, it’s still always the first time.” In a softer voice, he said, “You always used to love the Fourth. It’ll be fine; you’ll have a good time.”
“You know this is gonna play hell with your security team’s program for me,” Zach said. “There’ll be people here with cameras. My picture’s gonna get out, and security’s gonna get tougher, you know.”
“You’re the one who’s going to be most affected,” Richard said. “Does it bother you that you’re going to have to be more careful when you leave the compound? Are you worried about people wanting to talk to you about what happened? I’m pretty sure no one will have the discourtesy to bring it up today, but after today, you’ll be fair game.”
“I have to do this,” Zach said doggedly. “I have to know if I can deal with this, if I have any thought of going to college. I have to be able to deal with people. It’s like the last stage of the process, Dad. Right now, the idea of all those people… Jesus, I’m ready to puke again! But I have to do this. I have to.” He started to shake.
Richard threw his arm around his son’s shoulders. “Zach,” he said urgently, “it’s going to be fine. They won’t turn into monsters, I promise.”
Zach shot him a look. “Am I that obvious?”
“Well, it was what you were worried about, wasn’t it?”
“Not in so many words,” Zach said, “but I guess so. It’s that same feeling, anyway. You’d think I’d be beyond that now. You’d think the old brain would have figured out that there aren’t real monsters.”
“There are,” Richard said soberly. “You lived among them for five years. But there aren’t any here, I promise. And even if there were, you can deal with them. You’re strong—so strong I can’t believe it. I don’t mean to put pressure on you if you think you really can’t deal with it. I just believe in you and want you to believe in yourself too.”
Zach turned and rested his forehead on his father’s shoulder. Even after two years, he still hadn’t adjusted to the fact that he was a good two inches taller. David and Dad were the same height, and he was taller than both of them. It blew his mind. “I know,” he said, his voice muffled. “I know I can handle it; I just don’t feel like I can.”
“Two years of therapy rears its ugly head,” Richard said cheerfully. “You can distinguish between what you know and what you feel. That’s more than most people can do.”
“Most people don’t have two hours of therapy daily,” Zach said dryly.
“Come on, then, if you’re coming. We have to go winkle your mother out of her shell, and I thought you wanted to get there early so you don’t make an entrance.”
“Yeah.” Zach gave Richard a brief squeeze before letting him go and taking one last look at the mirror. “Do I look okay?”
“Ghastly,” Richard teased, then shoved his shoulder gently. “Come on.”
“ZACH! Hey, Zach!”
Zach turned at the sound of his name called over the rattle and rumble of the crowd around the beer tent. There had to be a thousand people here at least, and he pretty much only recognized a few of them. The two guys pushing through the crowd weren’t in that select group, but they looked to be about his age, and they were faintly familiar, though he couldn’t say who they were. They both stopped and grinned at him, and suddenly he did know who they were. “Jesse? Jeff?”
The shorter of the two turned to the one in glasses and poked him. “I told you he’d recognize us!” and he turned back to Zach and shoved out his hand. “How ya doin’, Zach?”
“Good, Jess,” Zach said, and shook his hand, then Jeff’s. “What are you guys doing with yourselves these days?”
“Jeff’s in grad school; I’m working at an accounting firm in Colorado Springs. My dad still works here, though, and when Jeff found out I was coming today he tagged along. Honest to Jebus, Zach, you done grewed!! How tall are you now?”
“Six-two,” Zach said.
“You pump iron?” Jeff asked interestedly. He didn’t, that was for sure; he was as lanky as he’d always been, just a bit taller. “I tried that once. Tore a ligament.”
Zach laughed. “I had a physical therapist teach me how to do it right.”
“I knew there was a reason,” Jeff said cheerfully. His grin faded. “Look, Zach, you got a minute?”
“Sure,” Zach said, the hair on the back of his neck prickling. “What’s up?”
Jeff led him and Jesse around the side of the beer tent out of the direct line of the entrance. “A few weeks ago, maybe three or so? Some guy was asking questions about you. Said he was writing a story on you. I didn’t tell him anything he couldn’t have found out anyplace else, but he was mostly asking about when you were in school, what you were like and stuff, not anything about now—not that I know anything about now, anyway. Anyway, I didn’t tell him much, and he didn’t stick around and push. But I wanted to tell you about it but couldn’t get home until this weekend and didn’t have your email address or anything.”
Zach’s throat was thick, but he took a breath and after a moment was able to say, “That’s okay—it happens. I don’t know how he found out you went to school with me, but things like that happen. I haven’t talked to the media and they don’t like that. They want you out there, hitting the talk shows and being on reality TV and crap like that, not minding your own business. What did he ask about?”
“Oh, just what you were like as a kid and stuff. I did tell him about the nicknames.” Jeff flushed. “I hope you aren’t pissed about that.”
Nicknames? Zach stared at him a moment, then guffawed. “You didn’t tell him yours, did you?”
“Hell, no!” Jeff said indignantly. “I have a little pride!”
THEY hung out together for a while, then went off to acquire some food. It being a Tyler barbeque, it wasn’t just hot dogs and hamburgers, but steak and pulled pork and ribs and corn dogs, all eaten to the competing sounds of country, blues, jazz and rock bands. Kids rode on carnival rides, couples played midway games trying to win each other stuffed animals, and as soon as it got dark, fireworks exploded overhead.
It was all way, way too much, and when David appeared at Zach’s elbow and discreetly disengaged him from his friends, he was way past ready to go find a quiet spot to sit and watch the fireworks and decompress. David, in his usual efficient manner, had found such a spot, on a rise of ground closer to the house than to the area set off for the barbeque, close enough to still hear the music, but far enough that they might have been alone in the world. “How are you doing?” David asked as they settled down on the plaid blanket he’d left there earlier.
“Okay. Despite throwing up in front of my dad this morning, it hasn’t been a horrible day. Once I got here and people started coming, it was okay. It was good to see the Jays,” Zach admitted, “and it was kind of fun to see some of the old guys that have been working at Tyler forever. Some girls flirted with me. It was weird.”
David lay down and gazed up at the fireworks. “What did you do?”
“I think I just flirted back,” Zach said. “Either that or I’m engaged. Can I ask you a question?”
“Since when has permission given or not stopped you? Go ahead.”
“Have you ever kissed a girl?”
“You are kidding, aren’t you?”
“No. Have you?”
“Duh! I dated Maggie for five years, dweeb. There was considerably more than kissing that went on.”
“Did you have sex with her?” Zach stared at him, wide-eyed.
David laughed. “No. Just a lot of screwing around, you know. She was kind of into the whole ‘good girl’ prom queen thing, and frankly, I wasn’t all that interested. Why?”
“Well, I’ve been spending a lot of time with Maggie lately….”
“Not thinking of switching sides?”
Zach frowned at him, then shook his head. “No. I love Maggie, she’s great, but she’s definitely not my type. Besides which, Alex can kick my ass. No, I was just wondering if you got, like, turned on by her. I mean, I don’t, but you must have, if you dated her so long and screwed around, and stuff. I’m just curious. I mean, I can’t even imagine, you know, being with one of the girls I was talking to today. It just… it just felt so weird to even think about it. The flirting, and all.”
“Zach, I was a teenage boy. Everything turns us on. I read someplace that the average teenage boy gets a dozen erections a day. Besides, I told you before that I already knew I liked blowjobs by the time Matt Brewer blew me—I just liked it a whole lot better when it was a guy on the other end. Obviously I’d had some experience before that.”
“Oh, okay. It’s just weird, you know. And I was just wondering about you and Maggie.”
David cocked his head. “Feeling threatened?”
“No. It’s just… weird, you know. Knowing you and she dated, and when I’m hanging around with her, I’m always wondering if she ever, you know, wanted you back or something. If Alex wasn’t just a second-best….”
“You are joking, right? Maggie is nuts about Alex. Haven’t you ever seen the two of them together?”
“Yeah, they’re friends with my folks and I’ve seen them at least once a week since I came back here. But that doesn’t mean anything. I mean, it could be she’s just good at hiding it.” Zach rested his chin on his knees, carefully not looking at David.
“Oh,” David said slowly. “I get it. You’re not really asking about Maggie, are you?”
“Of course I am. Hello? Asking about Maggie by name?”
“But that’s not really what you’re asking. What you’re asking is whether or not you’re second choice…. To who, I wonder?”
“Whom,” Zach said.
David ignored him. “Not Maggie—you know I love her but not in that way… Oh. Jerry. You think I screwed up with Jerry or he dumped me or something and I’m making it up by choosing you? You’re an idiot, Zach, you know that? And while you come by your rotten self-image honestly, it’s really annoying.”
“Fine,” Zach said, and started to get up. David grabbed his arm and yanked him back down.
“Shut up and listen to me,” he said savagely. “If anything, Jerry—and Chris and Steve and fucking Matt Brewer for that matter, and Maggie—have all been my second choices. All of them. Because every relationship I’ve ever had has had this big ugly lummox of a Zach Tyler hanging over it. So shut the fuck up about Maggie and Jerry and every other person I’ve ever even looked at twice, and I’ll ignore all the strangers you fucked in the ten months, okay?”
“That bothers you, doesn’t it?” Zach asked slowly.
“You bet your ass it does. Shit, Mike Pritzger bugs me, and I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone more het than he is. I’m jealous of everyone who takes your attention away from me. Okay, that sounds like a stalker, and I’m not that, but you know what I mean.”
“I think it means you love me.”
“Well, duh.”
“Okay,” Zach said. “I get it. I’m just being stupid again. And paranoid. It’s just… I guess I’m so nuts about you I can’t understand why everyone else isn’t.”
“Well, we’ll just blame it on taste. De gustibus non est disputandum.”
“‘There is no accounting for taste,’” Zach said.
“Glad you haven’t forgotten all the Latin tag lines I taught you.”
“Most of them. I think the only other one I remember is something else about ‘brevior saltare something something viris est vita’.”
David chuckled. “‘Brevior saltare cum deformibus viris est vita.’ ‘Life is too short to dance with ugly men.’ Good thing neither of us hot young dudes fall under that category.”
“Ego much?” Zach flopped back beside him, lacing his fingers through David’s. “When I was talking with the Jays, Muffin told me that some reporter talked to him about me a few weeks ago. Was asking about when I was a kid. He said he told him about the nicknames, but not anything else. What?” David’s hand had suddenly gone tense.
“Nothing,” David said.
“Something,” Zach corrected. “What is it?”
“Oh, I just think I ran into the same guy. He called me ‘Taff’. I shut him down, and told him to stay away from you, but he knows who you are.”
“He does.” Zach’s voice was flat.
“Yeah.” David took a breath and let it out in a long exhalation. “It was that Brian guy.”
“Brian? The surfer dude? He’s a fucking reporter?”
“Apparently.”
Zach was quiet a moment, then said, his voice bitter, “Well, talk about your past coming up and biting you in the ass. I know where he got the ‘Taff’ part, anyway.”
“He told me.”
The sound of the party seemed distant in the silence. Finally, Zach said, “It was before we got together. I haven’t cheated on you, Taff.”
“I never thought that,” David said in surprise.
“Oh. Good.” His fingers tightened around David’s. “He didn’t act like a reporter. He didn’t ask questions or anything. The only thing he was interested in was getting fucked.”
“I don’t know,” David mused. “He sounded like he was interested in more than that.”
“Well, I’m not. Not with him, anyway.” Zach released David’s hand and sat up, wrapping his arms around his knees.
David put his arm behind his head and his other hand on his stomach, just relaxing and staring up at the stars. “I know you’re not,” he said easily.
“Taff?”
“Haven’t gone anywhere.”
“Do you think, that maybe, if all that happened didn’t happen—that if we’d started, I dunno, seeing each other back then, that we’d be here, now, like this?”
“Probably not,” David said. “Maybe hanging out, friends or something. But not together.”
“Why not?”
“Well, even if we were together that whole next year, with you putting off going to MIT and me working at Tyler before college, sooner or later you’d end up in Boston and me at UCLA. We’d write and talk and email and videochat for a while, but separation’s hard on a relationship. Sooner or later you’d meet some hot young science geek or I’d meet some hot young actor wannabe, and we’d end up just doing the whole ‘we’ll still be friends’ crap.”
“I wouldn’t have done that.”
“Sure you would have.” David smiled at Zach when he turned to look down at him. “We were a lot younger then, and that’s how that sort of thing goes.”
“That’s why you didn’t want me in the beginning? Because you thought it was just a crush or something? That we’d end up splitting up anyway, so why waste the time?”
“Gee, zero to asshole in sixty seconds,” David complained. He sat up and imitated Zach’s posture. “For the record—and for the hundredth time—you know why you threw me for a loop when you kissed me.”
“I know what you said.” Zach looked over at him out of the corner of his eye. “So what’s gonna happen when I get accepted to MIT? You gonna figure I’ll take up with some hot science geek and forget about you?”
“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.