“Are you sure this is the right address?” Zack asked the driver as he came to a stop in front of the sprawling house overlooking the ocean. It wasn’t a mansion, not by any stretch of the imagination. It was a weathered stucco house with Spanish tile on the roof, it looked at least a hundred years old and almost as neglected. The neglect seemed deliberate. Almost planned.
“Yeah, buddy, like I said the last three times.” The driver pointed to the numbers over the arch leading into the courtyard. He’d already pointed out the street name and the address down at the curb. There was a lot of driveway from the street to the door and not a neighbor in sight. Most of the houses out here seemed to be stacked on top of each other, but this one was almost secluded.
Zack paid him and tipped him, “Could you wait, in case I was given the wrong address?” He added another twenty to the tip and the driver nodded. “Thanks. I’ll be right back.
He walked past a fountain in the shape of a mermaid, with two legs, uh, fins. He had to duck to go through the arch. The gate was rusted open and hanging like it was going to fall off at any moment. The place had been grand back in its heyday, whenever that was. The door was arched as well and made of carved wood that had weathered a shade of reddish gray. He knocked. No one came. There was a bell beside the door, but no doorbell. He rang the bell.
The place looked deserted as fuck.
The taxi driver blew the horn and Zack jumped just as the door opened by a bald man wearing nothing but a towel and a sheen of water. “Hey, man, how’s it hanging?”
Zack stared at him for a moment. He had green eyes that crinkled at the corners, under strawberry blond brows. He stood waiting for Zack to close his mouth and answer the question. “I… have the wrong address.”
The dude crossed his arms over his chest and sighed.
“Brian, you have a visitor,” he shouted over his shoulder while raking Zack with those curious green orbs that passed for eyes. “Typical, anytime something hot shows up here, it’s always for him. Well, come on in. Don’t stand there.” He waved past Zack to the taxi driver while Zack just stood there as the guy stalked past him to the taxi, leaving him standing on the doorstep.
Brian was inside, wearing just a towel, his hair was dripping wet. Like he’d just stepped out of the shower. The shower, he’d been sharing with… Skip? Of the ‘if you love me, you’ll get me a ticket’… Skip.
“Why are you here?” Brian sounded more than surprised. He sounded guilty. The bald daddy lover and the driver dragged his bags up the walk and Brian stood frozen to the spot inside, and Zack had no idea what to do or say. “I should go.”
The taxi driver groaned. “It’ll be double if I have to drag these bags back to the car.”
“I’ll pay it.”
“No!” Brian stopped being a frozen statue and rushed onto the porch. Bald daddy lover slapped him on the ass and walked into the house. The driver fled before the crazy naked men dragged him into their den of iniquity for an orgy or something. “Don’t go. You’re here. Why are you here?”
“I… I didn’t get a residency in Atlanta.”
“Okay.” Brian crossed his arms over his chest mimicking the bald daddy lover, Skip. He looked almost exactly like a younger version of the bald daddy lover Skip if the bald daddy lover Skip had hair… and… a kid. Brian closed his eyes and dragged in a long breath. “He’s my dad. My biological father… Skip. Well, Wallace Simpson, but that was the name of that woman who married the king of England, so he goes by Skip… and anyway, my sisters don’t even know. My mom… Jesus, Zack, you didn’t call.”
“You didn’t answer,” Zack countered, trying to take it all in and failing. “He’s not your… looks like you just got out of the shower.”
“Yeah, he has a shower on his side of the house and I have one on mine. We just got in from the park. I was covered in mud. He’s heading out. He has some emergency upstate to deal with.” Brian dropped his arms and held them out almost as if he wanted to grab Zack. “I shouldn’t have left like that.”
“No, you shouldn’t have.” Zack wanted to grab him and shake him and hug him and push him against the Hobbit door and kiss him until neither of them could breathe. And maybe whip that towel off and show bald daddy… Dad. His dad. “He’s your dad?”
“Plot twist,” Brian said, laughing nervously. “Surprise. Norah and James split up when the twins were about a year old. Mom had an affair. Hell, she moved in with Skip while Jimmy was off being a dick. This is the Cliff’s Notes version and it’s the only version I have because there was a lot of screaming when I found out Jimmy wasn’t my real father and hated my guts… but… Norah was shacked up with Skip for about a year, she went back to Jimmy and eight months later I came along. With red hair. In a family of brunettes. I found out. Jimmy disowned me after he found out I went to California that summer to meet Skip. Skip took me in. We get along. He isn’t here all that much. And please come inside. Please stop staring at me like it’s over. I shouldn’t have left. Jimmy… it still hurts. You know, he was my dad for nineteen years and then he wasn’t. Why are you here, Zack?”
“Match Day,” Zack said, his heart beating hard in his chest. Brian wasn’t running from him. He wasn’t living in sin with a bald daddy lover named Skip. “My Match Day letter. It sent me to you. I’m doing my residency here. Well, at the hospital. It’s the only one I applied to that wasn’t in Georgia. I wasn’t supposed to stay. I was supposed to be with you.”
A smile lit Brian’s face. Zack’s heart jumped into his throat and he couldn’t swallow. The towel around Brian’s waist fell to the floor as he grabbed Zack around the waist and picked him up to carry him over the threshold. “Congratulations, Doctor Sorensen.” Brian kicked the door closed but didn’t put Zack down.
Zack leaned over and cupped Brian’s face gently in trembling hands. “Do you still want to be Mister Sorensen?” He had to know before he had a heart attack or another panic attack. “Because I really want you to be… my husband.”
“Kiss the man already, Scooter, so that I can welcome him to the family.”
Brian winced at the nickname. He kissed Zack, softly, his lips trembling just as much as Zack’s. “I love you,” he whispered, lowering Zack to the floor. “And he’s leaving for a month. Don’t pay him any mind.”
“He calls you Scooter?” Zack grinned because it was turning out to be the weirdest fucking day. Brian winced again.
“The things you put up with when you love someone,” Brian said with a touch of fear in his eyes. “This is where I belong, Zack.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Not for a long time.” He felt the fluttery belly ache again and looked over to his new… father-in-law… “Unless that’s going to be a problem.”
“Only if you burn the house down.” Skip shouldered a heavy backpack that looked like it weighed more than Zack. “Then we’ll all have a problem. I don’t know if the insurance is paid up. Don’t burn the house down while I’m gone.”
The big man stopped to hug Brian and thump him on the back of the head. Up close, Zack could see the heavy resemblance. Brian had his nose and his chin, hell, he had the man’s face. It really was like looking at a younger version of the man. “Proud of you, Scoot.”
“Go on, you old coot. And don’t break anything this time, like your leg.” Brian hugged the man back.
Skip, or Wallace Simpson, or whatever his name was reached out for Zack and pulled him into a bear hug, slapping Zack on the back. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Doc. You take care of my boy.”
Zack found himself nodding along.
Skip let him go and Zack could have sworn he saw the man wipe his eye before he walked out the door, leaving him alone with Brian in the sprawling house on the beach. The windows were open, the smell of salt permeated the air, the sound of waves crashing below filled the sudden awkward silence. Brian wrapped around him and dragged him through the house to a bed on what looked like a sun porch, his clothes lost somewhere along the way.
“Do you believe in fate?” Brian lay in Zack’s arms as the sun set outside and the breeze picked up.
“I don’t know. Three weeks ago, I would have said no. Now?” He shrugged, knowing Brian would feel the motion.
“Me either.” Brian rolled onto his chest and stared down into Zack’s eyes. “I’m so sorry I left. I changed my mind and turned around, but there was no one at the house when I got there. You didn’t answer your phone. I didn’t know what else to do so I went to the airport and waited for Skip to get me a flight. I should never have left.”
Zack rubbed Brian’s shoulders, “Maybe you should have. Ronnie showed up not long after you drove away. It got ugly. Really ugly.”
Brian shook his head and looked away, the guilt Zack had seen on his face so many times the past few days returned. “I am the reason she jilted you at the altar. I told her I wasn’t going to let her ruin your life. That I’d speak out about why you shouldn’t get married. It’s my fault she’s on the warpath.”
Zack caught Brian’s chin and forced him to look at him. “The fact that she had a dick in each end is a good enough reason if you ask me. And since no one asked me my opinion on the matter… Thank you for that.”
Brian rolled off, sitting cross-legged beside him, he turned on the lamp beside the bed and stared at him in disbelief. “What the hell? I mean… yeah, that’s what happened? But I don’t believe she told you.”
“She didn’t. Troy drunk texted everyone their sexcapades from that night. I opened the text while she was trying to tell me how deceitful you are. I took back my ring and that’s it. It’s over. And what’s worse, it’s all over Atlanta. Don’t know what happened to Hunter and Troy. Don’t care. Don’t know what people are saying about me. Don’t care. Colleen and I had a long talk. She’s happy for you. I couldn’t stay in that house and sleep in the bed I bought for her, right down the street from them so I went to a hotel and waited for you to call. You never did. I went to the Match Day ceremony and I got my letter and I just sat there wondering if I’d read it right. It wasn’t about medicine in that moment. I’d forgotten all about medicine. I was matched to you. I was being sent to you. So… I don’t know if I believe in fate, but damn, if something didn’t just happen and here I am… where the hell are we?”
“Used to be an old hippie commune back in the good old days. Skip’s parents owned it. Left it to him. It’s funky and run down, but it’s… home.” Brian draped himself across Zack’s stomach and ran a fingernail lazily across his nipple. “Skip spends most of the year in Oregon living in a tent and communing with the cannabis. I run his adventure park. He pays me shitty wages. But I get to live in a room on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and take people ziplining for a living. It’s all I need.”
Zack could see the happiness in Brian’s eyes. He could feel it in his entire body. He reached out for some of that happy and cupped Brian’s face. “All I ever needed was you. I just didn’t know it until you showed up in my stateroom and saved me from myself. I sold my car and my house and donated most of my shit to Goodwill and flew all the way across the country, not because of a job, but because you’re all I need.”
“Awww,” Brian purred in a little voice, “that’s so sweet.” He flicked Zack’s nipple with his nail, sending a jolt of pure pleasure straight through Zack’s body. “Admit that you flew all the way across the country because I am the only person allowed to suck your dick.” Brian pinched his nipple as he spoke, and Zack’s dick decided it had heard enough sappy bullshit for one night.
“Oh, god, Bri, I seriously need you to suck my dick, right now. Please… Mister Sorensen.”
Brian sat up and turned the lamp off, leaving them in pitch black until Zack’s vision adjusted and the stars filled the coastal sky just beyond their window. “Whatever makes you happy, Doctor Sorensen.”