In the past, whenever Zach toyed with the idea of opening up to Julian and Marcus about Nathan and the abuse, he recoiled. Those two men, so strong and self-confident, could never understand Zach’s fall down the rabbit hole of shame. It had been too many years of keeping secrets and lies, the humiliation rooting him in the past with no impetus to break free, to take back his life, turn himself around, and eradicate the memories of what made him the person he was today.
Instead, he took the coward’s way out, as he defined it, content to remain behind the scenes. Lonely, but forever grateful for his friends and even his mother for never pressing him for explanations. Zach immersed himself in his work and shut down his heart and libido, content to live vicariously through Marcus’s and Julian’s love affairs, though he’d never stopped dreaming of finding someone to love and share his life with. Marcus’s relentless teasing never bothered him. After all, what he said was true. Zach was and always would be a romantic at heart. He believed in happy endings.
It had happened for Julian, after all.
In meeting Sam, Zach’s bland, colorless world had been upset: spun upside down off its monotonous axis and invigorated with color, light, and sound. For once, someone wanted him—just Zach. Sam didn’t seem to want to change him or mold him into someone else. There’d yet to be any criticisms or put-downs; Zach didn’t have to pretend he was someone else, nor did Sam seem to want him to be anyone other than who he was.
But would Sam still want him once Zach confessed why he’d left? It was one thing to be shy and geeky. It was another thing for him to admit what he’d gone through with Nathan.
And then there was the issue of Zach still living at home. He straightened up and knew, though it might lose him Sam, he refused to lie about the close relationship he had with his mother. Long ago he’d made his decision to watch over her and that wasn’t about to change for any man.
“I think the best place for me to start is to tell you the reason why I left that night in such a hurry.”
Sam quirked a brow. “Uh, yeah. That is the reason we’re talking. Otherwise I’d have you laid out naked on my bed.”
Zach found it hard to breathe at the visual, but after a brief hesitation he regained his composure and began again.
“I had every intention of spending the night with you; I looked forward to it, especially our walk along the beach. But then I got a call and I had to rush back to the city. I didn’t have time to find you and explain.”
“Yeah,” said Sam, settling back in his chair. “I thought you cheated on your boyfriend and ran back to him when you got cold feet or he found out.” Sam huffed out a laugh. “Remember I even thought Marcus was the boyfriend.”
Though Sam’s laugh rang out full and genuine, Zach sensed there was still an underlying current there to warrant more reassurance on that front.
“Marcus never has been and never will be a man I am interested in as anything more than a friend. I love him, but not in that way.”
Zach watched as relief brought out those delightful smile-crinkles to fan out from the corners of Sam’s eyes. “I have to admit meeting him now, I couldn’t imagine you two together. He’s an obvious flirt and not the type I’d ever imagine wanting a steady relationship.”
“You have such excellent insight, considering you’ve only spoken to him for a few minutes.”
“I was a cop for twenty years,” groused Sam. “If I couldn’t pick up on people’s behavior, I never would’ve lasted.”
“How come you retired? You’re so young still.”
The question was an innocent one, Zach thought, until a brief flash of pain replaced the laughter in Sam’s eyes, turning them cold and dark, and the teasing grin resting on his lips faded away.
“Are you deflecting the conversation away from you over to me so you won’t have to answer any questions?” Sam shifted in his chair and frowned. “This is about you and what happened, not my work history.”
Sam might be the intuitive one, but it didn’t take an expert to note the shift in the air had nothing to do with the cool breeze blowing in through the windows, portending rain. Zach wasn’t the only one with a backstory in his life, and he wondered if it had to do with the man Sam had loved, but no longer lived with.
That conversation would be tabled for a future discussion. This afternoon it was Zach’s turn to bare his soul.
After Nathan, he’d decided that he might be a pushover in many ways, but no one would ever tell him how to live his life again. If Sam left because Zach cared for his mother, if it made him less of a man in Sam’s eyes, then Sam wasn’t the man Zach thought he was and would want. And if Sam was going to freak out because Zach still lived at home with his mother, better that he do it now, and Zach could, not without some regret of course, walk away.
“I did receive a call, yes, but not from another man. From my mother.”
“Um, okay. Your mother called and you had to go because…?”
Zach’s jaw ached from gritting his teeth. He wanted nothing more than to be done with the conversation and get back to the part where Sam talked about being naked in his bed. “She thought someone might be breaking in, so she became frightened, had a panic attack, and called, asking if I could come home.”
Disbelief clouded Sam’s face. “You ran back one hundred fifty miles on a Saturday night because your mother called you? There wasn’t anyone else she could call?” He huffed out a laugh. “I mean, it’s not like you’re there all the time. What does she do, make you stop over and do a house check every night?”
Defiantly, he glared at Sam. “I live there. With her.”
“You live at home—with your mother?” Curiosity tinged Sam’s voice, but not contempt as Zach had feared. “At your age?”
Unable to sit still any longer, Zach sprang up from the sofa and walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water. Drinking it down, a myriad of emotions passed through him: his father’s death, his mother’s subsequent neediness—had he made a mistake by not getting her the help she needed? Only a child when it happened, he’d barely been equipped to take care of his own grief. Top that sundae of life’s disasters with the internal struggle from his prepubescent hormones pointing him in the direction of other boys and not girls…no wonder he was a mess.
Thank God Marcus, who’d already figured out his sexuality and acted upon it, had been there to help navigate the way for him, otherwise Zach would’ve been lost.
