Going Up! (4 page)

“Damn, this is some view,” she muttered. “If I woke up to this every morning, I’d be singing like a fucking bird!”

“No singing!” he pleaded. He kept the painkillers by the coffee, and right now he needed both.

“Water first,” Leah directed, scrambling out of the blankets on the couch and rushing into his kitchen to take over and boss him around. “My God. Have you never been drunk before?”

“Why are you still singing?” he groaned, resting his head on the counter and wrapping his arms around it. “Why are you singing and why is the sun stabbing my brain and why do I feel like shoe gum?”

“Because you drank enough vodka to fund an entire Russian coup,” she muttered. “Jesus—you almost told your father you were gay, do you know that?”

“You’re lying,” he mumbled. “I don’t even tell
myself
I’m gay.”

“Well, you apparently do now, because I don’t think I’ve seen a more serious broken heart in my entire life.”

Oh God. Oh
God.
Zach felt actual tears starting. “He wouldn’t even look at me,” he mumbled. “Just for who I am.”

“Well, it probably took him by surprise,” Leah said kindly. She poked at him until he took his arms from around his head and stood up. “Here. Motrin and water. You’ll feel better. Or you’ll throw up. Either way you’ll feel better.”

He took the Motrin and drank the entire glass of ice water.

And then he threw up.

And then Leah made him take more Motrin with more ice water. And added soda crackers with it.

That
he kept down.

And
then
he felt better.

And then?

Well, he took a shower, brushed his teeth and dressed, but Leah insisted that he only dress in sweats. “You have an
amazing
entertainment center,” she said thoughtfully when he emerged from his room with wet, uncombed hair and in his old college sweatshirt. “Come, sit next to me and let us explore.”

He felt a reluctant smile on his face. “What are we exploring?”

“Bruckheimer movies,” she said with decision. “We can see Alcatraz from here—I think we need to watch
The Rock.
” Sure enough, it was on Netflix, and she made him watch the whole thing. She fixed him instant oatmeal, because it was the only thing he had in the cupboards and then ordered take-out delivered for lunch. And besides that all she did was sit on his couch, lean on his arm, and talk about how Nicholas Cage had made a mockery of his career. They watched
Con Air
and
Ghost Rider
to prove it.

Sometime between
The Rock
and
Con Air,
he actually started talking. And then he started listening.

He found out that Leah Chambers was from Hawaii, and that he couldn’t really pronounce her real name. He found out that she roomed with another girl who was a librarian, and that they both mourned their love lives but really didn’t want anything to change about them right now. He learned that she had six nieces and two nephews and that she sent them gifts
every
month, and that during her vacation over Christmas she went back to Hawaii, and had
every
year since he hired her.

And he told her about Sean.

He told her about the freckles and the blond curls and the funny costumes and the umpteen roommates. He told her about the ankle boots and the way he’d brought a stranger into his Valentine’s Day party in the hopes that
someone
would have a happy evening.

“Why didn’t you go?” she asked. “When he asked you, why didn’t you go?”

He sighed and leaned against the arm of the couch, and to his surprise she leaned on him. “Are we snuggling yet?” he asked fuzzily. “Isn’t there some sort of rule about when two people can snuggle?”

“Yes. We’ve known each other for three years. We’ve met the requirements.” She poked him in the ribs with fingernails that had recently undergone a bright-red manicure. “Answer the question.”

“Because I don’t do anything,” he said after a moment. “I work and I come home. And when I get lonely I pay for sex.”

“Ew,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

“And you’re the only person alive who knows that,” he told her grumpily. “So if that gets around the office—”

“I’ll hire the assassin myself.”

He didn’t believe she’d do that, but he was, at this moment, too hungover and too heartbroken to care. “Anyway, I don’t do anything. I wouldn’t be a lot of fun at a party, because all I’ve got is work, and a lot of that is confidential.”

She dug her flat little chin into his bicep until he looked at her.

“What?”

“Well, for starters, you do a good impression of big, bad boss—I never knew you were an overgrown eighth grader. I’m proud of you for that, by the way, because it’s a lot more likable than big, bad boss. And for finishers, Jenn and I are going to Golden Gate Park next weekend to play Frisbee and visit the Exploratorium. Do you want to come with us?”

He was planning to say no. It was absolutely on the tip of his tongue. And then he thought about that look on Sean’s face, the utter disappointment in the person he’d thought he’d been talking to.

Maybe Zach could be a better person.

“Yeah, okay,” he mumbled.

Leah took pity on him then and pressed play on the remote. He fell asleep in the middle of
Con Air
and didn’t wake up until
Ghost Rider,
and after that Leah bid him a reluctant good-bye.

Yeah, he could have given her a raise, but it wouldn’t have been enough. Frisbee in Golden Gate Park was a much better payback for a day spent teaching him how to nurse a broken heart.

Z
ACH
MADE
a concentrated effort to leave early after that, and to take the express elevator all the way down. He had to leave early to get his secretary and one friend her coffee in the morning and still get to work on time. It was the only way. It was a conscious decision, made fully aware of the consequences, but still, that didn’t stop him from flinching every time the car passed the fourteenth floor.

One of the plusses of leaving early was that he found himself in the elevator with Jace and Quent a lot. He hadn’t known their names until then, but they were the day-traders who shared the penthouse floor with him. Jace was the obsessive one who left early and apparently made them power walk through the San Francisco streets, and Quent, his goateed partner with the warm brown eyes, was the talker. Apparently, poker was their religion, and after they’d met for nearly three weeks, Zach was even invited to worship.

“Seriously, Jace—we could always use another man!” Quent said as the elevator began its descent.

Jace flicked steel-blue eyes over Zach’s face and dismissed the idea. “He’ll get eaten alive. He’s got a worse poker face than you.
Look
at those eyes.”

Quent shrugged apologetically, but Zach didn’t mind if his partner was an ass. They were better company than no one on the long trip down, and they were so obviously in love with each other he didn’t have to worry about stupid, heartbreaking attachments finding purchase in thin air.

Frisbee in Golden Gate Park turned out to be wonderful. Jenn was a chubby girl with waist-length blonde hair and an absolutely filthy mouth. Zach wasn’t sure what to do with her at first—he hadn’t even told dirty jokes in the eighth grade, but he liked watching Leah laugh, so eventually he stopped clenching every time she said something like “that old fucktard can go eat a bag of dicks!”

About three weeks after the benefit, right when he was getting used to living without hope or color, he got home one Friday evening and was getting on the elevator just when Sean was getting out.

Sean was dressed nicely—slacks and a sweater, with the familiar peacoat and bright-red scarf over his arm, and there was a stocky, powerfully built man in a suit standing behind him with a hand in the small of his back.

Sean and Zach stared at each other for a minute, and Zach figured this was it. The moment his heart really did blow away, and he didn’t have to worry about it anymore. Except that couldn’t be right because it was thundering in his ears.

“Hi,” he said, feeling lame.

“Hi,” Sean said, his sand-colored brows puckering in the middle. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Luck of the elevator,” Zach lied, and Sean nodded like that had to be the case and Zach couldn’t have possibly been avoiding him. That was enough for Zach—this sucked; this hurt horribly. This right here was the reason a flirtation on an elevator was the closest he’d come to a real relationship since he’d gone down on his roommate in college.

“Well, you know, maybe the elevator can stop avoiding me,” Sean said, and he was the one who sounded put out.

“Well, maybe it could stop pretending I have the plague,” Zach said sharply.

“Well
maybe—
” and Sean’s mouth was quirking up, like he knew this was a silly conversation to be having right now, and Zach was
dying
for his response, when the man behind him spoke up.

“Sean, we’re going to be late. These tickets were expensive!”

Sean grimaced at Zach and then turned toward his date. “Yeah, sorry.” The elevator was still standing there, open, and Zach moved toward it automatically. He turned around at the last minute, before the doors started to close, and saw that Sean had turned around too.

“So, see you around?” Sean said hopefully, and Zach smiled.

“Yeah. Yeah. See you around.”

H
E
DIDN
’
T
want to completely ditch Quent and Jace—he’d started to feel like they might be friends too, like Leah and Jenn, and seriously, how had he lived for thirty-three years without friends? So he compromised. He left early two days a week and took the express all the way down, and then left a little late three days a week and switched elevators at the nineteenth floor. He managed to catch his friends on the two days (because apparently Jace was made out of clockwork parts and would never be late, rushed, or anything but perfectly attired) and maybe, once or twice a week, Sean managed to make it into the elevator on time.

It was just enough to feed Zach’s quiet obsession with him.

He saw Sean dressed in his Renaissance gear three times—apparently
Romeo and Juliet
was big in middle schools in the spring. He saw him dressed as a 1950s biker once—S.E. Hinton was also big in middle schools—with his blond hair slicked back and only a highly lacquered cluster of curls allowed to escape out the front. Zach also saw him dressed as a WWI soldier, because some sadist made eighth graders read
All’s Quiet on the Western Front,
and
Jesus,
didn’t those kids deserve a good laugh after that!

And Zach saw him on the last day of school, ebullient because the teacher who had been gone for the second half of the semester and given him access to the job had filed for a two-year leave of absence, and Sean could count on being able to pay his bills.

“So, what are you going to do for the summer?” Zach asked. He racked his brains, wondering if they had an internship or a gopher position or if they had the budget for a guy to go get coffee or—

“Theater tech!” Sean said gleefully. “I don’t get to dress up, but Katie has me signed up for three shows—the money’s not great, but it’ll keep me in Top Ramen until August!”

“School starts in August?” Appalling. Absolutely appalling—at least private schools waited until after Labor Day!

“Yup. Two months of theater, and suddenly I’ll be a real boy!”

“You’re the most real thing in my life,” Zach blurted, and the sudden silence was worse than hot coals and pincers. They weren’t even alone in the elevator. This was supposed to be a Jace and Quent day—and the little old lady with the poodle was there too. But the elevator had died at the nineteenth floor, and they’d all hopped into the next car, and suddenly, hey, Jace and Quent and old-lady-with-dog, meet Sean. The only one who cared, actually, was Zach. The rest of them had listened to Sean and Zach’s banter with half an ear, probably submerged in the white noise of their own thoughts.

“Oh,” Sean said, like the entire world made sense to him right then.

Ding!

The doors opened and the little old lady with the poodle got out, and Jace and Quent went after her. Quent turned an anxious glance behind him and Jace grabbed his arm, hissing, “Leave him alone!” before dragging his boyfriend into the San Francisco morning.

“I, uhm….” Zach stopped the door from closing and gestured for Sean to precede him. He followed him out of the elevator and prayed, just prayed that he would keep walking through the glass doors and into the city. Zach realized he didn’t even know which direction Sean usually turned. He always slowed his steps just enough to make sure their time in the elevator was their only time.

Sean didn’t do that this time. He waited for Zach to come out and walked shoulder to shoulder with him.

“You were early today,” Zach said into the silence.

“Yeah.”

“I usually come down with Jace and Quent, or I come down with you.”

“So you choose?” They were at the glass doors now, and Zach, again, gestured him to go first.

“I have to hop at the nineteenth floor to see you. And I made friends,” Zach said with dignity. Then, because it was honest. “But, I, uhm, I still like it when I see you in the morning.”

They got outside and Sean angled his shoulders left, toward the Muni stop probably, while Zach’s office building was right. They paused, awkwardly, and foot-traffic swirled around them on the crowded sidewalk.

“I’ll, uhm, see you in August,” Zach said, trying not to sound wistful.

Sean turned toward him fully, lifted himself up and kissed his cheek.

Time stopped. The
world
stopped. There was only Sean’s rain forest smell, his warmth, the freckles across his nose, and the feel of his soft lips on the arch of Zach’s cheekbone.

“We’re having a party tonight,” Sean said. “Apartment 1409. Beer is always appreciated.”