Finding Zach (14 page)

There was a tightness in David’s throat, an ache different from the one he’d had when working on this picture. Then, he’d had some faint hope that maybe they’d be able to work through their issues, to find some common ground where a relationship would be possible. The secret fantasy of that had fired his blood, aroused him mercilessly until he’d surrendered and brought himself off with his hand.

This morning’s conversation made it clear to David that his secret fantasies were just that: fantasies. Zach didn’t want him.

He ran his finger down the ragged edge of the sketchbook’s pages. So this was what Jerry meant. Jerry, and Steve before that, and Chris before that. “Emotionally unavailable.” That meant being in love with someone he couldn’t have, while failing the ones that were in love with him. Jerry. And Steve before that. And Chris before that. All great guys. All serious about their relationship with him. All of them—gone. Because of this. Because in seven years, he still hadn’t rid himself of Zach. He’d backed off of Zach when Zach wanted him, and sent Zach into hell, because Zach had scared him. Now Zach didn’t want him, and he wanted Zach. How fucked up was that?

But what Zach wanted, he could give him—his friendship. It was little enough to pay for what he’d done in sending Zach away seven years ago. He’d have to fake it for a while, but it was doable.

It would be okay. Sooner or later the attraction would ebb, and then he’d be able to really be Zach’s friend. Maybe by the time they were in their eighties….

“Fuck,” David said, and shut the sketchbook.

Chapter 10

“S
O
WHAT
’
S
on the schedule for today?” Annie asked two weeks later as she slid the plate of waffles across the kitchen island toward David. “You haven’t got a lot of free days left before the semester starts, do you?”

“No,” David said, taking a drink of coffee and pulling the plate closer. “Next Tuesday’s orientation.”

“Have you got your clothes ready?”

“Mom, I’m not going into eighth grade,” David retorted. “Yes, I have clothes ready. I’m teaching at a community college, not fricking Harvard. I’m wearing jeans and a sports jacket. Not exactly difficult to put together. And even so, I’ll probably be more dressed up than most of the teachers.”

“Just checking,” Annie said easily. “More coffee?”

“Please.” David held out his cup.

Jane wandered into the kitchen. “Did someone say coffee?” she asked plaintively.

“Sit, Jenny,” David said, getting up and pushing her into a chair at the table. “I’ll get you a cup.”

“Thanks.” She yawned hugely. “These late nights are for the birds,” she said, in between yawns. “I hope that’s the last fundraiser Richard has to go to for a while. I’m exhausted. Why am I exhausted? All we do is stand around and schmooze.”

“You don’t like schmoozing,” Annie said practically, piling waffles and bacon on a plate for David to carry to Jane. “It’s exhausting because you have to work at it. God knows I’d be miserable doing it.”

“Remember the old days, when we were going to open a health-food store, and you were going to write a cookbook with your recipes in it?”

“Yeah, and we’d support Richard and Philip with their pie-in-the-sky ideas about
computers
of all things,” Annie laughed. “God, looking back we were such conventional types, weren’t we? The guys all about technology and us wimmenfolk all about the nurturing crap. But we thought we were so cutting edge.”

“We did what we wanted,” Jane said. “Like your girls are. Like David is. That’s what’s important. And I don’t mind the other stuff, working with the foundation or the charities, when it’s
work
, and not schmoozing. Some of the other women I have to deal with just live for the socializing. I like being in my little office all alone.”

“You and Zach,” David said, handing her the syrup. “Happiest when you’re by yourselves.”

“Zach didn’t used to be like that,” Jane said, troubled.

“He’s getting better,” Annie reassured her. “He called me ‘DB’ the other day. And smiled at me.”

“My son smiles,” Jane murmured. “Alert the media.” She shook herself and gave them a game grin. “He is better,” she acknowledged. “He’s been talking more in therapy, maybe not necessarily about what’s bothering him, but he’s talking more. He’s reading some book on mechanical engineering or architecture or something, and he’s really into it. Are bridges mechanical engineering or architecture?”

Annie shrugged. “I don’t know. Both?”

“Anyway, it’s about bridges. And it’s good that he’s getting interested in that sort of thing again—it always fascinated him when he was little.”

“Structural engineering,” David said, swallowing the mouthful of waffle he’d been masticating. “Bridges are structural engineering. Zach wanted to be a structural engineer when he was little.”

“Does he still? I mean, he’s only twenty-two—there’s no reason why he couldn’t get his degree. God knows he’s bright enough; he could probably test out of a lot of his classes. Didn’t he get that scholarship to MIT when he was still a sophomore?” Annie held up a plate. “More bacon?”

“No, thanks,” Jane said. “Yes, he did. But we’ve talked about it and he doesn’t have any interest in going to school. He doesn’t seem to want to do anything except work on his cars. That’s why we’re so encouraged about him reading again, in a subject he was interested in before. At least….” She stopped and picked up her cup.

“At least what?” Annie asked, not put off in the slightest. She and Jane had known each other far too long for that.

“At least he’s not going out drinking at night anymore. He’s still drinking, if the bottles in his garbage are any indication, but he’s not going out driving while he’s doing it. Or”—Jane hesitated, biting her lip, then plowed on—“or hanging out with his so-called friends. I’ve been worried about that. But he seems to have gotten past that.”

“He’s not going out at night anymore?” David frowned. “That’s news to me.”

Jane shook her head. “No, not unless he’s taken to altering Andrew’s logs, which I don’t think he has the chops to do, since Andrew’s about as high tech as you can get, and Zach’s just not that good at hacking. He’s not leaving the compound at night. And there’d be no reason for that; we don’t monitor his coming and going, aside from the gate records, of course, but that’s everyone. He still goes out, but mostly during the day. I think it’s physical therapy a couple of times a week, and sometimes the library. But hardly ever at night anymore, and if he does, he’s home an hour or so later.” Jane looked embarrassed. “I asked him about it yesterday and he said he has to be in bed early because you two go running at seven a.m. and it’s hard enough keeping up with you.” She smiled then, an expression of relief on her face. “I am so
glad
that you two are friends again.”

“Yeah. Well.” David got up and put his plate in the sink. “We’re friendly, yeah. We run together, and we went hiking with you guys, and yesterday we got out his trail bike and started cleaning it up so that we can take it out on Saturday, but I don’t know about being
friends
. We just hang out together, you know.”

Jane’s grin faded. Annie sat down at the table with her coffee. “What do you mean, you don’t know about being friends? What else do you expect?” she asked curiously.

“Well, it would be nice if he talked to me,” David said bluntly. “He’s gone monosyllabic again. For a day or two he was talking—he even told me a little about Venezuela—a very little. But then he shut up again. Closed me out. Oh, he’s pleasant enough, not broody or anything. Even smiles every once in a while. But closed.”

“Welcome to my world,” Jane said unhappily. “Oh, David, I’m sorry. He’s doing much better with us—maybe he can’t manage on two fronts yet.”

“It’s better that he communicates with you rather than me,” David acknowledged. “You guys have been working much longer and harder at it than I have.”

“Maybe that’s just what Zach needs,” Annie said thoughtfully. “Someone undemanding who’ll just ‘hang out’ with him, and not expect him to talk or anything. It might be the best thing for him. Hard on you, Davey, but it may be what he needs right now.”

Jane gave David a worried look. “Is that okay with you, Davey?”

“Zach….” David took a breath and tried again. “I fucking love Zach, Jenny. He’s family. More than family. I will do any God-damned thing he needs me to do, up to and including murder—present company excepted.” He grinned faintly at Jane. “Now, if you ladies will excuse me, I’m meeting the subject of our conversation to plan our overthrow of the free world.”

“They’re going to play Richard’s new video game again,” Annie told Jane. “The megalomaniac one.”

“I love that one,” Jane admitted. “I’m just a frustrated Napoleon, I swear to God. It’s so much fun being evil.”

David laughed and let himself out of the kitchen.

H
E
LEFT
quiet behind him. Annie got up and got the coffee pot, refilling their mugs, then put the pot back on the stove and sat back down.

After a long moment, Jane said, “Do you think he does? Love Zach, I mean?”

“I don’t know,” Annie admitted. “David’s different, these days. Less brittle. Still tense, but more like he’s waiting for something. I mean, for the last seven years he seemed to be waiting for something, but it was like the other shoe dropping. Or global apocalypse. Or nuclear winter. He didn’t seem to be expecting anything good. But since he’s been back, it’s like he’s… watchful. Not quite hopeful—just watchful.”

“He’s watching Zach,” Jane said.

“Is he? I don’t see them together very often. Zach doesn’t come in with David in the mornings after their run. He waits for David to leave. Or like today—he’ll be having his own breakfast in his apartment, then he’ll come down and meet David in the game room. I think he’s uncomfortable around me and David. Singly, he’s okay. But not together. I don’t know why.” She frowned. “That’s just the feeling I get.”

“I trust your feelings more than I trust most people’s facts,” Jane said. “So tell me, do your feelings say he’s in love with Zach?”

Annie sighed. “He’s certainly
something
. What about Zach? Is he even capable of it?”

“Hell if I know,” Jane said. She put her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand. “He’s talking more, but he’s not talking
much
, if you know what I mean. He talks about things, not feelings. He talks about Maggie and Alex’s Annabel, or the car he’s working on, or the book he’s reading, or the games. If he mentions David, it’s in relation to what they’re doing, if they’re doing anything that day, or if they did something yesterday, or if they’re doing something tomorrow. You know, ‘well, we’re going fishing tomorrow’ sort of thing.”

“He never said they were going fishing!” Annie protested with a laugh.

“Well, no, not fishing. But you know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” Annie said with a sigh. “I know what you mean.”

Jane sat quietly a minute, then said, “Richard and I had a fight. He says I’m obsessing over Zach, but I’m not, really. I mean, he’s my only child and I’ve only just really got him back, and he’s not even all the way back yet. It’s like he’s being born, only it’s taking months instead of hours. But Richard says I’ve got to step back and just let it happen, that my hovering isn’t going to help. I’m not hovering!”

“Men are different,” Annie said.

“You can say that again,” Jane said. “But I’m not, not really. I just want to make sure Zach has everything he needs.”

“Some things you can’t give him, Jenny. Some things he’s got to get for himself.”

“If giving him David would help him, would you give him David?”

“I can’t ‘give’ David to anyone,” Annie said reasonably.

“You know what I mean!”

“Okay, okay. Yes. If it would make
both
of them happy, I’d love to see David in a relationship with Zach. But I don’t want either of them hurt, Jenny. They’re both my boys, even if David is the one that I bore. So if them being together is going to hurt one of them, I don’t want it. And I don’t know that right now they wouldn’t hurt each other. David’s just out of a serious relationship himself, and Zach…. Zach hasn’t ever been in one. Just give them time. If it’s meant to be, it’ll be.”

“I don’t
want
to wait,” Jane said stubbornly.

“Oh, the ‘God grant me patience and I want it now’ syndrome?” Annie shook her head. “Go to work, Jane. Leave the boys alone for a day.”

“You and Richard are in a conspiracy,” Jane grumbled.

“Yeah, us and the CIA. Git.”

Jane stuck out her tongue and left the kitchen. Annie shook her head and went to clean up.

“
D
AMN
it,” Zach growled as his character died a bloody, flaming death. He and David were playing against both each other and the computer, and the computer had managed to get through his avatar’s high-tech defenses to take him and his bodyguards down completely. “I just can’t get past this level!”