Page 53 of Dead Boys Club

Everyone applauds. Someone starts a round of congratulations, and they all name and cheer for each character in turn: To Oberon! Woo! To Theseus! Woo! To Bottom! Woo! Even Zach manages a little noise of congratulations though he’s easily drowned out by the rest of the group.

When they finally get to Puck, someone says, “And we would be fucked without Puck!” Everyone crammed into the Reids’ kitchen roars in approval, and Parker’s face is flushed all the way from his hairline to his throat. Seeing the little grin of satisfaction on his face makes Zach’s stomach swoop.

After the congratulations die down, the party spills out from the kitchen and into the dining room, where Mrs. Reid has set up an array of snacks that no teenager on Earth would eat. Zach feels a familiar anxiety claw up his throat. There’s just too much going on around him at once. Maybe he should slip out the back door onto the porch for some air. He doubts anyone would miss him if he did.

Suddenly, as if summoned, Parker is there. His face is scrubbed clean of his stage makeup and his hair is starting to come out of its braid.

“Hey,” he says, leaning into Zach to be heard over the chatter.

“Oh,” Zach breathes. “Hi.” He adds, a little frantically: “You were amazing, Parker.”

Parker’s smile is accompanied by knitted brows. “You look like you’re about to fucking pass out,” he says.

Zach nods, swallowing. “Yeah, I might,” he admits. “There’s um… a lot of people.”

With a short nod, Parker grabs Zach by the arm and hauls him through the throng. Zach catches Isaac watching them suspiciously before he’s ferried away.

Parker pulls him to the second set of stairs in the kitchen. Zach follows him up and into the dimly lit part of the house. The cacophony of voices is drowned out below. It’s cooler up here. Zach can breathe a little more freely. Parker leads him to his bedroom, illuminated in a low, yellow light by his bedside lamp.

Zach now recognizes the Taking Back Sunday poster above Parker’s bed. For a moment, Zach is back in the car, listening to the overlapping voices and dissonant instruments that Parker called the greatest music on Earth. He still has the Coheed and Cambria CD that Parker lent him.

When Parker kicks closed his bedroom door, the rest of the sound from downstairs is immediately dampened. Zach exhales a sigh of relief, pacing further into Parker’s room. “Thanks,” he says, pulling the sleeves of his black sweater over his hands.

Parker shrugs, not exactly looking at him. They stand together in his room for a few beats of awkward silence. Zach looks around—there’s clothes spilling out of Parker’s hamper, and a pile of books by the foot of his bed that don’t quite fit on the nearby bookshelf. When he looks a little more closely at the minutiae of Parker’s room, he even finds a completely built Lego set on the top of one of his bookshelves. Zach squints. He’s pretty sure it’s a replica of the Lost Tomb from Indiana Jones. He tries to imagine the Parker in front of him, sitting down and putting together a Lego set. He tries to imagine the Parker in front of him watching Indiana Jones, too.

Zach has never wanted to kiss anyone as badly as he wants to kiss Parker Reid, and that scares him.

They’re alone for the first time in what feels like weeks—no Paige or Isaac or Bea—and Zach feels like he needs to say a hundred different things. But he isn’t good at that. He can’t form the words, can’t fathom what they might sound like coming out. Right as he’s about to work himself up into a panic, Parker turns to look at him.

“Can we…” Parker frowns and moves to sit on the edge of his bed. He shoves his hands into his lap. “Can we talk for a minute?”

“Okay,” Zach says, cautious. His stomach flips unpleasantly. People asking to talk never goes well.

He lowers himself to sit next to Parker anyway. They’re close enough that if Zach were to move his knee, they’d be touching. But he stays very still instead.

It takes Parker a solid minute to get his words out. In that interval, Zach considers whether it’s possible to have more than one heart attack at a time.

Finally, Parker takes a deep breath and says, “I don’t want to do it anymore.”

Zach almost asks, Do what? But before he can get the words out, Parker goes on: “I think I want to stay alive,” and he turns his head to look at Zach, his face complicated and beautiful, his two-toned eyes a little wet and red around the rim. The relief that floods Zach is so forceful it feels like his stomach is turning into water. He exhales sharply, his heart pounding out through his ribs, up into his throat.

Zach kisses Parker.

He doesn’t mean to. It happens on impulse, so quickly that Zach isn’t even aware he’s making the decision—like when something hits you on the knee and you can’t help but kick. Zach kisses Parker, his hands cupping his face. Parker’s mouth is slack for a beat, and then he presses back with his whole body. In an instant, Parker is kissing him back.

Zach pulls back with a soft gasp. “Oh my god,” he says. “I’m so sorry, I—”

“Shut up,” Parker says quickly. “Shut up, shut up, shut up—”

Parker kisses him again, cool hands grasping at Zach’s cheeks. It takes about twenty seconds of this second kiss for Zach to remember that he is self-conscious about not knowing how to kiss. Parker isn’t, though. Parker kisses him like he could teach a master class on the subject. He presses into Zach’s space. They nearly go toppling down onto Parker’s bed together. Zach holds himself up with one hand behind him, the other smoothing against Parker’s cheek.

When they finally pull back again, Parker’s face is flushed. He’s grinning so wide that his eyes crinkle up. Zach’s never seen him smile quite like this. It feels like it’s a smile that’s just for him.

“Wow,” Zach breathes.

Parker laughs, combing one hand through his hair. “I’ve wanted to do that since eighth grade,” he says, rubbing his palm over his face.

This news makes Zach feel a bit like he’s suddenly out of his body. Eighth grade. Eighth grade? The memory of Parker, smaller back then but still taller than the rest of the class, threatening to kick his ass if he ever saw him talking to his sister again.