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“You know what the worst part of it is?” he asked, after a pause. “I’ve been looking forward to going home. This whole time, I’ve been missing home. And then I find out there never was any home, and I’m not going back there.”
Ouch. It was one thing to get dumped, another to lose your entire sense of life as you knew it. “Hey, maybe you could find something around here. You know, if you planned to stay.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I was kind of hoping you would be able to hook me up with whoever showed you this place.” Zach looked down at the table, idly toying with his bottle top. Javier knew then that he’d shown a little too much on his face, gave away a little too much hope in his expression. Zach shrugged. “It’s not like I’m going to stay in L.A.. There isn’t anything there for me now, and it was never really my scene. Might as well get comfortable here.”
“It’s a nice little town. If I ever got sent somewhere else… I don’t know, I’d probably keep this place to come back to.” Javier smiled as he looked down the slate stairs at the patio below. “You only get to use your pool about two months out of the year though.”
They both laughed at that.
“Of course, I can get you the agent’s number,” Javier said, picking up their plates. Zach grabbed their beers and followed him into the kitchen. As soon as the doors were shut behind them, he stopped, eyes closed, and breathed in deeply and dramatically.
“That’s what I’m looking for,” he said, opening his eyes finally. “Someplace that smells like a home. Not like hotel bathroom cleaner.”
“And you think this place smells like home?” Javier smiled to himself as he scraped their plates into the trash. If Zach thought his place was that comfortable, maybe he wouldn’t mind staying in it. For the night, or maybe for a little while longer.
No. We are not going down rebound road with him. He took a breath and shook his head, grateful that Zach was distracted, pacing in front of the wrought-iron and glass doors.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s not your house. Maybe it just feels good to be around you.” Zach kept his gaze fixed on something beyond the glass, as if just pretending his remark were nonchalant would make it so.
Javier couldn’t let that pass without saying something. He rinsed off the plates and wiped his hands on the dishtowel as he turned to face him. “Look, I know you’re hurting right now—”
“And you don’t want to be the rebound guy. I know.” Zach shook his head. “No, I’m not angling for that. I just feel like being here, with you... it’s highlighting everything that was wrong with me and him.”
Javier didn’t know what to say to that. He knew if he tried to speak, his voice would come out all raspy and emotional, and they’d at least tried to keep it light all evening.
When Zach’s eyes met his, Javier felt the worst sense of déjà vu. He’d seen that pain before in Zach’s expression and felt his confusion and heartache. Despite being raised in a large, loving family, Javier had never been comfortable sharing his feelings. Zach’s emotions had never made Javier as uncomfortable as his own did, and that made them worse.
Zach looked away, his eyes shining. “What was wrong was that… he wasn’t you.”
If someone held a gun to his head, Javier wouldn’t have been able to resist going to Zach and putting his arms around him. And even though he hated the honest, good guy part of himself that made him do it, he had to say, “There was at least something you liked about the guy.”
“There was,” Zach said, pressing his face tight against Javier’s shoulder.
Javier would have been happy to stand there and hold him all night, but there couldn’t be any kind of misunderstanding between them. He let Zach lean on him a moment more, then stepped out of the embrace he had initiated. “Look, if something is going to happen tonight…”
“Do you want something to happen tonight?” Zach asked, the corner of his mouth twitching.
“Not if you’re going to be settling for a night with me.” Javier understood the post-breakup mentality. He was fine with getting off and letting off a little steam. But he wasn’t excited about the prospect of being mentally replaced by the memory of some L.A. lothario.
In answer, Zach reached up and cupped Javier’s jaw, his fingers flexing on his cheek in a shy flutter before he leaned in to kiss him.
The feeling of Zach’s lips against his pushed all the caution and warnings to the back of Javier’s mind. Everything, from the moment he’d walked out of Zach’s apartment in Oregon for the last time, had seemed wrong. Like he’d been sleepwalking through life.
