Hold fast, p.7
Hold Fast, page 7
It was already close to midnight, and Zack didn’t seem like the kind of guy who stayed out late. For that matter, it had been a while since Isaiah was that guy, either. “Tomorrow. Definitely. As soon as possible. But does that mean the kissing’s over? Because if it does, then I think we should keep discussing our first date. For a few more minutes at least.”
“Our first date.” Zack smirked. “Is that what we’re discussing? You know I’m not the kind of boy who puts out on a first date.”
Isaiah pulled him in so their bodies pressed against each other. “I want to blow you so badly my mouth’s watering. I want to kneel at your feet and look up and see those fucking eyes of yours looking down at me while I worship your cock. Would that be putting out?”
Zack didn’t waste time speaking. He launched himself at Isaiah’s lips and the kisses that followed owed nothing to planning. Zack’s lips were raw, his tongue just shy of aggressive, and his hand had slid up the back of Isaiah’s head, in a possibly subconscious parody of how he might hold a guy who was blowing him.
Keep your eyes open, boy. Let me see you. Isaiah sucked in Zack’s lower lip and willed him to open his eyes.
And when he did, it was almost too much. Too exposed, too deep, far too nude, the way Zack looked this close up, like kissing flayed him open and Isaiah could see everything.
He slowly dragged his lips to Zack’s ear, taking a moment to suck on the lobe before whispering, “I feel so fucking out of control right now. You’re right. We should never kiss when other people are around. I can’t be trusted.”
“I think I trust you.” Zack rested his cheek against Isaiah’s and sighed. “You know I took this meeting because I like your voice. I had no idea I’d be experiencing it this…intimately.”
“Baby, we haven’t even started yet.”
“I’m not into ‘baby’ as a term of affection for sex partners.”
Isaiah bit back a smile and kissed back to Zack’s lips. “Got it. Any terms of affection you find acceptable for sex partners?”
“If you’re making fun of me, I’m definitely not putting out on our first date.”
“Oh, I think you will, cowboy.”
Zack laughed. “Veto.”
“Honey buns?” He squeezed Zack’s jeans-covered ass. “Your buns do feel sweet.”
“Veto.”
“Mmm, okay.” Isaiah rubbed himself against Zack a little more. “What about Stud? You are quite the stud.”
“Said literally no one ever in the history of the world.”
“Maybe you’re my little flower child, Zachary. Maybe when you let loose you go a little wild and it scares you.”
Zack pulled away. Or as far as he could go with Isaiah holding on to him by the ass pockets.
“Hey. I hit a little too close?”
“A lot of things scare me. You aren’t one of them.”
Except that was a little bit of a lie, Isaiah thought, watching Zack, feeling the tension in his body, and the way he very much wasn’t trying to break away. “What about Tiger? You have something of the tiger about you. Always taking in all the information, storing it away, like any second you could leap.”
“I don’t leap.” Zack leaned in again. “It’s late. We should kiss more tomorrow on our date.”
“I put out on a first date, just so you know.”
“I somehow got that impression.” Another kiss while Zack closed his eyes. “Feels good, kissing you. Sometimes it just feels like bodies, lips, tongues. But with you it feels…right. Whole.”
“For me, too.” Isaiah eased off the foreplay and slid his hands up either side of Zack’s spine. “When are you off tomorrow?”
“Six. I’ll definitely be off at six if you want…if you’re available.”
“I’m free.” Or he could reschedule the phone meeting he was supposed to have at five-thirty. “Me wanting to show you my studio is only partially a line. You want to come over to my apartment?”
“Yeah.” Zack straightened up. “Text me the address?”
“I’ll do that. Hey.”
“Hey, what?”
Man, it was something else, watching him flip that switch, smooth down his shirt, act as if they hadn’t just been making out.
This dude. Isaiah loved learning the strange little nuances of people. He pressed one palm flat to Zack’s chest and waited until he looked over to speak. “I’m saying it. You’re a stud. You can’t pretend no one thinks that anymore because I’m standing right in front of you.”
“Come on, Isaiah, I’m a pasty white guy with a pen fetish.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s not actually a fetish. Though I’m open to that, I think, if it is.”
“No. It’s not.” Zack shook his head. “Let me help you carry this stuff to your car.”
And that was it. All that openness shut down for the night.
Isaiah smiled. “Thanks. It’s really hard not to call you ‘Stud’ right now, but I’m still living in hope that you’ll put out, so I’m trying to get on your good side.”
“I’ll have to consider this leverage I have over you. If this keeps up I might never put out.”
“At least not until I put a ring on it, right?”
“I’m not marrying you. We just met.” Zack picked up the lights again.
Isaiah looped the straps for both the camera bag and the yoga mats over his shoulder. “I’m not quite there yet. Marriage, I mean. But at some point in the next ten years, maybe. I’d like to have kids while I’m still young enough to play with them, and I want to adopt relatively young kids. Maybe not infants, but before school-aged, I think.”
Zack was giving him the strangest look.
“I say something wrong?”
“You said…that is exactly what I want. Marriage. Adoption. Starting a family is in my ten year plan.”
“You have a ten year plan,” Isaiah repeated, grinning helplessly. “God, that’s hot.”
Zack turned away and started down the stairs. “Hush!” he called back.
“Unlikely. So unlikely. So what color tab is your ten year plan? Just in case I get the opportunity to snoop.”
“Okay, well, one, you will never get that opportunity. And two, my personal ten year plan isn’t in my work WoJo, so don’t bother.”
Isaiah wished like hell he could kiss the man again. “You have separate notebooks. Of course you do.”
“The chances of you blowing me tomorrow are dropping real fast, Isaiah.”
“I’ll just have to get into your good graces again somehow.”
They went out the side door and he waited for Zack to lock up before leading him to the side street where the car was parked.
“So.” Zack lingered awkwardly on the sidewalk after loading the lights. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yeah.” Isaiah took his hands and reeled him in. “Can I kiss you one more time?”
“Acceptable.”
And he still closed his eyes, but now that Isaiah had seen what he was protecting, it made more sense.
The kiss was short, but neither of them shifted away for another few moments.
“Well. Goodnight, Isaiah.”
“See you tomorrow, Zack.”
Somehow they squeezed each other’s hands simultaneously before releasing them.
Oh fuck me, Isaiah thought as he watched Zack walk away. I really fucking like this dude.
It couldn’t be serious. He didn’t have time. Neither did Zack.
But damn. They had the same ten year plan. That was…unexpected. And among other things, he now wanted to be mauled on a yoga mat by Zack Scherzo.
Maybe not tomorrow. Soon, though. If he had one of Zack’s lists, he’d write that down.
Chapter Ten
Roughly a dozen Google searches with variations on the term “how to deal with a bad boss” had yielded a two page spread of notes. But precious few exclamation pointed action items.
The one Zack kept coming back to was “Try to understand your boss’s motivation.” He’d retraced the words. And underlined for good measure. The website he’d taken the suggestion from had added the note: Your boss is just a person. They brush their teeth and put on their socks just like you do. The worst thing you can do is make them into a monster.
He was chagrined to realize he’d done just that. He didn’t think of Terence as a person; he thought of Terence as a greedy, sharp-toothed Big Bad Wolf, trying to eat Crux.
Dammit.
Just for fun he sketched a terrible line-drawn wolf in a circle and inked a very serious red bar over it. No more Big Bad Wolf. Terence was just a guy. He probably had his own problems. Maybe he was trying to fund a drug problem and needed the money from Crux to maintain his habit.
Okay, that probably wasn’t better.
So maybe…he was trying to take care of an aging relative or something. That was a better picture. Or maybe he had kids he was sending to expensive private schools or something.
Zack was personally an avid supporter of public education, but he understood how someone like Terence might not be.
Though in point of fact, he was pretty sure Terence didn’t have kids.
Still. He was just a guy. A normal guy.
Okay. So. He was a normal guy with normal motivations for his…what was a kinder word than greed, anyway? Uh, avarice wasn’t really kinder, just more formal. Ambition? Okay, okay, this was good stuff.
He flipped to a fresh page. Terence was a normal dude with ambition, sure. And his ambition was…business. Investment businesses that ran themselves and made him money.
After a few minutes of free writing and doodling he had an entire page of notes about Terence’s possible humanity. Sure, there was a lot of white space, but white space was the key to an attractive notes page. And attractiveness was the key to actually using the page.
He had to admit, he felt better. Good, even. Good enough to start composing an email to Terence (Now With Added Humanity!). He laid out a few sales goals, and what they’d be able to do if they met those goals. He kept the basic necessities to his private list and mentioned only cosmetic things he thought Terence would appreciate, like fixing the plaster on The Rock. Except for lights, which he framed—after quite a bit of work on the wording—as an important part of the long term plan.
When he had the email as perfect as he could get it, he showed it to Val. Before coming out of the closet, divorcing Stacy, having a disastrous affair with his boss, and quitting his job (a story Zack had heard in small pieces over beers the first year they worked together), Val had been a paralegal. His feedback was always on point, and no less so now.
“This is a work of art, man.” His eyes scanned the lines again. “Trying to get him to commit to improvements?”
“I was thinking of it more as…trying to get on the same page?”
Val laughed and returned to the screen and reached for the wireless mouse. “Take out ‘at this time’ here.” He bolded the line. “And reword this, it snags.” Another bolded line. “And I appreciate the lighting paragraph, but I think I’d cut it. He’s just going to see massive outlay of money.”
“I was worried about that. Kill it.”
The paragraph disappeared.
“Zack, you know this…probably isn’t going to have an effect on anything.”
He sighed. “I know. I just want to try.”
“I support that.” Val stood. “Good luck. Let me know what he says.”
Zack narrowed his eyes. “You don’t think he’s going to reply, do you?”
“Anything’s possible.” Then Val escaped to the floor before Zack could ask anything else.
He reread the email one more time, added a pithy subject line (which took ten minutes to craft), and sent it.
When his inbox returned he had a message from Isaiah. A short message.
Z— Tried to reschedule a meeting I have, and couldn’t. Can we do seven instead? I’ll order food. —I
Seven meant an extra hour of work. That was useful. He was in no way dramatically disappointed by the loss of a single hour of Isaiah’s company. His stomach wasn’t clenched, and he wasn’t popping pen caps right now.
He forced his fingers to release the pen and typed a quick affirmative reply before archiving the email.
Plus, he could use that hour for something useful. The locker rooms would be too busy to clean, but there were definitely other maintenance things to be done. He’d ask Bear. Bear would know off the top of his head where the gym could best use an extra hour of upkeep.
Plus, Zack had always had a weakness for anticipated pleasure. And Isaiah…Isaiah had plans for tonight. He flushed, remembering that first night, the way Isaiah knelt in front of the glass. How much more intoxicating would it be to have him on his knees at Zack’s feet?
He decided it was a good time for a break. Bouldering would take his mind off Isaiah. Though now he was picturing that strong, controlled body on the wall, stretching for a hold, twisting in the air…
“Oh god. Stop it.”
He should listen to himself. Solid idea. Also, probably not talk to himself out loud where other people might hear. Another solid idea.
He went back to the red-tagged problem and attempted climbing it without relying on other holds it until his arms were shaking, grateful there wasn’t a wait for the bouldering wall at the moment. He definitely needed the distraction.
* * *
Isaiah lived in a condo in the Harbor District. A nice, new building, with clean lines and a welcoming exterior.
It was a little unexpected. For whatever reason, Zack had imagined him in one of the older row houses, the kind of place where he’d look perfectly right doing yoga on old hard wood floors, or drinking coffee bathed in warm light through a high kitchen window.
Get yourself under control. Stop fantasizing about some weird version of Isaiah that doesn’t exist.
He got himself under control and buzzed the correct condo. Isaiah said hello and hit the door. Everything going as planned. He wondered idly what Isaiah had ordered for dinner, gripping the bottle of wine he’d brought over and hoping it would compliment the food.
Isaiah’s door was ajar, so he knocked and went inside.
“Hey, Zack! I’m in the kitchen!”
He carefully locked the door and made his way through a living area with a deep leather couch and low, packed bookshelves, slowing down to glance at the titles.
A mix of popular fiction, business books, and cultural studies. They had a fair number of books in common, and a lot of the others were books that Zack had wanted to read and just hadn’t gotten around to picking up yet.
Laughter from the doorway. “I should have known you wouldn’t be able to pass a bookshelf without taking notes.”
“I’ve been meaning to read The Alchemist for years. Is it good?”
“Yeah, you need to.” Isaiah crossed the room to his books, and Zack couldn’t help but swallow at the loose linen trousers and tight brown tank. Good god, could the man be more sexy? He also knew exactly where his copy of the book was. “Here. When you’re done, I’d love to talk about it with you.”
“You’re lending it to me?”
Isaiah offered a lopsided smile. “Unless you object.”
“I never lend books to people anymore. I’ve lost a lot of books that way. Or had them returned dog-eared.”
“I have to confess something to you, Zack,” Isaiah said solemnly. “I don’t want you to walk out when I say this, but I don’t think we can continue being friends while I have this secret.”
“No. You don’t.” Zack felt his mouth drop open and forced it to close. “Tell me you’re not a dog-earer.”
With both hands raised, like he was trying to prove his innocence, Isaiah nodded. “Afraid so. Though I’d never dog-ear a borrowed book. But my own? Man, that’s how I show my love. I underline, too.”
Zack clutched his heart and pretended to stagger backwards. “You’re killing me. I feel so betrayed.”
“You’re not gonna let me blow you now, are you?”
He couldn’t keep up the act quite that far. “I seriously can’t believe that anyone who loves books could treat them like that. But I might still deign to let you touch me with those hands that have defiled books.”
“Oh, my hands are pretty eager to defile you, Tiger.” Isaiah’s smile deepened all the lines around his lips, and suddenly it was all Zack could do to not kiss him. “But borrow the book and then talk about it with me. I bet you’d be passionate as hell talking about books, right?”
“I don’t know that passionate as hell has ever been used to describe me in any context. But I’ll borrow the book. Thank you.” He handed over the wine as he was taking The Alchemist, which he couldn’t help flipping through. “Oh my god, you do underline. I can’t even process this right now.”
“Just think of it as my hands caressing the well-loved pages of a book I hold close to my heart.” Only the way Isaiah said it made it sound a lot more like sex than reading.
Zack flushed. “Can I help with dinner?”
“I’m tempted to make you my dinner.” Isaiah stepped up. “Long day?”
“They all are. How was your meeting?”
“Gratifying. I have a few coaching clients I speak to once or twice a week, depending. And this particular client has been really working on a campaign to raise money for a homelessness outreach nonprofit.”
“And it’s working?”
“It launches next week.” A small smile played along Isaiah’s lips. “But this meeting was the first time I felt like she was totally on the level with her efforts. Before it’s always been me pointing out how her hard work is paying off, or how it connects to the larger picture. Today she was ahead of me at every step. It was great.”
Fuck it. Zack leaned in for a kiss. “Is that what you do? I didn’t realize. I only know about the insect thing on YouTube.”
“Ah, Venomenon. The ghost of Christmas past. I haven’t done that in a few years, but it’s the biggest project my name’s attached to.” This time Isaiah kissed him, and nodded to the next room. “I can tell you about my businesses if you want to hear. But I have vegan lasagne in the oven, so I should stand there watching it. Helps the cooking.”
