Going Up! (2 page)

H
E
LEFT
a little early the next day to get the coffee and the nut bread, and even though the elevator was still broken down and he had to sidestep at the nineteenth floor again, he was disappointed not to see his substitute teacher/cowboy on the way down.

But Leah brightened up so much with the coffee that he thought maybe it was worth it. After all, he
worked
with Leah every day. This other guy he didn’t know from a monkey in the subway.

Anyway, he kept getting off on the nineteenth floor, whether or not the haunted elevator of the guy on twenty-two with the cat-eaten face worked or not, but it didn’t seem to matter. He didn’t see Mr. Cowboy Substitute Teacher the next day, or the next, but on Friday, when he decided that he could be five minutes late and still bring Leah her coffee,
that’s
when Mr. Cowboy Substitute Teacher slid in at the bell.

But he wasn’t wearing his cowboy outfit anymore.

He was wearing a three-piece suit instead, and for a moment Zach felt absurdly disappointed. He saw suits every day.

Then he noticed that Mr. Cowboy’s Adam’s apple bobbed nervously above the collar of his suit, and that his arms were too long for the obviously off-the-rack ensemble, and that his shirt was a little rumpled and that his tie was off-kilter.

This wasn’t his normal attire, now was it?

“Your tie is crooked,” he said softly, after getting a nervous, flop-sweat smile from the man next to him.

“Oh fuck!”

Zack snapped his head back, because the obscenity was violent, and, well, unexpected. Mr. Cowboy dropped his satchel and his coat at his feet and started fiddling with his tie. “Crap crap crap crap… dammit. I need this freaking job!”

Zach didn’t even know he was doing it until he did it. “Here, hold this.”

Mr. Cowboy grabbed his briefcase from his outstretched hand, and Zach moved in, squaring the knot and adjusting the whole works until it rested neatly at his throat. Cowboy looked up at him—he was about four inches shorter than Zach—with implicit trust, and Zach kept his breathing even and focused exclusively on the tie and not on the little bits of stubble that Cowboy had missed when he’d been shaving, or at the rainy smell of body wash, or the fact that his breath was freshly scrubbed with mint toothpaste. When he was done, he stepped back, still not making contact with those limpid blue eyes, and smoothed his palms against Cowboy’s bony shoulders, then turned him around and did it again.

The door dinged, and Zach took his briefcase back, and then walked away while Cowboy scrambled for all of the stuff left in the bottom of the elevator car.

“Thanks!” he squeaked, and Zach turned around in time to watch him narrowly slide out of the elevator before the doors closed.

“Good luck,” Zach said. He felt something unfamiliar stretch his cheeks, but it wasn’t until the wind hit his teeth that he remembered what it was.

When he gave Leah her coffee, he felt it again. When he was telling his latest client—a gay man who had been fired from his office temp job on some bullshit excuse—that they had the company over a barrel and he could have the settlement and new job of his choosing, he felt it again.

He was
smiling.

Z
ACH
DIDN
’
T
see Mr. Cowboy (or was it Mr. Teacher?) that evening, but since he worked very long hours, he assumed he wouldn’t anyway. Instead, he went to the gym to work out, stopped at a take-out place for dinner, and sat in front of his television, mindlessly wondering if he should call the escort service he sometimes used just so he could have a man
pretend
to like him.

He couldn’t make himself do it. He kept imagining that Adam’s apple bobbing, and the total vulnerability of that slender neck. Poor guy. Looking for a job in this city must suck. Putting himself out there like that.

He was so brave.

Hiring a rent boy just seemed like the height of cowardice after that.

H
E
STARTED
setting his alarm and crossing his fingers. When he left
exactly at that moment,
his odds of seeing Teacher-baby (which sounded so much better than Mister anything, because the boy’s limpid blue eyes were just too… yum) increased dramatically.

He left at
that moment
as often as possible.

On Wednesday he was rewarded. Teacher-baby slid into the elevator, followed by a voice screaming across the hallway.

“Sean! Wait!”

“Dammit, Wendy, I’m late!” He held out an arm though, and kept the elevator from closing. Today he was dressed in jeans and a nice button-down shirt with a sweater over it. If he had to hazard a guess, Zach would guess he was subbing again today—those weren’t the clothes you wore to a new job.

“Todd wants you to get coffee when you come back!”

The girl running down the hallway in her T-shirt and underwear was incredibly pretty. Elfin, delicate, around five seven, with a short cap of dyed-ruby hair, an oval face with a pert little chin and matching nose, and obviously green contacts.

“Does he have money? It’s his turn, and I’m just as broke as he is!”

“Yeah, we all are.” She sighed and held out a hand with a crumpled five in it. “Here—you and me will get it today—again—and Toby and Chris can get it next week. Todd and Katie are up for it after that.” She batted her eyelashes appealingly. “Please, Sean? I know you got it last time, but we all need the stuff, okay?”

Sean sighed and took the money, shoving it into the pocket of his jeans. “Yeah, okay. Go back inside before some pervert ogles your ass.”

She turned to him before she left and grinned. “That would be
awesome
!” And then disappeared down the hall.

Zach blinked. “That is a
lot
of people.” He had a penthouse apartment—it took up a quarter of the floor, and it was just him. The other apartments were an eighth of that size, with—

“Six,” Sean (his name was Sean!) confirmed. “Yeah, but prices here—man, they’re steep, you know?”

Zach had sort of known, but now it was more personal. “Yeah,” he said. He didn’t ask why someone would want to live in the city when it was so expensive—who wouldn’t? “How do you all fit?”

“Toby and Chris in their own bedroom, since they’re a couple, the girls and me in a king size in the other bedroom, and Todd the straight guy on the hide-a-bed in the living room. Don’t tell Mr. Driscoll, right?” Sean smiled and winked.

Zach found himself smiling back, because… well, because. “Will the new job help?” he asked, and Sean’s face fell.

“Didn’t get it,” he murmured. “It was a Catholic school—they have morality clauses. I sort of violate them just by my very existence.”

Zach wanted to roar in outrage, or, at the very least, go sue the crap out of someone, but he knew it was legal. Church-run schools had the right.

“Good luck on the next one,” he said gently, and Sean looked up and smiled.

“That’s really sweet,” he said.

Zach found it suddenly hard to breathe, and his mouth went dry, and he was caught up in the idea that the only thing sweet in the world was that oh-
dayum
smile but the smile faded and—

Ding!

The elevator door opened and it was time to go. This time Sean left first, but before he walked out the glass doors from the lobby to the street, he turned and offered a tentative smile and a wave.

Zach waved back. That whole stretchy-face/cold-cheek thing lasted until he got to work and everything!

“S
HAKESPEARE
?” Z
ACH
asked politely.

Sean wore peasant garb today—drawstring pants, a doublet, the floppy hat and everything. He grinned.

“Romeo & Juliet, eighth grade. I get them for a week!”

“That sounds….” Zach couldn’t do it. “Awful,” he apologized. “But I’m glad
someone
enjoys eighth grade.”

“Well, it’s a lot easier when you practice,” Sean said with a wink. “Besides—I’ve got all this theatre stuff, and I’m teaching them English/History—I mean, it feels like the whole reason I hauled this stuff around with me, you know?”

Zach didn’t know—he’d been on the debate team. But he nodded anyway. “The teaching thing—you really like?”

Sean nodded and Zach was treated to
that
smile—all teeth and dimples and a ducked head that sort of asked forgiveness for that much joy. “It’s like being the most popular kid in the class. Eighth graders never had it so good!”

Zach hadn’t been particularly popular. He’d kept his head down and his grades good, and had ignored the girls who thought the valedictorian was some sort of trophy.

“I wouldn’t know,” he said quietly, and Sean’s long, mobile face suddenly assumed a look of compassion that Zach was entirely uncomfortable with.

Ding!

Saved by the bell!

“V
AUDEVILLE
?” B
ECAUSE
really, he couldn’t believe even a public school would let a guy teach in drag.

Sean didn’t smile back. The fulminating look he sent Zach
should
have shut Zach up for life, but….
God,
he was so cute. Even in heavy bordello make-up and a saloon-girl-style purple velvet dress. “Singing telegrams,” he replied sourly. “They were hiring.”

Zack held in the smile, because he could tell Sean was
not
in the mood. “And, uhm, you had Mae West in your costume trunk.”

Sean flashed a reluctant dimple. “No—this is Katie’s. She’s in theater too.”

“So, the, uhm, ankle boots?” They were leather, with a slight heel, and Zach really couldn’t tell if they were feminine or masculine and he was rewarded by a full-out Sean smile—the kind that he’d started to treasure.

“No, those are mine. I wear them clubbing—you like?”

“Yeah,” Zach said gravely. He inclined his head. “They’re very unisex.”

Sean rolled his eyes. “They’re gayer than gay—but it was a nice try.”

Ding!

“After you,” Zach said, bowing slightly and gesturing for the “lady” to precede him.

Sean wrinkled his nose and shook his head—and smiled. “Thank you, kind sir,” he said, his voice as dry as I-5 in the summer.

Zach had to admit, as he watched Sean struggle into his peacoat and wrap a scarf around his neck before he hit the glass door out of the lobby—the dress sure did nice things for his behind.

“W
HO
IS
she?” Leah asked tartly, getting her now customary coffee. This time, Zach had brought six scones, and told her to share the goods with the other office assistants in the firm.

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s
someone.
You’ve been actually—that thing on your face, the one that still shows through your five-o-clock shadow. I’ve been seeing it a lot in the morning. Who is she?”

“There is no she,” he said quietly, and he kept his voice uninflected. “Actually, that
does
remind me. Remember the Christmas party?”

“Where I got to be your plus one and drink champagne and eat foie gras? Yeah—why? Your dad having another fundraiser?”

Zach nodded. “Do you have a favorite department store?”

Leah’s smile was blissful. “Oh yay! Shopping on the firm’s expense account—I
love
this job!”

Leah’s Christmas dress really had been worth buying—he wanted to see her happy.

“Well good,” he said soberly. “We want to keep you here.”

Suddenly her eyes narrowed. “No, seriously, why aren’t you taking
her
to this thing?”

Zach’s face heated. “Honestly, Leah, the only person I see in the mornings is a male substitute teacher who likes to play dress up. My father would not approve.”

“Wait a minute….”

Zach increased his pace to his office, the better to throw himself in and slam the door, but he heard Leah’s feet clacking behind him with absolutely no dignity at all in her platform spikes, and she was in the doorway to his office as he turned around to shut the door.

“I’ve been asking the wrong question!” she burst out as soon as the door closed. “I should have been asking who is
he
!”

Zach swallowed. “My father would not approve,” he said again, his throat dry.

“You mean your running-for-a-Republican-office father who doesn’t approve of you being a union lawyer!”

“He approves of the second word,” Zach said, and Leah rolled her eyes.

“Look, Mr. Driscoll—”

“You know, you can call me Zach,” he said. He didn’t have any real friends. He had coworkers and cocktail-party friends and his father’s political friends—but not one person in his entire life had ever actually asked him who he’d want to
really
take to a party.

Leah looked surprised—and justifiably so. She’d been working there for three years. She’d called him “Mr. Driscoll” when they’d walked arm in arm to his father’s fundraiser.

But then, sexual harassment had never been further off the table before.

“Okay,” she said simply. “Zach. You don’t even know? What’s the worst your father could do?”

Zach swallowed. He didn’t know. “I had this train set when I was a kid,” he said, thinking. “It was great. One of those wooden ones—I must have gotten a new train and new tracks for every birthday and every Christmas for like, five years. And then, I turned… I don’t know. Ten? And I woke up Christmas morning and I thought I was going to get another train—there’d been an engine I wanted and me and the nanny had rewired the train for it, and—anyway, I woke up and ran to the nursery where the Christmas tree was, with the train around the bottom, right?”

It was the longest, most personal thing he’d ever said to anyone, and he was talking to his secretary. She nodded, barely, because her mouth was open and she probably couldn’t say anything until she thought to close it.