Going Up! (6 page)

“It’s only karmically good if you get lunch today,” he decided before he could finish that thought, and suddenly he really
was
everyone’s favorite boss. Leah’s included.

H
E
SAW
Sean that night, for the first time in a month since the benefit at Golden Gate Park. God, had he really been that busy?

He must have been, getting up early, coming home at midnight, and now, here they were, on a Saturday night, both of them staggering in around eleven. Zach still had on the jeans and old college sweatshirt he’d worn while packing, his hair was mussed, and he was well aware the circles under his eyes were dark and deep. So
Zach
was still tired from being a workaholic, but he couldn’t be sure where Sean had been.

“I worked a late show,” Sean said, as they hit the lobby together. It was like he’d read Zach’s mind. “What the hell happened to you?”

Zach smiled, almost giddy to see him after their last trip in the elevator. “Work,” he said serenely. “I didn’t get evicted, but my whole office had to move to… crap. I forget the address. It’s down by Brannan somewhere. I’ll remember when all our letterhead changes. Jesus. I need to get Leah right on that.”

Leah would be happy to change their letterhead and stationery—he just needed to remember to ask. He smiled at Sean beatifically as he leaned against the back of the elevator, and he was so tired, his eyes drifted shut between the ground floor and….

Ding!

His eyes flew open. “We’re here?” he whined, and knew it for a whine. “Fourteenth floor already? Damn. Damn. I haven’t seen you in a
month.
I just wanted to…. God. I’m sorry. We can ride the elevator again later,” he promised. “I swear. I’ll be witty. I will. I’ll make you want to talk to me. Just not today.” Oh, hell. He’d been a
rock
over the last month. He’d been a
pillar
of grown-up fortitude and “we’re fighting the good fight!” rhetoric, but, dammit, the whole time, when he’d been coming out to his parents, when he’d been dealing with the paperwork asking him to vacate—and the hurt that came from knowing his father’s political career really
was
more important than his own son—he’d been promising himself, what?

“You were going to be my dessert,” he said soberly.

Sean’s eyes widened. His mouth quirked up a little too, and he shook his head while he guided Zach out of the main elevator and over to the express elevator. He hit the “door closed” button and positioned Zach a little more closely to him. “You are either really stoned, or you’re dog tired. I’m going to vote on the second one, since I haven’t seen you for a month.”

“We had to move,” Zach said, watching as the numbers on the readout went up, and Sean was still in the car with him. Wow. He’d had dreams about this. They’d been going up, up, up, and they would end up in bed, right?

But no. That’s probably not what was going to happen. Not tonight. Tonight he smelled like sweat and he couldn’t keep two thoughts in his silly little head.

“Move? Why?”

Sean looped his arm more tightly around Zach’s shoulders, and it was warm and friendly and Zach leaned into it, not thinking about passion or kissing or anything but that he needed a warm and friendly arm.

“Because I came out to my father, and he can’t evict me, or even raise the rent from
here,
but the office space—that contract was worded differently.
That
they could revoke. And they did. And now it’s all about how to keep my employees employed and my clients from exploding and…. God. You smell good.” He lowered his head and buried his nose into Sean’s neck, and inhaled. Yup, he was back to the rainy body soap again.

“You should wear this kind always,” he said into Sean’s neck. “
Always.
I want to smell this on you forever.”

Sean chuckled and it was such a warm sound, Zach wanted to just pull it over his head and around his toes and huddle in it.

There was a “ding,” muffled by the heat of Sean’s body and the hollow of his neck and Sean pulled on his shoulders.

“C’mon, big guy, let’s go.”

Zach allowed himself to be guided out of the elevator, and then he looked up and sort of leaned right to his door. He fumbled in his pocket for his key and when he pulled it out, Sean took it from him gently and opened his door.

Zach thought it would be over then, and he yearned rather wistfully for a kiss at the door, but Sean had other ideas. That warm arm wrapped around his shoulders again, and he was being guided through the darkened apartment.

“Holy Christ, would you look at that view!” Sean breathed, and Zach could only look at Sean’s lean profile, with the bony jaw and the bobbing Adam’s apple, and freckles you could almost see in the moonlight.

“’S awesome,” he agreed soberly.

Sean turned toward him and rolled his eyes. “
You
are a crackup like this. I think getting you drunk would be like giving a cat catnip—we could laugh for hours.”

“And then I’d go down on you and then I’d throw up!” Because Zach remembered that much from college.

Sean cackled. “Well, maybe not get you drunk if you’re going to go down on me, ’kay?”

“I’m probably not good at blowjobs,” Zach apologized. He felt like he owed full disclosure. “Not enough practice.”

Sean steered him into the bedroom and shook his head in wonder. “Well that is a sin I’d like to correct—some other time.”

“Of course. You have to get back in the elevator and go away. Always with you, it’s the going away.”

“Here, sit down on this pristinely made bed. God, it’s a nice place, but everything’s black and gray. Doesn’t anybody live here?”

Zach felt the bed under his bottom, and then Sean knelt at his feet and unlaced his shoes. Zach ran his fingers through Sean’s hair, because it was there, and this was his dream and it was something he wanted to do.

“No,” Zach said softly as his tennis shoes were popped off. “Nobody lives here. Not even me. Whee!” Because there went his socks, and his feet felt
wonderful
free.

“Now stand up and we’ll get your pants and sweatshirt,” Sean mumbled, but something was wrong with his voice.

Zach did what he said, and allowed himself to be undressed down to his boxers and T-shirt like a child. “You sound sad. I don’t like it when you’re sad. I wanted to
make
a job for you, out of thin air. Did you know that?”

Sean pulled back the covers and nudged him into bed, pulling the black comforter up to his ears. “That’s sweet, my prince in the tower, but real life doesn’t work like that.”

“Someday I’ll figure out what that’s like,” Zach mumbled. Anything, he wanted to say
anything
to keep Sean there, one more minute, in his bedroom, talking in the dark.

“What what’s like?” The bed sank next to him and Zach felt delicate fingers stroking through his hair.

“Real life.”

“You’re the one who relocated your entire office to come out of the closet. You tell me.”

“Lonely,” Zach mumbled, feeling tearful and a little broken.

“Sh….” He didn’t imagine Sean’s kiss on his forehead, did he? “You’re exhausted, buddy. Time to sleep.”

“But I’ll wake up, and you’ll be gone, like a dream.”

There was a sigh, and some violent rustling next to him. “Scoot over.”

Zach did, and Sean lay down on top of the comforter next to him, wearing his boxers and T-shirt. “I’ve got an early matinee,” Sean said softly. His phone glowed softly as he set an alarm on it. “I’ve got to be up at seven.”

Zach buried his nose in Sean’s neck and murmured, “Thank you.”

“You know, you
do
know where I live,” Sean said softly.

“That’s not how it works,” Zach said, feeling loopy. “The prince in the tower needs rescuing. The peasant on the fourteenth floor has it all figured out on his own.”

Soft laughter ruffled Zach’s hair. “True. And, I gotta admit, the tower has a lot more privacy.”

“Mmhm….”

Oh, the things Zach wanted to do with all the privacy….

And on that note he fell asleep.

H
E
WOKE
up alone, but there was a piece of his old company letterhead next to his pillow, probably from a pad he kept in the kitchen.

See you in the elevator, sweet prince. When your life is settled, maybe I can visit your tower again.

Sean Mallory

He looked at the note and smiled.

Sean Mallory.

Very carefully, before he took a shower and brushed his teeth or anything, he folded that piece of paper up and put it in his wallet, behind his driver’s license. Sean Mallory, Apartment 1409.

That right there was real.

I
T
TOOK
another month before his life was settled again. Then, one morning, he stepped outside his door and watched Jace and Quent disappear into the elevator, and realized that, oh
hell
yes, it was mid-to-late August, school might have started, and he might actually see Sean today.

His heart pounded while he waited for the elevator to return, and when the door opened….

Sean stepped out and right into his arms.

“Ohmygod!”

And then he didn’t have anything to say, because Sean’s mouth was on his, and his lips were soft and his tongue was sweeping in and….

Sean pulled back and grinned. “You’re a terrible kisser. I’ve waited for that for
months,
and that’s all you’ve got for me?”

“Uhm… I’m surprised. How would you fix it? I’m surprised!”

Sean went to step back, but some weird constriction thing happened to Zach’s arms, and he wasn’t letting go. Sean’s wicked expression, the kind with the arched eyebrows, sobered, became gentle, and he nuzzled Zach’s cheek and this time, when he stepped back, Zach let him go.

“I’ll give you kissing lessons later. Right now, we’re both running late.”

“So, lessons—that implies I’ll get more kissing, right?”

“You are so
not
suave and sophisticated, you know that?”

“I’m aware. So, kissing?”

Sean laughed, grabbed his hand, and pushed the down button. “I’ve got an in-service today—let me not be the slacker who gets there last, okay?”

“So school hasn’t started yet?”

“Monday—why?”

Zach shifted a little, uncomfortable about asking, but not wanting this moment to end. “See, my secretary Leah and her roommate Jenn—we were meeting for Frisbee on Saturdays, but I screwed that up with the whole ‘hey, let’s move the office in an insane amount of time!’ and I offered to make it up by taking them to Monterey for two days, like, Friday through Sunday, and it wouldn’t be a sex thing, seriously, it would be a date thing, not that I—” He stopped babbling and closed his eyes because he wasn’t sure if that look in Sean’s eyes was pity or fear, but he was pretty sure it was no.

Sean kissed him and pulled back, and he had to open his eyes to see whether that was no or not.

It was still no, but the genuine regret sort of helped.

“I’m never going to get everything done in time,” Sean said, shrugging. “I mean, I know you don’t teach, but, it’s like, we get two paid days to do a week’s worth for work, and I haven’t taught this class from beginning and there’s
so
much I need to—”

Ding!

Zach nodded, and gestured for him to leave first, but Sean didn’t move.

“I love that you asked me,” he said helplessly. “I just—”

“I get it,” Zach said quietly. “I defend teachers all the time. Your hours are insane. I forgot, that’s all.” He glanced up, and people he didn’t know and didn’t recognize were waiting to get on the elevator. “C’mon. We can talk in the lobby.”

They walked out of the elevator and stepped to the side.

“Our timing!” Sean muttered ruefully. “It… it sucks. It does. But I’m… I’m
dying
to give you kissing lessons, and….”

“And we’ve got to go.”

Sean looked down for a moment, and Zach followed his gaze.

And squeezed their twined fingers, surprised, because clasping Sean’s hand felt like the most natural thing in the world.

Sean pulled their hands up and kissed his knuckles. “I will see you next week,” he said quietly. “Wait for me on the fourteenth floor, and we can go down together.”

Zach grinned. “Yeah. It’s dating by elevator!”

Sean’s entire face went slack for a minute, and his eyes went heavy-lidded, and his hand shook in Zach’s. “That… that is my smile,” he said breathlessly. “Promise, you won’t smile like that for anyone but me.”

Zach didn’t have any words for that. He had no frame of reference for being possessed. No understanding of what it meant to be desired wholly for himself. His lips parted, and he looked helplessly at the blue-eyed boy who had done this to him.

Sean let out an impatient whine, said, “Those eyes…
dammit,
I’ve got to go!” and kissed Zach’s knuckles before turning around and running out the double lobby doors.

Zach watched him go, and then turned and followed, turning right instead of left because his office was still that way, and walking the extra four blocks in a daze.

M
ONTEREY
WAS
gorgeous—even if he and the girls weren’t staying on Pebble Beach. He told Leah and Jenn it was his treat, so he rented a suite for two days at a hotel on the waterfront, and listening to the two of them ooh and ahh over the view was totally worth the expense.

“Holy fucking Jesus,” Jenn muttered as they stood at the window and looked out over the ocean. “I can’t even believe this funky bullshit. Leah, you have the best boss
ever.
”

Zach smiled quietly at her, and was the sudden recipient of a squishy, chubby, bubbly hug.

“You look like we squashed your kittens, baby. This was supposed to be a
fun
trip!”

Zach didn’t know what to do with that much hugging. He stroked her blonde hair awkwardly and went to step away, and found Leah behind him, her arms wrapped around his waist.