Past, Present

by A J Lange

  So, Zane Nolan, who had never before seen the point and had, on more than one occasion vocally scoffed at the very notion, had been covertly testing handholding positions. He was never sure if Gray was onto him or not, but in any case the experiment had backfired in an unexpected way. He had discovered that for all his manly posturing, he wasn’t physically averse to holding Gray’s hand; in fact, it was gratifying, this tether to another. It was a grounding force when he wanted touch, but not necessarily sex (also new for Zane), and it felt good. It felt...intimate. When Gray curled against him on the couch late into the night, grading research papers or watching TV, and he reached over to absently twine his fingers with Zane’s, it ignited a slow burn in the pit of Zane’s stomach that had nothing to do with sex. And he liked it. The finish line was great, it was fucking spectacular actually, but Zane was learning to appreciate the slow build of anticipation without the constant, stifling fear that he would lose something if he didn’t grab on hard with both hands, suffocating them with his reticence. Gray wasn’t going anywhere, and Zane was beginning to understand the finer points of faith.

  Zane lightly squeezed Gray’s hand, grateful he could drop the whole Elise conversation after all. The rest of the trip was made in peaceful silence, punctuated only by the occasional chuckle from the driver when Zane began to sing in a rich southern twang, harmonizing effortlessly to a Carrie Underwood song about ball bats and pick up trucks. It might have been Gray’s turn to pick the music, but that didn’t mean Zane had to let him enjoy it unadorned. (And he would never admit it in a million years, but he rather enjoyed the spunky Oklahoma girl. Damn. She was also fine as hell, and Zane might have lost a few moments in an impromptu fantasy involving the smoky eyed blonde, Gray, and himself, and that piano from Gray’s apartment, a musical ménage a trois that he had to stop imagining right fucking now or risk his brain imploding).

  He rolled his eyes at Gray’s knowing smirk. “Shut up.” Goddamn his ‘I’m having a fantasy about you and I’m imagining you naked right now’ face anyway. Gray could read him like a book.

  Gray’s laughter barked bright and clear across the car, and Zane grinned, relaxing at last.

  ◆◆◆

  It was the largest house Zane had ever seen, outside of television. He didn’t think it even qualified under that comparatively insignificant label; it was a literal mansion, and Zane looked accusingly at Gray in the driver’s seat.

  “Dude. You never once thought it prudent to mention I snagged myself a sugar daddy?”

  Gray snorted inelegantly at his indignant tone. “Zane,” he admonished, but it was spoken through a huff of laughter, one Zane wasn’t sure whether to classify as shocked amusement or merely fond. He swallowed down another flutter of nerves and sent up a furtive prayer he didn’t make a total ass out of himself. And he vehemently wished he had paid more attention when Lily was trying to show him the multiple fork thing the day before.

  In retrospect, the evening could have been much worse.

  Zane hated them. But that was nothing compared to how much they hated Zane. He had no fucking idea how this group of pretentious, overbearing, bigoted assholes had ever had a hand in turning out someone as amazing, and giving, and loving as Gray, but God he was grateful for that stupid twist of fate in his favor. Their disdain was palpable from the moment he and Gray crossed the threshold onto the teak parquet floor of the foyer, whereafter they dismissed Gray’s guest altogether, and Zane instantly became the invisible man.

  Since he had prepared himself for something that fell somewhere between furtive glances and intense scrutiny, it was disconcerting to discover he simply wasn’t worth their time. In that case, he sort of wished he had stuck to his usual uniform of jeans and a t-shirt. Except then he would have missed the expression on Gray’s face when he had greeted him at the door to pick him up earlier.

  The day before, Lily had dragged Zane to a freaking Nordstrom’s of all places and spent a solid two hours dressing and undressing him like a Ken doll, all while dissecting his size, shape and various anatomical quirks with a men’s fashion consultant named Christopher. Christopher, thin, blonde and flaming, had been having quite the slow day until Zane and Lily walked into his department, and he promptly adopted Zane as his own personal Cinderella challenge.

  After the initial humiliating task of taking his measurements (Zane suspected Christopher might have checked his inseam length more times than strictly necessary), he was shouldered aside while Lily and the intense little man discussed hair color and skin tone and seasons (Zane was apparently a ‘spring’), the last of which Zane found strangely fascinating, but never quite understood the significance of. It wasn't long before he felt a migraine forming.

  Standing in the dressing room next to a wheeled rack with more things than he was ever going to try on, no matter what torture Lily bullied him with, Christopher stubbornly insisted that Zane should wear color. “Oh honey, those green eyes are lush grass just begging for some hardcore pruning.”

  Zane’s mutinous expression was enough to send Lily into a fit of giggles, only subsiding when he threatened to wear his rattiest flannel and faded Levi’s to Alanna's engagement party. Christopher actually blanched, white knuckling the stainless steel bar of the clothing rack.

  “Are you blind? He’s fucking Tony Stark, not the Green Arrow.” Lily stood her ground, having argued that Zane should go the dark and mysteriously sexy route, which Christopher had scoffed as being too ‘predictable’. “And you call yourself a fashion stylist,” she sniffed.

  Zane’s headache intensified and he still didn’t have a shirt to wear, so he stepped between them before they came to blows over Zane’s freckles (fuck his life). He knew Lily was perilously close to losing it if she was mixing DC and Marvel universes, and he was beginning to seriously worry about Christopher’s blood pressure. The little guy’s neck was so red, he was starting to clash with his hot pink shirt.

  “I like the black.” They were the first words he had spoken in over an hour.

  Christopher nearly swooned at the deep, throaty growl. “Oooh,” he breathed. “Yes, of course. Black.” He handed Zane a black silk shirt, eyelashes fluttering. Zane gingerly accepted the shirt from his trembling fingers with a wary expression, as if the smaller man might go batshit crazy any second and hump him on the dressing room floor.

  “Put the pants back on too, Romeo. And shoes,” Lily called, happily climbing onto a storage cabinet and sitting Indian-style, a front row seat for the Zane Nolan Runway Show.

  “Goddamn, he’s a handsome motherfucker, isn’t he?” Christopher murmured, staring moonily at the closed door where Zane was changing.

  Lily snickered. “Get in line, Peach. He’s already spoken for.”

  “Pity,” Christopher sniffed sadly.

  Zane had to admit, staring at his reflection in the full length mirror on the dressing room wall, the combination of dark on dark, the silky sheen of the shirt atop the muted hue of the pant, the elegant black shoes; well, the whole effect was quite dapper. He might have stepped out of the dressing room with a bit more flourish than was technically required.

  Lily’s eyebrows hit her hairline and Christopher sank back against the wall with a thud.

  “Wow,” Christopher crooned. “Wow.”

  Zane strode confidently across the carpeted floor, one hand in the trouser’s front pocket. He turned once, a dead-on impersonation of a model’s walk. “So?”

  Lily’s eyes held an appreciative shine that made Zane flush. “Damn Zane, you are so getting laid.”

  Zane snorted. “I had no idea you’ve been harboring such envy all this time, Lils," he teased gruffly, willing the blush he felt blooming over his cheeks to subside.

  Then Lily punched him, and she might be tiny but she packed a mighty whallop in that small fist. Zane didn’t point out that he was fairly confident Gray was a sure thing, no matter what he was wearing. Or that Gray had a potent possessive streak and would eat Lily for lunch if he ever caught her look
ing at Zane with that feral gleam in her eye.

  Zane handed off his credit card to her and let her take care of the actual payment part of the transaction while he changed back into his clothes. He shuddered to think of his bill next month. Energized that the whole, rather emasculating, experience was behind him, he was especially effusive in his gratitude for Christopher’s help. They had left the fashion consultant with stars in his eyes.

  “Rat bastard snake charmer,” Lily grumbled as she climbed into the passenger seat of the Jeep, but she was smiling broadly so the words didn’t inflict much damage.

  “You’re just jealous that I’m prettier than you,” Zane had smirked.

  It had all been worth it tonight, when Zane answered the front door and Gray’s mouth had dropped open, jaw slack. Zane could actually see his pupils dilate and it was the hottest fucking thing he’d ever seen in his life. And that’s saying something, because pretty much every single day Gray was doing something that convinced Zane that that was the hottest fucking thing he’d ever seen in his life. The pupil thing, though? Hotter.

  Lily and Christopher had chosen dark charcoal dress pants, the fronts flat and smooth against Zane’s narrow hips, the legs cut slimmer than the jeans he was used to wearing. He wore the black silk shirt, no tie, and left the top two buttons undone as instructed, even though Zane had sputtered it was either twice as gay (Lily had snorted and asked if he really wanted her to comment on that) or made him look like a gigolo.

  Standing on the front stoop watching the blue of Gray’s eyes swallowed up by black, his nostrils flaring in possessiveness and lust, well, Zane was awfully glad he had followed Lily’s advice and forgot about those top two buttons. Goddamn was he glad, because Gray stared at the bared hollow of his throat for a beat and then he was on him, shoving Zane against the foyer wall, mouth on his, tongue plunging deep and hot, and Zane was instantly, achingly hard.

  “Fuck me,” Gray breathed into his mouth.

  Zane canted his hips up, ready to comply, looking for even the tiniest bit of relief. He tried to speak but Gray kissed him again, cutting him off.

  “What the everloving fuck are you wearing, oh my God.” Gray ducked his head to press his mouth into the opening of Zane’s collar, sucking gently on his neck. “Jesus Christ.”

  “I played dress up with Lily yesterday.” Zane waggled his eyebrows, which broke the tension enough that Gray laughed softly against his skin. “And you look amazing, which I would have said if you hadn’t viciously attacked me just now.” Zane rolled his pelvis suggestively, hoping Gray could feel just how much he approved of the assault.

  And of course, Gray did look freakishly good in his dark suit and blood red tie, but absorbing the beautiful specter Gray made on a daily basis was something of a habit of Zane’s by now, and while he would never not be affected by it, he was getting better at soaking it up in small doses. He had had to; otherwise, he was apt to stand around staring after the man like a simpleton all the time.

  Zane might need Lily to take him shopping again soon, though. He could get used to keeping Gray unbalanced for a change.

  Gray brushed his lips close to Zane’s ear and ground his hips against him, eliciting a breathless groan. “I would fuck you right here against the wall if I had time. And I will find the time. Later. And when I do, you’re wearing nothing but that shirt.”

  And with that he had strode out the door, leaving Zane to walk to the car with a little more trouble than usual.

  ◆◆◆

  Gray maneuvered the cavernous room, and introduced him with a natural poise and charm that should have eased Zane’s nerves. It didn’t. Watching the way family friends or distant cousins looked everywhere but at Zane’s face, or withdrew their hands too quickly to qualify as a proper handshake, made him edgy and ill at ease.

  So instead, he watched Gray and ignored all the rest. Gray moved among the partygoers with the usual quiet grace that Zane now grasped was a side effect of his upbringing. Where Zane swaggered, rough around the edges and at times uncouth, Gray was smooth and unhurried, a refinement to his movements that suggested forethought and planning, right down to the elegant way he could raise one brow and cut through Zane’s bullshit like a knife, or reduce him to a simpering, pleading mess.

  The sincerity in which Gray introduced him, as though he were the most important person in attendance, made Zane’s throat tight with emotion. He was twitchy and anxious and his fancy shirt was hot. He longed for the car, or home, or the bar, some place familiar and private, or for yesterday morning on his couch, straddling Gray’s hips and thrusting into his hands as Gray wrung an orgasm from him with the same unhurried attention to detail he now paid Zane’s introductions.

  Before tonight, Zane had harbored this idea, gleaned from the tidbits Gray sparingly offered, that they were separated by the vast chasm of their upbringings; that they were so improbably ill-suited, it was a miracle they had ever crossed paths, much less fallen into the whatever Zane wasn’t calling this today (although the exact words were rolling around on his tongue with more precision and insistence with every passing moment). Mentally he had been cataloging all of the things he did not know but that Gray seemed born knowing, compiling a (stupid, insecure) list of differences, yes, but mostly it was Zane’s list of ways Gray would realize Zane really was a Neanderthal and not at all worth his time. One hundred and one ways that Gray might come to his senses and leave Zane broken and bleeding and alone.

  He had worked himself into a fine state by the time they made their rounds of the room, and then the man in question, the man who occupied the top spot on Zane’s list of terrifying things, began to chip away at his insecurities without being asked to. Zane didn’t need to vocalize his discomfort or increasing distress, because Gray was so finely tuned to him that he already knew. Zane’s nerves were soothed the most by Gray’s proximity, and he realized somewhere near the zenith of his internal freak out, that Gray never strayed far, frequently laying a hand across his back, or squeezing his wrist.

  His frayed nerves were then easily exchanged with a growing need, bolstered by each light, grounding touch and small smile. He and Gray moved in tandem, magnetic forces pulled in the same direction.

  He noted Gray’s uncanny ability to discern the exact distance before Zane’s nervous tension began to ratchet up, and his knack for staying within that boundary. Zane mentally named it his ‘freak-out zone’; outside of the zone, and his head began to fill with fear and disillusionment and anxiety. Gray needed only a body part in proximity of the zone and Zane was immediately calmer, more rational.

  Then, he was startled by a crazy idea; maybe he and Gray weren’t so dissimilar after all. Maybe, Zane thought, watching the other man carefully, maybe Gray had a freak-out zone too. Maybe Gray was not staying within reach, a fingers-breadth away, because he was trying to help Zane, but because he, Gray, needed the constant reassurance that Zane would not go anywhere, that he was here for the long haul. That Zane wouldn’t hold these awful examples of family and humanity against him, and decide he didn’t want him.

  Zane staggered under this new awareness, and instinctively knew he was right. Maybe it was the pinched look in Gray’s eyes, a spark of worry behind his lashes as his gaze followed Zane when he thought Zane wasn’t paying attention. The knowledge that his presence, Zane’s touch and attention, might be the thing Gray sought out first, most, well that was it, that was all she wrote. Zane’s mind went blank and his heart thudded to a halt, and he metaphorically laid his sword and shield at Gray’s feet and kneeled in surrender.

  Gray had no inkling of the magnitude or significance of this improbable event in Zane Nolan’s rather short and uninteresting life. He stood beside Zane, handsome and unassuming, giving him a soft smile and a surreptitious wink, apology in his eyes for the long-winded story of an elderly neighbor, the crux of which Zane had tuned out long ago. Unable to stand it, not one second more of it, heart bursting with a palpable yearning that clawed for release, Zane startled
Gray by grabbing his hand.

  Gray’s eyes widened in surprise when Zane leaned close to the woman and interrupted. “I’m sorry, can you excuse us,” then turned swiftly, pulling Gray past a throng of smarmy tuxedoed assholes, shoving him through the first private-looking door they came to.

  It was an office, or library, a large mahogany desk in the center, the dark wood and leather and Cuban cigar-tinged air spelling “man’s domain” as effectively as signage. Zane ignored all of that, overwhelmed with the need to possess, and slammed Gray against the closed door, sealing their lips together, desire flaring bright between them.

  Gray quickly recovered from his shock and kissed back, matching Zane’s aggression with tongue and rolling hips, wrenching Zane against him, curving his arms around to claw at his back. Zane lifted his head, and Gray followed, lips clinging, gasping, “Zane...”

  But Zane kissed him again, hard, then pinned his shoulders against the door, admiring Gray’s flushed cheeks and reddened lips. Their eyes collided and held.

  “I love you.”

  Gray’s sharp intake of breath, a quick gasp, pushed his chest against Zane’s and his lips fell open invitingly. Zane had to press his mouth there, sucking his lower lip between his teeth, kissing him gently. “I love you,” he whispered again, dragging his mouth along the ridge of his jaw. Gray’s fingers dug into his waist painfully now, and Zane could feel his surprise under the quiver of pleasure. He sucked a sweet kiss into the soft skin under Gray's earlobe and repeated quietly, firmly, against his ear, “I love you.”