by Willa Okati
This couldn’t end well.
“On second thought, I don’t give a damn.” The boss shoved between Hallie and Baseball Cap, jostling Josef aside. He swung the focus of his temper first on the two men. “Either the both of you walk out of here or you get punted out on the toe of my shoe, got it? Go!”
“He hit her,” Zach put in, hanging on to the seltzer. “A guy like him shouldn’t be on the streets, boss.”
The boss changed tactics without skipping a beat. He waved the bouncer over. “You. Get the Popo on the phone and keep this asshole put until they get here.”
“You got it.” The bouncer cracked his knuckles. Where he dragged the dick off to, Zach didn’t care.
“Did you hit anyone?” Boss demanded of Josef, who shook his head in silence. He’d already stopped bleeding and aside from a few small splatters on his sweater, looked as cool and composed as if he were taking tea with the mayor. “Hallie, Zach, is he telling the truth?”
“He tried to help,” Hallie said, subdued. “Grabbed him. That’s how he got hurt.”
“You hurt bad? No? Fine, then we’re done here. Your own fault, and if you try to sue I’ll have your ass.” Boss waved Josef off. “You hit the road on your own.”
Josef looked at Zach, but not in invitation. He sent some kind of message Zach was too scattered to read, and Zach could only shrug in incomprehension. As if that’d been enough of an answer, Josef nodded and turned to go.
Zach might have followed him if the boss hadn’t rounded on him and Hallie. “Those two chuckleheads don’t work for me.”
“And we still do?” Hallie challenged, down but definitely not out.
“What kinda jerk do you think I am? Go take ten, fifteen, whatever you need. The night if you want.”
“I need the money.”
“Then stay, but go calm down first. That’s an order.”
Hallie’s eyes snapped. Zach thought she’d take a swing at Boss next, but after loosing a short, sharp scream of rage, she stormed off. At least now he understood her, Zach thought, and he could wish he didn’t.
“You.” The boss jabbed a finger at Zach’s nose. “Drop the seltzer. You ever pull a stunt like that again and I don’t care how good a mixologist you are, you’re canned. You’re outta here too, for tonight. Go soak your own head, cool down, go smoke, I don’t care.”
“Wait.” Zach tried to keep up. “Should I come back tomorrow?”
“I just said you two still worked for me. What, am I talking to myself here?”
“I’m not fired?”
“Jesus Christ. No, but push it any further and you will be.” The boss jabbed a finger away from the bar. “Scram!”
* * * * *
Maybe he should have followed Josef. Zach couldn’t, not yet. Besides, he didn’t know that Josef would go back to his hotel room, or that he’d be welcome. He doubted his welcome most of all.
And he had something more important to take care of first.
Employees at I Heart That City didn’t have many places to go when they needed to be alone, not with stockrooms and kitchens and supply closets admitting and spitting out a steady stream of people. The ladies’ was busier than a hen farm. Only a damn fool would head for the roof. Like he had. Like he knew Hallie would.
He found her standing three feet away from the edge, her breath forming thick clouds and her shoulders shaking with what he thought was tension, not tears. She stilled when she heard his footsteps. “Go away.”
“Can’t. I’m on time-out too.”
“Figures.” Hallie hugged herself and stomped the tar paper of the roof. “It’s freezing out here.”
Zach shuffled from foot to foot. “Listen, Hallie, I --”
“You apologize to me and I’ll kick your ass,” she warned. “I’m done with ‘sorry.’ Sorry and four bucks will get you a cup of coffee and that’s it.”
“Doesn’t change that I am. And if I could do it again --”
“You’d feel sorry for me, but nothing else would change. Don’t you get it?” She turned from the waist to glare at him. “Apologies are bullshit. It’s what you do, not what you say, that means anything, and let me tell you something else: you’re a moron.”
Zach blinked at her, taken aback. “Say what now?”
“You heard me. I’m just as big a fool for not seeing how it really is, though. That guy? The one I thought was creepy because he couldn’t keep his eyes off you? I looked at him tonight. I saw him. He didn’t run away and he didn’t laugh at me and he tried to help, but he didn’t say a word.”
Zach was beyond uncomfortable now, but he deserved every ounce of vitriol she could throw at him and stayed put to take it, though he couldn’t keep his mouth shut even now. “What’s your point?”
“You heard me. You’re just not listening.”
“Hallie, I don’t get it.” His temples ached. “Would you be straight with me?”
“You’re not listening. You’re not looking. That guy? When he looks at you, hell, even I can see it now. He loves you.”
Zach backed up. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?”
Shit. “It’s not the same. Not even close.”
“I know.” Hallie stalked toward Zach and jabbed her forefinger in his chest. “That guy, did he ever hit you? Ever tell you that you were stupid, useless, a moron, nothing more than a cunt on legs and you ought to be grateful to him for putting up with you because no one else would?”
Shame threatened to bring Zach to his knees. “No.”
“Did he love you?”
Zach shut his eyes tightly, unable -- unwilling -- to answer that.
“You owe me,” Hallie growled. “Tell me the truth.”
“Yes.” The air left Zach’s lungs in a rush. “He loved me. He still loves me.”
“Do you love him?”
“Hallie --”
“Answer me!”
“Does it matter?” Zach asked, desperate. “Yes. I did love him. I do love him. He treated me like I was a prince, okay? Gave me everything. Made me feel like I was worth something.”
“And you ditched him.” Hallie was back to cold. “See what I mean now? Worse than a moron. You’re a damn fool, way more fucked in the head than I am. I hope he skips town after this. You don’t deserve him.”
Zach couldn’t deny she was right. He tried to reach for her. “Hallie, come back inside.”
“Go to hell.” She wrapped her arms around her chest and shivered. “I do things my way because I don’t have a choice. What about you?”
“I don’t --” There, Zach stopped. Maybe he did have a choice. Did he?
And if he did, did he have the balls to go find out for himself?
Chapter Six
Zach had intended to knock quietly this time around. The carpet was no less inviting and the atmosphere of the hotel possibly more imposing that before, and with his anger cooled to a miasma of questions swirling around inside his head, he wasn’t up for any kind of commotion.
The door of Josef’s room swung open before he could rap the wood with his knuckles. Josef stood inside, glasses on his nose, hair rumpled. He said nothing, waiting for Zach to make the first move.
Only trouble was, Zach had no idea where to start. Not really. “Hi,” he said, hating how lame and limping it sounded.
“Hello. I thought you might return tonight.” There was no knowing what Josef was thinking.
Zach nudged the thick, wine-colored carpet with the toe of his sneaker, scuffing up a darker mark. “Mind if I come in?”
Josef took time to consider the question before nodding and stepping aside. A small part of Zach wanted to make the same mistake, even knowing it for what it was, and to launch himself at Josef. He was shaking, strung out and high-strung, and he needed what Josef could give him. If he could ask. But he couldn’t. Not yet.
He entered in equal silence instead and kept his eyes on the carpet while Josef shut the door behind him. The sound of
the deadbolt turning smoothly closed made him swallow a sudden lump in his throat, wrenching a shudder from him. The locks on door and collar didn’t sound anything alike, but he still wanted to cut and run, even if he had to rub his throat fiercely to calm the stinging sense of emptiness.
Moving slowly, Josef came around and to a stop in front of Zach, watching him. Zach cautiously let himself test the quality of the silence. Not angry, not demanding, not commanding. Regretful. Resigned. Underneath it all ran a thin thread of hope.
“What do you want?” Josef asked when Zach couldn’t find any words. “I can’t read your mind. You need to tell me.”
“I don’t know what I want.” The room was warm, heated by a discreet system that barely hummed, a small cocoon of sanctuary against the outside world. Josef’s nearness made Zach ache for him even as the admission made his stomach twist. “I don’t know if I ever knew what I wanted. Then or now.”
“Ah.” Josef stood perfectly still.
“That’s it?” Zach looked up, indignant. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? The truth.”
“Words aren’t anything without comprehension of what they mean,” Josef corrected quietly, not with hostility, but with weariness. “When I said that I loved you, what did your heart feel?”
The air grew thick, too warm to breathe. “I don’t -- I didn’t --”
“Zach,” Josef said, coming closer. Zach caught the scent of his cologne and his soap. “I’ve loved you for a long time. Longer than the year you’ve been away, and I never stopped. Sometimes I wanted to. Talk is cheap. I could have written all of this in a letter or called you, and I didn’t. I came to find you instead. I showed you.” Josef took Zach’s hand and slipped his fingers slowly through Zach’s, lacing them together. “I’ve watched you here. I think I understand you now.”
Zach couldn’t keep up. He only knew he didn’t want to hear this or have it laid out for him. “Shut up.”
“If you refuse to understand me, to even hear me, then you can go. I won’t stop you.”
“And this would be the last time I saw you, wouldn’t it?” Zach challenged. He tried to steady himself and lift his chin. “What if I did stay and listen?”
“Only listen if you’re willing to hear.”
Zach wanted to ask what the hell that was supposed to mean, but he didn’t. He gave in, gave up. He knew what Josef was getting at. “Gonna put me back together afterward?”
Josef nodded soberly. “If you’ll let me.”
“Okay.” Zach squeezed Josef’s fingers reflexively. He was man enough to keep to his feet for this. He hoped. “You understand me. Tell me. God knows I don’t understand myself. Or you.”
“Perhaps you will when we’re done here.” Josef studied him. “It’s simple. I should have seen it before, really. The collar was a mistake. I shouldn’t have given it to you, and should have known it was what broke you. It was too much, too soon, but I saw you had it in you, and I let my judgment continue impaired. A great sin for me. I wanted too much, more than I should have asked at the time, and it broke us.”
Zach wasn’t sure he could listen to this standing. “Broke,” he said, cold inside. “The lock broke. There’s your truth. I couldn’t get the collar off and I freaked.”
“And so you ran, instead of calling me.”
“You were busy.”
“I wasn’t too busy to have helped you, if you’d asked.”
“So it’s my fault,” Zach said, but without heat. “I get that now.”
“You’re not hearing me. Again.” Josef put two fingers under Zach’s chin and lifted it so he couldn’t look away. “This is what I learned about you, Zach. You thought, though I don’t know why, that the collar was all I cared about. That playing ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir’ was all that mattered to me. You took yourself out of the relationship and when there was nothing left but the game --”
“I was losing it,” Zach whispered. “I couldn’t win.”
“If you’d asked me, I would have told you the game was rubbish. You didn’t. You assumed that I wanted a marionette and that you had no worth if you couldn’t play this one small set role. You were a fool.”
The sharp, clearly enunciated words cut Zach to the quick. “I deserve that,” he said. He ducked his head to escape the pressure of Josef’s fingers and shook his hand free, turning to go. “I’m sorry.”
“Damn it, Zach!” Josef slammed the door shut before Zach had it two inches open, his presence heavy and solid behind Zach and his aura infuriated. “What will it take to show you that I don’t care about a chain, a thing?”
“But you --”
“I’m trying to make you understand me,” Josef said, his breath too warm against Zach’s ear. “I’m trying to show you what it means to be loved.”
Zach choked down a laugh that might have come out as more of a sob. “I don’t think I know how to listen.”
“Then let me teach you. Because I want to. If you’re willing. Only if you’re willing.” He laid his palm on Zach’s back, between his shoulder blades, heat saturating skin and muscle. “We were good once, a long time ago. It could be better now if you let me in. Love me or leave me, but it needs to be done for both our sakes. Choose.”
“I can’t.” A fine trembling kept Zach on edge, sure he was going to fall.
“You can.” Josef’s insistence wore away at him like desert wind blowing sand away grain by grain. “Let me show you how I love you. I understand you now. The man who frightens you is yourself. Not me. I know that this is what you want. What you need not just to love, but to live. I can be that for you. Let me show you how it should be.”
Zach couldn’t breathe. “Don’t.”
Josef pressed his lips to Zach’s temple. “Why are you so afraid?”
“If I give you what you want, then it’ll be over.” Zach tried to shake him off, knowing it was the last of the fight he had in him and striking out. “I’d rather walk away than be left behind.”
Josef was quiet. “You don’t know me at all.”
Zach knew he’d been right, then. “Let me go.”
“No. Let me show you how you’re wrong.” Josef slid his arm around Zach’s waist and held him tight. “I will always love you. Let me in.”
And Zach broke. He wanted this. He did, and he was exhausted from fighting it. “Yes,” he said breathlessly, the relief weakening his knees after all. “Please.”
“Will you show me what you truly feel?”
Zach nodded.
“Thank you,” Josef said softly in his ear and laid his head on Zach’s shoulder. “Turn around for me. I want nothing more in the world than to kiss you.”
Turning was the easiest thing Zach had ever done. And the hardest. But then he was there, and Josef’s lips were on his, and it was even easier still to stop thinking. To simply be.
Drowning in Josef’s kiss was like learning to breathe again.
“Tell me what to do,” Zach asked between kisses. He wasn’t sure if he was the one who couldn’t leave off kissing or not. Maybe it was both of them.
Josef stroked Zach’s back, long sweeps that electrified his every nerve, the calmness at war with the power of his chest’s heaving. He pressed his forehead to Zach’s and held him there. “Do you really want me to, or do you think that’s what I want to hear?”
“I don’t know,” Zach admitted, ashamed.
“Shh. We’re starting over. That’s what this is, you know. Questions are allowed.” Josef traced a path down to Zach’s hip and drew question marks over the denim. He came so close to Zach’s groin that Zach groaned and shuffled closer. Josef let him -- no, encouraged him -- no, helped him. Zach could feel the shuddering strain from his holding back, going slow, so slow, struggling not to go “too far, too fast.” It made him crazy.
It made up his mind. At least for now.
“Show me what you want,” he breathed, angling to catch Josef’s lip between his teeth. He opened for Josef to glide his tongue inside and moaned whe
n the velvety slide curled and tickled the roof of his mouth. “Betcha I’ll want it too.”
Josef broke the kiss. “Not good enough.” He sounded as if he’d eaten sand, burned as dry as parchment. “Tell me what you want.”
Zach tried to wrap his head around it. Hard to do when his body insisted on having its way, undulating to fit the angles and planes of Josef’s strong torso and legs, twisting and curling ever closer. “I want…”
“Tell me.” Josef caressed Zach’s ass, his touches too light, only hinting at what could be and awakening memories that were fast reducing his fears to ash.
He said it quickly, what was on his mind, before he could lose the nerve. “I want you to top. Hard. Like it was the first time.”
Josef let out a long, shuddering breath and butted his head hard against Zach’s. His hips moved, grinding to Zach’s, the weighty length of his cock almost as palpable as if he’d worn nothing at all, as if they strained naked one against the other. His struggle for control was painful and wonderful. I did that to him, Zach thought, high on the sense of power.
Zach acted without thinking, pushing his hand between them and bearing down over Josef’s cock. Too hard, meant to hurt. Josef hissed sharply between his teeth and shuddered before the tension melted away from him. He was still hard to the touch, and the only moisture was a faint dampness from fat drops of precum. Zach remembered how fascinated he’d been the first time to see how freely Josef leaked. He recalled the strong, salty taste, and it made his mouth water.
“Okay?” he asked, nuzzling Josef’s jaw.
After a moment of labored struggle, Josef gave up. “Thank you.”
He’d said that before. Every time. Zach got it now. Josef wasn’t just being polite. He meant his thanks. Appreciated everything Zach did for him, every time he obeyed, even when it tweaked him out. Zach felt both small, like an ant facing a guarding wall, and huge, as if he were big enough to encompass the world. He’d taken a pill or two when he was young and dumb, and being high was nothing like this.
“I was being selfish.”
Josef laughed a little raggedly. “Is that so?”
