Free Finding Zach by Rowan Speedwell Page B

Zach, please. I just want to talk….”
    Pale eyes flicked up to his, cold and empty. “I don’t talk. You want to fuck, that’s another story. But no talking. No kissing. No follow-up phone calls. I don’t suck dick, and I don’t bottom. Interested?”
    David stared at him, uncomprehending.
    Zach smiled thinly, humorlessly. “Didn’t think so.” He brushed past David and out the door. A moment later David heard the roar of the motorcycle.
    “What did you do to piss off the Ice Queen?” a voice said behind him.
    Dazed, David turned to the young guy, a stranger. “What?”
    “The Ice Queen. He’s cold, but he’s always polite. Helluva fuck, though.”
    Rage roared through David and he grabbed the guy’s shirt. “What. The. Fuck?”
    “Hey! Don’t get all pissy, dude!” the guy protested. “I just asked what you said to piss him off. He don’t get mad, ever. Never saw him react like that to anybody.” The guy relaxed as David released him, and gave him a once-over. “You look like his type,” he said meditatively. “Mine, too.” He broke into a grin. “Lemme buy you a drink.”
    “Got one,” David said curtly, and walked back to the bar.
    The guy followed. “I’m Brian,” he said. “And you’re David? I heard the Ice Queen call you that.”
    “Yeah.”
    “I figured when you walked in that you’d walk out with him,” Brian said thoughtfully. “Like I said, you’re his type. But you guys, like, know each other, huh?”
    “What do you mean I’m his type?” David asked. His fingers closed hard around the glass of beer in front of him.
    “Blond surfer dude.” Brian waved his hand to indicate himself. “Like me.”
    “You met him here?”
    “Nah, at the Goose. You know it?”
    “Gray Goose on Sheffield? Yeah. I know it.” Shit, David thought. That place was a meat market. Zach was hanging out there? Some of the patrons referred to it as the Dirty Duck—or Dirty Dick, as the case may be.
    “He’s there a lot. Doesn’t do repeats too often, though—more’s the pity.” Brian ordered a beer.
    “Do not tell me he’s a helluva fuck again,” David snarled. He stared at the beer in his hands, wishing he had the nerve to get wasted, to forget what had just happened. Jesus. He hadn’t expected this. Hadn’t been ready to run into Zach, hadn’t known what to say, hadn’t expected to start burbling like an idiot. And he sure as shit hadn’t expected to see Zach not only all grown up but looking older than David himself. Older and harder. He shuddered and he didn’t know if it was fear, misery… or arousal. Shit. If he held the beer glass any tighter it would shatter in his hands.
    With an effort, he eased his grip, finished his beer and said, “Well, thanks for the talk. See you around.”
    “I hope so,” Brian said with a grin.
    I don’t, David thought, but only nodded and left the bar.
     
     
    Z ACH took the south gate too fast, the opening barely wide enough for the bike when he shot through going way too fast, as if he could outrun the acid bite of panic burning the back of his throat. Going up the hill toward the garage at about eighty, he skidded to a stop beneath the overhang of the upper porch, shut off the Ducati, and raced up the outside stairs, slamming into his apartment and stopping, finally, his chest heaving as if he’d run all the way from the bar. He pulled off his leather jacket and threw it over a chair, then flung himself onto the couch and let the panic attack take over. The shrink had always told him not to fight it, to let the anxiety go, wash over and through him, but it was easier said than done. The damn shrink probably never had a panic attack, never knew what it felt like to be convinced you were dying, that the incredible pain in your chest was a massive heart attack, that the turmoil in your brain was a stroke or you finally falling over the edge into insanity…. He shivered violently, sweat pouring from his clammy skin and tears from his