Chapter 30
30
Zach
Changed out of his wet clothes, his skin still felt clammy, and he didn’t think it was because he was still damp. Kincaid was out in the main rooms. He’d been sitting on the couch, staring at the blank television, when Zach had come in. Not knowing what to say, Zach had just gone behind him.
Fuck.
He didn’t know how he was going to face Kincaid. Didn’t know what to say.
He also wasn’t going to be able to think clearly. Not here. Not surrounded by his and Kincaid’s things. Grabbing his phone, he saw the text from his parents and shook his head. If only he’d taken his phone out to the garden with him.
From now on, it was going to be freaking glued to his side.
He texted Brian. The same person he’d gone to when he and Kincaid had broken up.
Zach: Can I come over?
Now, he just had to hope that, unlike Zach, Brian hadn’t left his phone somewhere away from him.
Thankfully, he didn’t have long to wait.
Brian: I’m at Marquis. Meet me here?
Not ideal, but better than spending one more minute in this house where Amy’s absence gaped, and Kincaid’s melancholy hovered in the air like a dark miasma.
Before answering Brian, though, he walked back out into the main room. Kincaid was still sitting on the couch, staring at the television. It was still off.
“I’m going to go meet up with Brian,” he said, waiting to see what Kincaid’s response would be. Kincaid didn’t even twitch.
“Okay.” His voice sounded hollow. He didn’t ask where. He didn’t ask if Zach would be back.
Fuck.
It was all falling apart.
Pressing his lips together to keep his emotions from spilling out, Zach went to the front door and grabbed his keys off the hook. He waited until he was outside to text Brian back and let him know that he was on the way.
Getting into his car, feeling like he was fully alone for the first time, Zach slammed his hands against the steering wheel.
“ Fuck. ”
Did he feel a little better? Not really. But at least he wasn’t all pent-up anymore. He could drive. As long as he focused really hard on where he was going and didn’t think about everything that had just happened. Which was a lot easier said than done when all his brain wanted to do was turn over every single word he’d said, every single place he’d gone wrong.
Right from the point of accidentally leaving his phone inside. That was the first mistake.
Stop thinking about it. Just get to Marquis. Just get to Brian. He’ll know what to do.
Fuck. Was Kincaid right? Did he really expect other people to tell him what to do?
No. He just wanted to talk things out. And to get out of the house to think. He didn’t actually mean that he would do whatever Brian told him to. It was just that Brian was a good sounding board. He knew the situation. He knew Zach. He knew Kincaid. He’d have good ideas.
The universe was finally on Zach’s side when he arrived at Marquis, and he managed to get a spot right in front of the restaurant. He spotted Brian as soon as he walked in at a booth with Rae, Iris, Law, Nick, and Avery. Shit. Zach was interrupting a group date. He was so fucking selfish. Krista was right—he did make everything about himself. It hadn’t even occurred to him to ask Brian why he was at Marquis.
It was too late to back out, though, because Brian had obviously been waiting for him. He saw Zach as soon as he walked through the door and was already getting up from his seat.
“I’m sorry,” Zach said as soon as Brian reached him. “I didn’t realize… I wasn’t thinking…”
“It’s okay. When you texted, I figured you needed me right away.” Brian held out his hand for Zach to clap, and they came together in a bro hug. “I can see now that I was right.”
“I…” Zach sagged as they broke back apart. “Yeah. Thank you for always being there for me. It means a lot.”
“I know.” Brian inspected Zach’s face, his serious brown eyes taking in everything. “Come on, let’s go over to the bar, and we’ll talk about it.”
“I don’t want to interrupt.”
“It’s fine. I already told Rae that I’d be stepping away when you got here. We just paid, so everyone will be getting back to their day. Law and Iris are going to take her home.”
Zach’s eyes stung with threatening tears as Brian turned him toward the bar, hand on his shoulder.
“You’re a really good friend.”
“I know.”
That made him laugh. At least he could still laugh.
They sat down at the bar where Shane, who seemed like a permanent fixture at Marquis’ bar, was wiping bar glasses dry. A Dom, though he didn’t scene at either club, he was as bald as Mr. Clean but sported a mostly grey goatee. With his position, he almost always knew what was going on between club members, though the gossip never passed through his lips; he was a vault of secrets. So, Zach didn’t have to worry about or care about whatever he overheard. Thankfully, there was no one else at the actual bar, though there were a few people in the booths along the way.
“Have you eaten?” Brian asked, which made Zach’s lips twitch in amusement.
“No, Daddy,” he replied. Brian couldn’t help himself; he was a Daddy Dom through and through, no matter who he was dealing with.
Brian sighed, shaking his head. “One day, I’ll get over hearing that from my friends but never my girlfriend.” He chuckled as soon as he said it though, his eyes light, and he glanced back to look at said girlfriend.
Despite being a Daddy Dom, he’d accepted that Rae was never going to call him ‘Daddy.’ Yet he was perfectly happy with their arrangement. If he could fully accept that from Rae, maybe he could help Zach figure out how to get Kincaid to fully accept him.
They sat down at the bar and ordered. Brian just got a mimosa, while Zach ordered a full meal and a coffee. Now that he was aware of it, he was starving. He also didn’t want to start drinking because he had a feeling he wouldn’t stop if he did, and it was way too early in the day for that. Plus, he wanted to be sober later if he was going to make up with Kincaid… or break up with him. His mind shied away from that possibility, even though it felt far too imminent.
“So. Tell me what happened,” Brian said. He sat and listened without interrupting as Zach haltingly went through the events of the morning. Shane was listening, too, though he was pretending not to, as he’d gone back to polishing the barware.
He didn’t spare himself. He knew that he’d fucked up. His problem was that he didn’t know how to make it right when Kincaid was unwilling to listen to him. To really hear him.
Brian sat in silence when he finished, breathing heavily, as if he’d just run a marathon. It kind of felt like he had. An emotional marathon.
“So… what do you think?” he asked when he couldn’t take the silence anymore.
“That’s… a lot.” Brian scrubbed his hands over his face and gave Zach a look. “I think at the base of it, you have to really think about your motivations.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, what are you so scared of when it comes to telling your parents? That they’ll get a divorce? You’re not five anymore. You’re old enough to know that they won’t get a divorce over one argument. If you coming out as ‘not entirely straight’ to your parents and they get into a bad enough fight over it that they divorce, that’s not on you. That’s because they just learned something about the other person that they can’t live with. If they both reject you, then… what? You’ve learned something about them.”
“I don’t like any of this.” Zach propped his elbows on the bar and pressed the heels of his hands into his closed eyes, rubbing the sockets. It felt like there was something weighing down on his chest, even though he was sitting upright, making it hard for him to breathe. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
“That’s because you’re fundamentally insecure.”
The bald statement made both him and Brian spin around in their seats. Zach stared at Olivia. The Dominatrix was wearing her signature red suit, which somehow didn’t clash with her red hair, and her silvery gaze was uncompromising. She’d pinned him with it more than once during his introduction class, and it was all he could do not to shrivel down now, no matter how indignant he felt.
“I’m not insecure.” He’d literally never been called that in his life. “I’m one of the most confident people I know.”
“You’re secure in yourself; you’re insecure in how others view you,” she replied, coming up beside him to sit down. She waved a finger at Shane, who immediately jumped to get her a glass of water. “You’re so wrapped up in thinking about how other people think of you, you can’t see straight. And when you think you’re losing one of your support systems, you panic. The fact that you’re possibly setting yourself up to lose two has sent that panic into overdrive.”
Zach opened his mouth. Closed it. He didn’t know what to say to that.
Taking a sip of her water, Olivia turned to him and raised an eyebrow.
“You’ve always been led by strong personalities, people with strong convictions because you think that they must have made the right decision. That’s how you ended up being Roland’s friend.”
“That fucking asshole,” Brian muttered from behind Zach as Olivia referenced Zach’s ex-best friend.
Zach winced. That friendship was one of the greatest shames of his life. The one really good thing Roland had ever done for him had been to convince him to come take the Dom class at Stronghold—the class Roland got kicked out of after he couldn’t take being taught by a woman. He was in jail now after stalking Olivia and attempting to shoot her.
“I didn’t let Roland lead me anywhere but Stronghold,” he argued. “I didn’t support him.”
“No, because you met other, better personalities that were also strong.” She didn’t break her gaze. “You’re a good person, but you still had trouble standing up to him. It helped that Kincaid, Brian, and Mitch all did because you knew that they were doing the right thing.”
“I don’t sound like a good person when you put it that way,” he muttered.
“You are. You wouldn’t have kept supporting him. You know that. I know that. But you’re bolstered by the people around you. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just that you’re in conflict right now.” Olivia smiled gently at him. “You’re afraid of losing Kincaid. You’re afraid of losing your parents. What Kincaid wants is directly opposed to what you think your parents want, and vice versa. And today, you pulled Amy into it. You keep waiting for the right moment, the right way to do it so that you don’t lose anyone, but in trying not to lose anyone, you’re risking losing everyone.”
The heaviness that hit the pit of Zach’s stomach made it impossible for him to argue. That was exactly what he was afraid of, and he didn’t know what to do about it.
“Not me,” Brian joked, clapping Zach’s shoulder. “I’ll still be here for you, brother.”
Surprisingly, that was enough to lighten a lot of the tension that was weighing Zach down, and he barked a short laugh.
“Oh, yeah?” he asked, only half-joking as he turned in his seat. “And what do you think?”
“I think Olivia is right. You get tied up in knots trying to make a decision. You’re always worried you’re making the wrong one. You look at everything from every angle, so when you do finally make a decision, you’ve really weighed out every possibility. The problem is that when something is high stakes, you’re so afraid of what will go wrong that you avoid making the decision at all.” Brian shrugged. “That’s why I’m going to refuse to tell you what to do. I’m here to listen, but you have to figure this out.”
“Well, I’m not here to listen,” Olivia said, hopping up from her seat. She smacked Zach on the back of his head, hard enough to sting and make him duck, though not so hard that it was truly painful.
“Ow!” He turned around to face her again.
“You’re going to have to do more than talk to Kincaid. You’re going to have to show him you’re serious this time. Actions talk louder than words. Stop sitting on your ass and waiting for the universe to show you the way. You’ve had over a year to think about it; now, it’s time to do something.” And with that, Olivia sauntered away. Brian and Zach watched her go, Zach rubbing the back of his head as he turned her words over in his thoughts.
Then he frowned.
“Wait a second, how did she even know what we were talking about?” he asked.
Both he and Brian swung around to stare at Shane. The bartender studiously ignored their stares, focusing on the glass he was polishing in his hand.
“Traitor,” Zach accused.
Shane just shrugged.
Fuck. Olivia was right. He needed to show Kincaid that he mattered. He needed to show Kincaid that he wasn’t going to be a hidden part of Zach’s life for the rest of their lives.
It wasn’t enough to tell him that he would. He needed to do it. Now. Before he lost his courage.
He glanced at Brian.
“Not to sound like a complete pansy, but… I’m going to go talk to my parents. Can you come with me?”
“Shut that toxic masculinity bullshit down, and sure,” Brian said with a snort. “You’re not a pansy. You’re about to go face down your fears. You’re about to make yourself emotionally vulnerable. Anyone who thinks that’s pansy is someone who’s afraid to own up to their own shit.”
That was true enough. Zach felt the tightness in his chest still, but some of it had eased. Brian was going to be there for him. He didn’t know whether Kincaid would be there at the end of the day, but he was going to go tell his parents, anyway. He needed to show Kincaid that he meant every word he’d ever said, every promise he’d made, and that he wasn’t just going to wait until the end of the month because of his sister’s ultimatum.
It was time to do what he’d been too scared to do for the past year and tell his parents who he really was and who he really loved.
Then he needed to tell Kincaid, and probably grovel, as well as apologize to Amy.
“Do you think I should tell Kincaid I’m going beforehand? Or wait till after? No, shit, wait. Holy fuck, do I really expect everyone to make my decisions for me?” Fuck. Was that why he’d been drawn to Kincaid being a Dom? So Kincaid could make the decisions in a scene? He was always happy to follow Kincaid’s lead when they were scening with a third. Fuck.
“You’re just asking for feedback; I think that’s normal.” Brian shrugged. “I’ve asked for advice a time or two myself, you know. But if you’re thinking about contacting him because you’re worried, don’t. After you texted me, I told Mitch to check in on him.”
Well, that was a relief. Zach sighed.
“Good. Then let’s go tell my parents, then I’ll go grovel to Kincaid, and then, hopefully, we can figure out where Amy went, and I can grovel to her, too.”
“You know… do you think you told your parents that Amy was your girlfriend because you wished she was? Your and Kincaid’s girlfriend, I mean.”
Zach groaned and pressed his hands back into his eyes. “Dude. Shut up. I cannot deal with that right now.”
One thing at a time.