Zero Confusion (Kink Talk #2)

Chapter 1

ZACH

“Read at least five articles by next class and be prepared to discuss. Dismissed.”

Subdued groans echoed around the room. No one was thrilled about spending a sunny weekend buried in reading, but not a single student would dare voice a complaint to their stern professor.

“Summer classes were a terrible idea,” Zach grumbled, struggling to jam a hefty stack of printouts into his bag. Most classes posted everything online, and he was used to getting by with his laptop. He didn’t even own a backpack.

A smear of black on his fingers made him sigh in defeat. Not only did dozens of poor trees die for this assignment, he was getting ink all over his hands.

“I told you,” Joel said with an amused smirk. “You refused to listen.”

“You’re dramatic on the best of days. I assumed you were exaggerating.”

“A mistake you’ll never make again.” Joel snickered. “Dude, just carry it. It’s not gonna fit.”

“That’s what he said?” Zach quipped and pressed the papers to his chest as they left the classroom.

“Wow, that’s original. Been saving that one?”

“You know it.”

Zach winked and blew him a kiss. Joel laughed, pretending to catch and shove it into his pocket.

Their friendship had caught Zach by surprise.

He hadn’t expected to befriend a rich California kid—especially not one who acted like he’d stepped out of a fashion ad—but sharing a major meant three years of taking the same classes, endless group projects, and late-night caffeine-fueled study sessions.

Somewhere along the way, they clicked. Whether it was because they were both fluent in sarcasm and equally annoyed by early-morning lectures, or in need of a friend while far from home, Zach couldn’t say.

All he knew was that without Joel, he would have become a hermit long ago.

They reached the edge of the parking lot, where their paths split. Joel paused, his earlier grin fading. “We’re still on for tomorrow, right? Even with that literal mountain of homework?”

“Obviously,” Zach said. “Can’t let my education interfere with our drinking.”

“Yes!” Joel perked back up and lightly punched him on the shoulder. “See you tomorrow. Wear something pretty.”

He bounded off before Zach finished rolling his eyes at the request. The first time they’d gone to a club together, Zach made the rookie mistake of wearing an old band T-shirt, which Joel immediately declared a “fashion war crime.” He hadn’t let it go since.

Never mind that growing up on a farm hadn’t exactly been conducive to building a Joel-approved wardrobe or that the guys Zach hooked up with couldn’t care less about what he wore. Joel just had to have his way.

Another gust of wind sent Zach’s hair whipping around his face, and he hurried toward his bike.

After unlocking it, he glared at the case studies.

Pedaling one-handed was out of the question.

After shoving as many as would fit into his bag, not caring if they got creased, he trapped the rest against the handlebars with one hand and pushed off.

The fifteen-minute ride between his tiny studio apartment and the campus could be frustrating at times, but it was worth every minute.

After living in the dorms freshman year, it quickly became obvious that everything Zach had learned in his sociology classes about humans being social creatures was a lie.

People weren’t meant to live together. Not like that.

He’d gladly bike for hours every day and live in a shoebox if it meant not sharing his shower with three random people picked by a half-baked algorithm.

There was only one person who didn’t make Zach want to pull out his hair in frustration after hours of forced proximity. It wasn’t his parents, and it certainly wasn’t either of his brothers, whose prolonged company usually made him wish he’d been an only child.

It was Miles Carter.

His best friend and the love of his life.

Their family farms shared a fence, and their parents had thrown them together when they were toddlers, assuming that being the same age was the only prerequisite for instant friendship.

In that case, they got it right.

Zach and Miles formed a connection around sharing toys and exploring vast wheat fields that lasted well into adulthood.

Even after Zach pulled a surprise twist and left Montana, moving to Oregon for college and limiting their time together to summer breaks, they stayed close.

Not a week went by without a video chat and lengthy text conversations.

Regret ricocheted through Zach. This was the first summer he hadn’t gone home.

The extra courses weren’t necessary—he was comfortably on track to graduate next year—but he needed an excuse to stay away.

Every year, it became more and more difficult to go home and pretend to be someone else.

To tiptoe around their small, conservative town.

To grit his teeth and smile when his mom asked if he’d met a nice girl yet.

To listen to his dad complain about the news and blame the woes of the world on anyone who was the slightest bit different.

They all expected Zach to return after graduation and fall in line. No one, not even Miles, suspected that Zach wasn’t coming back.

Instead of putting himself in a small box created by his family, he would stay in Portland, get a graduate degree, and keep being himself. Staying behind this summer was only the beginning.

The only drawback to this plan was missing out on time with Miles. He was giving up their last chance to go on hikes and laugh about their shared memories, to stay up watching movies and pass out next to each other.

The last chance to be close to his favorite person—close, yet impossibly far—because Miles could never know about Zach’s feelings, could never return them.

A shiver rippled through him despite the warm summer air.

If Miles ever found out, it would be a disaster.

He’d be painfully gentle with Zach—hug him, apologize for not returning his feelings, ask if there was anything he could do to help.

He would forever choose his words carefully, walking on eggshells around Zach.

He would act differently—look at him differently.

Those tender, pitying looks from the person he loved most in this world would be impossible to survive.

He tried not to think about Miles’s crestfallen face when he’d told him about staying in Portland for the summer. Miles hadn’t bothered trying to hide his disappointment, staring at Zach in silence from the phone screen.

“What about us?” he’d asked in a small voice, and Zach had been seconds away from forfeiting his tuition money and driving to Montana. It was only the reminder that Miles’s idea of us was vastly different from Zach’s that had kept him in his seat.

“I’m sorry, Miles, but I really need this class,” Zach lied. “We can video chat, and I’ll see you for Thanksgiving.”

“Zee, that’s months away. I miss you.”

That soft whisper had played on a constant loop in Zach’s brain ever since their conversation.

At his block, Zach hopped off the bike and walked it down the sidewalk.

A tall blond man paced in front of the entrance, and Zach sighed to himself.

Despite the distance between them, he saw Miles everywhere—anytime a broad-shouldered, light-haired man crossed his path, his traitorous heart skipped a beat.

He needed to get a hold of himself.

He needed to get over Miles.

Going to the club with Joel tomorrow would be the perfect opportunity to find a distraction, someone to get his mind off his hopeless crush.

He wasn’t interested in dating, but he wouldn’t say no to a brief fling or a random hookup.

Anything not to spend his entire life pining after his straight best friend.

The heavy door of his building, propped open most of the time, was currently shut, probably by one of his security-minded neighbors.

Zach leaned the bike against the wall and shoved a hand into his bag, blindly rooting around for keys.

His fingers barely squeezed past the thick ream of paper and kept closing around random objects, and he silently promised himself to organize his shit as soon as he got home.

No one needed three protein bars and two flavors of mints to survive one class.

As he searched, a powerful gust of wind ripped one of the wrinkled articles from his grasp and sent it dancing along the ground toward the Miles look-alike.

“Hey! Can you grab that?” Zach yelled at the broad back. With his luck, that case study would turn out to be the most important.

The man lunged after the escaped papers as they flew past, his movements surprisingly graceful for someone so imposing. Zach was captivated by the display of rippling muscles, the powerful body in motion, still staring when his savior triumphantly turned around.

Zach’s mind went blank. Was it possible to conjure someone up by aggressively pining after them? Had years of unrequited love broken his brain to the point of hallucination?

Could it be delirium brought on by doing too much research?

“Zee!” The man’s face split into a wide grin.

He ate up the distance between them with large steps and lifted Zach off the ground in a giant hug.

Zach allowed himself to enjoy the delusion, appreciating his brain’s attention to detail, right down to the crisp scent of Miles’s deodorant and the rough stubble scratching his cheek.

He adjusted his grip on the handouts in his hand, the sharp sting of a paper cut making him flinch.

The pain snapped him back to reality—the reality in which the familiar hulking presence truly existed, warm arms wrapped around him, the sweetest voice whispering his nickname.

This was no delusion.

It was much worse.

Miles was here.