2. Chapter Two
Chapter Two
Zach
Zach hated flying. It would be fine, though. Fine.
As the rest of the flight was boarding, he reached up to check for the fourth time in as many minutes that the tiny little blower was working—twisting it one way and then the other to ensure it was open fully. Yep. Just like the last three times. He put his palm up to the vent. Yeah, okay, it was indeed blowing, though labeling the temperature of the air coming out of it “cool” seemed far too generous.
Zach swallowed thickly and tugged lightly at the collar of his T-shirt as though it would actually help anything. It wasn’t like he was wearing a suit and tie for work. His clothes weren’t making him feel overly warm. It was nerves. He knew damn well it was nerves, and lying to himself was clearly not working anyway.
Just like the air vent above him.
Nervously tapping his fingers on his knee, he peeked through the crack in the seats to the row in front of him. An older gentleman sat in the aisle seat, and he was already sleeping, his head tilted back and his mouth open. How anyone could sleep on a flight was beyond Zach. At least the man’s snoring was hardly audible over the dull hum of the plane’s engines. Zach glanced up at the man’s air vent, very tempted to try and redirect its flow even though he wasn’t sitting in the same row and he knew it wasn’t designed to swivel that far. The man was sleeping, after all. He wouldn’t really miss it, would he? Just a tiny trickle of tepid air. But no, it would be weird to even try. He’d have to unbuckle and stand up and...
Zach shook his head. He was fine. Really. He had his own air, blowing from his own vent, and when the plane started to move, it would blow a little harder. Maybe keep him from feeling more nauseous. And besides, the aisle seat to his right was open still, though the flight attendant perkily chatting away on the intercom had mentioned it was a full flight. He blew out a long breath. It wasn’t like it mattered, right? Then again, if 11B wasn’t going to be occupied, he could scoot over and have a little more room. Less claustrophobic would be better, right? Fewer bodies meant less body heat, and that meant he’d...
It didn’t matter. It wasn’t the temperature of the plane’s cabin that was the problem. It never was.
His phone buzzed in the side pocket of his cargo pants, making him jump. Right. He was supposed to have texted Jen and let her know he’d actually made it onto the plane. It wasn’t like he was that afraid of flying—he’d always made it onto the plane. Well, almost always. It was just the takeoff that bothered him, really. And the landing. And when there was turbulence. And when—
Another buzz. Right, Jen.
He fished his phone out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. Yep—two texts from Jen, same as always.
Jen: Hey, you! It’s go time. Tell me your butt is in a seat!
Jen: ON THE PLANE, not in the airport or in a rental car.
Zach: Butt in seat. On the plane. Mission accomplished.
Jen: Good job!! Now stop freaking out.
Zach: I’m not freaking out!
Jen: How many times have you checked the air vent?
Zach: Shut up
Jen: Everything is going to be fine, dude. Promise!
Zach: How do you know? And don’t tell me it’s because Superman told you it’s the safest way to travel.
Jen: Okay, just because Superman said it doesn’t make it any less true!
Zach: SMH
Jen: It’ll be okay, Zach. You just have to remember to breathe.
He was breathing. Or at least, he usually remembered to breathe. But Jen was right. It was fine. It would be fine.
Zach took a deep breath—see, he was totally breathing!—and frowned at his phone as he typed out his next message, intent on changing the subject. Or something.
Zach: If I survive this flight, you’d better not be busy this weekend. I need my friend buffer.
Jen: I know, I know. But dude, I think being an established regular at monthly brunch, well, your parents know me too well for me to even count as buffer anymore, don’t ya think?
Zach: Not the point. Still need you.
Jen: Okay, but if your mom offers up my uterus to house her future grandbabies again, I might have to put her in her place. I’m not your surrogate.
Zach: Fair. And you know I know that. :P
A slight commotion next to him caught his attention. Other passengers were still loading, but a man had stepped in from the aisle and closer to Zach—presumably to let others by.
Zach: omg, I just turned my head to find myself face-to-face, make that face-to-butt with my seatmate.
Jen: Is it a nice ass???
Zach: I didn’t even say it was a man!
Jen: Well, you wouldn’t have been freaking out if it was a woman’s ass. Actually, you wouldn’t be freaking out if it wasn’t also a nice ass. So...
Zach: God, it is. His jeans fit perfectly. It’s a great ass.
Jen: Check the finger! Check the finger!
Zach: Chill, dude! Not everyone wears rings anymore.
Jen: Still.
Zach: I’m not here to meet guys! I’m here to hopefully survive the flight home.
Jen: I’m just saying... flirting might be a nice way to distract yourself.
Zach: Gah!!! Jen! I know you’re not suggesting I trigger my social anxiety to fix my flying anxiety.
Zach: Right??
Jen: Well, it’s not a terrible idea!!
Zach: Shit! Gotta go, he’s sitting down and I don’t want him to see!!
Heart racing, Zach hit send and then the power button on his phone to make the screen go dark. He shoved his phone back in his pocket just as the man was settling down in the seat to his right. Zach looked over, only partially catching the man’s gaze, and Zach gave him a tight but friendly smile before averting his eyes.
God, that didn’t even feel like a smile—was his face even working? What if it had looked like a grimace? Great, now the guy with the great ass, whom he’d be sitting ridiculously close to for the next two hours—longer if he was also connecting through to Dallas and then on to Albuquerque—probably thought he was rude. Or something. Had the guy even smiled back? He had, hadn’t he? Zach hadn’t even gotten a proper look at his face.
It was fine. It would be fine. People usually ignored each other on flights anyway, right? Everyone haaaated that chatty seatmate, didn’t they? They were always blasting on social media how they got stuck sitting next to Chatty Cathy or Snoring Sal—Zach glanced to the row ahead of him; “Sal” was still sleeping and snoring .
Yep. Everything would be fine because Zach was going to be a model seatmate, not making anyone wish they weren’t stuck sitting next to him. Zach’s pocket buzzed.
He reached up to check the air vent. It seemed worse than it had been.
Zach tried to breathe evenly. Normally. However normal, model seatmate people breathed. Brothed? God, now he was making up words. His phone buzzed again.
His pulse jumped up another notch, and he was suddenly grateful that airplanes already came with a base level of “fairly loud” when it came to background noise. Otherwise, his pounding heart and his decidedly not-normal breathing would very much be bothering people.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
Zach closed his eyes and wished—not for the first time today—that he was somewhere else.
“Sounds like someone is eager to talk to you,” the guy with the great ass said, and Zach wished he had enough processing power to gauge the man’s tone, but nope.
“Heh. It’s probably just all my streaming apps at the same time, telling me what’s new or something,” Zach said lamely, giving the man half a smile but not looking up, afraid to find out if the guy was mad or... looked really hot. “I’ll just, um, I should probably put it in airplane mode now anyway,” he said, as if he needed some excuse to justify why he was pulling his phone back out. God, he was ridiculous.
Jen: What’s happening? Tell me it’s not just his ass that’s hawt!
Jen: I hope you’re ignoring me because you’re busy flirting with him!!
Jen: Buy the internet on the flight!
Jen: Pleeeease! I’ll pay for it.
Jen: I need a play-by-play of how it goes with Mr. Great Ass.
Zach: Omg stop! Right now he probably thinks I have an obsessively clingy girlfriend! Or worse!
Jen: What’s worse than a clingy girlfriend?
A nosy best friend , he wanted to type. But he didn’t because that was mean and untrue. God, he hated his anxiety, hated feeling like an asshole.
Zach: Gah! I don’t know! Just... I’m scared he’s going to look over and read the screen. I’m already acting cagey keeping my phone slightly angled.
Jen: Okay okay fine! You’ll be fine. You should distract yourself with flirting. I’ll see you when you get home. Love you.
Zach: Love you too!
Zach put his phone in airplane mode and hastily shoved it back in his pocket, only to realize that now he had nothing to do with his nervous energy other than fidget with his hands, which was absolutely no good. Fidgety people annoyed him, and he was sure the same was true for everyone else.
He spied the airline’s branded magazine in the seat-back pocket in front of him and snagged it. The cover teased articles on horseback riding in Montana and some winter-themed recipe. Without really registering many of the words, Zach flipped through the pages, hoping desperately he didn’t appear as nervous as he felt.
“I wish they still had those SkyMall catalogs,” Mr. Great Ass said, startling Zach slightly but also... God, something about the sound of his voice made the back of Zach’s neck tingle.
“R-right?” Zach managed, somehow achieving a single, intelligible word, though not feeling brave enough to look over at his seatmate just yet. “You never know when you need a $2,000 automatic water bowl fountain for your cat. I mean, I don’t have a cat, but if I did, they’d totally be getting one.” Oh god, Zach couldn’t stop himself from sounding like a rambling moron.
Mr. Great Ass chuckled. “And a rhinestone-encrusted collar too, right?”
“Absolutely, heh. Only the best for... Fluffy. God, nope. Nope, sorry, their name would not be Fluffy. I don’t know where that came from. I, um, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a killer conversationalist. So you can just”—he waved a hand emphatically, the magazine slumping before he grabbed for it awkwardly—“ignore me. I’ll shut up now.” Shit, his face was probably beet red, and he definitely felt a hundred percent warmer than he had five minutes ago.
Mr. Great Ass laughed again. “At least you didn’t say Whiskers. That would be a terrible name for a cat.”
Zach nodded, smiling, then finally risked a glance over at his seatmate. Holy... hot. This was not good. Nope. Terrible. He could feel his pulse skyrocketing and his whole body flushing with heat and the thought of... What if he had to use the barf bag this time too? In front of Mr. Incredibly Hot and Has a Great Ass? His stomach churned just thinking about it.
“Are—are you okay?” Mr. Incredibly Hot and Has a Great Ass asked.
Zach risked another look up, almost grateful to see a full but closely trimmed beard and mustache. He wasn’t a huge fan of facial hair, so that should... help with the attraction factor. He hoped. “I-I . . . s-sorry, I just... I’m not—not a fan of flying.”
Mr. Incredibly Hot and Has a Great Ass smiled warmly at Zach, making his insides melt and his theory of facial hair being off-putting fly right out the window. “Don’t worry. Statistically speaking, it’s the safest way to travel.”
Zach burst out laughing—half amusement and half nerves. “Is that so?” Oh, Jen would die for this.
His seatmate averted his eyes for just a second and shifted slightly in his seat. “I, uh—that’s what I hear, anyway.”
“From Superman ?” Zach stifled a giggle, insanely glad for the universe’s small diversion and sense of humor.
Mr. Incredibly Hot and Has a Great Ass had the grace to look caught dead to rights, and he put his hands palms up, shrugging his shoulders and pursing his lips. “The man is an expert on the subject matter.”
“The fictional man?” Zach raised his eyebrows, enjoying this far, far too much. “Plus, isn’t that statistic a bit out of date—from 1978?”
“Ah!” The man pointed a finger at Zach. “You mock me, yet you know not only the movie it came from but also the exact year it was released. What gives? ”
God, the grin on the man’s face was arresting, and for a moment, Zach couldn’t think of words to say. But then he managed to recover. “My best friend, Jen, is a huge nerd for Superman.”
“A fan by proxy, then.” The man chuckled. “Well, Jen has good taste in superheroes, so I assume she has good taste in friends...” He raised his eyebrows in question and stuck his hand out for Zach to shake. “I’m Drew.”
His voice was rich, his eyes still sparkling with amusement. God, Zach wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to stop staring.
“Zach. I’m Zach,” he said, reaching out to take the man’s hand.
And when their hands touched, Zach felt a surge of heat spark through him, unexpected and a bit exhilarating. Drew’s handshake was firm, as was Zach’s, but Drew was pulling his hand back after a second, his eyes staring down at where their hands had met.
They were both silent for a long moment, Zach awkwardly putting the magazine back in the seat-back pocket and Drew adjusting his watch on his left wrist. Zach’s eyes darted down to Drew’s ring finger—bare and no sign of a tan line. Not that... it meant... It didn’t necessarily mean anything. Besides, his gaydar had never quite worked properly. Maybe Drew hadn’t even felt the spark. Who feels sparks anyway? Isn’t that just... movie and TV nonsense?
“So, uh, Zach”—Drew cleared his throat—“are you flying home or just starting your trip?”
“Ah, I’m heading home to Albuquerque, with a layover in Dallas. You?”
“Changing planes in Pittsburgh to head for Dallas, which is home.”
God, he was from Texas. Zach had to fight a groan and a frown. At least Drew seemed cool, despite his state of residence.
Zach apparently had no control over his facial features right now because Drew was raising an eyebrow at him again .
“You... have opinions about Dallas?” Drew asked, and Zach couldn’t tell if Drew’s tone was amused or mildly challenging.
“Ah... nope. It’s a... I hear it’s a fine city. Lots of great things to do! Great—great people,” Zach said, fumbling for words as his social anxiety flared.
Drew chuckled, and the sound set off a thousand butterflies in Zach’s stomach. “You’ve got a terrible poker face,” Drew said, smiling briefly but then shifting his eyes away. “But, uh, I’m not... I’m not a Cowboys’ fan, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
It seemed like Drew had been about to say something else but then changed his mind. Either way, put one back down in the “pros” column for Drew that he wasn’t a football-lovin’ Texan. “That’s good. Uh, a relief.” Zach laughed nervously.
God, Jen was too up in his head right now. Zach was not here to flirt with a man who may or may not be gay. A man who was currently giving him a broad, amused smile—a killer smile that might kill Zach dead right now before the flight had a chance to kill him.
The butterflies in his stomach suddenly traded out for angry bees when Zach realized the plane was ready for takeoff and already backing up—the flight attendants doing their final checks as the captain announced they would be in the air shortly. His whole body tensed, and he was certain he wasn’t feeling even a trickle from the air vent now. God, it was hot in here, and a bit hard to breathe. He’d somehow missed that terrible moment when they’d just straight up turned the air off. But he could feel it now. The air stale and heavy. And much, much too warm.
The plane shifted and started rolling forward slowly, a behemoth of metal and a million other materials, filled with too many people and their heavy luggage. It was about to start hurtling down the runway at an ungodly speed and then lift into the air like some absolute affront to physics. It just.. .
Zach swallowed thickly.
He didn’t need to reach up to the air vent. It was off. He knew it. And he tried, really tried not to think about the fact that the plane apparently needed that power—the power from dozens of barely trickling air vents—to achieve liftoff.
Zach flexed his hands, stretching out his fingers and curling them back into fists before finally opening them again to set them on his thighs. His stomach clenched as the front of the plane left the ground, and he knew from experience that his stomach muscles would stay in a tight knot until they reached that magical altitude and the plane leveled out again. Then he’d be able to mostly forget that he was tens of thousands of feet above the ground inside of a metal tube that was so heavy it had no right to be airborne.
Zach flinched when he heard Drew’s voice next to him, muffled by the sound of the engines and whatever the other sounds were that were accompanying their ascent. But Drew didn’t seem to notice Zach’s flinch, and he kept talking. Drew’s hand popped into Zach’s field of vision and then out of it again, and Zach realized he must have been pointing out the window.
“I love this part,” said Drew. “I think it’s the way the ground looks from here. See how everything gets smaller, more geometrical the closer you get to the clouds? Ahh, I don’t know, maybe I’m just being a bit fanciful because takeoff is pretty much as close as I can get to knowing what it’d be like to be flying with Superman. Well, other than, like, hang gliding or skydiving, I suppose— Shit, you’re really not okay. Are you okay? Are you breathing?”
“Huh?” Zach said, slightly dazed. His brain seemed to have only one speed—stopped—and his chest was tight and buzzing.
“Y-you’re just—you seemed a bit, uh... frozen in place? Like maybe you were having one of those absent seizures or something, and oh god, I’m so sorry. That’s right. You said you weren’t a fan of flying. That, uh, kind of... seems like an understatement,” Drew said, his tone gentle as he reached over to set a warm hand on top of Zach’s.
The bees and the butterflies were at war inside his body, and he couldn’t tell which way was up. Up. Well, probably the direction the plane was headed. Up—way, way too far in the air for how heavy it was. Any moment now, they were going to drop out of the sky, right?
No. No, it was fine. They were fine. The plane was doing what it was supposed to and—god, did the engines just shut off? Yup. Yup, they were all going to die.
“You’re—you’re really, really tense and—um, I mean, is there anything I can do?”
Zach managed to let out a huff of air, dragging his attention away from their imminent deaths just enough that he became much more aware of Drew’s hand still on top of his. God, why did that feel so good? He shook himself. “Um, keep talking?” Zach turned his head slightly and attempted a half-smile.
“I...” Drew looked a little caught off guard, as though that was the last thing he’d expected Zach to request, but then he smiled softly and nodded, making Zach momentarily forget how to breathe.
Zach managed to inhale shakily, though he didn’t feel like he’d gotten even half a lungful.
Drew gave his hand a light squeeze, and the warmth and tingling from that contact seemed to seep into Zach, letting just a bit of that tension dissipate. “So, um, I guess I could... talk your ear off about Superman?”
Zach was trying to focus on the question, but he was busy wondering if Drew realized his hand was still on Zach’s. God, why was it so... He was just... It was just Drew’s hand touching his, giving it a reassuring squeeze. It wasn’t all that reassuring, but oh, it was so wonderfully distracting. And so was the strong, soothing sound of Drew’s voice.
Zach thought he might just survive this flight after all.