Chapter Nineteen #3
He doesn’t mean to. It happens on impulse, so quickly that Zach isn’t even aware he’s making the decision—like when something hits you on the knee and you can’t help but kick.
Zach kisses Parker, his hands cupping his face.
Parker’s mouth is slack for a beat, and then he presses back with his whole body.
In an instant, Parker is kissing him back.
Zach pulls back with a soft gasp. “Oh my god,” he says. “I’m so sorry, I—”
“Shut up,” Parker says quickly. “Shut up, shut up, shut up—”
Parker kisses him again, cool hands grasping at Zach’s cheeks.
It takes about twenty seconds of this second kiss for Zach to remember that he is self-conscious about not knowing how to kiss.
Parker isn’t, though. Parker kisses him like he could teach a master class on the subject.
He presses into Zach’s space. They nearly go toppling down onto Parker’s bed together.
Zach holds himself up with one hand behind him, the other smoothing against Parker’s cheek.
When they finally pull back again, Parker’s face is flushed. He’s grinning so wide that his eyes crinkle up. Zach’s never seen him smile quite like this. It feels like it’s a smile that’s just for him.
“Wow,” Zach breathes.
Parker laughs, combing one hand through his hair. “I’ve wanted to do that since eighth grade,” he says, rubbing his palm over his face.
This news makes Zach feel a bit like he’s suddenly out of his body. Eighth grade. Eighth grade? The memory of Parker, smaller back then but still taller than the rest of the class, threatening to kick his ass if he ever saw him talking to his sister again.
He pulls back, staring at Parker blankly.
“What?” Zach asks. “What?”
Parker leans back on his arms, his shoulders rounding against his jaw.
He grins sheepishly, the tip of his tongue caught between his teeth.
Which, Zach notices, are perfectly straight.
He’d never thought that he would spend time admiring another boy’s teeth.
But Parker’s teeth are suddenly another reason that Zach wants to kiss him again.
“You tried to, like, beat me up in eighth grade,” Zach says. “Like, for real, beat me up.”
“Yeah,” Parker agrees, chewing on his bottom lip.
He leans forward again, sliding his hands against Zach’s knees.
They’re big, Parker’s hands, and warm, and Zach covers them with his own.
He skips his thumb over Parker’s knuckles.
“Sorry. Sorry. I was thirteen and gay and really mad about my sister getting asked out by the cute redhead in our class.”
Cute redhead. Zach has never considered himself cute, or handsome, or what have you. At most, he’s pretty sure he’s just not ugly, which isn’t a very high bar to reach.
But the only thing that Zach can say is: “What?”
“You were such a loser, and I just…” Parker shrugs, squeezing Zach’s knees.
Zach winces. He knows Parker enough now to know it’s not supposed to be an insult, but he can’t help the way his shoulders tense up. “And me being a loser made you want to kiss me?”
“I’m a loser,” Parker says emphatically. “I like losers.”
Zach laughs, ducking his chin a little. An immense weight lifts off him.
Suddenly, Zach is entirely free of heart attack symptoms. He turns Parker’s hands over in his lap, smoothing his thumb against his palms. When he brings Parker’s hand to his mouth to kiss the back of it, his fingers smell like cigarettes and weed. It’s gross. Zach loves it.
“Sorry you had to wait so long,” Zach says, after a moment, letting their hands rest together on his lap.
Parker leans in and kisses him again, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
When he pulls back Zach almost follows him for another kiss.
He leans his shoulder into Parker’s, squeezing his hand.
“So,” Zach says slowly, after a few beats of silence.
He has to ask the hard question. All of this feels too good to be true.
“No more Dead Boys Club? For good?” The question feels enormously heavy, even as it leaves his mouth.
Parker is quiet, his thumb moving restlessly back and forth over Zach’s knuckles.
“I’m sorry,” he says eventually. He looks up at Zach, their eyes meeting in the dim lamp light. “Fuck… I never really wanted you to… It wasn’t like that. You felt the same way I did, and I was so fucking lonely. I didn’t know how to…”
“I know,” Zach says quickly. “I know. I think I went along with it because I didn’t want to be alone either. And… it was nice having someone know what I was feeling.” He lets out a quick, mirthless laugh. “The only person who wanted to talk to me wanted us to kill ourselves.”
Parker squeezes Zach’s hand tighter. He pulls their hands to his mouth this time, pressing his cool, chapped lips against Zach’s knuckles.
“Okay, well, that’s so off the table now,” he says firmly. “We can be not-alone and alive at the same time. Seriously, I want to talk to you about literally anything else.”
The idea makes Zach want to cry but in a good way for once. “Okay,” he says, voice wobbly.
They stay upstairs in Parker’s room long enough that Zach is sure that people downstairs are starting to miss them. But he can’t even bring himself to care.
He’s alive, and Parker is alive, and everything is good.