Chapter Text
January, 2003
Zach pulled his car into the crumbling parking lot and hit his brakes as soon as he got a full view of the brick building in front of him. It was low, perhaps two stories, with a flat roof and the faded remains of an old ad that had been painted on the side of the building (Apex Power Tools—Driller? I Hardly Know Her!). Zach guessed it must have advertised the building’s former function as a manufacturing plant.
The place was little more than a wreck, with half the windows on the second floor busted out. Zach suspected there had to be rats inside; he suppressed a reactive shudder and looked away, maneuvering his car around and toward the first visible door he found. Looking at the place, he was unconvinced the walls wouldn't just collapse to the ground if he slammed the door too hard, so he parked on the side of the lot away from the building. There was no way he was going to risk damage to his Honda. Sure, it was a complete piece of shit, but it ran, and it had gotten him to LA from Pittsburgh two years ago with almost no trouble at all. Getting out of the car and locking it, he pulled up his pants and took a deep breath to steel himself. He approached the entrance with some trepidation. The door, a reinforced steel thing situated atop a set of five concrete stairs, was unlocked. He pulled it open—it was lighter than it looked—and stepped inside carefully.
Once inside he saw that the original manufacturing floor had been subdivided into units, with walls haphazardly constructed of unfinished drywall set inside wood frames with cheap aluminum doors built in at intervals. Zach set off in the only direction he had an option to—straight ahead—keeping his wits about him for any sign of occupation, rodent or human.
He followed the corridor to the end and found another, perpendicular to it. “Hello? Reid?”
“Zach?” a voice called, off to his left.
Zach looked and was more relieved to see his friend than he ought to have been. “Jesus, man, what the hell kind of place is this?”
“It's great huh?” Reid said with his lop-sided grin. He beckoned for Zach to join him and disappeared through the doorway.
The place was certainly large enough—probably 3,000 square feet, with twenty-foot ceilings and banks of windows that faced south, allowing for plenty of light. The floors were an old, beat-up, wood parquet that would probably refinish really nicely, and… what the hell was he doing seeing the charm in this place? It was, unequivocally, a shit hole. There was trash piled in one corner and a pair of pigeons roosting on a set of drippy water pipes overhead. They looked like they might have operated as a fire suppression system once upon a time but were now little more than a vector for the next worldwide pandemic. And it was hot as balls in here.
“This isn't a rehearsal space, it’s a squat,” Zach said.
“One man’s hovel is another man’s palace,” Reid said with a laugh, and launched himself at an overstuffed purple sofa that stood forlornly in the middle of the floor.
“Or building code violation,” Zach quipped.
“You just refuse to see the potential,” Reid said airily. He produced a lacrosse ball from somewhere and began tossing it up in the air and catching it.
“Oh great, you made it!” Zach turned to see his friend Babar enter the space. “What do you think?” he asked excitedly.
“I think I need to update my tetanus booster.”
“Don’t be such a snob, Zachary. Anyway, we all said we needed somewhere to work on our shit, and this place is nearly free. My uncle just bought the building to convert it into condos, and he said we could stay until they get around to refurbishing this part of it.”
“How long will that take?”
Babar shrugged. “I dunno, something about asbestos testing?”
“Asbestos testing? Jesus Christ, you guys!”
“Relax, he’s kidding,” Reid said, sitting up.
“As far as you know,” Babar added with a manic twinkle in his eyes.
“I hate you both – why did I even come here?”
“Because you’re an out of work actor and you feel the need to practice your craft amongst those who are your peers?” Babar asked.
Smart ass. Zach cocked a hip and rested his hand on it. “Honey, no one is my peer,” he said, and tossed his head. That got a laugh, at least.
“If you don’t want to go in on the place, Zach, that’s fine,” Reid said. “Just don’t make up your mind until you hear the acoustics in here.” He rose and went to stand in a spot at the front beneath the windows, straightening his torso out and clearing his throat before launching into a soliloquy from Macbeth that made the hairs on Zach’s neck rise. He was fully twenty yards away and speaking conversationally, but Zach could hear him as well as if he was speaking right into his ear.
Zach looked around for a sound system before catching himself. “Holy shit, that’s amazing.” He looked up at the vaulted ceiling with wonder.
“Right?” Reid said with a laugh. “And the light in here in the evenings has to be seen to be believed.”
“So, are you in?” Babar asked, coming up behind Zach and resting a hand on the back of his neck.
“How much?” Zach asked.
“My uncle just needs us to pay for the utilities and the insurance. Thousand a month.”
“A thousand?” Zach balked. He was already working two jobs and living with two other guys to make ends meet; that money would be the difference between him affording health insurance or not. It might as well have been ten times that amount.
“Less if we get a few more people,” Reid pointed out.
Babar frowned, clearly not too enamored with the idea of sharing the place with any more people, but Zach couldn’t sympathize. “Dude, the more the merrier as far as I’m concerned.”
“Fine, fine,” Babar acquiesced. “We’ll just make them pay a little more.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Zach agreed.
“I think I know a guy who’d be perfect,” Reid said with a grin.
----
Within a week their new “performance space” was more hospitable. Zach made Reid get rid of the pigeons before he’d set foot inside again. He also contributed a few folding chairs and a rickety old card table to their ragtag collection of furnishings, and he was impressed to see that someone (it turned out to be Reid) had also brought in a mid-sized dorm refrigerator for beer and soft drinks.
One day he arrived to find Babar perched atop a tall ladder in the corner, muttering to himself and wielding a pair of pliers over the very large fan that had been set into the wall near the ceiling. He had the thing’s motor open and was monkeying around with its works and wires or something—Zach couldn’t tell, but it looked dangerous. “What the hell are you doing, trying to electrocute yourself?” he asked.
Babar turned his sweaty countenance on Zach with a condescending look. “I’m trying to get this damn thing to work if you must know,” he said haughtily. “It’s an exhaust fan – it’ll take some of the hot air out of here.”
“I hope it’s switched off. Where should we send your body?”
“Fuck you, I interned with a lighting crew one summer in college.”
Shaking his head, Zach crossed the room and grabbed up an old push broom that had apparently come with the place and began sweeping the floors. There was a constant layer of unpleasantly gritty dust about the place, deposited by the Santa Anas, and it was all Zach could do to keep up with it. The broken windows near the ceiling probably didn't help, but maybe the fan could. He silently cheered Babar on.
The door banged open and Reid came in with a couple of guys Zach had never seen before. He straightened up and watched as they brought another couch in while Reid held the door open. The newcomers were both white guys, blond, about the same height. One of them had lighter hair and a slighter build than the other, whose back was to Zach.
“You need help—is it heavy?” Zach asked. It looked heavy – like they were struggling a bit.
“Naw, man, we’ve got it.” The guy with his back to him turned momentarily to address him. He smiled and Zach caught the way the skin around his eyes bunched up as he did, as if his entire face was in on the deal. Zach straightened his shoulders and stuck his chest out just a little as he wandered over to them.
They set the couch down at a right angle to the purple one to form an L-shape; as Mr. Eye Crinkles straightened out the cushions, Zach could see it was a pull-out, which explained the heaviness. “I’m Zach.”
“Oh, sorry. This is my friend, Patrick, from class, and his friend, uh…” Reid waved his hand around vaguely.
“Chris,” Crinkles said, wiping his hand on his jeans and holding it out to Zach; it was warm and dry when he shook it, callused.
“Nice to meet you, Chris.” Zach shook Patrick’s hand as well. “Patrick. The guy up on the ladder trying to electrocute himself is Babar.”
“I am not trying to electrocute myself,” Babar said defensively, apparently putting some finishing touches on whatever wiring he was working on, “I am using my superior technical skills to get this damn exhaust fan to work! Now if someone could hit that switch over there, maybe we can get some of this air circulating in here.”
Zach obliged, jogging over to hit a switch on the wall beneath Babar’s ladder. There was a screech as the disused and ancient mechanism engaged, and after a moment it became clear it was moving in the wrong direction. Babar spluttered as it blew bits of dried leaves and dust right into his face. Zach lost the battle not to laugh as he hit the power switch to turn it off again. “Man, I wish I had a camera,” he said.
“Fuck you, at least it’s working.”
“Who wants a beer?” Zach offered, and went to the fridge to fetch them. They settled in on the two couches, Zach and Chris at either end of the new pull-out and the others on the big purple couch that someone along the way had nicknamed Barney.
“What’s the story behind this place, anyway?” Patrick asked.
As Reid gave them the background on the place, Zach couldn’t help but watch Chris drink his beer. This close, he was even more attractive than Zach initially thought. He looked like the quintessential California boy, with longish, dark blond hair curling around his ears and collar (Zach wondered if it lightened up in the summer), and big blue eyes that paid avid attention to whomever was speaking. He tended to lick his full lips a lot—four times by Zach’s count and only in the last few minutes—so naturally that became the one thing Zach focused on. Chris took a pull on his beer and Zach was so distracted he lost the thread of the conversation. He shifted his focus to whomever was talking at the moment.
“So we’re planning on using it as a performance space,” Reid said. “We thought it’d be great to have a private place to workshop things if we want, or until Babar’s uncle kicks us out of here anyway.”
“Or the place falls over, whichever comes first,” Zach added, relieved he could join the conversation and not seem like some perv staring at a complete stranger, which he totally was. “But the acoustics in here are too amazing, and it really grows on you. You interested, Patrick?”
“It sounds pretty sweet, but how much is it a month?” They told him. “I dunno if I can afford it,” he said with a disappointed look on his face. “Money’s just really tight right now.”
“I get it,” Reid said, and Zach made a commiserating face, though he was secretly really bummed – they needed to find at least two more people to make this affordable for him as well.
“It’d be less if you had another person to go in on it though, right?” Chris said out of the blue.
“Sure,” Reid said.
“You want another guy? I mean, I know I was just tagging along today, but it’d be pretty cool to have a place like this, not to have to rent a room in a basement somewhere downtown.”
“Or in your parents’ basement, huh?” Patrick said with a laugh, reaching out with his foot to nudge Chris’s knee. Chris grinned at him and made suitable agreement noises.
“So you’re an actor?” Zach asked. Of course he was, Zach thought, look at him.
“Yeah, kinda.” His cheeks flushed fetchingly. “Not that I’ve been in anything yet really.”
“Yes you have, you were on an episode of ER,” Patrick said.
“Blink and you missed me,” Chris said dismissively. He sank back against the couch cushions, pulling the neck of his t-shirt up to cover his chin.
“On the contrary—your portrayal of ‘Tweaking Teen’ moved me beyond words, Christopher, do not sell yourself short.”
“I will have you know I played ‘Pothead Teen,’ and the fact you don’t remember my finely nuanced performance wounds me to my core.”
“I apologize for my thoughtlessness.” They both dissolved into laughter. “Hey, at least you’ve had a job; there are little ghosts living on my resume,” Patrick said.
“Everyone’s got to start somewhere,” Zach pointed out.
“But not everyone gets to portray a cat-phobic male witch, Zachary,” Babar said.
“Man, fuck you!” Zach crowed with laughter. “It was a job.”
“A job on what?” Patrick asked.
“Some television show called Charmed.”
“Oh, I know that one—my sister is crazy about that show!” Patrick said. “Plus it’s got Alyssa Milano in it. Did you have any scenes with her?”
Zach nodded. “A few. She’s really nice. We got to wrestle around a little.”
“Man, I’m jealous—she is so hot,” Patrick said enthusiastically.
“Oh yeah, uh-huh, sure,” Zach said half-heartedly. He never knew when to broach the subject of his sexuality with new acquaintances, so his default response was to feign being hetero until he knew if they were cool or not. It was more a survival tactic than anything, especially in this business. He glanced at Chris, who was looking at him with closer scrutiny than before, and he wondered if that meant anything. He held his gaze for a beat longer than was strictly necessary, and Chris was the first to look away.
“So are you interested?” Patrick asked, prodding Chris with the toe of his sneaker.
“I dunno maybe.”
“Come on, you should, you should, you should,” Patrick kept poking at Chris’s calf with his toe.
“It’s how much?”
“If you’re in, two hundred a month,” Reid said.
“I dunno if I can swing it.”
“What, so you sacrifice for a little while—we all are,” Patrick pointed out.
“Yeah, but I mean is it this space or eat Top Ramen each night? I mean…”
Patrick blew air out of his mouth in an unimpressed manner. “Like your old man’d let you starve.”
“Man, shut up,” Chris said, finally removing his leg from the range of Patrick’s shoe. He looked annoyed.
“Who’s his old man?” Babar asked.
“He’s no one, you know, he’s just an actor. We’re not rich or anything.” Zach could see a flush growing on Chris’s cheeks, extending down his neck.
“He was on CHiPs—he played the Captain or whatever.”
“Sergeant, and shut up already.”
“Robert Pine is your dad?” Zach blurted out, ignoring his usual instinct to stay out of such things.
“Yeah,” Chris mumbled; his cheeks were the color of overcooked lobster now.
“That’s so cool!” Zach couldn’t resist bouncing up and down on the couch enthusiastically. Chris’s dad was the kind of working-man’s actor that Zach hoped he could be: he worked constantly, he was consistently good, and any of them would be lucky to have half the career he’d had. “Growing up with an actor must’ve been so cool. Did you always know you wanted to do this?”
“No, not until college, really. My family didn't put any pressure on at all.”
“Pressure?”
“Yeah, my mom was an actress, and her mom too, but I was never made to feel like I had to do this or anything. I just liked it.”
“You’re seriously blowing my mind. I swear everyone thought I was a freak growing up for wanting this, or an idiot. Or both.”
“Same here,” Reid said, and Patrick nodded in agreement.
“Third generation Hollywood, that’s like epic, man.”
“Tell it to my bank account,” Chris said.
“This is your destiny, Chris,” Patrick said. “The family business. So how could you not go in on this place?” Chris rolled his eyes. “Hone your craft? Work on your instrument? Or something?” Patrick was grinning wide, completely full of shit, and he knew it.
Chris shook his head, but Zach thought he might be on the fence anyway. “Do what you have to do. But if we get just one or two more people in on it, it’ll only go down from there. And if you need it, I’ll spot you the first month,” Zach said impetuously.
“I can’t ask you to do that.” He stared up at the ceiling for a moment. “OK fine, I’ll uh, I’ll find the money somehow.”
“Awesome!” Patrick enthused.
“This is going to be so great!” Zach said, smiling wide. Chris’s answering smile wasn’t as enthusiastic, but he looked thoughtful and hopeful.
----
Zach pulled into his usual parking spot outside the Grimy Corps Playhouse. Chris had coined the name the week before because of the thin layer of gritty dust that lay over everything like a shroud. Nothing they did could get rid of it – they were just going to have to wait until the Santa Anas eased come Spring.
As he approached the door, he could hear Babar holding forth, quite loudly. The piece sounded Shakespearean, though Zach didn't immediately recognize the play.
“Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;”
Babar was practically manic as he strode back and forth up on the stage—yes, stage; his mom had decided to spoil her baby and sprung for the rental of several risers, which had been delivered the week before. Zach had to admit they helped create the right kind of atmosphere, though he feared imminent collapse given the way Babar was striding back and forth.
He went on, gesticulating wildly, “To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thought
Imagine howling: 'tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathed worldly life
That age, ache, penury and imprisonment
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death.”
By the last line, he’d sunk to his knees, and had gotten such a head of steam up that he was now panting. He looked up at Patrick and Chris, who were sitting on Barney the purple couch and said, “Well?”
“You sure that’s the way you want to play it?” Patrick said.
“What do you mean? The guy’s talking about his death, he’s upset.”
“Yeah, but he’s trying to tell his sister he doesn’t want to die to save her virtue, don’t you think that ought to carry a bit more gravitas in delivery?”
“No, no, no,” Babar protested, heading down stage to stand over Patrick, hands on his hips.
Zach watched from the doorway, reluctant to enter and be drawn into the drama. Apparently feeling the same, Chris rose from the couch and retreated to the quasi kitchenette they'd set up beside the industrial sink on the one inside wall. When he spotted Zach he threw him a look that said, Holy crap what is going on here.
Zach returned what he hoped was interpreted as an It’s Babar, man, you know he's a drama queen shrug.
Apparently it was successful because Chris rolled his eyes as if in agreement. He beckoned Zach over with a toss of his head as he fussed with a cheap Mr. Coffee machine someone had brought in. Zach leaned up against the table beside the sink with his arms crossed, watching as Chris removed the basket with its old wet grounds and dumped them in the garbage can. “What is that piece?” he asked at a near whisper.
“Claudio’s soliloquy from Measure for Measure,” Chris answered. “I’d say it needs work.”
“Ya think?”
“Well, what he lacks in subtlety he more than makes up for in…” Chris rolled his hand around on his wrist, trying to search for the right word.
“Bathos?”
“That’s it.” Chris pointed at him moved to the sink to rinse the coffee pot out.
They’d only known each other for a couple of weeks, but already Zach found Chris to be one of the more interesting people he'd ever met. They had similar approaches to acting and found themselves on the same side of more group discussions than not. The fact Chris had studied English lit in college had also contributed to a number of lively discussions from which the others tended to flee as soon as one or both of them got up a head of steam. These discussions usually ending only because one of them had to leave.
Zach watched Chris fill the reservoir on the coffee maker with cold water from the pot, the fingertips on his left hand resting lightly on the edge of the mechanism to hold it steady. Chris's fingers were long and deft, his hands large, facts that occasionally caused a high degree of distraction, like now, when he was saying something that Zach didn't catch.
“Hmm? What?”
“I said are there any more coffee filters over there?”
Zach turned to look through the assortment of disposable dishes and dry snacks on the table and found the packet. “It's empty,” he said after opening it up.
“Crap. Oh well my dad always says necessity is the mother of invention.” Chris cast about the table and found a roll of paper towels. Pulling two of them off the roll, he carefully lined the basket of the coffee maker and spooned in some coffee grounds from a can that sat nearby. The maker sizzled and hissed when he hit the power button, and eventually a stream of dark liquid flowed forth, filling the area with rich aromas.
Behind them, Babar was complaining loudly to Patrick about their varying interpretations of the scene—he apparently had an audition for a play being workshopped downtown—and it was clear his opinions were not getting the attention he felt he deserved, as his voice was getting shriller. Patrick, as usual, kept his voice low and even and argued his points without emotion or judgment. Naturally, Babar had no use for them.
“He always this histrionic?” Chris asked with a smile.
“You think this is bad, you should hear him argue with his dad. It’s like the Pakistani Honeymooners.”
“I don't know if I want to,” Chris said as the coffee maker burped out a final splash of coffee into the pot. “You want a cup?”
Zach nodded, grabbing two mugs from the drain board and setting them down. Chris poured, then set the pot back on the burner and poured a measure of non-dairy creamer into his, using a nearby plastic knife to stir it. Zach blew on his own for a moment to cool it before taking a swig from the mug. The liquid flowed over his tongue, still too hot, but as he swallowed and his taste buds engaged, he winced visibly.
“God, this stuff is the worst,” Chris said, a pained expression on his face. “I swear I know how to make coffee—I don’t know what happened.”
“Don't blame yourself, man, it’s cheap, awful stuff.”
Chris took another sip and frowned. “I miss Starbucks,” he said wistfully.
Zach raised his eyebrows questioningly.
“Had to give up something to afford to chip in on this place.”
“Ah.” Zach raised the mug to his lips, caught a whiff of the god awful swill and poured it down the sink. Behind them, Babar was whining about his process, and Patrick looked like he wanted to strangle him.
Zach looked at Chris and made a calculation. “Hey, you wanna get out of here and get some real coffee? I'm buying.”
Chris looked simultaneously hopeful and disappointed. “Naw, man I can't let you buy me coffee.”
“Sure you can. Consider it my thank you for joining our merry little band of players. You're saving us all some bucks, the least I can do is treat you to a coffee.”
“OK, sure.”
A smile dawning on Chris's face was something to behold; his mouth widened and them the corners turned up, pushing his eyes to crinkle adorably. It was like the sunrise, Zach thought, and when the hell had he gotten so corny?
“Starbucks?” Chris suggested.
“Nah, there's this great place near where I live in Silver Lake. One taste and you'll forget all about Starbucks.”
----
“LAMILL?” Chris pronounced when they met at the front door of the place in question. They'd driven over in their respective cars since Chris would have to leave by 4.
“More like Nirvana,” Zach said, heading for the door. “Come on in. What's your pleasure?”
“Americano?”
Zach nodded approvingly and went to the counter to order, leaving Chris to choose a table. He took one in a sunny corner, with a chess board painted on its surface. Zach deposited the coffees and took the seat oppositehim. Chris excused himself to add a splash of cream to his drink and came back. He took a sip and his eyes rolled back in his head in ecstasy.
“Oh my god, this is absolute heaven.”
Zach grinned. “You think that's good you should try their house blend. It's a life changer.”
“I believe it.” Chris took another blissful sip. “Aw man, now I'll never be able to go back to that other crap.”
“Yeah you will. But you'll know there's something better out there and some day—some day, Christopher—you will find your way back.”
“Ha ha, you're funny. You sure you shouldn't have been a screenwriter? You've got quite the ear for dialogue.”
“What, with this gorgeous face?” Zach said expansively. “With the too large nose and the Burt the muppet eyebrows? Are you kidding?”
“Face made for radio huh?”
Zach smiled.
“I dunno, it's a pretty nice face,” Chris said, biting his lip.
Their eyes met for a second and Zach could swear he was serious. “Nahhh,” he said self-deprecatingly. He'd never got the hang of being complimented and accepting it graciously. “Not as nice as yours.”
Chris looked down at his hands surrounding the coffee mug and shook his head. His hair fell forward over his face but Zach could see his cheeks coloring.
They drank their coffees without talking for a few minutes. Chris began fingering the edges of the paint on the chessboard on the tabletop
“You know they have chess pieces behind the counter if you ask. You just have to leave them a $20 deposit until you give them back. Do you play?”
“I do.”
“You wanna?”
Chris shrugged. “Sure.”
Zach rose and went to the counter, trading his car keys for the pieces—he’d used his last twenty on the coffees. He returned to the table with the chess pieces; they were all jumbled together in a cloth bag so he dumped them out on the tabletop. He took a black and a white pawn in each hand, switched them around behind his back, and held his hands out to Chris. He chose Zach's left hand; it was black.
“Guess I go first,” Zach said, taking a seat. They sorted through their pieces and set up the board. “Do you play much?”
“Not in the last couple years,” Chris said, staring out the window. “Been a little busy.”
“I get it,” Zach moved one of his pawns and Chris mirrored the move Zach moved another.
“So you live around here?” Chris asked.
“I do. It's the part of town that most reminds me of back home.”
“Where is that?”
“Pittsburgh.”
“Nice. I'm from here.”
“So I guessed.”
“Really? Am I that much of a type?”
“Oh, it's not like that,” Zach said, moving his queen-side knight out, “it's more of an attitude. Or an affect, maybe. People out here are preternaturally laid back. You never see that in people from back east, even the ones who have been here for a while.”
“Because you're all so uptight? Isn't that a boring cliché?” Chris moved his queen.
“It became a cliché for a reason, right? But it's not entirely what I meant. Easterners have this awareness about them, not to say that Californians do not, it's just that we are a lot less subtle about it.” He sipped at his coffee. “It's like the difference between a hawk and an owl. They're both predators, but the hawk is just really obvious about it, you know?”
“And owls are just kind of cute and fluffy and laid back?”
“Until they eat you.”
Chris laughed. “That sounds about right.”
They'd been playing through their entire conversation and now that Zach was paying attention, he saw Chris had left his rook vulnerable, so he took it. Chris shook his head and moved his bishop in to compensate.
“Where'd you go to school?” Chris asked as he drained the rest of his coffee.
“Carnegie Mellon,” Zach said. “The drama program.”
“It's a good program.”
“Thanks. And you?”
“UC Berkeley.” Zach whistled low, impressed. Chris smiled proudly. “I was an English major, as you know, but then a buddy talked me into auditioning for a play he was directing and…man, that was it. I was hooked.”
“What was the play?”
“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.”
“Tom Stoppard, cool.” Zach made an impressed face.
“Not really I played Hamlet.”
Zach laughed. “Well, you can still say you played Hamlet on stage.”
“Ha, yeah.”
Zach moved a chess piece, followed by Chris, who asked, “So what about you? When did you get bit by the acting bug?”
“When I was in middle school, I took this summer theater program. I didn't want to at all but my mom insisted I needed to get out of the house, she was worried.”
“Why?”
“Zach scratched his nose and stared at the board, making his vision go deliberately blurry. “My dad died when I was ten. I was kind of… angry about it, I guess you'd say.”
“Aw I'm sorry, that's… That’s rough on a kid, to lose a parent.”
Zach shrugged and rolled his neck, his usual tell that a conversation was getting uncomfortably close to emotional. When he glanced up at Chris, there was real compassion in his eyes, though, and understanding. Zach couldn't look away. “It is. But the program, it really took me outside myself, and I was able to cope. By the end of the summer I was jumping around on the living room furniture pretending I was Puck, so I guess my mom was right.” He laughed and Chris smiled his crinkly smile and Zach could practically feel his heart flutter in his chest.
Zach picked up his coffee and noticed it was empty. “Aw crap, I'm on E. You want another? They've got free refills of the coffee of the day before five.”
Chris glanced at his watch. “I can't, I've got to leave in fifteen minutes,” he said regretfully.
Zach cursed as he looked up at the clock above the counter. “You're sure I can't entice you with my expert chess playing?”
Chris appeared truly torn as he gestured vaguely over his shoulder. “I can't be late,” he muttered. “At this hour it'll take an hour to get to Pasadena.”
Zach got it. He remembered Chris tended bar somewhere, though he never found out exactly where. “No, of course,” he said, disappointed their time together had to end. “You were beating me anyway,” he added, gesturing at the table.
Chris smirked. “I was wondering when you'd notice. It’s ‘mate in three moves.”
Zach considered the board, feeling stunned. It hadn't looked like Chris was really paying attention to the game, the way he'd haphazardly thrown his pieces around, but clearly he'd been wrong. He looked up at Chris, his already high opinion rising yet again. “You sneaky thing.”
Chris shrugged and rose, grabbing for his messenger bag and keys. “Owls and hawks," he said, smiling at Zach.
Once again they were caught in a moment of just staring at each other, and Zach wasn't crazy, right, there was some interest there? His heart began hammering in his chest as Chris pushed his chair in against the table and he blurted, “Have dinner with me.”
Chris looked surprised and then a little regretful and Zach's heart sank. “I've gotta go…”
It wasn't no. “Not now, but like sometime you know? I think I like you.” God that was lame, Zach thought, was he going to ask him to prom next?
“Oh um, ok. Th-that's…” Chris blushed and smiled and stuttered and Zach's heart sped up. “Yeah, um, ha!” He looked up at the ceiling and blew air out of his lips, ruffling the long bangs that hung in his eyes. “Great. That would be great, actually.”
“Yeah?” Zach felt relief flood through him. “Awesome! I know this really cool pizza place around here, they make the dough with New York tap water, and it’s the best! Or there's this little taqueria up the block I've been meaning to try. It's vegetarian though, so if you're not into that I get it. Or…”
“I'm sure we'll figure it out, Chris interrupted, saving Zach from himself. “I'll see you on Friday anyway, right? We'll compare schedules then.”
“Yeah, OK. See you then.”
Chris raised his hand. “Bye,” he said, then walked away.
Zach totally did not check out his ass as he walked out the door, he was just making sure he got to his car OK.