He also loved a guy who danced to the lyrics. Look at him! All loose limbs and easy movement, living each beat through his body.
For fuck’s sake. He could cartwheel too.
Beauty like this shouldn’t be allowed. It was almost enough to blow. His. Mind.
Jack breezed barefoot through the garden and turned his phone off, a playful grin stretching his lips. “Know what’s better than listening to music?”
“If you say creating music, it’s official. You’re my soulmate.”
“Where’s your guitar?”
A few minutes later, Jack returned with Zach’s guitar in one hand and a notebook and pen in the other. Zach tuned up, strummed and warmed his voice.
Jack stilled, pen on the paper, and gazed at him. “Your voice is incredible.”
That stroke to his ego had Zach falling harder. “Yours too.” Good, at least. Decent.
A wry look. “Are you being honest?”
And he was all about honesty. So, like, a good person. Was there anything wrong with him?
Zach murmured, “I mean, you’re in tune. Trust me, not everyone is, even if they love music. My brother’s sort-of-boyfriend, for example.” He grimaced.
“That bad?”
“I’ll have to give him lessons.” Zach sang, “Let’s make up a song.”
Jack hummed and tossed the paper and pen between them. “We need words that . . .”
“Mean something?”
Jack’s earring caught the sun and his smile twinkled. “Exactly. And the best place to find meaning?”
“The heart.”
“Philosophy.”
Zach stopped plucking strings, and Jack lifted his face to the universe and opened his arms. “Why do we wear clothes, when no other animal does? Can plants understand us? Is my view of blue the same as Zach’s?”
Big questions.
Jack winked at him. “If you were born with another name, would you have another personality?”
Holy shit. “Yes! Yes, you totally would. Names are powerful.”
“Ah, now there’s passion in your eye. Let’s channel it.”
“It’s like, take Brandon . . .” Zach surfed his feelings on how sensible and solid that name was. How good. “Now imagine if he’d been called something else, like . . . like Blaze. Or Onyx. He’d be just as insanely good looking, but I bet he’d leave work at the office. Bet he’d have a better sense of fashion. Bet he’d find the biggest laughs, the biggest cries, every day.”
Jack’s laugh was a roar, golden hair waving around his face. A man who felt fiercely. A lion.
Zach wanted to be part of his pride.
Damn, he couldn’t wait to tell Brandy all about Jack.
Although, maybe not.
He didn’t want to rub what he’d found in his face. Not until Brandy had romance of his own.
He’d take Brandy out to Georgie. Let the sparks fly.
What would that look like? Would romance reduce Brandon’s intellect to stutters and incomplete sentences? Would he fold into the grips of madness?
“. . . Zach?”
“Hmm?”
“What are you thinking about?”
How hard it’d be not to share this with Brandy. Just . . . Brandy had such a way of listening.
“Lyrics. I have lyrics.”
“Let’s hear ‘em, then.”
Zach danced his fingers over the guitar. He didn’t think his words, he felt them.
Does your name belong to you?
Or only those who use it?
If I use it in my dreams,
Do you exist there too?
* * *
Your name
It’s like a game.
I have no shame.
I am to blame
* * *
When I make fun of yours
am I making fun of me?
When you laugh out mine
Do I belong to thee?
* * *
My name
Make it your game.
Your candle, your flame.
Jack’s voice was a low rumble. “Zach.”
Said to make a point. Said to jam his throat.
Zach raised a brow. Totally didn’t imagine that golden-haired Thor-like god ravishing him amongst the cosmos. Or sending them over the cliff in their passions.
“I hope you use my name a lot.”
Zach couldn’t help it. He tried to help it. But he couldn’t.
Brandy was right there, cooking for them, shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows, smile brighter than the all the lamps put together—and there were five on in the living room alone. And he was asking about his day.
It spilled out like treasure from a broken safe. “Jack spent the day with me.”
Shit.
Where was that ounce of restraint? Noah would not approve.
He shifted, holding his weight on his good foot, the other stuffed into one of Brandy’s sheep-skin slipper-sock-thingies.
“Go on,” Brandy said.
Well, since he asked . . . “We hung out in the garden, listening to music. Creating it. We sang and asked the big questions.”
Brandy had stopped chopping. He readjusted his grip on the knife and started again, slowly, with a bite to the wooden board. “Big questions?”
“Anything. Everything. Could we ever know what it’s like to be a tree? A cat? Bacteria?”
“Bacteria?”
“Does a vegetable feel pain?”
Brandy paused. “Were you high?”
“What is high?”
“So you’re still high.”
“No! Brandy, Brandy. These are the questions of life!”
“They are the questions of someone with too much time on his hands.”
“Where’s your sense of wonder? What questions burn inside you?”
Brandy met his eyes, then released his breath slowly, returning his attention to the zucchini. “Did you derive any answers? Will you ever know what it’s like to be bacteria?”
