Page 12 of Fear of Flying

“No! I thought I was going to die, Jen. The turbulence was, ugh, so bad. But he talked me through it. And held my hand.”

Zach heard a muffled noise on the other end of the line.

“Did you just scream into your pillow?”

“Yes.”

“My ears thank you.” Zach grinned. “But, um, look, I gotta go. And, yes, before you yell at me, of course I’ll give you ALL the details as soon as I get home. But god... I have another flight ahead of me, and I want to not think about it for a while, especially since all the flights are delayed. Meanwhile, I’m going to go enjoy my kinda-but-probably-not-really-a-date-but-he-did-call-me-gorgeous dinner. Love you, bye!”

Zach hit the end button just as the next squeal was coming through the phone, and he couldn’t help the grin from taking over his face. Jen would kill him later for that, but he didn’t care right now. His heart was still racing as he turned and walked back to where Drew was sitting. Zach sat down, this time facing Drew, one leg hitched up underneath him just like Drew.

“Everything good?” Drew asked, looking up at Zach.

“Yeah. Yep. I’ll just have to remember to text her later when I finally have flight information. She’s my ride from the airport,” he said, sliding his phone into his pocket and then nodding in the direction of Drew’s phone. “Uh, anyway... find anything good?”

Drew’s eyes were sparkling again and staring straight at him. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I did.”

Chapter Five

Drew

Drew watched in amusement as Zach answered the phone with a quick “hello” and then immediately had to hold the phone away from his ear because the scream coming out of it was so loud.

“OH MY GOD, ZACH. I thought you’d died of a panic attack or something. Jesus, I was worried. I saw about the storm on the news.”

Drew could hear Jen clearly for a moment, until Zach stood and walked a short distance from where Drew was still sitting. Zach gave him a sort of cringing smile, as though he was apologizing, but Drew waved his hand, hopefully letting Zach know it wasn’t a big deal.

It was sweet, really sweet actually, that Zach had a friend who cared about him that much, and Drew felt a pang of jealousy that he... didn’t. Not really. There were his Discord friends, sure, but it wasn’t quite the same. Maybe that was because he traveled all the time for work, and other than it being tiring and draining mentally, traveling wasn’t really a noteworthy event for him. Still, it would be nice to have someone in his life who cared about him as much as Jen seemed to care about Zach.

Drew tried to bring his attention back to his phone, to focus on picking a place for them to have dinner, he really did, but he was much, much too distracted stealing glances at Zach without trying to come off as weird or creepy. His mind reeling with... he didn’t even know what. All the thoughts. All the thoughts about everything.

All he knew was that looking at Zach and seeing his nervous smiles as he talked to his best friend—hell, just looking at the man was distracting enough. Gorgeous and adorable and so many more things he didn’t even understand yet but was inexplicably desperate to learn.

God, what was happening to him? All his life...

He lifted his head again to look at Zach. Attraction, dating, relationships—those things were just not a part of his life, not even remotely. But now...

Was he foolish to even be contemplating... whatever this was? It was just dinner, a thank you simply for holding Zach’s hand, right? Okay, it had been more than just hand-holding—he’d been supporting him and helping him not have a panic attack on the airplane.

But this seemed an awful lot like a date, and Drew had never dated. It just wasn’t a thing that he did. No dating, no hookups. And he made an active effort not to ever make a scene or draw attention to himself. It was safer that way.

Besides, while he found men attractive, he’d never really had any desire to date. Every man who’d ever propositioned him hadn’t been his type, he supposed, and Drew had just never been interested.

His eyes drifted over to Zach again, his breaths quickening along with his pulse. Now? Now Drew was suddenly interested. Very interested.

Shit, though, what did it even mean? What could it mean? They didn’t live in the same state, and Drew still had no desire to be any sort of public with his sexuality.

Maybe . . . maybe it was just . . .

He shook himself mentally. It was what it was. It didn’t have to be more than dinner and a plane ride. Maybe if he was lucky, he’d have a friend he could text. Given everything, it probably shouldn’t be more than that.

Drew’s eyes found Zach’s again just as he’d hung up the phone, and Drew felt almost entranced. He was sure the grin he felt spreading wide across his face must match the one on Zach’s face. Zach came back to the bench and sat facing Drew, and just his nearness and that smile set Drew’s heart racing faster again.

“Everything okay?” Drew asked, his eyes still on Zach as he wondered how just looking at the man could make him feel this way—lightheaded and almost giddy.

“Yeah. Yep. I’ll just have to remember to text her later when I finally have flight information. She’s my ride from the airport,” Zach said, putting his phone away and then glancing at Drew’s phone, which he still held in his hand. “Uh, anyway... find anything good?”

Drew’s heart leapt, and his breath caught. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I did,” he said hoarsely, unable to tear his eyes away from Zach’s.

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