Off Base (Out of Uniform 1)

Fuck. Zack’s hands started shaking at the thought of meeting others from the base, having them know, and hell...the idea of his team knowing was enough to have him sweating heavily, T-shirt sticking to him. “I’m not ready for that.” Not ever going to be ready for that.

“Okay. Fair enough. But the offer still stands. Whenever you’re ready. Those friends...they’re like family to me, and they’d welcome you—and Pike—no questions asked. And several of them are SEALs—you’re not the only gay or bi guy on the teams. Not by a long shot.”

Zack tried to visualize a future where he took Ryan up on his offer, where he had a large friendship circle of LGBTQ friends, where he had Pike at the center of all that...and simply couldn’t. But he also couldn’t envision a life without Pike. Fuck. When had his life become such a FUBAR mess?

“They’re not on my team.” His voice was gruff, but he was past caring. “We gonna play or what?” He clicked the controller.

“Hey.” Ryan stilled his hand. “Someone giving you trouble? You know that’s not okay, right?”

“Can we play?” Zack’s voice cracked. He just wasn’t equipped to deal with this. Couldn’t see the same rosy vision of a future as Ryan, could only see all the ways things were going to blow up in his face, very, very soon.

Chapter Sixteen

“Hey, have you seen Nectarine? I can’t find her.” Pike stuck his head in Zack’s room.

“Try my closet.” Zack was on his bed, a book of maps on one side of him, a crime novel on the other. He didn’t meet Pike’s eyes, but he also didn’t call him on the trumped-up reason for bothering him.

As far as excuses went, this one was particularly thin, but Pike had wanted to check on both cats after Josiah and Ryan left. And it wasn’t his fault that Zack had been barely civil when he and Josiah had rejoined him and and Ryan in the living room. They’d messed around with the Space Villager expansion pack, but it was painfully obvious that none of their minds were really in the game. Nor was it his problem that Zack had escaped to his room the second Ryan and Josiah left. Pike had channeled his frustration over the obvious snub into a couple of hours of grading. Now he just wanted to find his damn cat and go to bed. Alone.

Sure enough, he found Nectarine huddled in the back of Zack’s nearly empty closet. She gave an unhappy meow when Pike lifted her up. “What’s the matter, girl? The big bad scary men are gone, I promise.” Emerging from the closet, he said to Zack, “I’m worried about her. I haven’t seen her all day, and I don’t think she’s eaten. She didn’t come when I put out the wet food after the guys left.”

“Let me see?” Zack got off the bed and held out his arms, so Pike passed the cat over. Zack set her on the bed and peered into her eyes, ran a thumb over her nose and gently ran his hands all over her. “Her eyes don’t look sick or pained, and her nose feels normal. She’s not howling in pain...maybe see how she’s doing tomorrow, then look up reviews for San Diego vets if she’s still not eating. But you know how she gets around strangers.”

“Not around you.” Yeah. Pike did know. And it rankled a bit that Zack knew his freaking cats so well but seemed to be holding a grudge of some kind against him for God knew what reason. Because he hadn’t rushed after him and had instead talked to Josiah, one of his best friends in the world? Because he’d needed to talk to someone? Because he hadn’t realized about the cell phone sooner?

“Well, I’m special.” Zack continued petting the cat, offering Pike a shy smile.

“That you are.” Pike’s throat burned. “Well, uh, I better—”

“Don’t go.” Zack stopped him as he was about to lift the cat. “She’s happy in here. But if you’re worried about her, you could sl—”

“Seriously? You’re going to ghost me all night and then give me a reason why I could stay in here? Why?”

“I’m not good at talking.” Zack sat back down on the bed next to the cat. “I’m still making sense of Ryan and Josiah knowing about us, not sure how I feel.”

“It doesn’t have to change anything.” The words felt jagged in his mouth. Josiah would be throwing something at him, telling him he couldn’t keep enabling Zack to stay closeted, but Josiah wasn’t here right now with Zack, who had such pain in his pale blue eyes and whose mouth was an almost invisible line while his hands were shaking.

“Not a thing.” Pike sat next to Zack, grabbed his hand. “So what if Ryan and Josiah know? They won’t tell. And it doesn’t change what we’ve got going here.”