Going Up! Read Free

what it was.
    When he gave Leah her coffee, he felt it again. When he was telling his latest client—a gay man who had been fired from his office temp job on some bullshit excuse—that they had the company over a barrel and he could have the settlement and new job of his choosing, he felt it again.
    He was smiling.
     
     
    Z ACH DIDN ’ T see Mr. Cowboy (or was it Mr. Teacher?) that evening, but since he worked very long hours, he assumed he wouldn’t anyway. Instead, he went to the gym to work out, stopped at a take-out place for dinner, and sat in front of his television, mindlessly wondering if he should call the escort service he sometimes used just so he could have a man pretend to like him.
    He couldn’t make himself do it. He kept imagining that Adam’s apple bobbing, and the total vulnerability of that slender neck. Poor guy. Looking for a job in this city must suck. Putting himself out there like that.
    He was so brave.
    Hiring a rent boy just seemed like the height of cowardice after that.
     
     
    H E STARTED setting his alarm and crossing his fingers. When he left exactly at that moment, his odds of seeing Teacher-baby (which sounded so much better than Mister anything, because the boy’s limpid blue eyes were just too… yum) increased dramatically.
    He left at that moment as often as possible.
    On Wednesday he was rewarded. Teacher-baby slid into the elevator, followed by a voice screaming across the hallway.
    “Sean! Wait!”
    “Dammit, Wendy, I’m late!” He held out an arm though, and kept the elevator from closing. Today he was dressed in jeans and a nice button-down shirt with a sweater over it. If he had to hazard a guess, Zach would guess he was subbing again today—those weren’t the clothes you wore to a new job.
    “Todd wants you to get coffee when you come back!”
    The girl running down the hallway in her T-shirt and underwear was incredibly pretty. Elfin, delicate, around five seven, with a short cap of dyed-ruby hair, an oval face with a pert little chin and matching nose, and obviously green contacts.
    “Does he have money? It’s his turn, and I’m just as broke as he is!”
    “Yeah, we all are.” She sighed and held out a hand with a crumpled five in it. “Here—you and me will get it today—again—and Toby and Chris can get it next week. Todd and Katie are up for it after that.” She batted her eyelashes appealingly. “Please, Sean? I know you got it last time, but we all need the stuff, okay?”
    Sean sighed and took the money, shoving it into the pocket of his jeans. “Yeah, okay. Go back inside before some pervert ogles your ass.”
    She turned to him before she left and grinned. “That would be awesome !” And then disappeared down the hall.
    Zach blinked. “That is a lot of people.” He had a penthouse apartment—it took up a quarter of the floor, and it was just him. The other apartments were an eighth of that size, with—
    “Six,” Sean (his name was Sean!) confirmed. “Yeah, but prices here—man, they’re steep, you know?”
    Zach had sort of known, but now it was more personal. “Yeah,” he said. He didn’t ask why someone would want to live in the city when it was so expensive—who wouldn’t? “How do you all fit?”
    “Toby and Chris in their own bedroom, since they’re a couple, the girls and me in a king size in the other bedroom, and Todd the straight guy on the hide-a-bed in the living room. Don’t tell Mr. Driscoll, right?” Sean smiled and winked.
    Zach found himself smiling back, because… well, because. “Will the new job help?” he asked, and Sean’s face fell.
    “Didn’t get it,” he murmured. “It was a Catholic school—they have morality clauses. I sort of violate them just by my very existence.”
    Zach wanted to roar in outrage, or, at the very least, go sue the crap out of someone, but he knew it was legal. Church-run schools had the right.
    “Good luck on the next one,” he said gently, and Sean looked up and