moontowers:

38) Embarrassed

“I’m so drunk,” Zach says. “Why did I think this was a good idea again?”

Chris slides lower on the couch. Their shoulders are touching. It’s warm in the living room, and the skin of Zach’s arm sticks to Chris’s like thighs on summer vinyl.

“Shh,” Chris says. “Drowning your sorrows, right? It’s a thing.”

“Yeah, but like–” Zach pauses to sip his beer. They’ve killed most of a six pack at this point. Each. Chris is trying not to keep count. “But like, do you think he was right?”

“Who, Josh?”

“Of course Josh. Don’t stall.”

“What’d he say again?”

“That I’m a black cloud you can see coming a mile away. That he can’t be with someone so wrapped up in his own shit. That–that he’s not surprised I can’t land anything.” Zach stares into the middle distance, at the blue flicker of the television. There’s a dribble of beer caught up in the dense mat of his beard.

“Pretty sure the black cloud’s stuck to your face, dude.”

“Fuck off. This beard is awesome. I look like Mandy Patinkin.” Zach runs his hand from bottom lip to chin, fingers finding the spill and making a face.

“What’s your agent got to say about it, Mandy?”

“If my agent would return my calls, maybe I’d give a shit what he thought about my facial hair.”

“He’s an asshole,” Chris says after a minute, meaning Josh or Zach’s agent or both. But it’s too late.

The corner of Zach’s mouth quirks downwards, barely perceptible under said facial hair. But Zach kind of leads with the nose when he cries, and no beard can hide that. He sniffs hard.

“Allergies,” he says.

“Sure,” says Chris.

Zach keeps looking at nothing, and Chris keeps looking at Zach. The light from the TV catches the wet on his lashes. Chris is certain in this moment that what  collects along his cheekbone now isn’t saline but something rarer, some cathodic metallurgy. Even with that goddamn beard, he’s beautiful.

Chris licks his lips, slides closer on the couch so the cushion dips and their knees bump, slow, as if drifting together underwater. Zach is still staring into space. Chris is still staring at Zach’s eyes. Would be staring into Zach’s eyes, if Zach happened to turn his head. But he doesn’t, and Chris doesn’t know how to feel about it.

He hates this feeling, the way his guts twist when he thinks about Zach turning to look. Chickenshit, is the word for it.

“It’s just embarrassing,” Zach is saying. “You know?” On the television, the laugh track screeches as if in agreement. Filmed in front of a live studio audience!

“Yeah,” Chris says. “I know.”