Page 47 of Fear of Flying
He raised his phone once more, this time to run search after search after search. What job could Drew have there? How long would it take to drive there? Fly there? How difficult would it be to move there? What was the cost of living compared to Dallas—because surely it would be too soon and too presumptuous to just move in with Zach straightaway? Though perhaps he could wait to move until they were sure. Really sure. Sure that everything he’d seen in those pictures he’d just taken—everything they’d seemed to promise his heart—would come true.
It wasn’t until nearly two hours later, his arm numb from where Zach was lying on it and his thumb aching from one-handed scrolling and typing on his phone, that he realized all his hope had skittered away and been replaced with increasing anxiety and dread.
The cost of living was similar enough, maybe even a bit less in some areas. Depending on the route, it took about two hours to fly there and ten hours to drive it. Jobs? Well, family law jobs everywhere in the nation were never in short supply. There were a decent number of firms there, varying sizes, plenty to choose from, really. It was—
Drew screwed his eyes shut and finally let his hand and phone drop back to the comforter. His hand and wrist and fingers tingled as the blood started trickling back into his extremities. He tried to focus on that, the random scattering of uncomfortable pinpricks, and he was able to. For a minute.
But then the anxiety crept back in around the edges, and he wondered if this was what Zach felt when one of his anxiety attacks was starting—the tightening in his chest and shoulders and the sensation of angry bees buzzing just under his skin. He couldn’t stop himself from thinking about all the details all at once—and for some reason, the scarier details were screaming louder than the others.
Carefully, every nerve drawn taut, Drew extricated himself from Zach’s embrace so that his head fell gently to the pillow below when Drew’s arm was free. He slid out of bed, then turned back to look at Zach, still sleeping so peacefully, and his heart lurched along with his stomach.
A lump formed in his throat as he made his way over to the bathroom door to grab his robe. He slipped it on, wincing slightly at the cold, damp spots that still remained from after their swim earlier. It would have to do—he didn’t have anything other than his jeans and shirt from yesterday, that and a hastily sink-washed pair of borrowed pajama pants. With a halting sigh, he cinched the robe shut and went to sit in one of the armchairs next to the window in the corner of the room.
He shifted to face the heavy curtains, and with a shaky hand, pulled them back just a few inches. He craned his neck slightly to look out at the dark of night. They were high enough up on the eleventh floor that the lights of the parking lot didn’t provide adequate illumination to see everything clearly. What he could make out, though, were the hundreds upon hundreds of cars, buried in snow. With the storm having grounded everyone, it was hard to tell if this was long-term parking for the airport or something else—there were no tire tracks to be found, and snow drifts were piled high on and in-between every car.
Drew sighed quietly and dropped his hand back to his lap, letting the curtain fall back into place.
The New Mexico Bar had a reciprocity agreement with the Texas Bar. He’d known, of course, that several states had reciprocity with the Texas Bar, but he had never thought about moving before. Never thought about all the details and logistics that would come with maintaining his credentials in a new state.
The application for reciprocity seemed straightforward—rigorous and detailed, but simple enough. Twenty-five hundred dollars for the application. It was not an insignificant amount of money, considering the debt he still held in student loans, but it was reasonable.
But then there had been this Reddit thread where someone had mentioned that the OP had better be prepared to give a good reason for why they were moving from one jurisdiction to another, as well as find a way to let their new employer know they were in it for the long haul, committed to staying. And while that wasn’t exactly an issue, it’d been enough to spark a bit of panic in him.
So he’d delved deeper. But the words and phrases kept popping out at him.
Good moral character.
Which, fuck, wasn’t a problem in and of itself. Not really. He was a good person. But in Texas... when almost every damn lawyer he knew was a straight, privileged white man who always preached to “hate the sin, love the sinner” and spoke so freely and casually about what a mockery gay people made of marriage, especially when they came crawling in for a divorce...
Dammit, Drew was a good person. Better than any of them, surely. But what was he going to say to his current firm? What could he possibly tell them about why he was leaving? Would they let him be vague enough? Would he get the masculine shoulder punch and the “Aww, c’mon, Parker! Why you really leaving?” that previous former colleagues had gotten?
Could he escape without admitting to... “acts involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation”; “neglect of professional obligations”; “making of false statements, including omissions, on bar”; and “conduct that evidences current mental or emotional instability that may impair the ability to practice law”?
If any of his colleagues said anything, suspected anything about his real reason for leaving or even got pissed off for any reason, he could get flagged by the New Mexico Bar and then be subject to interviews, hearings, questions about his character and fitness.
The rational part of Drew tried to tell him that this was all nonsense. There was really no reason he’d get flagged on character and fitness, of all things. And it wasn’t legally required for him to disclose his sexuality. Yet all Drew could hear was his mother’s voice from the time he was little to when he was a teenager and even later.
Shh, sweetie, don’t say that out loud. You know it’s not safe.
It’s a phase, honey. You’ll grow out of it. Just try and hide it as best you can now.
Sweetie, don’t you think it’d be safer if you just pretended to like girls? You know how bullies are.
Drew, don’t argue with your momma! Texans like their guns and dislike... well, you know. You know I love you and just don’t want to see you get hurt.
There were more than that—a lifetime of them.
Drew sucked in a shuddering breath as quietly as he could, then found his gaze uncontrollably drawn to Zach. White sheets and a white comforter and white pillows, and a beautiful man tucked right in the middle of it all. Not that he could see more than the outline of his form, gentle curves under a thick bedspread.
It’d been so easy there in Zach’s arms to just let his imagination run away, let a fantasy build and build into the perfect narrative, the perfect life. Everything he’d ever wanted but thought he could never have. It was right there.
He was right there. His . . . boyfriend?
All he had to do was get up and walk back over to him, climb back into bed, and gather him back into his arms. He could get a little sleep, maybe, before they had to get up and head to their new departure gate. Drew would help him survive the trip to Dallas, somehow manage to say goodbye for now, and do his best to assure Zach he’d survive the two-hour flight home to Albuquerque.
He’d drive home, collapse into bed, and text his heart out to his maybe-boyfriend so that Zach’s phone would explode with notifications when he toggled it off airplane mode, and it would make Zach laugh that amazing laugh and take his mind off his post-flight anxiety for a while.
Then Zach would call, and they’d talk and discuss their plans in more detail for Drew’s first trip to Albuquerque. And then... the possibilities were endless, the future hopeful and bright. All he had to do was get up and walk back over, climb back into bed, and gather Zach back into his arms.