Page 55 of Delay of Game
Thankfully, it was a short flight.
There was something weird going on with Zach, but Nate couldn’t figure out what the hell it was. The flight from Montreal was weird: Zach seemed especially cagey. At the best of times, Zach was terrible at lying, so the fact that he was obviously trying to hide something made Nate feel a) worried and b) suspicious. After all of the terrible, embarrassing things that Zach had gleefully told Nate over the years without a hint of shame, something Zach felt he had to hide must have been really bad.
If not something bad, then something really big.
Then, when Nate was at home unpacking his bags, he found a Post-it note stuck to the plastic hotel bag filled with dirty laundry. It had something that might have been a drawing of the eggplant emoji, although he couldn’t tell because it was drawn so badly, and it said, in Zach’s messy, enthusiastic handwriting,u have a gr8 ass.
Nate stared at it, then set it down on the floor and texted Zach,Are you okay?
im great, why?
Nate thought about what he would say, and finally said,Did you leave a note in my bags?
;)Zach responded.
Nate sighed. Zach was his best friend and had been for the last three years, but sometimes, he didn’t understand the guy at all.
Things just got weirder from there. After he put his clothes into the washing machine and lay down for a brief nap, he woke up to find he’d missed a few calls. One was from Bee thanking him for participating in the documentary, one was from his mom inviting him over for dinner, but one was from Zach, and he’d left a voice mail, which was so odd in itself that Nate had a sense of foreboding settle in his stomach.
“Hey bud,” voice mail–Zach said. It sounded like there was something clattering in the background. If Nate didn’t know Zach better, he would have thought it was a pot on the stove. “If you’re around tonight, you wanna come over for dinner? Like six-ish.”An intense beeping sound, like the fire alarm was going off. “Oh, fuck, I gotta go. See you!”
Nate tried to call him back, but Zach didn’t pick up. He sat there for a minute, staring at the phone and trying to figure out what the hell was going on, but he had absolutely no idea. Then he got distracted because Gags had called with an urgent question about what he should do if his hookup had taken pictures and he didn’t realize it until later, and by the time he was finished putting out that particular fire, it was almost six o’clock.
He couldn’t leave Zach hanging, so he got dressed and walked the block and a half to Zach’s place and let himself in. Since he’d bought the house, and with some pushing from Nate, he’d slowly furnished it so it actually felt like a home. At the very least, if people came over, there were actual places to sit that weren’t cases of beer or milk crates or beanbag chairs.
Hank and Dolly came bounding up to him, barking, and Nate realized the house smelled like smoke. He bent down to scratch both dogs behind the ears, and called, “Uh, Zach? Everything okay here?”
Zach emerged from the kitchen, wearing an apron that saidKISS THE CHEFsplattered with red stuff that Nate really hoped was tomato. He had flour in his hair and a sheepish smile on his face. “Uh, hey! You came!”
“I apparently had to make sure you hadn’t burned the house down, dude.”
“Oh, uh, yeah, I had a little...sauce...mishap.”
“You’recooking?”
“I, uh, tried to make you homemade pasta,” Zach said, and the dogs ran to him, trying to lick the splattered food from the apron.
“I’m—I’m not following?”
“Well, I dunno, you always cook for me, so I figured I should try. Um, unfortunately, I forgot that I was heating up some oil in the pan while I was trying to cut the onions, and uh... I kind of melted the pan a little. Anyway, it was only a little fire. Nate, stop staring at me like that.”
“I mean...thank you?” Nate said carefully. “I appreciate it, but you know I like cooking for you, you don’t need to do all of that.”
“I know you do, but Iwanted to, okay?” Zach sounded weirdly frustrated, like Nate wasn’t getting something he was trying to convey. “Ugh, this is coming out all fucking wrong. I wanted you to—I wanted to—well, fuck, it doesn’t matter anyway, because it didn’t come out.”
Nate realized he was still staring. “Well...thanks.”
Zach ripped the apron off and threw it on the ground, where Hank and Dolly promptly began fighting over it and licking at the food stains. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. The pasta is like, I don’t know what I did wrong, but the dough’s like trying to roll out a rock and I don’t have another pan, so. I ordered from three different places you like in case you’re not in the mood for something.”
Before Nate realized what he was doing, he had stood again and crossed the room, and his hand was in Zach’s hair, brushing the flour out. Zach looked up at him, and Nate felt dizzy for a moment, a swoop in the very pit of his stomach.
“You really didn’t have to do any of this, Zach.”
“Stop fuckin’sayingthat,” Zach mumbled into his chest. “Iwantedto do something for you.”
“Zach, you do—” Nate couldn’t think of a way to say,you do so much for me just by being herethat didn’t sound slightly insane, so instead he rested his head on top of Zach’s floury hair and said, “Come on, buddy, I’ll help you clean up the kitchen.”
Zach realized, after his first failed attempts, that Nate was impervious to being swept off his feet. Part of this was Zach’s fault, given disasters like his attempt at homemade pasta, or his attempt to take Nate on a date in the middle of their West Coast road trip.