Love Is Always Write Volume 4

corner of Chad's mouth twitch like it always had when he was nervous, his first reaction was to cross the room to put his arms around him. That one actually pissed him off more than anything.
    "Why'd you come here, Chad?" Zeb blurted out, wanting to get this show on the road and his life back to normal – without Chad.
    "I…" Chad looked around the room, like he was searching for the answer. "I didn't come here tonight to talk to you."
    "Than what the hell did you come here for?"
    "To see you," he said quietly, still not meeting Zeb's eyes.
    "That makes a whole hell of a lot of sense. You just said you didn't come here to talk to me."
    "No, I mean -- that came out wrong. I came here to see you but I wasn't planning on talking to you." Chad's eyes darted to his face, but only briefly, the hesitation back tenfold. "You made it pretty clear you didn't want to talk to me when you didn't return my calls."
    Zeb just grunted his response and waited. He'd figured out a long time ago that staying silent was the way to get others to talk and Chad was no exception.
    "So, I guess… I just wanted to see you," he whispered. "But then… then, I heard your songs, listened to the words." That's when he finally looked Zeb in the eye, and Zeb could see that excitement again. Longing too, and something went all tight and hard in Zeb's stomach.
    "And I figured," Chad continued, his voice getting stronger, "that maybe you've been feeling all the things I have. I mean, well, like what you said in Freefall Life , the way you described the pain of being apart and how when something tears your heart in two, that all those words not said make it so it can never heal. That's exactly why I came tonight. I thought just seeing you would help, but when I heard your music, when I saw the hurt…" He looked down again and back up, a flirty little smile on his face, his eyes hopeful. Zeb remembered that look – too well. "I thought that maybe you missed me too, at least a little."
    Now that right there – that pissed Zeb off good. Missed him a little? Zeb turned away and ran a hand through his hair to calm himself before he lost it. Lost it and screamed out everything that had gone through his mind in the last three years, everything he felt. And hell if he was going to give Chad the satisfaction of hearing that! He felt that tightening in his stomach again, and it ran cold.
    "Seriously? You got all that from my songs?" He turned back, his eyes narrowed and hard. "From lyrics that have nothing to do with you? God! It reminds me of that old song. That one that goes, like, um…" he looked up at the ceiling, like he was in deep thought, hummed a bar and let a nasty smile spread on his face, "'You're so vain, I bet you think this song is about you…'" he barked out a short laugh. "Shit man, I--"
    Zeb stopped short and the sneer was forgotten when he saw the look on Chad's face. It wasn't just his face, though, it was his whole person. Like any and all life had just been drained from him in the last five seconds and he was left… gray. And his eyes, they were looking somewhere near Zeb's chest but off to the side, and he had the impression they weren't really seeing anything at all. They just looked dead.
    "Um, Chad?" He still didn't look Zeb's way and there wasn't even a flicker of life. Not even a twitch. "Chad? Man, you're scaring me a bit here."
    Finally some movement. Chad shook his head, just slightly like coming out of a dream, and turned away. He mumbled something that sounded like 'Sorry I bothered you again,' but Zeb wasn't sure. Chad started walking mechanically to the door.
    Suddenly Zeb needed to suck in a breath, hard, the room just as devoid of air as Chad was of life. Something seemed seriously off. But he stayed right where he was. He didn't go after Chad and sure as fuck wasn't going to reach out to him like he would have years earlier. He just stood and watched as his ex-lover made his way to the door, put his hand on the knob, and then stopped.
    Chad stood, unmoving again, holding the door handle and Zeb was really starting to freak out. What if something was seriously wrong with him? Like a heart attack? Or a stroke even? That's kind of what it reminded Zeb of, the way Chad's essence had just been drained from him right before Zeb's eyes; his features going slack.
    Then Zeb heard a noise from the other man, a word or possibly a groan, he wasn't sure. "What?"
    "Why?" The word was croaked but louder this time.
    "Why what?"
    "At