Guilty
Zac woke up the next morning with a pounding headache. For a moment, he couldn’t even think of a good reason why his head would be aching so much. Then he remembered that he had finally agreed to go out with Shaun and Drew. A night out with them meant plenty of drinking, which would account for both the headache and the way the room turned a somersault when Zac tried to push himself up to a sitting position.
After waiting a moment for the bed to stop rocking back and forth, Zac finally put his feet on the floor and cautiously stood up. New pains shot from the bottom of his feet all the way to the top of his head with every step he took, and with each one he vowed that he would never go out clubbing with his friends again.
It was a hollow promise, he knew. Even when he’d had Carly to nag him every time he came home smelling like a distillery, it hadn’t totally broken him of the partying habit.
At the thought of Carly, Zac’s stomach turned. He leaned against the wall and tried to remember just what he had done the previous night. He hadn’t seen her, had he? That seemed unlikely; Carly was too studious and serious for that sort of club. Or any sort of club. Yet the pang that he felt in his stomach was almost like guilt.
What had he done?
The alcohol seemed to have obscured whatever it was that Zac needed to remember, and so he decided to dismiss it for the moment. Instead, he decided that a pot of coffee was in order. Not just a cup. Only the whole pot would do, he was sure.
While Zac waited for his coffee to brew, he sat down on a barstool and cradled his aching head. It didn’t help. His hand fell onto the counter and smacked into something sharp. His car keys. Underneath them was a slip of paper that looked suspicious like a bar receipt, with some chicken scratch scrawled across it.
Thanks for a great time last night. I didn’t want to overstay my welcome and you passed out practically as soon as we got inside, anyway. Hope you had a good time, too.
-Jordan
Jordan.
It all came crashing down on Zac then. Images flew through his brain at the speed of light, and if the note hadn’t been sitting right in front of him, he wouldn’t have believed that any of it had happened. But it had. He’d let himself fall for a guy in drag—albeit a convincing one, but still a guy—and they had fooled around in the back of his car. Zac wasn’t even gay. At least, he didn’t think he was. It was too early and he was too hungover to really consider whether or not fooling around with a drag queen made him gay or just gullible. And drunk. Very, very drunk.
But Jordan had been sweet. He had listened and let Zac pour out his heart without judging him. And, Zac remembered, he had driven him home and helped him into bed—not an easy task in Zac’s state. Even the note itself proved that Jordan wasn’t just some sleazy bar hookup. He was a decent guy.
And somewhat in spite of himself, Zac wanted to see him again.
The only way to know how he really felt about this guy and if he really wasn’t entirely straight was to see him again, Zac decided. As he drank his coffee and felt the fog of alcohol drifting away, he only became more resolute. He had to see Jordan again. He had to know if what he had felt when shitfaced was still there when sober.
There was just one problem. Zac had no idea how to find this mysterious stranger.
Jordan hadn’t left a phone number, an address or even a surname. The short note and a hazy memory of his face and body were all Zac had to go on, and that wasn’t much. Was there some detail Jordan had told him that might reveal his identity? If there was, the alcohol had erased it from Zac’s memory.
As he finished his coffee and tried to scrub off the bar smell in the shower, Zac ran over and over the night before in his mind, trying to dredge up more details that might have escaped him. It only came back to him in bits and pieces that were all but useless. The situation seemed hopeless, yet Zac was determined.
That determination left him feeling rejuvenated and full of energy to get all the work he had been procrastinating on done. A quick look at the coffee pot’s clock when he wandered back into the kitchen, now clean and fully dressed, revealed that the library on campus would be open for a few more hours. He had slept in late, thanks to his hangover, but he could still get caught up on his coursework… if he could keep his mind off Jordan.
A few short minutes later, he had walked the distance to campus, Jordan on his mind the entire time. He was a little disappointed to see that Melissa was working again, especially when she glanced up from the desk and gave him a shy smile. On the other hand, maybe she could help him. She did seem to like him, after all, so Zac was sure that if anyone would be willing to aid him on a wild goose chase, it would be her.
“I think your usual study room is taken,” Melissa said softly as Zac walked up to the desk.
“Oh, that’s alright,” Zac replied. “I was actually going to ask you something. I mean, librarians are supposed to know everything, right?”
She blushed a little. “Well, I’m only a work study, but sure, I guess.”
“See, I need to find somebody,” Zac explained, stepping in a little closer to the desk. “And I know it’s not always easy. I mean, if you know someone’s name but nothing else, you can find plenty of people that might be them online. But what if you just have a first name? I’m pretty sure he—they live in Austin, but that’s all I can say for sure.”
“It’s really going to take a little more than that, I’m afraid,” Melissa replied. “Could they be a student here? You might look through other students’ Facebook friends then. A place of employment could be a good starting place, too, especially if it’s somewhere small.”
Zac bit down on his lip as he considered that. Was Jordan a student at UT? He could have been. It was tough to even know how old he was with all that makeup. He could have been older; his demeanor, or what Zac could remember of it, suggested that he was. The next question, then, was where he worked. Finally, Zac shook his head. “I think maybe, umm, maybe a department store? I don’t remember which one.”
“Well, that’s a start,” Melissa replied, then giggled softly, almost sheepishly. “I suppose you could check out every department store in Austin, but that might take a while. How important is it to you to find this person?”
“Pretty important,” Zac admitted. “But maybe not that important. Thanks anyway.”
“You’re welcome.”
He was sure Melissa wanted to say more, but he didn’t give her the chance before walking away. It would be ridiculous to put that much time and effort into searching for Jordan. More than that, just considering it made him feel guilty for not putting more effort into finding Taylor. Sure, he had googled and turned up several addresses and phone numbers that might have been his brother, but without any clue where Taylor even lived, none of his online detective work amounted to much. The thought of calling all of those numbers was too much for him; what would he even say if one of them was Taylor? Eventually he just… gave up. If he tried harder than that to find some guy he’d met and hooked up with at a club, what kind of horrible, sleazy asshole did that make him?
Zac decided not to even try to answer that question for himself.
Not knowing what else to do, Zac decided to do exactly what he’d come to the library to do—study. He padded up the stairs to the second floor to find another study room since apparently his preferred one was taken. That didn’t surprise him, since he rarely made his way out this early. The library was too crowded for his liking in the afternoons. Late nights were much better for avoiding people.
People such as his ex-girlfriend, who was sitting right in the middle of the room at a large table, books and papers surrounding her.
He should have run. He should have turned on his heels and beat a hasty retreat before Carly could spot him. But, of course, Zac was frozen on the spot. It was the first time he’d seen her in more than in passing, across a long distance on campus, since their breakup. Art history grad students and law students didn’t really cross paths a lot on a campus so big. It had made things easier, really, knowing that they wouldn’t have to interact again.
So much for that.
“Zac,” Carly said, her head shooting up and something Zac thought was surprise showing in her eyes.
Well, he had been spotted. It was too late to back away now. “Umm, hey. Carly. Hey.”
“How are you?” She asked, her eyes narrowing as she looked him over. She didn’t bother standing up or closing the distance between them and for that Zac was grateful. He had no desire to be near her, didn’t even know what he would do if he was close enough to touch her… especially after what he had done the night before.
He shrugged. “I’m okay, I guess.”
“Are you getting enough sleep?” Carly asked, the words sounding more mechanical than like she actually cared. “You always run yourself ragged at the end of the semester. You look like you could use a good night’s sleep.”
Zac was sure he looked even worse than that, but he didn’t feel like hashing out all—or any of—the reasons why with Carly. He didn’t know why she even bothered to act as though she cared, unless it was just another opportunity to criticize him.
“You should take some time to relax,” Carly said. “Get some rest. I don’t like seeing you like this.”
“Yeah,” Zac mumbled, not bothering to point out that Carly was a big part of the reason why he’d been a mess lately. She knew. He was sure she knew; she wasn’t dumb enough to think she could leave him the way she did and not tear him apart in the process. Oblivious and uncaring, maybe, but not dumb. “I’ll do that… I guess.”
Not feeling like working on anything anymore, Zac finally managed to uproot his feet from the floor and turn around. He hurried back down the stairs before Carly could say anything else to him. She was being nice, though, wasn’t she? Compared to how she could be, commenting on how tired he looked—which he was sure was nothing compared to how tired he felt—wasn’t so bad.
So why did it bother him so much to see her again?
There were two answers to that, Zac supposed. The easiest answer, of course, was that he still loved her. A part of him did; that was obvious. If he didn’t, losing her wouldn’t still hurt. He could accept that she wasn’t the nicest person and that the way she had ended their relationship only further proved that point. But that didn’t change the feelings he had for her.
That wasn’t the only reason why he couldn’t stand to see her, though. And the other reason was far more complicated.
He felt guilty. The things he had done with Jordan… how could he have done that if he was still in love with someone else? In his drunken state, he’d convinced himself that it was okay, but was it? Was it okay on any level? He knew Carly would never take him back, so it didn’t truly matter. But how could he act as though his heart was still broken if he could also so willingly jump into bed with not just someone else, but someone male?
Zac didn’t have any good answers for himself. Nothing that had happened over the past twenty four hours made any sense to him. Yet he couldn’t help thinking that if he could only see Jordan again, perhaps he could begin to make sense of it all.