Chapter 13: Whiskey and Wrenches
The six-pack of IPA was cold and heavy in Aaron’s hand, a flimsy excuse sweating through the paper bag. He stood outside the side door of Mile High Mechanical, the one marked ‘PRIVATE’ in flaking paint, his knuckles hovering an inch from the metal. The false confidence he’d mustered in the liquor store parking lot had evaporated into the violet twilight. From inside, he could hear the sporadic, metallic clank of a wrench, the hum of a radio tuned to a static-laced classic rock station.
He knocked, the sound too loud in the quiet alley.
The noises inside stopped. A moment later, the door swung open, framing Zack in the doorway. He was shirtless, his torso sheened with a light sweat that caught the low light from behind him. A greasy rag was stuffed into the waistband of his low-slung jeans. The scent of motor oil, honest sweat, and spent fuel washed over Aaron, immediate and disorienting.
For a beat, they just looked at each other. Zack’s eyes, dark and unreadable, scanned from Aaron’s face down to the six-pack and back up. His expression was neutral, carved from stone.
“You lost?” Zack’s voice was flat.
“No.” Aaron’s own voice sounded thin. He hefted the bag slightly. “Brought you a peace offering. Or a thank you. For the brakes.”
Zack didn’t smile. He leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, the movement causing the muscles in his arm and chest to shift. “I got paid for the brakes.” He made no move to take the beer or to step aside.
Aaron felt the foolishness of it, standing there holding cheap beer like a supplicant. The logical part of his brain screamed retreat. But the part that had pressed Dakota’s sweater to his face, the part that had come against his own hand on a cold floor, stood its ground. “Can I come in?”
Zack’s jaw tightened. He stared at Aaron for a long, silent moment, as if weighing the consequences of a dangerous decision. Finally, with a barely perceptible shake of his head, as if resigning himself to a mistake, he stepped back. “Fine.”
Aaron entered, the door clicking shut behind him with a sound of finality.
The apartment was one open room above the garage, reached by a steep, inner staircase. It was exactly as he’d pictured, yet more intense in its reality. The air was thick, warm, and tasted like metal and old coffee. A single bulb hung from a wire, its light jaundiced and flickering slightly with the hum of a generator somewhere below. The space was dominated by a partially disassembled motorcycle engine, its guts spread on a tarp on the floor like a mechanical autopsy. Toolboxes overflowed. A small, dented fridge hugged one wall. Against the other was a threadbare couch, its brown fabric worn shiny in places, and upon it lay Zack’s familiar motorcycle jacket, a worn leather shell holding the shape of his shoulders.
“Nice place,” Aaron said, the words hollow.
“It’s a shithole,” Zack corrected, walking past him to grab a faded black t-shirt from the back of a chair. He didn’t put it on, just balled it in his fist. “But it’s mine. What do you want, Aaron? Really.”
The question hung in the oily air. Aaron set the six-pack on a cluttered workbench. “I told you yesterday. I wanted to be near… this.”
“This?” Zack spread his arms, taking in the cramped, grimy room. “This? You left a clean, beautiful life for this?”
“It wasn’t clean,” Aaron said, the words sharp. “It was sterile. And it was a lie.”
Zack let out a short, bitter laugh. He threw the t-shirt down in disgust. “So now you’ve seen the authentic mess. Congrats. You can go now.” He turned his back, picking up a wrench and pretending to examine it.
Aaron watched the tense line of his shoulders, the play of muscle under skin. The memory of his own fantasy, of being shoved against a wall by those shoulders, flooded him with a heat that was equal parts shame and need. The careful cage of his old life was gone. There was only this precipice.
“You said it eats you alive,” Aaron said quietly. “The safe choice.”
Zack didn’t turn around.
“It does,” Aaron continued, stepping further into the room. “It’s been eating me. And the only time I felt… alive. Was that night in the rain. When you were in my house.”
Zack went very still. His grip on the wrench tightened.
“And after you left,” Aaron pressed on, his heart hammering against his ribs, “all I had was the smell of you on my hands. And I was too much of a coward to keep it.”
Slowly, Zack turned. The anger was still there, but it had transformed. It was hotter now, more focused. A live wire. “You pushed me away,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “You looked at me like I was dirt.”
“I was wrong.”
“You think that fucking matters?” Zack took a step toward him. Then another. “You think an ‘I was wrong’ fixes it? You don’t get to waltz back in here after a year, after you broke me, with a six-pack and a fucking apology and think that makes it okay.”
He was in Aaron’s space now, close enough for Aaron to feel the heat radiating from his body, to see the faint scar above his eyebrow, the dark stubble along his jaw.
“I’m not asking for it to be okay,” Aaron breathed, not backing down.
“Then what are you asking for?” Zack growled.
The space between them was electric, crackling. Aaron’s analytical mind offered no options, no pathways. There was only instinct.
He reached out. He didn’t cup Zack’s face or touch his shoulder. He placed his palm flat on the center of Zack’s chest, over the steady, fierce drum of his heart. The skin was hot and slightly damp. The sensation was a shock, a completion of a circuit that had been open for a year.
Zack’s breath hitched. His eyes searched Aaron’s face, looking for the lie, the hesitation. He found none.
With a sound that was half-groan, half-snarl, Zack moved. His hands came up, not gently. They fisted in the front of Aaron’s button-down shirt, twisting the fabric. He spun them both, shoving Aaron backwards until his shoulders slammed into the cool, vibrating metal of the refrigerator. The impact knocked the air from Aaron’s lungs.
Then Zack’s mouth was on his.
It wasn’t a kiss. It was a conquest. It was harsh and hungry, all teeth and pressure and the angry slide of tongue. It tasted of cheap whiskey and the bitter tang of regret. Aaron’s hands came up, gripping Zack’s bare shoulders, fingernails digging into the hard muscle, holding on as much as pushing back. He kissed him with equal ferocity, a year of pent-up frustration and self-loathing pouring into the connection. It was messy and painful and perfect.
Zack broke the kiss, breathing ragged, his forehead pressed to Aaron’s. “This is a bad idea,” he muttered, but his hands were already pulling Aaron’s shirt from his trousers, rucking it up.
“I know,” Aaron gasped, arching into the touch.
“You’ll regret it,” Zack said, his voice thick as his fingers found Aaron’s belt buckle.
“Probably.”
The belt clattered to the floor. Zack’s hand pushed roughly past the waistband of Aaron’s boxers, wrapping around his cock. Aaron cried out, a sharp, choked sound, his head thudding back against the fridge. Zack’s hand was calloused, his grip punishingly tight, a brutal friction that was nothing like Aaron’s careful, solitary fantasies. It was real, and it was overwhelming.
“You thought about this,” Zack accused, his mouth against Aaron’s throat, biting at the tendon. “In your clean little house. Thought about my hands on you.”
“Yes.” The confession was torn from him.
“Tell me.”
“I thought about you fucking me,” Aaron panted, the vulgarity freeing. “Against a wall. On the floor. I thought about you making it hurt.”
Zack growled, a low, animal sound. He released Aaron’s cock, and for a second, Aaron felt bereft. But Zack was pulling him away from the fridge, dragging him toward the threadbare couch. He pushed Aaron down, his fall broken by the cracked leather. Before Aaron could reorient, Zack was on him, knees bracketing his hips, descending to kiss him again, deep and dirty.
Their clothes became a frenzy of pulled fabric and torn buttons. Aaron’s shirt was ripped open. Zack yanked his own jeans and boxers down just enough to free his erection, thick and flushed, curving up against his stomach. The sight of it, in the flickering yellow light, made Aaron’s mouth water with a want so deep it felt like sickness.
Zack’s hand returned to Aaron’s cock, stroking him with a rough, urgent rhythm. “You want me to fuck you?” he breathed into Aaron’s ear, his voice raw. “That what you came here for?”
“God, yes,” Aaron moaned, his hips bucking up into the touch.
“You got anything?” Zack’s question was practical, harsh.
Aaron, mind fogged with need, shook his head. “No. I didn’t… I didn’t plan.”
Zack swore, a sharp, frustrated curse. He looked around, his gaze landing on a half-empty bottle of lubricant on the floor by the motorcycle parts—the synthetic kind used for machinery. He snatched it up, squeezing a clear, viscous gel onto his fingers. “This’ll have to do.”
The reality of what was happening, the crude, mechanical setting, only inflamed Aaron further. This wasn’t a curated scene. This was two men in a grimy room, using whatever was at hand.
Zack pushed Aaron’s knees apart, settling between them. His fingers, slick and cold, pressed against Aaron’s entrance. There was no gentle preparation. One finger pushed in, a blunt, burning invasion. Aaron gasped, his body tensing.
“Relax,” Zack ordered, but his voice was strained. He worked the finger in, a harsh, stretching motion, then added a second quickly. The burn was intense, almost too much. Aaron clutched at the old couch cushions, his knuckles white. This was what he’d fantasized about—the obliterating lack of gentleness, the reduction to pure, desperate sensation.
“Now,” Aaron gritted out. “Do it now.”
Zack didn’t need telling. He pulled his fingers free, slicked himself with the rest of the gel, and positioned the head of his cock at Aaron’s entrance. His eyes locked with Aaron’s. There was a final, suspended moment—a last chance to stop, to reclaim sanity.
Aaron lifted his hips in answer.
Zack pushed in.
The stretch was immense, a searing fullness that forced a broken cry from Aaron’s throat. Zack didn’t stop. He kept pushing, his own breath coming in ragged gasps, until he was fully sheathed, their bodies locked together. They were both still, trembling with the shock of it. It was too dry, too fast, bordering on painful. It was perfect.
“Fuck,” Zack whispered, his face a mask of tortured pleasure. “Fuck, Aaron.”
Then he moved.
He pulled back and slammed home, setting a brutal, punishing pace. Each thrust drove Aaron deeper into the couch, the frame creaking in protest. The synthetic lubricant provided little ease; the friction was hot and rough, a delicious, grinding torment. Aaron wrapped his legs around Zack’s waist, heels digging into the small of his back, pulling him in deeper, wanting more of the burn, more of the claiming.
Zack’s rhythm was unrelenting, his hips pistoning, his hands gripping Aaron’s shoulders, pinning him down. The room filled with the sound of skin slapping against skin, of grunts and bitten-off curses, of the old couch groaning under the assault. Aaron was reduced to a series of sensations: the sweat-slick slide of Zack’s chest against his, the coarse hair of Zack’s thighs rasping against his own, the overwhelming, stretching fullness with every drive inside him.
Zack leaned down, capturing Aaron’s mouth again in a wet, open kiss. “You feel that?” he panted against his lips. “That’s me. In you. That’s what you wanted.”
“Yes,” Aaron choked out, his own cock trapped between their stomachs, leaking precome with every jarring impact. “God, yes.”
The coil in his gut tightened unbearably. He was hard and aching, his pleasure building from the raw, almost painful friction of the act itself, from the sheer taboo of it. He was being fucked by his ex-husband’s brother in a garage apartment, and it was the truest thing he’d ever done.
“I’m gonna come,” Zack warned, his movements becoming erratic, deeper, harder.
That was all it took. The words, the loss of control in Zack’s voice, tipped Aaron over the edge. His orgasm ripped through him, violent and unrestrained. He came between their bodies with a shout, his back arching off the couch, his vision whiting out at the edges. The pulses seemed to go on forever, wringing him out.
Feeling Aaron clamp around him sent Zack over. With a final, deep thrust, he buried himself to the hilt, his whole body shuddering as he came inside Aaron with a raw, guttural groan. He collapsed forward, his weight heavy and welcome, his face buried in the crook of Aaron’s neck.
For a long time, they stayed like that, joined in the humid, sticky aftermath, their breathing the only sound besides the faint hum of the generator. The flickering bulb cast their tangled shadows on the wall, a grotesque and intimate sculpture.
Finally, Zack softened and slipped out. He rolled onto his back on the couch beside Aaron, one arm thrown over his eyes. The absence of him felt profound.
The cold air of the room began to register on Aaron’s sweaty skin. The smell of sex and motor oil was overpowering. Reality, in all its unglamorous detail, came flooding back.
Neither spoke. The immensity of what they’d done settled over them like a pall.
After several minutes, Zack finally broke the silence, his voice hoarse and hollow. “I never wanted anyone else,” he said to the ceiling. “The whole time. Even when I hated you. It was only ever you.”
The words should have been a balm. They felt like a sentence. Aaron lay beside him, staring at the stains on the ceiling, feeling the cool trickle of come down his thigh, and knew, with a clarity that was colder than the Idaho Springs night, that there was no way back from this.
The words hung in the close, spent air. It was only ever you. They felt less like a confession and more like a condemnation. Aaron’s skin prickled, cooling fast. The sticky wetness on his thigh was a vulgar brand.
Zack’s chest rose and fell in a slow, exhausted rhythm beside him.
“That’s not true,” Aaron finally said, his voice raspy. He stared at the water stain on the ceiling, its shape like a crumbling continent. “You left.You vanished. For a year.”
“You told me to.” Zack’s reply was flat, final.
“I didn’t mean for you to disappear off the fucking planet.” Aaron propped himself up on an elbow, looking down at Zack’s profile. The flickering light carved deep shadows under his eyes.“You just… evaporated. Dakota didn’t know. Your mom didn’t know.”
“I knew.” Zack kept his arm over his eyes, a barrier. “That was enough.”
A cold nausea, separate from the physical exhaustion, began to churn in Aaron’s gut. The scent of sex was turning sour. He pushed himself up to sit, the leather of the couch peeling away from his skin with a sound that made him flinch. He found his boxers and trousers in a heap, dressing with clumsy, silent movements.
“Why?” The word came out a demand. He needed logic, a sequence of causes. He was drowning in sensation, in the animal reek of what they’d just done. “Why was it only ever me? You had a world of people. You could have had anyone who wasn’t… him.”
Zack lowered his arm. His eyes in the bad light were black pools, utterly empty. “You think this is about wanting?” A short, brittle laugh escaped him. “You still don’t get it. You analytical fuck. You think this is just some dirty, complicated fuck?”
“Then tell me!” Aaron’s shout surprised them both, echoing off the cinderblock walls. He was trembling. “You’ve said nothing for a year. You say that now, after that, and just expect me to… what? To understand?”
Silence stretched, thick and suffocating. Zack sat up slowly, wincing as if his body ached. He reached for the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the floor, took a long pull, and handed it to Aaron. Aaron refused, his arms crossed tightly over his chest.
“That night,” Zack began, his voice low and gravelly, aimed at the grimy floor. “The night with the rain. I didn’t just show up. I didn’t come over to see Dakota.”
He looked up, his gaze landing on Aaron with the force of a physical blow. “I came to see you. I drove for two hours in a fucking monsoon because I’d spent six months trying to get you out of my head. I was going to tell you. I was going to lay it all out, like a goddamn idiot. I had this speech rehearsed in the truck.”
Aaron’s breath caught. He remembered the soaked flannel, the electric charge in the hallway, the way Zack’s thumb had brushed his wrist. He’d thought it was an accident, a moment of confused grief.
“And then you opened the door,” Zack continued, a muscle in his jaw ticking. “And you looked so… put together. And you were so kind. Asking about my drive. Getting me a towel. And I saw the wedding photo on the wall behind you. You and my brother. Smiling.” He took another swig. “My speech died. I felt like I’d been kicked in the chest. So I stayed for an hour, making small talk, watching you be his perfect husband. And when I left, when you followed me to the door…”
“You kissed me,” Aaron whispered.
“I tried to kiss you,” Zack corrected, his voice fierce. “And for half a second, you kissed me back. I felt it.Your mouth opened. You leaned in. And then you fucking flinched. You pushed me away like I was a stray dog that bit you.” He looked away, his throat working. “That’s what broke me.Not leaving. That half-second. Knowing you felt it too, and you chose to pretend you didn’t.”
The room seemed to tilt. Aaron’s carefully reconstructed memory of that night—a moment of tragic, unilateral temptation—shattered. It had been a collision. They had both been running toward it.
“So I left,” Zack said, the fight draining from him, leaving something hollow. “Not from the house. From everything. I drove straight to Colorado. Got a job. Tried to fuck it out of my system, drink it out, work it out. Nothing worked. Every fucking time I closed my eyes, it was your face when you pulled away. That look of pure fucking horror.”
He finally turned his head, pinning Aaron with a gaze so raw it was excruciating. “Then Dakota calls me, out of the blue, says you two split. Says you moved. To Idaho fucking Springs. And I thought… it was a sign. Or a curse. I didn’t know. But I knew I had to see. If you were here for a reason. Or if you were just running.”
“And when I showed up at the garage?” Aaron asked, his voice barely audible.
“I thought I’d hate you,” Zack admitted, the simplicity of it devastating. “I wanted to. But when I saw you standing there in your stupid sensible shoes, looking at me like I’d just pulled your heart out through your ribs… I didn’t hate you. I just wanted you.Still. Always.” He ran a greasy hand through his hair. “And that’s the whole fucking sorry confession. I’m in love with my brother’s husband. My brother’s ex-husband. And I have been since the first time you smiled at me across their dinner table and asked about my work without sounding like it was a pity question.”
The silence that followed was absolute. The generator hummed. A pipe knocked in the wall. Aaron’s mind, his greatest asset, failed him utterly. It offered no analysis, no strategic path forward. It simply replayed the last year in a new, terrible light: every moment of quiet desperation in his marriage, every flicker of awareness when Zack was near, the scent on the sweater, the move, the fantasy against his cold wall—all of it led here, to this stained couch and this shattered man.
He hadn’t been running from Dakota. However indirectly, he had been running toward this.
He stood up, his legs unsteady. He walked to the workbench, needing distance from the heat of Zack’s body, the gravity of his confession. His fingers traced the cold metal of a torque wrench.
“You should go,” Zack said from the couch, his tone drained of all emotion. “This was a mistake. A big, fucking, epic mistake. You got what you came for. Now you can go back to your new life and untangle your head.”
Aaron turned around. Zack hadn’t moved. He sat slumped, naked and beautiful in the ugly light, a portrait of defeat. The victory Aaron had felt moments ago—the brutal, claiming sex—was ash in his mouth. This wasn't conquest. It was mutual self-destruction.
“I can’t,” Aaron said.“You can. You’re good at leaving.”
The words stung because they were true.He had left Dakota. He had left his life. He was an expert in orderly exits.
He looked at Zack, really looked. Past the guarded eyes and the defensive posture, he saw the same boy he’d first met, hiding a profound loneliness behind a veneer of tough indifference. He saw the man who’d driven through a storm for a hopeless confession. He saw his own devastating reflection.
“I don’t want to,” Aaron corrected, the words foreign on his tongue. They weren’t analytical. They were pure, terrified impulse.
Zack looked up, a fragile hope warring with profound skepticism in his eyes. “What do you want?”
Aaron crossed the room. He didn’t sit. He knelt on the gritty floor in front of the couch, bringing himself level with Zack. He reached out, his clean, social worker’s hand hovering over Zack’s grease-stained knee. He didn’t touch him.
“I want to not be a coward anymore,” Aaron said, the admission leaving him breathless. “I want to find out what this is.With you. However fucked up it is. However much it hurts.”
Zack stared at his hovering hand. “Dakota…”
“Is my past,” Aaron finished. “And he’s your brother. And there is no version of this that isn’t a betrayal of him. I know that. I have to live with that. We both do.” He let his hand finally rest on Zack’s knee. The contact was electric, a new circuit closing. “But he’s gone. And we’re here. And I’m so tired of being safe.”
Zack’s hand covered his, calloused and strong, gripping it hard enough to bruise. He didn’t speak for a long moment. The flickering bulb chose that second to buzz violently and die, plunging them into a darkness so complete it felt like being erased.
In the black, Zack’s voice was a raw whisper. “You’ll regret it.”
“Probably,” Aaron whispered back, his fingers lacing through Zack’s. “But not tonight.”