Going Up! Read Online Free PDF Page A

cry. She patted his cheek and smiled, and none of her usual sarcasm was in the gesture or in her sweet brown eyes. God, he owed this woman a raise.
     
     
    W HEN HE woke up the next morning to find her on his couch, wearing his sweats, he thought that maybe a raise wouldn’t be good enough.
    “Fuuuuck!” he groaned, stumbling into the living room in his boxer shorts. She stretched and yawned and looked out his bay window onto the city below.
    “Damn, this is some view,” she muttered. “If I woke up to this every morning, I’d be singing like a fucking bird!”
    “No singing!” he pleaded. He kept the painkillers by the coffee, and right now he needed both.
    “Water first,” Leah directed, scrambling out of the blankets on the couch and rushing into his kitchen to take over and boss him around. “My God. Have you never been drunk before?”
    “Why are you still singing?” he groaned, resting his head on the counter and wrapping his arms around it. “Why are you singing and why is the sun stabbing my brain and why do I feel like shoe gum?”
    “Because you drank enough vodka to fund an entire Russian coup,” she muttered. “Jesus—you almost told your father you were gay, do you know that?”
    “You’re lying,” he mumbled. “I don’t even tell myself I’m gay.”
    “Well, you apparently do now, because I don’t think I’ve seen a more serious broken heart in my entire life.”
    Oh God. Oh God. Zach felt actual tears starting. “He wouldn’t even look at me,” he mumbled. “Just for who I am.”
    “Well, it probably took him by surprise,” Leah said kindly. She poked at him until he took his arms from around his head and stood up. “Here. Motrin and water. You’ll feel better. Or you’ll throw up. Either way you’ll feel better.”
    He took the Motrin and drank the entire glass of ice water.
    And then he threw up.
    And then Leah made him take more Motrin with more ice water. And added soda crackers with it.
    That he kept down.
    And then he felt better.
    And then?
    Well, he took a shower, brushed his teeth and dressed, but Leah insisted that he only dress in sweats. “You have an amazing entertainment center,” she said thoughtfully when he emerged from his room with wet, uncombed hair and in his old college sweatshirt. “Come, sit next to me and let us explore.”
    He felt a reluctant smile on his face. “What are we exploring?”
    “Bruckheimer movies,” she said with decision. “We can see Alcatraz from here—I think we need to watch The Rock. ” Sure enough, it was on Netflix, and she made him watch the whole thing. She fixed him instant oatmeal, because it was the only thing he had in the cupboards and then ordered take-out delivered for lunch. And besides that all she did was sit on his couch, lean on his arm, and talk about how Nicholas Cage had made a mockery of his career. They watched Con Air and Ghost Rider to prove it.
    Sometime between The Rock and Con Air, he actually started talking. And then he started listening.
    He found out that Leah Chambers was from Hawaii, and that he couldn’t really pronounce her real name. He found out that she roomed with another girl who was a librarian, and that they both mourned their love lives but really didn’t want anything to change about them right now. He learned that she had six nieces and two nephews and that she sent them gifts every month, and that during her vacation over Christmas she went back to Hawaii, and had every year since he hired her.
    And he told her about Sean.
    He told her about the freckles and the blond curls and the funny costumes and the umpteen roommates. He told her about the ankle boots and the way he’d brought a stranger into his Valentine’s Day party in the hopes that someone would have a happy evening.
    “Why didn’t you go?” she asked. “When he asked you, why didn’t you go?”
    He sighed and leaned against the arm of the couch, and to his surprise she leaned on him. “Are we snuggling