Forty First Secret

Darien was lost for words. It really had been Zach all along. The intern pulled off the mask and held it up to take a closer look at it. Darien waited for him to speak.

“I’ve worn a mask exactly like this one before,” he said.

That admission had more to Darien’s ironclad certainty that his masked dancing partner was Zach. He just didn’t know how to ask why Zach had never contacted him again two years ago.

“I wore it to a masked ball two years ago,” Zach continued. “I never went to the masked ball ever again after that.”

“Why is that?” Darien asked softly.

Zach kept his gaze on the mask in his hands. Darien impatiently waited for him to answer.

“It’s hard to admit this. I met another man there and I might just have snogged him. I wasn’t drunk, I was just feeling weirdly brave,” Zach explained. “We got along very well and we were going to meet again. He left in a hurry and gave me his number.”

Everything had fallen into place. He