Sweep Me Off My Feet Ch. 01

Brinxton could imagine this was who Daniel and Brielle had been arguing about, based on her tasteless word choice, but was taken aback by how stunning Zayne Lennox was, and how warm and kind his eyes seemed.

"No, I'm not okay," Brinxton found himself saying, drawing a concerned look from Zayne. "Brinxton Weeks, brother of Bridezilla," he introduced himself, holding out his hand.

Zayne chuckled and took Brinxton's hand, shaking it briefly. "My condolences to you then. Zayne Lennox. I'm, uh... an old friend, I guess, of the groom."

"Is that what you're going to call it?" Brinxton asked with a smirk, "I heard you were much closer than that. According to Brielle, though, inviting you was inappropriate more because of your wheels than the fact that you two used to date." The clear disgust on Brinxton's face told him what he thought of that.

Zayne gave him a sympathetic smile. "Yeah, I've heard some of the things your sister calls me. I suppose I could have ditched the chair for a cane for one night, but considering your future brother-in-law walked away because of the chair, I thought it would be kind of like pretending to be better than I am just to stick it to him, you know?" Then he looked over at where Daniel was trying to talk to Elias and sighed. "We were all friends before him and I dated. It's always seemed a little sad to me that so many friendships got ruined when he dumped me. It feels a little like my daredevil choices harmed everyone."

"Which table are you supposed to be at? Mind if I sit with you? I'd like to know more about your daredevil choices," Brinxton asked.

"I believe she stuck us by the bathrooms," Zayne said with a laugh. "Jokes on her, I don't mind that at all. Follow me." Zayne carefully turned the wheelchair, and went over to one of the round tables covered in plates, napkins, champagne glasses, and flower centerpieces.

It seemed like a lot of pomp and circumstance for an engagement party, but it was normal in their world even if Zayne didn't see the point. They found Zayne's name, where a chair had been left away from the table and Zayne looked a little surprised by that. Usually when eating out, they put his wheelchair to the side so he could sit in a regular table chair, but he wasn't going to complain so he set himself at his place and moved the name of the person next to him so Brinxton could sit down.

"Your sister plays the petty game really well," Zayne joked. "She doesn't need to feel threatened though. I don't want to steal her fiancé or anything."

"She really does. Frankly, it would be hilarious if you did, but I wouldn't wish him on you either," Brinxton responded, sitting next to him.

"Ah, I see Daniel hasn't made such a good impression on you," Zayne said with a look that said he could understand why. "One thing I always hated was how he always thought he was above others, and everything was about him. Including my accident. My 'daredevil choices'. I broke my back in a snowboarding jump. It was a wager against my brother and friend. I went the farthest, so I won, but I also landed on my back. So I guess I lost too."

"Sounds like a win-win, honestly. Daniel isn't exactly a catch. Do you still do sports? I see you've kept up on your physical fitness," Brinxton asked interestedly.

Zayne looked thoughtful, wondering if Brinxton wasn't wrong about it being a win-win in a way. "I do, yes. I play basketball, we have a gym space in our basement too. I sometimes take the easy hiking trails with the wheelchair or arm crutches as well, though it depends on the day. I haven't snowboarded since the accident though. Maybe I'm still a little afraid to do so. I probably could handle an easy slope with the right back brace, but...You look like you work out too." Zayne ran his hand lightly on Brinxton's arm, testing the waters. He didn't want to hit on a man who could be straight, but he couldn't ignore the attraction he was feeling right then.

"I try to stay fit," Brinxton responded, enjoying the contact. "We should get together for some basketball some time."

Zayne grinned at that, letting his hand fall back to his lap once he had gotten to Brinxton's elbow. "Definitely, but don't expect an easy win. My twin is about as tall as you, and I play against him all the time, and kick his ass."

"Twin, huh? I always wondered what it would be like to date a twin," Brinxton admitted pensively.

Zayne chuckled and gave Brinxton a smirk. "Well, unfortunately we can't do the twin switching anymore, because my accident left me about an inch shorter than Zach, and I don't walk the same as him anymore, but I happen to know two single twins right now. Of course, Zach is focused on his business, so I'm the more available one...That only works if you're interested in men, though." Then Zayne looked thoughtful and the smirk softened. "Of course, I understand when people are more interested in Zach, because he doesn't come with near as much baggage."

"Eh, everyone has baggage," Brinxton responded, "at least I don't have to guess at yours."

"Well, the chair and walking gait is really just the tip of the iceberg, actually," Zayne explained. "Disability like this affects just about everything. It changes where you can go, how you handle nights out, changes how you can travel and how easily you can, as well as how sickness affects you. As I told Zach and Elias, I don't blame Daniel for finding it to be too much. Even I think it's exhausting, but I can't escape my own body, and despite being about five surgeries, and many more procedures in, there's no real good surgical fix for it all. I wasn't angry with him, just hurt. I learned later that he and I fell into a statistic. Male partners tend to leave during times of disability and illness."

"Not all men are created equal to the challenge that someone like you poses, but that's their problem, yeah?" Brinxton said.

Zayne smiled at that. "That's true. It says more about him than it does about me. I'm a bit of a hopeless romantic, hoping to be swept off my feet eventually, but I can be realistic too. At this point, I'll take whatever good relationship I can get rather than the prince charming."

"Shouldn't be too hard to sweep you off your feet, unless you want me to pick up that chair, too," Brinxton said with a laugh.

"Nah, that fantasy never includes the chair," Zayne replied with a smirk on his face. "Just the princess carry, and a bed."

"Good to know," Brinxton said, nodding to himself.

Zayne was trying to figure out a new topic when Zach and Elias came to sit down next to the two of them. "I still think he's a twat," Zach said as he sat down and then noticed that Zayne wasn't sitting alone. "Oh! Here you left us to deal with your ex alone, and you're over here with some tall, dark, and handsome stranger. I'm Zach, the cuter twin. And this is Elias, our third wheel."

"Rude," Elias laughed. "I'm the best looking one of the group. You two are just far louder."

"Flamboyant," Zayne corrected. "We're more flamboyant."

"Just how buoyant are these flames of yours?" Brinxton asked, incredulous.

Zayne gave him a smirk, but it was Zach who replied with, "Oh, you should see it for yourself. Take him to a pool sometime, or ours when it's warm enough. He's the most buoyant flame among us."

"He's exaggerating," Zayne said with a shake of his head. "Guys, this is Brinxton Weeks, brother of the bride."

"Oh you poor thing," Zach commiserated. "I mean, sorry, that's your sister. We should be kind."

"It's okay, we aren't close and I find her ableism off putting," Brinxton responded.

Zayne looked at Brinxton with a small smile, though Brinxton could see beyond the happiness that Zayne seemed surprised to meet someone who seemed interested and hated ableism, as if he hadn't really found a lot of people like that before. Zach and Elias, meanwhile, looked at each other across the table like they needed to find a way to get these two dating.

"You know, I've noticed in our society that a lot of people don't care about ableism unless they are close to it, like us," Zach said to Brinxton. "Like, I can admit I didn't care that much about whether our parties and vacations were accessible, but now my brother has to face it every day and I see everywhere how inaccessible so many places are. So, I'm a little surprised you care so much. A good surprised, though."

"A friend of mine in school was disabled and the way people treated him was abhorrent. There weren't a lot of accommodations to be had, either," Brinxton said.

Elias snapped his fingers in thought and looked at Brinxton. "Wait, are you the Weeks sibling who went to boarding school? Who should have been in our class?"

"Yes. I was a 'problem child' when I hit puberty and was sent away lest I become an embarrassment to the family. Turns out I was exposed to different influences than they intended while I was away because that was where I learned that what I felt toward other boys was okay," Brinxton explained.

That made the three of them go quiet as they took in that information. It was good to have it confirmed that Brinxton and Zayne swung the same way, but he couldn't imagine what this kind man sitting next to him could have done so wrong to have his parents send him away like that. The more he thought about it, the more angry he got. He may not have known Brinxton long, but Zayne was a fairly good judge of character now, and nothing he'd seen made him think Brinxton was a bad person or troubled.

"I'm sorry that happened to you, but I'm glad the people you met there helped you come to that conclusion," Zayne said quietly. "Both Zach and I are on the queer spectrum, but our parents took it pretty well."

Zach shook his head. "I can't imagine sending your child to a school far away because you don't like the way they are acting as they go through puberty, but seeing what kind of bitchzilla they raised, maybe it was better for you..."

Zayne looked at his twin like he wasn't sure if that was the right thing to say but he turned those compassionate gray eyes back to Brinxton, trying to figure out if he was okay or needed a change of subject.

Brinxton considered that for a moment. "It's not really so much her fault. I can't imagine what I would have been like if I hadn't met Spencer. He really opened my eyes to the way Society is about ableism and a host of other things. I still have a lot to learn about privilege, but at least I'm aware that I have it, y'know?"

"We got our own crash course in that, á la Zayne," Zach said, and his eyes locked on where Daniel and Brielle were. "Some of us learned from it, and others..."

"Some of us failed monumentally," Elias added cheerfully.

"Stop," Zayne chided. "It's not about passing or failing. It's difficult to date someone who is disabled, no matter what level of disability it is. It comes with a ton of issues that can cause resentment if you aren't careful, and my level of disability right after the accident was bad. We didn't have sex, we didn't even cuddle much because he was terrified of hurting me."

"That can be a lot, yeah. Spencer wasn't gay so we never tried to date, but I'm sure it would have been a challenge if I had seen it that way," Brinxton pointed out.

Zach and Elias both laughed as Zayne gave Brinxton a surprised look. "So you disagree with my outlook?" Zayne asked him, amusement on his face, though there was something else there too, in his eyes, that Brinxton couldn't quite place.

"Not your outlook," Brixton said. "I just don't think someone's disabilities make them undateable. Their personalities do, often, but not their disabilities."

"I mean, I agree with that," Zayne added. "I never said being disabled makes someone undateable."

"Ehhhhh," both Zach and Elias vocalized at the same time, like they didn't agree with Zayne's last statement.

Zayne's head swung around to look between the two of them, from Zach next to him, then over to where Elias sat next to Brixton and back. "What the hell does that mean?"

"If we're talking in general, about disabled people, then yes, you believe that someone's disabilities don't make them undateable," Zach agreed. "But when it comes to yourself..." He made a gesture with his hand, waving it back and forth to show that Zayne only sort of believed it.

"Your outlook on yourself is skewed," Elias said bluntly. "You have this idea that because of the accident, you're a burden to everyone around you, and you've become hyper-independent where you weren't before. You try to prove you can do everything yourself, even to your own detriment."

"You haven't dated for a year because you think you're too broken to be loved," Zach commented.

Zayne opened his mouth to argue but then shut it again as he considered their words. He'd had a lot of feelings over the years about what the accident had taken from him, and he could remember apologizing over and over again to Daniel in the year after, before Daniel left the relationship. After Daniel left, he had shut down for a while. Maybe he had pushed people away while dating because he was afraid of someone leaving him for his disabilities again. That was something he needed to think about.

Brixton nodded his agreement with Zayne's brother and friend. "Besides, dating is just as much an opportunity to learn what you don't like as it is to find what you do like."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Zayne agreed. He was about to say more when he felt a hand on his shoulder and he turned to find Daniel standing over him, a hesitant smile on his face. Zayne turned the wheelchair a little so he could better look at Daniel and smiled. "Hey, congratulations. You must be really excited."

Daniel chuckled. "Sometimes it feels like surviving. Brielle has a million ideas and they all have to be perfect or else she has a meltdown over it." Then he seemed to realize who else was sitting at the table and gave a loving smile. "But anything she wants, she will get."

Zach pretended to gag himself, making Elias smirk and Daniel's smile become a little more strained at the teasing. Brinxton smirked himself and looked at Daniel with amusement. "Everything, eh? I'll remind you that you said that in a year."

"I'm going to end up regretting that, huh?" Daniel asked with a laugh before he looked at Zach with a look that showed he was generally unimpressed with their childishness. "Remind me again why you and Elias are single?"

Zach's smile turned into a look of mock outrage. "Now, now, Danny-boy, what does that say about your ex?"

Daniel looked at Zayne in surprise. "You're single?"

"Painfully," Zayne replied with a tight smile. "Just me and my hand for an entire year. We're very serious about each other though. Like we're connected, or something."

"That's handy," Brinxton commented with a deadpan expression on his face.

"Isn't it?" Zayne asked with a grin. "Besides, Elias isn't single."

"Really? Who did you trick into dating you?" Daniel asked.

"Well, your mom was busy, unfortunately," Elias replied. "Or else I could make you call me Daddy."

"He's dating Aspen," Zach answered the actual question, and Daniel looked between the three of them in utter shock. It was clear he was speechless because he didn't have any type of comeback for them.

When Zayne saw Brinxton's confused face, he pointed to a woman in the crowd who had long, curly auburn hair and looked very much like the twins. "Our younger sister."

Brinxton nodded as if that cleared up his confusion completely while still looking completely confused as to what that meant, not being a part of the group.

Daniel's next comment cleared up why it was a big deal, as he said, "How have the twins not murdered you for that? They declared her off limits the moment she got breasts."

"Oh, that you would have to ask Aspen," Elias replied. "I rebuked her a couple of times out of fear of their wrath and she said she would take care of them. And by the time we talked about it, they were just happy for us."

"Zach was the one she needed to talk down," Zayne answered honestly. He'd known for a long time their best friend had a crush on her, but he also loved Elias and didn't want Zach to murder him so hadn't said anything. "But she wasn't on the debate team for nothing."

Daniel frowned. "So much has changed, and I haven't been around for any of it."

Everyone was silent at that because they all knew why that was, even Brinxton. Despite that, though, Zayne did miss the way it had been sometimes; the friendship part. "Well, you have a chance to not miss it going forward," Zayne said finally, when the silence became too much, motioning to Brinxton as he spoke. "I mean, I think we've already decided we're keeping this one, so I suppose you can tag along too. If your brother-in-law is okay with that."

"Future brother-in-law," Brinxton corrected, "There's still a chance he'll come to his senses and run."

Zach leaned forward and grinned at Brinxton. "You don't know Danny very well, do you? The dumbass gene is strong in him. I would bet cold hard cash that if the engagement broke up, it would be because he screwed up."

"Your faith in me is astonishing," Daniel said in a deadpan voice.

"You've already done it once before," Elias said with a gesture towards Zayne.

They might have said more but waiters started to come out to get people's orders for dinner. Daniel excused himself and went to find his bride-to-be. When Zayne and Zach's mom made her way over to the table with their dad, it didn't take much from Zach and Elias for her to decide she was going to go sit where Brinxton was supposed to be sitting. Amelia Lennox was nothing if not a matchmaker for her kids, and she would happily suffer through sitting by the Weeks if it got Zayne a date.

Within fifteen minutes, dinner was served and the tables were alive with conversation. Zach and Elias were regaling Brinxton with stories about Zayne's daredevil stunts, whether on snowboards, bikes, or rollerblades. Zayne seemed incredibly embarrassed by it, as his cheeks kept getting red and he would duck his head down to hide his eyes from Brinxton's view.

Brinxton could see his sister glaring at him whenever he turned his head in that direction, which brought a beaming smile to his face every time they made eye contact. Every once in a while he would see Daniel whisper something to her to get her to leave her brother alone, but eventually he decided just to let her be angry. Still, by the time they said their thank yous to everyone who came, Brielle had her smile back on as if nothing was bothering her.

Zayne stayed where he was as people started to make their way out of the restaurant, saying goodbye to each other. He always liked to wait until some of the crowd had dispersed because it made moving around a lot easier. He looked at Brinxton and held out his hand. "Give me your phone for a moment?"

Brinxton unlocked his phone and handed it over with a smile. Zayne took it and added a new contact, putting in his name, phone number, and address, hoping they would use the last one soon enough. Then he called himself so he had Brinxton's number as well and handed the phone back to him.

"Just don't play that 'I won't text him for a week' game," Zayne told him with a laugh, though he wasn't entirely joking. If Zayne had been a more aggressive person, he likely wouldn't have stopped touching Brinxton all night, but he wanted to be respectful of what Brinxton might or might not want.

Fortunately, he didn't have to wait long as his phone buzzed before he even left the venue. The message said, "Hey Bumblebee, nice tail lights."

Zayne grinned once he was sitting in the car waiting for Zach to put his wheelchair in the back of the SUV and sent back, "Wait until you see the interior," with a winking face at the end.

"And just what are you so happy about?" Elias asked from the back seat.