Cut and Run 07 Touch & Geaux (26 page)

“None of them mean bad things,” Ty insisted, though he was flustered by the coincidence of the locations. He started yanking them out and tossing the pins on the bar.

“I thought you said they meant good things.”

“Shut up.”

The silence began to stretch, growing more unbearable by the second. Ty could feel Zane’s eyes on him. He glared at the doll for a minute before taking a deep breath and looking at Zane. “What now?”

Zane still watched him intently. He shook his head. “You think you did no wrong. And I can’t trust you.” He shrugged. “What else is there?”

Ty held his breath for a few heartbeats, just to see if his heart was actually still beating. Zane couldn’t have crushed it more completely if he’d used his boot heel. Then he took a long drink.

“What’s it taste like?” Zane asked. He seemed remarkably detached for a man who was talking about ending them.

Ty pursed his lips and sighed. If Zane intended for this to be the last night they were together, then Ty was going to make the most of it. He took another sip, then spun on his stool to face Zane. He reached out for Zane’s shirt and pulled him closer. Butterflies started in his stomach, like it was the first time he’d ever tried to kiss his lover. Zane stiffened but allowed Ty to draw him near, his lips parting. Ty pressed his lips to Zane’s. Once his tongue slid along Zane’s, Zane shuddered and gave a barely audible moan.

The kiss felt like they were back at square one trying to decide how brave they had to be to initiate something. Ty was almost light-headed with nerves.

Their lips lingered too long before Ty pulled away and met Zane’s eyes. They were a little wide, but Ty suspected it had nothing to do with the kiss and everything to do with the absinthe. The taste was distinct, as were its effects. Ty could already feel it working its way through him, calming his mind and body, enhancing the sensations of touch and smell. It couldn’t soothe the ache in his chest, though.

“Fuck,” Zane whispered, and he licked his lower lip.

Ty eased back onto his stool and took another sip from the heavy glass. “This was my life for two years,” he finally said. “I almost lost myself to it.”

Zane propped his elbows on the bar and folded his hands. “I can see how you’d get lost in this lifestyle. You’ve never seemed to have an addictive personality, though, so I’m a little surprised.”

Ty finished off the drink, shivering as it went through him. He set the glass down with a loud clunk. “You’re not the only one who fights things every day, Garrett. Yours are just harder battles, closer to the surface. Mine . . .” He swallowed and peered around the bar, taking in the overwhelming mystique of something ageless in the air and in the city. It shimmered. He didn’t finish what he was saying, lost in the glow until he felt the touch of warm fingers on his hand.

“Grady, come back,” Zane said quietly.

Ty tore his eyes away from the shimmer and met Zane’s gaze.

“That stuff must have a hell of a punch.”

“Easy to get lost in,” Ty murmured.

“Yes,” Zane said under his breath. His façade cracked, and suddenly he looked devastated. Like he’d given up. “You are.”

Ty stared hard at him. For the first time it began to sink in that Zane might truly mean to leave. There might not be anything Ty could say or do to stop it, and suddenly he couldn’t sit there any longer. He pulled his hand from Zane’s grasp and stepped away. “I’ll take watch upstairs,” he said, voice hoarse. His boots crunched on the broken glass at the base of the staircase as he walked away.

“Ty,” Zane called after him. Ty paused on the bottom step. Zane hesitated long enough that Ty took another step before he spoke. “Do I really know you? Do I know Ty Grady at all?”

Ty studied him, trying to parse the anger and pain into something that didn’t feel like he was dying. Zane was still sitting at the bar, his eyes dark and wounded, his shoulders slumped. One chance. That was all Zane was willing to give, even if it broke them both. Ty shook his head and started back up the steps, speaking in a low voice as he went. “If you have to ask that, I guess not.”

Two hours after Ty left him, Kelly joined Zane downstairs for the changing of the guard.

“Nick’s got upstairs,” Kelly told him.

“Great,” Zane grunted. He started up the steps, each crunch of the glass bringing him closer to another confrontation with Ty, to a night of sleeping with his lover right next to him and feeling like there was a stranger in his bed.

When he reached the top of the steps, he took a deep breath to steady himself. It was harder and harder to curb the anger growing. He’d had two hours to think of nothing but all the times Ty must have lied to him to keep from being caught, all the times they’d talked about Zane’s time in Miami that Ty must have been digging for information.

All the times Ty had simply looked him in the eye and lied.

His twenty-year party. He
had
seen Richard Burns there, and now he knew exactly where Ty had disappeared to. He hadn’t been retrieving that damn orchid from his car. God knew what they had been discussing. Zane’s hands balled into fists and he stopped on the steps. He wanted to stomp up there and clock Ty just to get the anger out, just to do
something
. And his entire body screamed for a drink. He wavered, fighting the urge to go back and pour himself a whiskey.

The familiar rumbling undertone of Ty’s voice stopped him.

Ty and Nick were at the far end of the hall, standing outside the room Liam must have taken. Zane studied Ty’s silhouette in the dim hallway. He seemed rigid and tense. He spoke with extensive use of his hands, but nothing of the low murmur reached Zane’s ears.

Goddamn, Ty. Why couldn’t he have made this easy? Why did he have to tell Zane the truth about his assignment? Why now? Why not hold onto it like he said he’d wanted to instead of breaking Zane’s heart with it? Why did he have to accept the assignment at all? He should have just used some backbone and said no!

Zane would have said no, had their position been reversed. That much he knew. He would never have kept a secret that big from Ty, not after that first week in New York. Trust was all they’d had, and Ty had used it, abused it. The only thing Ty was afraid of was saying no to a set of orders.

Ty headed down the hall. Behind him, Nick rested his back against the wall and slid down to sit. Zane supposed that was where Ty had set up camp too. Right outside Liam’s door, using shadow for cover, with a direct view of the only exit. He wondered what Liam thought about having an armed guard at his door, about not being trusted without a handler on top of him.

Then Zane realized he knew exactly how Liam felt.

Ty stopped in front of Zane, both of them standing in the doorway to the room Ty had once occupied. Zane gritted his teeth when he met Ty’s eyes.

“You want to talk?” Ty asked. “Or are you still too mad at me?”

“You don’t think I deserve to be mad for a little longer?”

Ty’s eyes searched over Zane’s face, then he stepped into the room. He kicked his shoes off, pulled his T-shirt over his head, and tossed it at the table.

Zane followed, pulling the door closed behind him. He made sure to lock it.

“You’re seriously going to leave it at that?” Zane said, voice pitched low. They were in the room with the pages plastered to the walls. He had confidence in Ty’s work, that they couldn’t be overheard.

Ty faced him. He shrugged. “What do you want me to say? I told you I was sorry. I told you why I did it. And you know what, Zane? I’d do it again. In a heartbeat. Because I was protecting someone I love.”

“You weren’t
protecting
me, Ty, you were spying on me. The fact that you don’t see that, that you’d march right down that road again without thinking twice, that scares the piss out of me. How the hell can I trust you now?”

Ty rolled his eyes.

“You were meeting with Burns in Baltimore, weren’t you?” Zane growled.

“Burns wasn’t in Baltimore, Zane!”

Zane took several long strides and grabbed Ty by his shoulders, shoving him up against the wall. “Stop lying to me!”

Ty’s eyes flashed and he clenched his jaw, baring his teeth. “Call me a liar one more time and I’ll put you down.”

Zane’s grip tightened. His breaths came harder and faster. Maybe a good knock-down, drag-out fight would do them both some good. Zane certainly wanted to smash his fist into Ty’s teeth right now.

He pushed away instead, backing toward the door so he wouldn’t be tempted to lash out. “You might want to get used to it. That’s the kind of stuff you call people who lie for a living.”

“Where are you going?” Ty demanded.

Zane turned his back on him. “I need a drink.”

Ty had to take a few seconds to gather himself before he could follow Zane out the door. He’d be goddamned if Zane headed down there to drink, not because of him, not without a fight. He glanced down the hall as he pulled his shirt back on. Nick had come to his feet, his gun in hand.

“What’s going on?”

Ty waved him off. “I got this.”

He hurried down the steps and reached the barroom just in time to see Zane pouring a snifter full of whiskey.

“Zane.”

Zane glared at him, and Ty had to fight every fiber of his being not to avert his eyes. He plowed on, though, stepping up behind the bar, opposite Zane.

“I’m going to give you ten seconds to get the fuck away from me,” Zane snarled.

Ty’s heart stuttered. He had never seen Zane like this, had never known he even had it in him to seethe like this. He squared his shoulders, though. “I’m not going to let you do this.”

Zane held perfectly still. He didn’t even seem to be breathing. “
You
did this, Ty,” he said, then lifted the glass to his lips.

Ty grabbed his wrist. The whiskey spilled all over the bar. Zane stood so fast that his stool clattered to the floor. Ty barely managed to block Zane’s arm before the glass crashed into the side of his head, then Zane reached across the bar and grabbed Ty by his shirt, lifting him off the ground and dragging him across the bar top.

Ty could do nothing but grasp Zane’s forearms and hold on as Zane yanked him off the bar and threw him to the floor. He rolled and pushed to his hands and knees, then to his feet. Zane picked up the barstool beside him and swung it with one hand, as if it were nothing more than a pillow.

The stool crashed to the floor at Ty’s feet as he staggered back. He was both shocked that Zane had lashed out and chastising himself for not expecting it. He knew how deeply he’d hurt Zane, and he knew what happened when Zane’s anger went unchecked. He should have known. Zane’s rage only served to calm Ty further.

“Everything I’ve done, Ty, I’ve done it for you!” Zane shouted.

Ty was peripherally aware of Kelly hovering near the bar and Nick and Liam standing on the stairs watching. He waved at them to make sure no one interfered. He couldn’t have anyone getting hurt in a scuffle. He shook his head as Zane came at him. “Not like this, Zane,” he tried.

Zane’s fist flew at him. Then again. Ty was able to block the first two punches, but the third caught him in the kidney and he doubled over. Waves of pain almost brought him to his knees. He lunged forward, wrapping Zane up to try to stop him without hurting him. He refused to throw a punch in retaliation.

Zane shouted, his voice full of anger, pain, and betrayal. He picked Ty up and slammed him against the large wooden support beam in the middle of the room. The glass of a picture frame cracked against Ty’s shoulders. Ty tightened his hold on Zane’s arms, locking him down, trying to immobilize him before he hurt himself or Ty.

“I’m sorry, Zane,” he gasped, trying to hold tight.

Zane pressed his face into Ty’s neck, fighting back a sob. His entire body was trembling.

Ty dug his fingers into Zane’s back, holding him close. He put his lips to Zane’s ear. “I’m so sorry.”

Zane’s shoulders tightened under Ty’s hands. “I would have chosen you over anything,” Zane hissed. He pulled back, breaking Ty’s hold, bunched the front of Ty’s shirt in both hands, and jerked Ty forward until they were nose-to-nose, until Ty’s feet weren’t solidly on the floor. “My job, my family, my
wife
. I would have given my life for you! But you! You can’t even give me the truth!”