“Goddammit!” Zane lashed out without warning and hit the water bottle, sending it skidding across the carpet and splattering at Julian’s feet. “I’m gonna end up in the f**king madhouse because of you!” He reached out and grabbed Ty’s wrist, pulling him closer. “Loving you is going to make me f**king insane! I said no, and I mean it!”
Ty froze. Julian could only see half his face, but he appeared to be staring at Zane, mouth hanging open.
Julian realized he was doing the same thing. After several heartbeats, Zane closed his eyes and exhaled.
“I’m sorry. Did you say loving him?” Julian blurted incredulously. He pointed at Ty. “Him? You and him?”
“Julian….” Cameron tugged on his arm, trying to get him to leave the room, and Julian went along as he continued to gape at them.
Ty and Zane just stood there, frozen, Zane with his head bowed, Ty staring at him.
“I did not see that coming,” Julian said to Cameron under his breath.
“Good to know you can still be surprised,” Cameron whispered. “Now come on.”
Julian nodded and turned with Cameron, glancing back at their companions. “We’ll just be… somewhere else,” he told them as he reached for the door.
There was no answer as Julian closed the door behind them.
“Wow,” Cameron said quietly.
“Indeed,” Julian murmured. He looked at Cameron speculatively, not sure how to parse the information they’d just been made privy to and not certain what to do now that they had an entire night to themselves.
Cameron looked back at the door. There wasn’t any sound coming through it. “Come on. Let’s go downstairs.”
“And drink,” Julian added, nodding. He smiled suddenly, giving Cameron a sly sideways glance. “Or. We could just turn in for the night. In our own room.”
“Which is next door, and you’ll be tempted to eavesdrop,” Cameron said, waving at the room down the hall. “Compromise,” he said, looking up to meet Julian’s eyes with an answering smile. “Drink, then room. Just… give them a little time.”
Julian gave an exaggerated roll of his eyes as he slipped his arm around Cameron’s shoulders. “You’re an insufferable romantic, you know that?”
“And you love me for it.”
“I do.” He glanced back at the door. “I wonder if they’ll be done in time to realize joining that ghost tour is the best way to reconnoiter?”
“You’re an insufferable predator,” Cameron said, tongue-in-cheek.
“And you love me for it.”
“I do.”
ZANE squeezed his eyes shut as he waited for Ty to say something, but Ty smiled slowly and took a step toward him. “You totally just outed us to the criminals,” he said as he pointed a finger at Zane.
“You make me insane, do you know that?” Zane blurted again with a wave of one hand. “Do you do it on purpose just to see me lose it?”
“Sometimes,” Ty said with a smirk.
Zane sighed in utter frustration.
Ty bit his lip, watching his lover just because he could. He firmly believed that being able to rile Zane like he could was one of the aspects of their relationship that had saved Zane from tumbling back into his destructive past. Every now and then, Zane just needed to feel like he was alive. Everyone should be able to feel that. And if annoying him to the point of homicide was what it took, Ty was up to the challenge.
“What brought this on?” he asked after Zane was silent for a time.
Zane shook his head, his eyes drifting to the door of the room.
Ty gaped at him and pointed at the door. “From the criminals?”
Zane snorted, caught Ty’s hand, and kissed his fingers. “Apparently some ‘criminals’ have better sense than I do.”
“You’re modeling your love life on that of a trained assassin,” Ty laid out in disbelief. “I swear to God, if he pulled some Jedi mind trick on you and they’re off escaping right now, I will put a bullet in his Irish ass!”
Zane laughed, the sound almost desperate as he swiped a hand over his face. “Well, now what do we do?” he asked, dejected. They had gone months without breaking their cover in front of anyone. It had almost been a source of pride for them. Just another undercover assignment.
Ty shook his head, looking at Zane again as unusual warmth began to spread through him. “I don’t care if they know. I don’t care if anyone knows anymore.”
Zane looked at him sharply. “You don’t mean that.”
Ty shrugged. They both knew what their options would be if their relationship was discovered at work. It had nothing to do with them being g*y and everything to do with the FBI’s unofficial policy on fraternizing. “I think we take our chances when we get home.”
“What?”
“They’d just reassign us partners within the work group. We’d still be working together. You’d end up with Freddy, they’d probably put me with Scott. It wouldn’t be too bad. We could actually… you could get rid of your crappy apartment and we could live together.”
Zane stared at him, his dark eyes taking on an almost molten appearance. Ty’s breath caught in his throat as he tried and failed to continue speaking. Deuce had asked him once what it was about Zane that had first drawn him in. He’d been a broken man, an addict who was hopelessly lost in the past, drifting through life alone with little purpose and even less faith that it could get better.
Anyone with any sense would have steered clear. But from the first moment Ty had really looked into Zane’s eyes, he’d seen behind them, into the man Zane was capable of being. He’d seen a phoenix waiting to rise from the ashes, and he still did. Every time he looked into Zane, he saw something extraordinary.
Zane shook his head, his breaths coming harder as they stared at each other. “What if you live with me and you change your mind?”
“Zane,” Ty said in frustration. He held up one hand. “In the time you’ve been with me, have I ever changed my mind after deciding something? Even when we both knew I was wrong?”
Zane smiled weakly and shook his head.
“I love you,” Ty said, the quiet words devoid of any self-consciousness or his usual bravado. “And I’ve never been able to say that before with such conviction. I can’t remember a time that you weren’t the first thing I thought of, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I don’t care what stands in our way.”