Nick chewed on his lip for a few seconds, then turned to glance at the others. “Who wants to volunteer for first watch with Ty?”
The bar felt heavy when it was deserted, as if the music and smoke and drink had all risen to the top and begun pressing down on everyone below. That had always been Ty’s favorite time of day. The memories weren’t so sweet now, though.
“Drew the short straw, huh?” Ty said as Zane came up behind him. Ty couldn’t look him in the eye now, not even through the mirror that hung over the back of the bar. The last time he’d been called a coward, Zane had been the one defending him. It was dizzying to see how all they’d built could unravel so quickly.
Zane slid onto the stool beside him. Ty doggedly stared at the bar top. He didn’t want to look at Zane right now, didn’t want to feel the pain that came with those dark eyes.
“I was out of line, saying that in front of everyone,” Zane said. His voice was soft, but still cold.
“You wanted to take me down a peg or two in front of the boys. You did it. Congratulations.”
Zane sighed, and Ty felt the gust of his breath against his cheek. “This is where you’re supposed to apologize too, and we start trying to make sense of what we have left to us.”
Ty glanced up sharply. “What we have left to us? Why are you so ready to walk, Zane? I was doing my job. You of all people should understand what that means.”
Zane grunted. “Don’t you dare throw that in my face. You know as well as I do that whatever you’ve been doing the past two years was anything but your job.”
“Please,” Ty sneered.
“How about apologizing for lying to me? For spying on me? Using me?”
Ty slammed his hand on the bar. “I never lied to you, Garrett, not about us! Never once did I tell you anything that wasn’t true, not when it came to you and me. And I sure as hell didn’t use you for anything.”
“Well forgive me if I don’t believe a goddamn word you say. The only way I hear the truth from you is when someone has a gun to your fucking head. Or mine!”
“Someone did have a gun to your head!” Zane started to get up, but Ty reached out to grab him. He didn’t dare let him turn away, afraid Zane wouldn’t ever turn back again. “After everything we’ve been through, why the hell can’t you believe me?”
“Because you lie.”
The words hit him in the gut, and he gasped for air.
The curtain rustled and Ava came through carrying three reservoir glasses. She set them on the bar, looking between Ty and Zane with a raised eyebrow.
“You two going to sit there glaring at each other all night?” she asked before ducking below the bar to retrieve a wooden box from underneath.
Zane didn’t flinch. He continued to glower at Ty, the anger and betrayal roiling in the air between them. They were both frightened, and the only thing they knew to do when they were scared was lash out.
Ty leaned closer. “You can be angry for as long as you want, Zane. It doesn’t change what’s happened, and it doesn’t change the way I feel about you. Remember that, if nothing else.”
Ty left it at that, turning away from Zane to take one of the glasses. They were specially made for preparing absinthe; thick and heavy, with a wide mouth and a small reservoir in the stem. They were quite beautiful, as drinking glasses went. Ava pulled three ornate spoons from the wooden box and set them on the bar.
The silence stretched thin. Ty had tried every avenue. He’d explained himself, pleaded, reasoned with Zane, and professed his love over and over. None of it had made a dent in Zane’s armor. Ty peered sideways at Zane. There wasn’t much else he could do, and Zane seemed just as willing to toss it all away now as he had earlier. “This is the part where I drink and don’t give a damn if it bothers you,” he whispered. “Feel free to look away.”
Zane’s lip curled and he narrowed his eyes. “No need to be concerned about me. Maybe a stiff drink will settle your nerves.”
“My, my,” Ava said. “I see that gris-gris is working already.”
Ty snorted. He didn’t know if it was the gris-gris, but he and this town sure as hell were cursed.
“Thank you for throwing the cheap glasses instead of these,” Ava said as she poured a reservoir full of light green liquid into each glass. The bottle was labeled Vieux Pontarlier. It was the very best absinthe you could buy, made exactly the same way it had been two hundred years before and imported from France.
He knew Zane had delved into all manner of chemicals, legal and illegal. He wasn’t sure absinthe had made it to the Miami scene, though, and he wasn’t sure Zane would know what Ava was doing.
Zane glanced from the spoons to the dark bottle she set on the bar, then back to Ty for a moment. He looked suspicious, as if he thought Ty was about to do something dangerous or illegal.
There was a completely mistaken aura surrounding absinthe as that of a mysterious, addictive, mind-altering substance, giving it a gothic horror sort of taboo. It was all completely unfounded, of course. It was just about the only thing Ty could drink while on the job, because while absinthe did get you drunk, it also made you unusually lucid, creating the illusion of a waking dream. He functioned well. It was all he had drunk for nearly two years while undercover.
He set the spoon on his glass, making sure the special lip underneath caught the edge of the glass to keep it in place. Then he plucked a sugar cube from the bowl Ava had set down and placed it on the center of the spoon.
Ava turned to fill a pitcher with water.
“What is this?” Zane finally asked, sounding annoyed to have to ask.
“Absinthe. The real stuff, not the tourist trade.”
Zane frowned but didn’t say anything. Ty didn’t try to set any of his preconceptions straight.
“We’d sit and do this every night,” Ava told Zane as she returned with the pitcher full of ice water. “You should try it.”
“Garrett’s got poor impulse control. Don’t you, Garrett? Has to stay away from the cocktails.” Ty poured the water out over his sugar cube. The water and dissolving sugar mixed with the green absinthe below, turning it a weak, milky green.
“That’s right,” Zane snarled. “Maybe you should learn a thing or two about it.”
Ty removed the spoon, shaking his head.
“Every night after we sang, we’d go sit in that corner there, pour a glass of la fée verte, and laissez les bon temps rouler,” Ava told Zane with a hint of bittersweet irony. She leaned her elbows on the bar and took a sip of her drink. “And every Saturday night,” she continued, voice lower, growing huskier, “we would pick a plaything to join us. You would have been chosen, no doubt.”
“He was,” Ty muttered.
After what felt like a drawn-out moment of silence, Zane said, “Let the good times roll, huh?”Ty focused on his drink, watching the green liquid swirl and mix. “When in Rome.”
“Rome wasn’t the only thing that burned in a day,” Zane replied evenly.
Ty met his eyes for a long moment, for the first time seeing distrust in them. He lowered his head, closing his eyes, then took a drink.
Ava reached beneath the bar again and pulled out a little homemade voodoo doll, made with sticks and a piece of burlap. The eyes had been drawn on, and the hair was bundled sage. She set it on the bar.
“What’s this?” Ty reached for it, recognizing the ring around its neck. It was his, one he’d thought he’d lost years ago. His confusion turned to outrage and he grabbed the doll. “This is me?”
Ava shrugged. “I had some free time. It’s served its purpose. I guess you’ll be wanting it back. I’m going to bed.” She picked up her glass to take with her. “You boys play nice.”
“You voodoo’d me?” Ty gaped at her as she left, the voodoo doll still in his hand. “You bitch!”
Her laughter reached them from the back.
Zane plucked the doll from his hand. “You told me voodoo dolls were good luck.”
“They are,” Ty answered, still scowling at the curtain.
“She’s got a lot of pins in you.”
Ty glanced at him and yanked the doll out of his hand. The pins were mostly in his head, blue ones, meant to draw love. But there were also white, red, and black pins scattered over the doll’s torso, hands, and groin, symbolizing positivity, power, and repelling evil.
“There’s one in almost every place you’ve been hurt the past few years.”
“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.”
Chapter 10
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.