Zane wasn’t quite sure what problem Ty thought he’d have with it; that pretty much described him too. “Are you expecting… shock?”
Ty snorted and shook his head. “You’ve just never asked me about this kind of stuff, I keep expecting your head to spin or something.”
Zane laughed. He shrugged the shoulder he wasn’t lying on. “I mean, I’ve obviously switch-hit and bounced around. It’d be pretty shitty of me to judge you for the same.”
Ty nodded. “Well… you know I haven’t been a saint. Most of the people I’ve been with have been… let’s just say I remember the majority by the names of the bar or city I met them in,” he said, unembarrassed by the fact. Ty had never tried to present himself to Zane as anything but what he was. That honesty was oddly assuring to Zane now that they were exclusive.
“Was there ever anyone serious?”
“A few,” Ty answered. “A couple women I didn’t love but I could see myself with long-term, one in particular, but….” He cleared his throat and shook his head. “The connection never felt right. It was always so much more natural with a guy. I was always scared to get too involved with the guys I met, though. There was only one I ever let myself fall hard for, before you.”
It was fascinating, watching Ty from so close when his expressions were so open and honest. Zane tried to follow his eyes, but Ty clearly felt a little awkward with all the sharing, and he continued to stare at the ceiling. “I get the feeling it’s been a while,” Zane said, moving his hand over Ty’s stomach.
“I was young,” Ty said with a nod. “I don’t know if we really loved each other or not. I’m not sure if you even know what love is at seventeen. Felt like it at the time. Enough to scare us. We decided we had to get away from each other before we fell too hard.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “That’s why I joined the Marines, you know. I never told anyone that.”
Zane blinked in surprise. “Really? I thought you were following the family tradition. Semper fi and all that.”
“That just made it easy to explain. No one asked any questions; they all just assumed I was following in Dad’s footsteps. I had thought about it before, it was something I knew I wanted to do, knew I’d be good at. But suddenly it was an escape route too.”
Zane trailed his finger down Ty’s chest as he listened, raptly watching Ty’s face.
“See, my senior year in high school we were playing in a big rivalry game homecoming weekend. I was on defense. I don’t remember why, I almost never played defense. But I was that night, and I sacked the other team’s quarterback. He was a senior too, played all the same sports, so I knew him a little bit from all the games we’d played against each other. I broke his leg.”
He winced with the memory, and Zane smiled. It was always fascinating to find out what Ty sympathized with.
“His last home game and he had to be carried off the field on a little cart. The next day I went to see him, tell him I was sorry. It was his left leg, full cast up to his thigh, so he couldn’t drive a stick, couldn’t get around. I felt guilty, so….” He laughed suddenly at the memory. “I wrote my phone number on his cast and told him to call me whenever he needed to go somewhere. We ended up… we spent a lot of time together. Hit it off.”
“Was he your first?”
“Yeah.” Ty reached up and idly twirled his finger through Zane’s hair. “His name was David.”
Zane tipped his head to the side to be closer to Ty’s fingers. It was a remarkably intimate action, and he loved that Ty was doing it, seemingly without thinking about it. He smiled at the idea of a teenage Ty flirting with a guy he’d literally maimed the night before, writing his number on the guy’s cast to get him to call him. It was sweet, in a very Grady sort of way. “Have you seen him since?”
“Couple times,” Ty answered with a nod. “He’s a lawyer down in Richmond.”
Zane reached to touch Ty’s cheek. “Does it bother you to tell me?”
Ty waited a moment before answering in a surprised voice. “Not really. I guess it’s just been a secret for so long….”
“So how’d he turn out?” Zane asked, not wanting to press his lover on the topic of secrets. “Bachelor? Married?”
“Long-term relationship with a guy he met in college,” Ty answered wryly. His smile fell and he shook his head, closing his eyes as he continued to play with Zane’s hair. “He’s the only thing I’ve ever run from.”
“Being attracted to another man at that time in your life, I’m sure it was a shock to deal with,” Zane said. “I probably would have run too.”
The only thing Zane had known when he’d been that age was Becky. How would he have handled it if those feelings had been for another guy? He wasn’t sure.
“Maybe,” Ty murmured. “Am I the first guy you’ve been involved with? I mean, beyond the ones you left in the alley.”
Zane pressed his index finger on the slight wrinkles between Ty’s brows and rubbed, trying to get him to open his eyes. Ty batted at his hand, then caught it and kissed it, trapping it against his chest.
“Yes,” Zane answered. “I didn’t even consider being with a guy until after Becky was gone, but up to that point I hadn’t considered being with anyone.” It came out so easily, he surprised himself. Usually thinking about Becky at least echoed some sort of pain. But here with Ty, it didn’t hurt. It was a chapter in his life that was finally over.
“Why’d you start?” Ty asked him as he held Zane’s hand firmly to his chest to keep him from poking at his face again.
“Lust,” Zane answered. “It was while I was undercover in Miami, working a smuggling operation from Colombia. We were treated to our choice of escorts, and there was this… well, he was the first one that caught my eye and I couldn’t look away. I figured what the hell, new experiences. After a few times I figured out I enjoyed being with a guy more than any woman I’d been with. It was fun, a good way to blow off steam, really hot.”
Ty nodded, remaining quiet as he rubbed his thumb back and forth over Zane’s hand. He could feel Ty relaxing against him again, body loosening and growing more languid as he held him close. Zane smiled and shifted to lie down again, this time settling his cheek on Ty’s breastbone. “So tell me about the one woman. One woman among so many,” he quipped.
Ty immediately groaned and jerked under him. “I was hoping that would slip past you,” he said, only partly joking.
“Not hardly,” Zane drawled. He pressed his lips to Ty’s skin for a moment. “Tell me anyway.”
Ty cleared his throat. “Her name was Ava,” he said in defeat. “I met her when I was in New Orleans. I almost proposed to her.”
“Really?” Zane blurted, lifting his head to look at Ty.
Ty smiled and shrugged one shoulder. “I could never convince myself it was a good idea. I was right. It didn’t stick.”
“That’s why I’m surprised,” Zane admitted.
“Why?” Ty asked, shifting uncomfortably but meeting Zane’s eyes anyway.
“Because you stuck with me.”
Ty pressed his lips together, looking at Zane worriedly for a moment before reaching up and sliding his palm against Zane’s cheek. “I didn’t love her. And I wasn’t the one who ended it,” he admitted.
“I’m sorry,” Zane whispered, even though deep down he really wasn’t. Ty shook his head. Zane studied him for a long moment. “How long ago was this?”
“Right before Katrina hit,” Ty murmured, frowning as he tried to remember how many years ago that had been.
“Five years this summer.” Zane said. He paused, swallowing hard before asking, “Do you… does it still hurt?”
Ty laughed before he could stop himself. He clapped his hand over his mouth as if he was trying to hide the reaction, and he shook his head.
Zane pushed up to look down at him, not sure how to interpret that reaction.
“I’m sorry,” Ty said hastily, reaching for Zane’s arm to stop him from pulling away. “It’s just your choice of words is….” He laughed again and took Zane’s hand, pulling it to the side of his stomach, just under his ribs, to let Zane’s fingers rest against his skin. “You feel that scar there?” he asked as he placed Zane’s fingers along a faded scar Zane had noticed before.
Zane frowned and nodded, feeling the smooth raised line of scar tissue under his fingertips. It went from the front of Ty’s hip to the back, like he’d been grazed. Then his eyes widened. “She did this?”
“Threw a butcher’s knife at me,” Ty told him, voice tinged with an odd mixture of amusement and irritation. “Her aim was usually better, so I’m pretty sure she missed on purpose.”
“She was pretty set on ending it, then.”
Ty shook his head and inhaled deeply as he relaxed back into bed. “It was my fault. She didn’t know I was a Fed,” he said with true regret. “By the time I realized I might have real feelings for her, I was stuck. Couldn’t figure out how to tell her and not blow my cover. She didn’t even know my last name. I don’t know what I was thinking, I guess… I just hoped she’d still care for me after the case was over and I could come clean to her. But then, when Katrina was bearing down, they pulled everyone, UC or not, to help with evacuation and prepare for search and rescue. I went to her and told her to leave, that I’d found a transport for her and her family to get out safely. She refused until I promised I’d go with them. But I couldn’t leave. I had to tell her why just to get her on the helicopter.”
It was an easy question to ask why she’d been upset, but it wasn’t one Zane needed an answer to. It was difficult when you lived a life undercover, and many people didn’t take kindly to such thorough lies, even for the best of reasons. Ty had given up someone he thought he could love to save her.
“Why didn’t you go back?”
“Well… I was sort of afraid she’d try again with a knife that was easier to throw,” Ty answered, laughing. He bit his lip, looking up at Zane with eyes that shined even in the dim light. “No. The hurricane hit. The city just got… wiped off the map, pretty much. For days we did nothing but survive. Pull people out of the water, kids and animals and old people. Me and everyone else down there cried ourselves to sleep whenever we got the chance. All I could do was make sure they were all okay, everyone I’d known, you know, undercover. But every UC in New Orleans that got blown had to be transferred after the search and rescue became body recovery and they started getting people out. They didn’t give us a chance to linger. That’s how I ended up in Baltimore. I never saw her again after that night.”
Zane didn’t understand. If Ty had really cared for her, or even thought he might have loved her, how had he given her up so easily?
Ty shifted and looked at Zane with a sigh. “You look… disturbed. You’re wondering why I didn’t try harder to get her back, right?” Ty nodded, as if answering his own question. “I cared about her, I did. But after a week or two I realized that she wasn’t the first thing I thought of when I woke up. And when something would happen during the day, she wasn’t the first person I thought I needed to tell it to.” He looked at Zane and smiled. “Not like you. I wasn’t in love with her. She deserved someone who was.”
Zane considered what to say. He wasn’t going to give Ty platitudes; they’d be dismissed anyway. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. But I’m not sorry it happened. I wouldn’t have you otherwise.”
Ty pulled him closer. “Funny how life works, huh?”
“Yeah,” Zane said as he eased into Ty’s arms. They’d both lost a lot along the way. He needed to remember that.
The warmth of Ty’s body next to Zane’s and his easy breathing were both calming and familiar, and Zane found himself sinking into him.
“You okay with all that?” Ty finally asked.
“It’s your past. Can’t be changed any more than mine can. I’m fine with it. Unless we vacation there for Mardi Gras, then I might be on the lookout. I was there once with Becky. We loved it.”
“If I ever go back I’ll have to do it locked and loaded,” Ty said. “I left too many pissed off loose ends down there, including one Cajun daddy who really liked voodoo.”
Zane barked a laugh before he could stop himself. He knew how superstitious Ty was, and something about him being afraid of the voodoo-wielding father of a former flame was intensely amusing.
Ty rolled to his side to face Zane. He reached up to touch Zane’s chin with his fingertips. “We still have a lot to learn about each other.”
Zane figured that was a hell of an understatement. He smiled as Ty’s lips brushed his. “That’s not a bad thing.”
“No.” Ty grinned against Zane’s lips. “I’m sort of looking forward to it.”
Zane closed his eyes, the warmth of contentment stealing over him as they wrapped around each other and settled down to try to sleep. “Should we set an alarm?” Zane asked after a quiet minute. Ty’s breathing had settled into a rhythm, low and even; Zane thought he might even have dropped off to sleep.
But Ty shook his head in immediate answer. He patted his chest before sliding his hand back over Zane’s. “Alarm’s built-in.”
