“Oh God, Ty,” Nick groaned as he ran his hand through his hair.
Ty closed his eyes and let his head fall back with a sigh, but he couldn"t help but smile. “I know.” It really was a departure from anything he"d ever done, trusting someone so much. It was a step to a new person, a step Ty didn"t mind taking. But sitting here with Nick, it brought into stark contrast the differences in the person he had been and the person he was now. Sometimes he missed the man he"d been ten years ago. That Ty had been an utter badass. But that was about the only good thing that could be said for the man he"d been then.
“You"re just hanging around, hoping he falls for you?” Nick asked, a combination of pity and amazement in his voice.
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Ty nodded, unashamed, spinning his ring over and over around his finger. He didn"t even have to think about his answer, although it wasn"t exactly accurate. Zane had already fallen. Ty was just waiting until Zane was done running all the scenarios and crunching all the numbers.
Nick sat back with a small sigh. “Well, I"m sort of happy for you,” he hedged. He reached out and petted Ty on the head for lack of anything better to do, and they both laughed and clinked their glasses together at the absurdity of it.
Ty was down to his last mouthful of beer when Nick finally spoke again. “You"re a big ol" screaming bottom, aren"t you?” he asked Ty with certainty.
Ty choked on the beer he"d been drinking. He lurched out of his seat to lean over the table and spit the mouthful of beer onto the floor before it went up his nose. Nick was laughing at him as he coughed and sputtered. He slapped Ty on the back and they both began laughing raucously.
“I"ll get you another beer,” Nick told him, snickering as he headed toward the bar.
“Christ,” Ty hissed as he ran his hand over his face. Nick knew him far too well.
A couple of hours later, Nick was well into double digits, and Digger and Kelly had already stumbled off to find a cab and possibly kill Owen if they could find him. Ty was going slower, mostly because he wanted to be able to walk home tonight, but also because the more Nick talked, the angrier Nick got. And Ty was thinking he might have to drag him out and tie him down to keep him from violence before the night was over.
“Why"d it take you so long to tell me?” Nick asked him after a random ten-minute rant about the Red Sox that almost caused a fight with some guy in an Orioles T-shirt.
Ty glanced at him in surprise. He felt foolish now for keeping it a secret all these years, but no one could predict how a loved one would react to such a surprise. He tried to think of a way to put it in terms Nick could understand while blazed.
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“Imagine if… I had told you I was a closet Yankees fan,” he told Nick with a smile. “How would you have reacted?”
“That shit"s not funny, Ty. You"re not serious, right? I thought you grew up on Atlanta! How do you go over to the dark side just out of the blue!” Nick asked in true horror.
Ty laughed. “See? There was always the chance you might react that way,” he said as he finished the last beer he planned to drink tonight. “It was a scary prospect.”
Nick stared at him for a long moment. “But you"re not really a Yankees fan, right?” he finally asked carefully.
Ty smiled and shook his head.
“Shit, man,” Nick muttered. He threw back his bottle, emptying it and setting it down on the table between them with a loud clank.
“Don"t scare me like that.”
Ty grinned and rested his head on his hand.
“You haven"t told anyone else, have you?” Nick asked him suddenly.
Ty glanced at him, only to find Nick looking at him sadly. Ty shook his head.
Nick slammed his hand down on the table, rattling the bottles and causing one to tip over and roll toward the edge. Ty grabbed for it but missed it as it fell to the floor. It bounced noisily but didn"t shatter.
Nick didn"t even bother trying to be discreet as he stood up.
“That"s not fucking right, Ty,” he railed angrily. “You shouldn"t have to be afraid to tell anyone who you are or who you"re in love with.”
“O, calm down,” Ty urged quietly as he stood and put one hand on Nick"s shoulder.
“You know what? You fought and almost died for your country,”
Nick continued, undaunted. “What they did to us out there? What happened to us when that helo went down was—”
“Okay, we"re leaving,” Ty said firmly. He took the beer from Nick"s hand and dug around for his wallet.
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“You put away killers every day for a living,” Nick continued with a point of his finger in Ty"s face. Ty resisted the urge to reach up and grab his hand so he wouldn"t get poked in the eye. “If you have to hide who you are from your closest friends, then fuck the world, man.
It"s not fair,” Nick spat with a wave of his hand that almost turned into a backhand as Ty quickly leaned away.
“You are a hot mess, man. How many have you had?” Ty asked with a snort as he reached out and grabbed Nick"s elbow to steady him.
He slapped a few bills on the table and waved at the waitress to let her know they were leaving.
“And you know what else?” Nick went on without answering. Ty began to lead him toward the door, his arm around him to guide him.
“This Garrett character? He"s lucky to have a guy like you for a partner, much less have you in love with him. He can"t find it in himself to return the feeling? Can"t even fucking fake it for you? Well, fuck him too!”
Ty cleared his throat and tightened his grip on Nick"s shoulders, pulling him closer in case he decided to continue ranting and get louder. They didn"t want any trouble from the irate Orioles fans. “I think we need to take a little walk home,” he muttered as they stepped out the door into a brisk wind off the harbor. They turned toward Fleet Street, cursing at the cold. But it was only a four-block walk, and Ty wasn"t exactly worried about the two of them being mugged.
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and tried hard not to think about anything as he and Nick started off. He wasn"t sure what bothered him more, that Owen was so utterly disgusted and pissed off because he was in love with a guy, or that his talk with Nick had left his best friend with all this anger and worry over his relationship with Zane. Nick wasn"t the first person to question it. Deuce had repeatedly expressed his concerns: what would happen when one or both of them got tired of the other, what would happen when someone got their heart broken? Except Deuce had been worried about Zane"s heartbreak. Nick seemed to think it would be Ty"s, in the end.
As they were passing the darkened side of the Broadway Market building, Nick suddenly reached out and took Ty"s shoulder.
“Ty,” he said urgently.
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Ty turned to look at him in bemusement, expecting more drunken rambling. Or, God forbid, another near-breach of national security. But despite the ranting, Nick"s green eyes were clear and his voice sounded steady. Ty realized he wasn"t sloppy drunk, after all. Not impossibly so, anyway. But Ty couldn"t quite decipher the look in his friend"s eyes.
There was sadness there, and anger. And something else he didn"t think he"d ever seen. Longing.
“I wish you"d trusted me with this earlier,” Nick muttered to him.
“If I"d known, all those years….”
He opened his mouth to say more, then closed it again with a frustrated sigh. Before Ty really registered what was happening, Nick had taken his shoulders in both hands and was kissing him soundly, right there on the street in the middle of Fell"s Point.
Ty flailed, gripping Nick"s elbows for lack of a better place to put his hands. His natural instinct was to pull him closer and deepen the kiss, but this was Nick! This was perhaps his oldest and dearest friend, kissing him without a hint of warning. The most disconcerting thing of all, though, was that it wasn"t Zane pressed against him. Ty found himself returning the kiss tentatively, regardless, as Nick held him tightly and pushed him against the brick wall behind him. Guilt and shock warred for priority over the pleasure of a really amazing kiss in the brief seconds it took for it to end.
Nick abruptly stepped away from him, inhaling sharply. Ty found himself gaping at the man, unsteady as he leaned against the wall and unable to speak or even breathe.
“You ever get tired of waiting for him to come to his senses, you know where to find me,” Nick told him breathlessly.
“Nick,” Ty whispered in supreme confusion.
“I"m sorry. That was a shitty thing to do,” Nick muttered. He put his head down and started walking.
Ty stared after him for a moment before lurching forward to go after him.
“I should probably go back to the hotel instead of… you know, home with you,” Nick said as soon as Ty caught up to him. He was holding out a hand at the row of taxis waiting to take people home 220 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux
when the bars closed down. One of them turned on its lights and began rolling forward.
“O, wait,” Ty pleaded as he grabbed at Nick"s elbow. Nick turned and pulled him closer, kissing him again before Ty could anticipate it.
He could feel his body reacting, though, whether he wanted it to or not.
Nick delved into Ty"s mouth with a swipe of his tongue before yanking away violently.
Nick pushed him away and put out his hand to stop Ty from coming closer. “God! We never were good at self-control.” He wouldn"t look Ty in the eye. “Just let me go.”
“Okay,” Ty agreed in a stricken voice.
Nick reached for the door of the cab and yanked it open almost angrily. “Oorah, Grady,” he said with a sad smile before he disappeared into the dark car. Ty was left standing alone on the street as the taillights faded off into the night.
TY TRIED to tell himself he didn"t need to go home to Zane tonight. It was cruel to have alcohol on his breath around Zane, and he"d already done it once this week. His other choices were a hotel or Zane"s apartment, but Ty had been drinking, so he couldn"t drive, and he didn"t want to have to catch a cab. Mostly, he really didn"t need Zane to hear the guilt and confusion and myriad of other emotions Ty knew he wouldn"t be able to keep out of his voice. He should just call Zane, tell him he and the guys were crashing at a hotel, hole up for the night, and pretend nothing had happened when he woke up hungover.
But he knew he couldn"t do that.
When he got home, he was still warring with himself over whether he should even tell Zane about what had happened tonight.
He"d outed not only himself, but Zane as well, without truly thinking it through. And then there was the kiss.
It wasn"t like Ty had ever been celibate. Zane knew he"d gotten around and wasn"t shy about sex. But Ty had never been with anyone he"d hidden from Zane, and since they"d been partnered permanently, Divide & Conquer | 221
Ty hadn"t been with anyone else, period. Ty knew it was just a simple kiss, but for him there was no gray area when it came to sex. Either you cheated or you didn"t.
He didn"t believe Zane was fucking anyone else, but just the thought made Ty cringe. It seemed so unlikely, since they were together so much… but really they
weren’t
. Obstacles and commitments separated them every day: different projects at work, the softball league, AA meetings, Ty"s running and Zane"s weightlifting, various and sundry other off-hours pursuits. Throw in the very necessary secrecy that shrouded their relationship, and it was kind of amazing that they were still together at all. But they were, every night that work allowed, despite everything that tried to divide them.
Ty didn"t know if Zane wanted his loyalty, but he had it nonetheless.
Semper Fi.
The real question Ty found himself grappling over was how Zane would take it when he told him about tonight. Would he see it as a threat? Emotional blackmail? Ty didn"t think so, but he"d found there were still times he couldn"t predict how Zane would react.
It was dark and quiet in the house. Zane must have gone to bed. A wave of desperate relief washed over Ty, and within minutes he was sitting on the back step with a cheap cigar and a couple of bottles to help extend the buzz and ward off the winter chill.
Uncounted minutes later, his entire body still pinged pleasantly, courtesy the two hard lemonades on top of the beer he"d had at the bar.
He was just drunk enough that he didn"t have to think too hard about what had happened tonight anymore. He held the cheap cigar in his fingers, puffing on it occasionally and blowing smoke rings into the dark. He didn"t like to smoke the good ones when he was drunk. It seemed a waste.
The door behind him creaked open, drawing Ty"s attention, and he closed his eyes as Zane stepped out onto the stoop. Nerves assaulted him all over again.
“Ty?” Zane asked hesitantly.
“Yeah, I"m here,” he answered immediately, not even entertaining the idea of not doing so. He had yet to take advantage of 222 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux
his partner"s inability to see, even for fun and games. He wasn"t about to start now.
Zane stepped just outside the door. “I smelled the cigar. You guys have a good time?”
Ty lowered his head as another wave of guilt and anger and regret and desire coursed through him. It was such a wash of confusing emotions he wasn"t quite sure how to deal with it, and the alcohol wasn"t helping. He looked back up and took another drag of the cigar, holding in the fragrant smoke and then exhaling heavily. Smoke billowed out in front of him. “I outed myself tonight,” he told Zane in a marginally surprised voice.