And Call Me in the Morning (3 page)

“It doesn't bother you?”

“That, I didn't say.”

“And there you have it.” Eli made himself stay put. He wasn't a coward, for fuck's sake; the last thing he needed to do was prove that wrong by running. Pressing his point, that was different. “All those in favor of pretending this never happened, raise your hands.”

Zane didn't. “Don't run away, would you? Something like this, you can't play ostrich over.”

“Yeah? I've got no problem with that.”

“You should.” Zane approached Eli with a sort of definite intent that Eli recognized now.

“What do you think you're doing?”

“Kissing you again. Once could be a fluke. Twice? Maybe we'll know we've got something. Hold still.”

“You sound like you're about to wipe a smudge off my cheek.”

“More like lay one on.”

Maybe if he hadn't said that, Eli would have gone for it. Who was he kidding? No maybe about it. He wanted that, and to be frank, it scared the hell out of him.

“No.” He pointed at Zane. “I've got to go.”

“You don't
have
to go anywhere. We're both off for the day. Eli, would you just stay put and let's figure this out?”

“Nothing to figure out. I told you it was a bad idea. Move it already, would you?” Eli's temper was on the rise.

Zane looked aside, but not off into space. More with his laser stare directed to the left, as if should he look at Eli, he'd say more than he wanted to.

“What?”

Zane shook his head. He didn't look back at Eli. “Okay. If you need to go, then go. But you know where I'll be.”

Yeah, Eli did. He also knew that right now, Zane's mind would be working sixty miles to the gallon, coming up with God only knew what. Zane could work that way, process that fast. Not Eli. So help him, it took him a while.

“I know,” Eli said, and made himself walk away. Not that it helped. He could feel Zane watching him all the way to his car.

If he still felt Zane's presence afterward, driving away, Eli told himself that was his imagination keeping Zane lingering with him and the pressure of Zane's lips still making his tingle. Imagination and nothing more.

Could he stop thinking about that kiss? No. Or, sort of. Eli was too tired for rational processing. He was over his hours and too tired to risk any kind of patient care, but as a bolt-hole, the doctor's lounge at Immaculate Grace worked. With the background noise of the hospital, he could let himself tune out and nurse cup after cup of the worst coffee in the city. Thick as tar and just about as tasty, exactly like your crazy great-uncle used to make. It'd put hair on your chest. Eli didn't need help in that area, but what the hell. Gave him something to focus on besides…

Zane's lips, soft and sweet. Parting to let him in, tasting of bitterness and sugar.

His cell phone chimed, volume set to low. Incoming text. Eli automatically checked, the response ingrained after years when paying attention to what people had to say literally meant the difference between life and death. Funny how he hadn't been able to do that with Zane, huh?

So, I'm a twat. Nothing you didn't already know. But I'm apologizing.

From Diana. Eli thumbed Delete and pushed the phone into his shirt pocket, where it hung heavy against his chest. He scowled and tossed back another draught of ink masquerading as Columbian freeze-dried. The message joined the mental bank where Holly's e-mail from earlier already lived. Not so short but as directly to the point.

We pushed you too far. Please accept my apology, and let's talk about this.

Psychotherapists. Talking was what they did best. What had he been thinking to start spending time with one of them?

Zane had liked them. Where Zane went, Eli followed. That was the odd thing about Zane and had been from the start. Eli wasn't the easiest person in the world to get to know. That, he'd own. Took people time to get past his walls, and few ever made it beyond the perimeter. Zane? He'd blown through as if they weren't even there. Effortless conqueror.

Maybe because he knew where to give when he needed to. Some might call that weakness. Eli chose to see it as masterminding.

Had Zane planned that kiss? Was what Eli had felt a normal reaction to your straight friend laying one on you? Eli didn't know. Couldn't tell. Wasn't sure he wanted to. With Zane, anything was possible.

Christ, but Zane's lips had been soft.

“Fuck,” Eli muttered. He couldn't stop tapping his foot. Too much coffee. He stood and paced to the window.

So there was no denying it to himself, was there? He'd enjoyed that kiss. More than enjoyed, God help him. Every time he remembered a detail, it made him want to do what Zane asked and try it again. But c'mon. This wasn't him. Never had been. And fucking a friend? Bad idea. Bad to the infinite power of bad.

Fucking
? Jesus. Eli flinched away from the word choice. But what else was he supposed to think of? Love? Somehow he couldn't see hearts and flowers here.

Okay. He didn't want to, but he was. That kiss had him all turned around.

If at all possible, Eli liked having a game plan. A road map, as it were. Granted, it was usually more of a grand scheme sort of thing. Cops and doctors, both had to think on their feet, right? Still, as long as Eli knew where he was going and how he wanted to get there, he'd damn well see it through or die trying.

This thing with Zane? No clue. Well. None except for what he'd been trying to avoid even more than the kiss: the growing, uneasy certainty that this was what they'd been heading for all along. Whatever “this” was.

Wondering gave way to a brief flash of fantasy:

Zane, pliant and willing and giving. Zane, curled warm and tight in his arms as if he belonged there.

Eli glanced out the window and snorted a laugh. “Speak of the devil, hmm?” he murmured. When he looked down, he had a great view into the skylight of the free clinic attached to Immaculate Grace. And what did he see? Zane, running on even less sleep than Eli but back in scrubs and his coat, a chart in one hand and a terrified intern hanging on to his every word. Laser stare activated. Getting the job done, making his word law.

Everywhere Eli turned, all roads led to Zane. A sense of inevitability had already seeped beneath Eli's skin, and to be perfectly honest? It scared the fuck out of him, but despite all his protests, it didn't scare him as
much
as he thought it should have, and that scared him most of all.

Eli lingered at the window, uncomfortably aware that he was spying but not so much able to make himself look away. How often did he have a chance to observe Zane in the wild without knowing Zane had his location, reactions, and probable actions charted on a mental map? How rare was it to just look without being looked at in turn?

Okay, so that was bullshit. Eli wanted to look, and so he did.

In his element, Zane was the finest doctor Eli had been privileged to know, and he'd met more than his share. First the idiots who'd poked and prodded the hell out of him after he'd been shot in the line of duty. A cop's worst nightmare, right? Some idiot pops you with a bullet, and before you know it, the higher-ups are talking desk duty and disability. Be reduced to an old man without a purpose in life before he was forty? Not going to happen. Eli'd gone to that very free clinic looking for the only second opinion he could afford.

That'd been where he'd met Zane, who'd taken his case and his cause without hesitation. Even then Eli had been struck by the passion in him, his sense of purpose, and his common sense.

Zane. He left a permanent impression, no doubt about that. A handshake, a smile, a frank opinion with no bullshit. Hard pill to swallow. It'd gone down surprisingly easy when Eli watched Zane move around the room with brisk, economical movements and the banter that already came easy between them and thought, Maybe I can't wear a badge any longer. I wonder if I could do this instead.

He'd never looked back since. Never had a chance to, not once Zane had found out. Cheering section, enabler, and, pretty soon, closest of all friends, striding in where no one else went with his head held high. They'd kept in touch during Eli's long years at Duke University, and Zane had pulled some strings to get Eli back at Immaculate Heart for his residency.

Zane. All roads led back to Zane, didn't they?

Eli drifted, so slowly he wasn't aware of the transition, in the way he watched Zane. Noticing things he never had before. How Zane's scrubs top pulled tight over his chest, packed with lean muscle. The corded strength in his forearms when he leaned over a counter and gestured wildly with a pen. Forearms Eli knew were corded with firm veins.

And as he looked, he began to think of other things. Slow, so slow, pictures filtering into his mind.

Desires.

If he were to do this—if—maybe it would go something like…

Eli stopped Zane with a hand to the shoulder. All the lights were out in the free clinic, everyone gone home for the night. Zane and Eli left behind, workaholics to the last, but somehow that was different when you had each other's backs and counted on one another. Zane, exhausted but still crackling with life, his gray eyes tired but his wicked smile ready.

“Something on your mind?” Zane asked, as if Eli wasn't certain Zane knew damn well what kind of bee he had in his bonnet.

“Don't ask questions if you already know the answers.” Eli let his fingers trail down to the neckline of Zane's scrubs. Strange how Zane's sleek chest held as much appeal in its way as the firm swell of a woman's breasts. Maybe more so. How long had it been that way?

“Maybe I want to hear what you've got to say. Ever think about that?” A planner he might be, but Zane's impatience got the best of him four out of five times. He draped his arm over Eli's shoulder and tugged him in. More, he nudged Eli's foot with his and guided him closer.

Eli came. No reason not to. This was easy, natural, the way it should be. He slid his arm casually around the small of Zane's back and rested his palm on Zane's hip, taut and flat instead of rounded, and liked it. His leg was pressed to the join of Zane's. “Nah. I know you. You're easy.”

“Guilty.” Zane relaxed his pose, letting Eli push his leg between, and shifted his weight so that Eli held him up. “What are you going to do about it?”

Eli snapped out of the fantasy.

What was he going to do about it? That was the million-dollar question, wasn't it? And the biggest irony of all? If he'd had a problem like this before, who would he have taken it to?

Zane.

Zane, who glanced up at the skylight as if he could sense himself being watched. Eli jerked back, heart thudding in his throat.

Someone caught him. For a breathless second, Eli thought it'd be Zane. Instead, it was the last person he would have expected.

“Taye?” Eli pulled away from Taye's tap on his shoulder. “No one ever taught you not to sneak up on an ex-cop, did they?” He had a sensation of spiders crawling over his skin. “It is Taye, right?”

“It is.” Taye shook Eli's hand, surprising and impressing him. Manners. Nice. “Sorry. My brother's on the force. NYPD. I know these things.”

“Not much you don't know, is there?”

Taye held his ground. Ballsy, wasn't he? Eli could respect that. “I wouldn't have intruded, but I called your name three or four times and you didn't hear me. I thought you might be asleep on your feet.” A glint of humor broke up his seriousness. “I'm new, but I've been around long enough to know
that
happens too.”

“True.” Eli sat on the windowsill, welcoming the cold bite of slate through his clothes against his too-warm skin. “What can I do for you?” he asked, figuring Taye had seen a fellow doctor and come to get a consult on something. The usual from an intern.

He was wrong. “I wanted to apologize,” Taye said, meeting Eli's eyes the way so few people did. “We don't know each other. My being in on that brunch wasn't right. Neither was my ganging up on you. I was out of line.”

“Damn right you were.” Still… “Takes balls to own up to that. Thanks.” Eli offered Taye his hand. “We done here?”