Ty shook his head. “I love you. You love me. We know what we have can be strong. Stronger.”

Zane lowered his head before he could see the pain that was about to pass over Ty’s face. The elevator door opened and closed behind him. “But . . . the pieces have to be strong for the whole to be. Right?”

“Yes,” Ty whispered. “And I’m not right now. I . . . I don’t even know what I am anymore. I haven’t for a long time.”

“You’re a good man,” Zane said, vehement as he jerked his head up. “You’re a brave man. And you’re a man who loves with his whole heart and soul. That’s who you are.”

Ty pressed his lips together tightly. His eyes were glistening, and as Zane watched, a tear broke free and trailed down his face. Ty ducked his head and wiped it away with the heel of his hand. “That’s who you think I am.”

Zane swallowed hard.

“I’m an assassin,” Ty said, his voice unsteady. “I’m a killer. I’m the tip of a spear.”

The hair on Zane’s arms rose. His stomach tumbled. Another tear followed the trail of the first down Ty’s dirty face, but Ty didn’t seem to notice.

“And you,” Ty continued, his voice breaking. “You’re a phoenix, Zane. Rising from the ashes. And all I do is make you burn.”

Zane’s throat was too tight to swallow past, and his next breath came out a choked sob. He had never imagined that was how Ty saw him, and hearing it now made him want to take back every harsh word they’d ever shared, every thrust and parry of their relationship. He reached for Ty’s face, fingers trembling.

Ty hugged him, clinging to him, his breaths harsh in Zane’s ear. “I’m going to stay here,” Ty said shakily. Zane gasped, but Ty didn’t let him pull away. He held to him tighter. “Until the suspension’s over. I’m going to stay here with Kelly. I’ll give you that time and space you said you need.”

“Ty,” Zane whispered.

Ty wrenched away and dug in his pocket for something, then shoved it into Zane’s hand and hugged him again like he was afraid Zane might try to get away. When Zane looked at the object over Ty’s shoulder, his chest fluttered at the sight of the silver anchor token Ty had made him. I believe in you, it read.

Zane wanted to argue, to beg Ty not to make him leave him here. But Ty was right. He had realized it himself, remembering the way he’d watched Becky, thinking her joy was shared. The way he observed Ty’s vibrant lust for life and fooled himself into thinking he was living just by basking in that glow.

But he had no friends. He had no joys. He had nothing that wasn’t about Ty or the job.

He had to learn to live. If he was a phoenix, he had to learn to fly on his own, or he’d keep smoldering in his own ashes.

He nodded against Ty’s cheek. “Okay,” he whispered. “Okay.”

Chapter 15

Zane sat at his desk, finishing up paperwork from a racketeering case they had been building for the last four weeks. He’d been working without a partner, taking on more responsibilities as a team leader. Two weeks ago, the Assistant Special Agent in Charge had been promoted and transferred to a different post, and Zane had unofficially moved into the position, taking even more responsibility until it was filled.

It was a promotion in every sense of the word, and Dan McCoy had let Zane know the ASAIC was his if he decided to take it. It would mean no more field work.

No more partner.

Zane hadn’t been able to say yes, but he hadn’t refused it either. Candidates were being vetted and interviewed, and Zane had time to decide.

Until then, he concentrated on slowly but surely righting his ship. He’d begun his AA meetings again, keeping the anchor token with him at all times. He’d stopped going to the gym quite as often, trying to fill his free time with other, more varied things. He set up an easel and a massive drop cloth on the top floor of the row house and began painting again. He started talking out loud when the room was empty, like Ty sometimes did, and he found it made his thoughts clearer to send them into the air rather than keep them trapped in his mind to weigh him down. He reread the books he’d clung to all these years, reminding himself why he loved them the first time around. Then he went out and hunted down new ones.

With Ty’s permission, he went through every nook and cranny in the row house. He looked through all of Ty’s books, finding half a dozen with cutouts and things hidden in them: passports, lockbox keys, money from several different countries, a flash drive, the emblem from the grill of the Bronco, and one of Elias Sanchez’s dog tags. He put it all back.

He finally looked under the kitchen sink, hunting through everything to find what it was Ty had hidden under there. He’d caught Ty once, when he’d lost his sight, rummaging through here. What he finally found made him grin from ear to ear: a box of Cuban cigars inside a fireproof, portable safe. He took one out and put the rest back where he’d found them.

The most shocking thing he found, though, was something he’d always known was there. In an armoire in the spare bedroom, Ty kept dozens of little boxes. Decorative boxes, old cigar boxes, leather jewelry cases. Zane had never asked about them, never looked in them. He’d always been just a little afraid to see what Ty kept in those boxes.

Ty managed to surprise him yet again. Inside he found trinkets Ty had collected over the years. Things he’d picked up and taken home for no apparent reason. Things from cases he’d worked. Things from people he’d known. In one box, Zane found a bottle cap from a Shiner beer, the kind he’d had in Texas. A poker chip. A purple crayon. A piece of the fake skin they’d used to cover his tattoo on the cruise ship. A dried flower.

Zane discovered that Ty was basically a squirrel.

After the initial shock of being alone, he started branching out further, trying to find out more about himself instead of Ty. He went to a few Orioles games alone, immersing himself in the intricacies and inches that had so fascinated him as a child. He started putting his knife skills and love of puzzles to good use and taught himself to cook.

He stood outside of a bar in Fell’s Point with dozens of others and watched the news as it was announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed. For the first time in over a week, Ty called him. They watched the same newscast, sharing it together, neither saying more than ten words.

He escorted Clancy to her sister’s wedding, pretending to be her very charming and wealthy boyfriend for her overly nosy mother in exchange for the honor of a few tangos. Clancy wasn’t a half bad dancer.

He helped Alston move out of his girlfriend’s condo, all the while dodging Alston’s possessions being chucked at them from the top of the stairs. They bonded over hot wings, discussing all the ways the job fucked up their relationships.

Perrimore got engaged, and Zane was shocked and slightly panicked when he asked Zane to be his best man. He had never planned a bachelor party, but when his mind turned to Ty, to the obvious person to ask for help, Zane pushed it away. He could do this.

He’d driven to Philadelphia to see Deuce, Livi, and their baby girl. Amelia Rose Grady had been born a few weeks before Christmas, and at five months old, she was already pulling Deuce around like he was on roller skates. She had her mother’s white-blonde hair, and her eyes appeared to be turning that particular Grady green that seemed to serve as nature’s warning to other creatures.

He had spoken to Ty every week.

It had been a good month. A good start. Zane was proud of himself, and he realized that he hadn’t been able to say that in a very long time.

He finished up his paperwork and packed it away. He was the last one in the office, and as he was walking to the elevator, he turned to look at the stairwell. He still wondered what the hell had happened a month ago. He believed Ty now when he said he hadn’t known that Burns was in Baltimore the night of Zane’s twenty-year party, but Zane knew he’d seen the man.

It frustrated him not to have all the answers.

His steps echoed in the empty parking garage. His leather jacket creaked as he slid his arms into it. It was times like this, times when he was alone, when the world was quiet, that he thought of Ty. It would be just like Ty to show up now, maybe sitting on his motorcycle with a smirk, reminding Zane that his birthday was in a few days. That was the type of entrance Ty would make.

Zane grinned at the thought. He found his bike sans Ty, but the thought still made the ride home a good one.

He parked in the backyard, behind the lovingly covered Mustang, and clomped up the steps to the door, humming to himself. When he stepped inside, he set his helmet down on the counter nearby and dumped his keys into the bowl next to it.

“Honey, I’m home,” he said wryly to the empty row house.

“It’s about damn time.”

Zane’s head shot up. Ty was sitting on the arm of the sofa, smiling. He was more tanned than he had been, and he certainly looked healthier. His hair was shorter, and the western style shirt he wore seemed to stretch across the taut muscles of his chest and arms.

“Ty,” Zane breathed.

“You look good.”

Zane took a few steps closer and Ty stood, his smile growing softer.

“You look really good, Zane.”

Zane lunged for him and wrapped him up in a hug. The smell of Old Spice permeated Zane’s senses for the first time in a month.

“How are you?” Ty asked as they hugged.

“I’m good,” Zane managed. He pressed his nose to the scar on Ty’s throat. “You?”

Ty nodded jerkily. He didn’t let go of Zane. “Are you ready for me to come home?” he asked, voice breaking.

“Yes,” Zane answered before Ty had even finished the question. He grabbed Ty’s face in his hands and kissed him, over and over until Ty was laughing and trying to fend him off.

At last, Zane took a step back to examine him. “How have you been? How’s Kelly doing?”

“He’s good. They sent him home, and I think his ex-wife plans to take care of him, so he’s desperate to get better so she’ll leave. My suspension’s been revoked. They’re letting me come back next week.”

Zane grinned. He grasped Ty’s hand and moved around the sofa to pull him down with him. “Tell me everything.”

Ty licked his lips, smirking.

Zane grinned widely. “And then I’ll show you the new sheets I put on the bed.”

Ty laughed and crawled onto the couch with him.

Zane wrapped his arms around him, pulling him into his lap instead. Ty straddled him, sitting back and cocking one eyebrow at Zane.

“What’d you do while you were down there?”

“I sang. I stayed with Kelly. With Ava gone, I was the closest thing to a relative Murdoch had left, so I took care of his estate.”

Zane frowned. “The bar?”

Ty bit his lip and nodded. “It’s mine. I uh . . . I closed it up. Looking into selling it. I’ll donate whatever it makes to one of the groups trying to rebuild. There was a kid who used to bartend there, had real talent with the bottle juggling and mixing and stuff. I saw him at Murdoch’s funeral. His boss is interested in buying it.”

“You don’t want to keep it?”

Ty shook his head. “It wouldn’t last long as it is, not without Murdoch and Ava there. Her voice was what brought them in. He was what gave it life.”

“I’m sorry.”

Ty shrugged it off and nodded.

“Did you ever get the curse lifted?” Zane asked.

“Yes. Yes, I did,” Ty drawled, but he frowned as he patted Zane’s chest.

“What’d the priestess tell you?”

“She told me I had dark days ahead.”

Zane didn’t want to believe in any of it—the voodoo, the mysticism, the incredible coincidences Ty said were fate. But the words made his stomach flip. “Do you believe her?”

Ty met his eyes. “Do you believe we met in New Orleans because we were meant to?”

Zane’s mouth went dry. “Yeah, I do,” he whispered.

Ty nodded, looking grim. He leaned forward and brushed his lips over Zane’s. “We’ll be okay.”

“More than okay,” Zane said. “We’ll be us.”

Ty smiled against his lips. Zane chased him when he pulled back, kissing him again. It grew more heated, needier, devolving quickly into two men who hadn’t seen each other in a month and desperately wanted to touch each other. Zane rolled Ty until they both tumbled off the couch and Ty was sprawled on the floor, Zane straddling him. “Have we caught up enough that I can start taking your clothes off?”

Ty laughed, a carefree, boyish sound, and glanced to his side, distracted by what he saw. “You moved the rug.”

“I kitty-cornered it.”

“Why would you do that?” Ty asked, aghast.

“To see you lose your shit when you got home.” Zane leaned closer, grinning evilly. “There are other things out of order too. Books not alphabetized. Coffee mug handles facing different directions.” He lowered his voice to a whisper as Ty’s eyes widened in horror. “The closet isn’t color coded.”

“You’re just watching the world burn, huh?”

Zane laughed.

“God I missed you,” Ty said in a rush of breath.

Zane grabbed a handful of Ty’s hair and tugged, and when Ty’s head tipped back, Zane kissed him hungrily, not letting go of him. Ty’s laugh turned into a growl, and suddenly there was no space between them. No tears or lonely days, no secrets and no lies. Just Ty and Zane. On the floor of their row house. On a crooked rug.

Zane reached between them to unzip Ty’s jeans, and then began struggling with loosening his own belt.