And Call Me in the Morning (5 page)

Funny thing was, the aftermath of their big emotional moment seemed somehow…anticlimactic. Needed at the forever-understaffed clinic, Zane had stayed on for the duration. Dead on his feet, Eli had gone home.

He remembered sitting on the edge of a lounger to take off his shoes, and that was about it. Sleep tended to overtake a doctor off duty, the body taking command over a brain kept over-busy and over-stressed.

Funny thing about a mind overcharged with stimuli during the day: the dreams were completely out of this world. As in, from Mars. Eli couldn't think of any other way to explain them. Normally, they were your usual fare—giant IV poles chasing him around the Immaculate Grace's parking garage, suture kits doing the cha-cha around a gurney, decent food in the cafeteria. Par for the course.

Today, his brain had treated him to picking up right where his idle fantasy had stopped earlier. Sort of.

Zane sat on Eli's lap. Didn't seem strange in the dream. More…comfortable. His weight was familiar and easy, his hands loosely knotted behind Eli's neck, and their foreheads pressed casually together. “You're kind of an idiot sometimes,” Zane said.

“Takes one to know one,” Eli said. “Kiss me.”

“Since you ask so nicely.” Their lips met. Familiar now but no less exciting when Zane let Eli take the lead and opened for him. The sleek glide of his tongue teasing Eli's kindled the sparks of wanting that moved Eli to pull Zane closer and hold him with one fist in Zane's hair and one hand spread over a tight ass cheek, amazed at the firmness of the flesh and chuckling in satisfaction at the groan he coaxed from Zane when he kneaded the taut muscle.

$Right about then, Holly tapped Eli on the shoulder.

“Kinda busy here,” Eli said between kisses. Zane had his shirt open and began a most pleasant stroking beneath. “Mind coming back later?”

“I don't have to go anywhere for you to know I'm right,” Holly said. “I just wanted to tell you not to fight this.”

Zane had his lips on Eli's neck, sucking a love mark beneath his jaw. “Does it look like I'm fighting?” Eli asked, incredulous.

“Don't mind me,” Diana said. She tossed popcorn kernels into her mouth from the bucket she carried. “I'm just here for the show.”

“The point is,” Holly said, laying gentle hands on Eli's arm, “you can't change what you are, or will become. You both want this, even if you didn't know it. All you can do is accept who you're becoming.”

“Accept this,” Zane said. He snapped his fingers. Holly, Diana, and Taye—who'd appeared to dance the hula in drag behind them—all disappeared.

“What took you so long?” Eli asked, getting back to the good stuff.

“Like I said,” Zane told him, loosening Eli's belt. “Sometimes you're an idiot. Then again, so am I. Kiss me.”

“All you've got to do is ask,” Eli said. He reached for Zane's belt and—

Woke up, blinking at the darkness of the room, striped with the red of stoplights and the wavering beams from cars outside. Chicago at night sounded about as lively, or more so, than Chicago by day, a hum of excited life outside easing Eli back into wakefulness.

“The hell,” he said to himself, unfolding gingerly from the awkward position he'd curled up in on the couch. “My neck is never going to forgive me. Ugh.”

Sheer habit moved him to check his phone for messages. He had one text. From Zane. Once again, reflex took over, and he read it.

Shake a leg, old man. Hey. We're okay, I promise.

“We're okay,” Eli muttered, dry washing his face with his palm. “Says you. You weren't the one who dreamed about—” He stopped, blushing. “Forty-three years old and I'm turning red over a sex dream. Christ.”

Eli hit Reply and sent back a three-word message.
On my way.
Come what may, he'd be a sorry friend if he left Zane to deal with this on his own. That wasn't how they worked. He might need tequila to get through whatever conversation followed, but that was what friends did. And no matter what, Zane was his best friend first and last.

Even if Eli did now wonder—all too vividly—if Zane's lips would be as soft or his kiss as sweet as memory promised.

So maybe he'd stick his head under the faucet before he left. A good dousing of cold water might cure what ailed him. Then again, it might not, and he wasn't too sure he wanted it to.

* * * * *

Eli let himself into Zane's apartment with the key that lived on his own chain. Stopped when the significance registered. Sighed. At the time, his having gotten his own key made sense. He and Zane were always running in and out of one another's apartments. Eli had forgotten his lunch? No problem, Zane would pick it up for him. Zane needed a clean shirt? Eli would swing by before work.

Now Eli found himself wondering if there was more to keys and easy familiarity than he'd previously thought, and hated the new uncertainty. Life had been simpler before he'd kissed Zane.

Then again, Eli supposed anyone who'd ever kissed a friend probably felt the same way.

Zane's apartment door swung open smoothly on well-maintained hinges. Though he had a comfortably middle-class apartment in a middle-class neighborhood and God knew he didn't fling his cash around, certain things gave hints about Zane's more than middle-class upbringing. For one, the leather living room set, buttery soft and welcoming, and for another, the soft rugs that cushioned a tired man's aching feet.

No lights on. For a moment, Eli wondered if he'd missed a text from Zane telling him to meet up at a bar. Somewhere a little more neutral than a suddenly portentous home. Then he caught the sound of water pattering down on tile, followed by Zane's slightly off-key tenor cheerfully massacring its way through an a capella rendition of something Mozart.

Habit. Eli had done this a hundred times, if not more. He toed off his shoes and padded toward the bathroom to knock on the door, always left slightly ajar to let steam out. This time, he hesitated before applying knuckles to wood. If he wanted to, he could sneak a peek through the slight gap in the door.

Before he could properly think about it, he did. He couldn't see much, not through the frosted glass of the shower door, but he got a glimpse of bare skin pinkened by the heat of the water and a shadow of dark hair sleek at both head and below the waist. Looked and, for a still moment, couldn't look away.

The water shut off abruptly. “Eli?”

Eli blinked and snapped out of it. “Yeah, I'm here.” He coughed. “I mean, I'll be out there. In the den. Waiting for you.”

Was it just him, or did Zane hesitate, as if he thought about turning around one way or the other? Half-exposed, he could go either way, and dear God, Eli didn't think he could cope with the choice.

He wasn't sure what to feel when Zane opted for discretion and whipped the draped towel off the top of the shower door. “Give me a minute.”

Eli rested his forehead on the cool wood paneling and tried to ignore the temptation to let himself look again. Despite it all, or maybe because of it, he couldn't help but chuckle quietly to himself. “Take your time. I'm not going anywhere.”

“So you say,” Zane muttered.

How to respond to that, Eli didn't know. He settled for tucking his hands in his pockets and turning to prop himself on the wall instead. “You feel up to going out to get a drink? I'm in the mood for McClosky's.”

“I have beer here.” The shower door rattled. “Give me ten. Wait. I'm decent. Look at me.”

Eli didn't generally refuse Zane. He did as he'd been asked, simultaneously relieved and disappointed to see Zane cloaked in huge, soft blue towels. With his wet hair plastered over his forehead and his grin both shy and cheeky, he looked at once about half his age and exactly like the friend he'd always been. “I just need to know that we're good, you and me.”

“Of course we are.” That didn't even need considering. “I'm not letting that change.”

“Good.” Zane took on a slightly brighter glow. Uh-oh. That was his “considering mischief” expression. “Fix yourself a drink. Me too. I think we're both going to need one.”

“Do I want to know why?”

“Want to? Probably not. Need to? Probably yes. Let me get dressed and settled, and I'll explain myself.”

“Zane—” Eli stopped himself. “Okay. I'll be on the couch. But if I fall asleep again waiting for you to make yourself pretty, it's on your head.”

Zane's quiet laughter followed Eli back to the den. The warm sound wrapped around Eli like a blanket, same as it always had, and for the second time in less than ten minutes Eli wanted to turn around and trace sound back to source.

He made himself finish the outward-bound trek instead.

* * * * *

Zane emerged from his bedroom dressed in a soft oatmeal-colored sweater with dark flecks that reminded Eli of cinnamon sugar. He'd paired it with comfortable, broken-in jeans that hung low on his hips.

Really low. He'd worn those jeans around Eli more times than Eli could count, but Eli had never before noticed how low they dipped, hanging off the sharp definition of Zane's hip bones and displaying the smallest hint of happy trail.

He didn't realize he was staring until he saw that Zane had come to a stop. When he looked up, embarrassed, he saw Zane grinning at him with the same old saucy flair.

“Quit gawking at me,” Eli grumbled. “Fair warning, pal. That hundred-year-old scotch you have is going down tonight.”

“Oh really?” Zane arched an eyebrow.

And right back to embarrassment. Jesus. If this was the way they always talked, no wonder people got the wrong idea about them. Or was that Eli's brain working overtime, seeing innuendo where none existed?

“
We're fine
,” Eli had said, and by damn if he wouldn't make it so. Somehow.