And Call Me in the Morning (15 page)

By then, Eli thought he felt comfortable enough to shoulder bump Zane. “How about we take the stairs? Keep moving, keep limber.”

“Yeah, okay.” Zane turned with Eli and made for the stairwell. “So I'm an ass.”

“Nothing I didn't already know.” Eli wrapped one arm around Zane's shoulders. This, he'd done before. Still felt risky but he knew it was safe. “It's okay. Work it out together, right?”

Zane covered Eli's hand with his own and squeezed, which he hadn't done before, but no one was looking, so what the hell. “Remind me of that when I need it, would you?”

“That promise, I can make.” Eli elbowed open the crash bar on the stairwell. “Come over to my place again tonight. I'm in the mood for something home cooked, and if you've eaten all day, I'll be very surprised.”

“Hmm.” Zane's general good humor seemed to be on its way back. “Is that all that's on the menu?”

Speaking in a sort of code worked well enough for Eli. “I was thinking dessert too,” he said, feeling extremely brave and surprisingly smug about it.

Yet another thing he should have known better regarding. Confidence too easily transmitted to hubris, and Eli was well aware that karma lived for moments like these.

Zane chuckled. “God, I feel so domestic,” he remarked. “Let's take it again from the top. How was your day, honey?”

“Actually, it had its good moments.” Eli let go of Zane to grasp his stethoscope in both hands and tug thoughtfully. “You've heard about the Duke job, right?”

“Some gossip here and there.” Zane paused, a sharp sort of turn spiking his mood. “Why?”

“No big deal. I know the guy spearheading the search. One of my professors. We got along well back in the day. I sent him an e-mail to say hi and to get some more info about the position. Zane, what?”

Zane had not just dropped Eli's arm but shoved him, hard enough to knock a breath of wind out of him. “Fuck you, Eli.” He backed up, turning on his heel at the last possible second before falling down the stairs, and started down them at a fast, seriously pissed clip. “Fuck. You.”

What the
hell
. “Zane, wait up!” Eli started after him, but not even his longer legs could catch up with Zane on the move. “Zane!”

* * * * *

Thank God for the late-afternoon shipments at the loading docks, way back in the part of the hospital where anyone not authorized to be there really, really shouldn't be. Without his coat or gloves, the cold hit Eli with the force of a shock wave.

It'd done the same for Zane, who'd stopped long enough for Eli to regain some ground and then had to dodge his way through burly men carrying massive boxes and finally appeared to have given up at the far edge. In safety, at least. Relatively speaking. He'd dug a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and was trying to light up, no easy job in the cutting wind.

Eli made it to Zane in time to reach for the cigarette with the intention of snapping it out of his mouth, thinking better of it just in time, and blocking his path instead. “Explanation. I want one. Now.”

Zane glared. “You know, that's rich coming from you.”

“Enough. Talk to me. I mean it.”

Zane scoffed. He turned inward, looking somewhere far away, gone someplace Eli couldn't follow on foot. Damn it. Eli hated more than anything to see Zane looking so lost.

“Where did this unravel?” Eli asked. “I'm honestly confused here. What did I do?”

“Duke University,” Zane said, though who knew what he was thinking. “Great job. Great opportunity. Halfway across the country from this. Me. Without so much as a by-your-leave. Are you getting the picture now?”

Ah. Eli's stomach plummeted. He hadn't thought. Really should have.
Idiot
. “It's not like that. I haven't even properly applied.”

Zane shrugged, bleak as a Detroit November, and managed to get his cigarette lit. “Yet.” He blew out twin streams of smoke, too worked up to hear a word Eli might try to get in there. “You know, Eli, I love you, but sometimes I really fucking don't like you. You just throw that out there, like what we've got here is fucking nothing.”

Eli stood utterly still. Wanted to ask Zane to repeat himself. Couldn't make the words come out.

Zane covered his face with his hand and growled. “So. Fucking.
Thick
. Eli, I swear to God—” This time, when Zane moved, Eli let him pass. “If you get a clue, you know where I'll be.”

“Zane,” Eli called after him. “Come
on
, would you? Give me a hand here.”

Zane's dark stare was the only answer Eli got, leaving him there nonplussed in the middle of increasingly surly deliverymen who weren't impressed by the lover's spat in their midst.

Irony. Eli savored it. Tasted bitter. “What are you looking at?” he asked, heading back into the hospital to finish his shift.

Seven hours and three major traumas later, Eli drove himself home. Or that had been the intention. He ended up outside Zane's condo instead, where instinct had guided him. So be it. His heart had pointed him home, as did the rest of him, and whatever it took to make this right…

He pulled his cell phone from his hip pocket, blew on his fingers to warm them, and hit speed dial.

“Zane? I'm parked outside.”

“Eli, for fuck's sake…” He could see a shadow passing in front of Zane's window and an obscured gesture that he'd bet good money was Zane shoving his hand through his hair. All too easy to picture Zane right now pacing a hole through the floor, his strings wound too tight and in need of someone to steady him.

“I'm not leaving. We got ourselves into this. Maybe me more than you this time, but it's still the both of us that have to figure it out.”

Silence on the other end of the line. Eli knew he'd grabbed Zane's ear.

“Let me in already.”

Another long pause, but Eli knew how to interpret Zane's various hushes. This one was reluctant and stubborn, but finally giving in. The hardest to achieve once Zane had his mind on something. Absolutely crucial here.

Eli prepared himself for it but didn't expect the body-melting rush of relief when Zane said, finally, “Okay. It's late, though. Past eleven.” He stopped. Surprised silence. “When did it get to be past eleven?”

Eli chuckled, too relieved to be aware of any dignity. “Usually happens right after ten. That's when the big hand is on the—”

“Oh, shut up.” A laugh. Good! “Wait. You're not just now getting back from the hospital, are you?”

Eli grimaced. “Guilty.”

A thoughtful and worried pause this time. “You've got to slow down.”

“I think I'm done with going slow,” Eli said as honestly as he could with all the different ways that could be taken. He heard a small, indrawn breath from Zane and let his out in relief.

In the window, he thought he saw Zane settling down on the end of the couch next to it. We're like a pair of teenage girls, he thought, amused. Or not. He could imagine Zane's silky hair, sure, but the sprinkling of gray and paler shading at his temples did a hell of a lot more for Eli's libido than the thought of giggles and curls and fruit-flavored lip gloss. As it should.

“What happened to keep you so late?”

“Same old, same old.” Eli switched his phone from hand to hand to rub them on his legs to keep the circulation up. Christ, he hoped Zane let him in soon. He was freezing his nuts off out here. He made a disgusted face when he came across a patch of something stiffly dried on the knee of his scrubs. “Oh, that's lovely.”

“What?”

“Still in my scrubs. I was so fucking spaced I didn't even think to shower, much less change to my streets. You had me all tied up in knots, you know that?”

“Yet you're here,” Zane said.

Eli was better with the silences, not the words—
quelle surprise
, that—and it took him a second to interpret this. “Where else would I want to be?” he asked, stating the plain facts. “After a rough day, all I want is to go home.”

Zane sighed. Didn't sound entirely happy about that. “We need to talk.”

“I know. Just—not yet. Okay? Give me this. Hell, give yourself a break too. We work hard, we need some comfort zone time before we jump into the heavy shit. And speaking of which, I'm going to storm your shower before these scrubs develop sentience and crawl away on their own.”

“Oh, that's pleasant.” Zane was truly laughing now. Mission: accomplished. Eli could see the man in his mind's eye, the crinkles at the corners of his gray eyes and the laugh lines around his mouth. “As fresh as a spring daisy in a meatpacking plant, are you?”

“Such charming imagery.” Eli propped his elbow on the steering wheel. “What are
you
wearing, Casanova?”

He hadn't intended that particular sally to come out in so many words, but once spoken, a thing couldn't be unspoken…and from the charged crackle of this silence, Eli thought he might not mind.

“Hey. I asked you a question,” Eli said softly. “Tell me.”

“You're not kidding?” The shadow in the window moved. “You want to—”

“What better way to keep warm? And you know as well as I do, makeup sex is fantastic.”

Eli pictured Zane rubbing his hand over his nose and chin. Tempted, not yet too sure about this, but temptation was winning out. “You know this doesn't fix anything.”

“True. It'll still be fun, and I need this. No,” Eli said, correcting himself to strict honesty, “I need you.”

“God, Eli.”

“We'll talk later,” Eli promised. “Do this for me now.”

“Talk about anything we want to?”

Eli knew that meant “anything
I
want to” and was, he felt, rightfully worried, but he pushed the concern aside for now. “I promise, and you can hold me to it.”

A small pause, a long sigh, a small chuckle, and Eli knew he'd won. “All right. Only because fighting makes me horny too.”

“We are a pair, aren't we?”

“In many ways.” Eli thought he could definitely see Zane relaxing in the window now, his head probably tipped back to rest on the couch arm and his legs splayed, the phone trapped between ear and shoulder with both hands free. His nerves and his pulse both jumped, not in a bad way.

This was actually something he'd never done, not with Marybeth, not with any of the women he'd had a fling or a thing with ever so rarely. He'd never even thought of it.

Now he wanted it badly enough to taste.

“You never did answer me,” Eli said as he tucked his own phone between his ear and shoulder and thanked all holy powers for tinted windows and the absolute don't-give-a-shit-ness of the few pedestrians out at this time of night. Not that he wanted to give a thought to them. “What are you wearing?”

Eli heard rustling. Zane getting comfortable? He let himself imagine the scene in more detail. Zane's body relaxing, legs spread. He'd have one foot planted on the floor for balance. Maybe a hand resting on his stomach. Not at the good stuff yet, but working up an appetite by teasing himself with the potential.

“I remembered to change when I got home,” Zane said, sounding almost sleepy. Not bored. Entering a zone. “Sleep pants. Soft flannel, the ones you said you liked once.”

Eli remembered those. Kitten soft, washed and worn and well beloved. They hung low on Zane's hips, his new favorite look for the man, and caressed his ass. The words “plaid flannel” wouldn't have been a turn-on before, but now? Now the lumberjack look appealed.

“Tell me more.” He widened his own seat, giving himself room to move if he needed it, and damn well planned on that coming to pass.

“A plain T-shirt,” Zane went on. “Gray. V-neck. No logo, just plain.”

The words themselves, not so much with the sexy. It was the low purr entering Zane's voice, the slight edge of nervousness mixed with the slowly rising enjoyment, that tripped Eli's trigger and encouraged the swelling in his groin.

A silence, not a planned one. “This is new for me,” Zane admitted. Almost embarrassed. “Well. I have done this before.”

“Jerked off?” Eli asked, deliberately provocative. He was scared out of his mind too, but someone had to take the wheel, and the way he saw it, it was his turn. “Trust me, at forty years old, you qualify as a professional.”

“Oh, baby. Talk clinical to me.” Zane laughed. “I meant phone sex.”

Eli rested his hand over his groin, not pressing down yet, just giving himself some heat and light contact. “If you know what you're doing, then school me. Tell me more.”

“Mmm.” Zane's eyes would be closing right now, or going half-lidded. Eli exhaled with enjoyment over the visual and let himself do the same. “It's not what you think. The person on the other end of the line always had a script and got paid by the minute.”

Eli's heart ached briefly for the loneliness in that admission, and then surprise, and then filled with a new resolve. “You've got me now.”

“You've mastered the art of phone sex?”

“No, but if you hum a few bars, I can fake it.” Eli shushed Zane's amusement. “Trust me. I've got you.” He took a deep breath to center himself, relaxed fully into his seat, and rubbed his palm against the rise in his scrubs. “Tell the truth. You like this?”

A small hitch in Zane's breathing. “Yes. God, yes.”

Good. Eli fingered the drawstring of his scrubs. “Tell me about it,” he said, roughly, not a suggestion but an order. “Put your hand on yourself and tell me how you feel.”

“Christ, Eli.”

“Do it.”

Eli waited, listening for every nuance in Zane's breathing. He knew, as if he were there watching, when Zane made contact. The smallest, most intoxicating whimper and the shudder made him grind up. “Zane. I'm waiting.”

“I know, I—” Zane sounded frustrated. “I don't know where to start.”

“You don't have to. Listen to me. Do as I say.”

“
Eli
.”

“That's it. Do you have your hand on yourself? Not inside your pants just yet. Just outside. Just feeling it. Tell me.”

“Hard,” Zane said. “The things you do to me without even trying, Eli.”

“Ah-ah-ah. Tell me the physical. I'll show you how.” Eli rubbed himself, feeling the shaft and balls react to the friction, his toes tightening with the pulse of pleasure. “I'm humping my hand. Up, hard. Hard as stone.”

“Goddamn, Eli.” Zane's breath was ragged. “Okay. I'm looking down. Trying to. Want to watch.”

“Good. Good start. Keep going. Run your finger in a line up, and down, the way you did with me. Fuck. Do you know what that did to me?”