Fish & Chips (23 page)

Zane struggled to parse Ty"s reply, his own annoyance and doubt and now a revived nausea throwing him off kilter. He swallowed hard, trying to pull it together, trying to refocus and find that cold space again. Ty was great at giving guilt trips. “All right,” he said. Fuck, he needed a cigarette and a drink.

“All right,” Ty echoed. “That"s all you have to say? All right?”

Zane was sick from the mixture of frustration and upset that Ty"s accusations caused. It was giving him a headache. “There"s no point, is there? I was wrong. You"ve made your point very clear.” He pushed his shirt off his shoulders and dropped it on the bed.

Ty watched the shirt hit the bed, then looked up at Zane.

Something in his eyes sparked suddenly, and he moved toward Zane quickly. “You want to go for a swim?” he asked as he moved on Zane and grabbed him, taking his forearm and pulling and turning it, jerking Zane around to face the opposite direction. His fingers dug into Zane"s shoulder from behind as he held his other arm and shoved at him, using the twisted arm to guide him toward the door. “Let"s go for a fucking swim,” Ty snarled as he slammed Zane"s chest and face against the cabin"s door. He held him there with the weight of his body as he reached for the door handle.

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against the door that he couldn"t even pull himself together to throw him off. Ty wasn"t gentle as he pushed him down the corridor that led out to the outer deck. He didn"t mind running Zane into walls or doorways anytime Zane gathered himself enough to resist, and Ty kept wrenching the twisted arm painfully to keep Zane from being able to struggle. When they burst outside, the cool evening air hit them; the brisk wind carried the smell of the sea. Even along the Florida coast, it was cool enough on a December night out on the ocean that the decks were virtually empty, save for the bravest or most inebriated of guests.

The pool itself was deserted, even under the glass roof, glowing a peaceful blue-green in the night as a low mist of steam hovered over the warm water.

Ty shoved him toward it, muttering about him being a drunken idiot. Something finally clicked as the past half hour flashed through Zane"s head. This could be bad. Very bad. As they approached the pool, he started to struggle a little, but he was already off-balance, and Ty just twisted his arm a little more. He"d certainly shed the submissive personality of Del Porter, danger be damned, apparently.

Ty forced him to the edge of the pool, snarling in his ear. “I"ll be goddamned if I get killed "cause you"re too drunk to care.” And with that, he hooked his foot around the front of Zane"s shins and shoved him from behind, pushing him into the pool.

Even with the warning, Zane barely got a breath in before he hit the water in the shallow end of the pool with a noisy splash. His hip and shoulder painfully struck bottom in the four feet of water, stunning him, and he gasped out what breath he had before surfacing to look for Ty. He"d just barely gotten in some air when he realized Ty was in the pool with him, right beside him.

Ty reached for Zane"s head and forced him under water again with another sweep of his legs to knock Zane off his feet. Zane reached to cover Ty"s hands, to pry them loose, but Ty"s fingers twisted in his hair, and Zane couldn"t even struggle much. He lashed out at Ty"s torso, but the water slowed him too much for it to have any effect.

Despite Zane thrashing on his knees on the bottom of the pool, Ty held him under water until Zane"s lungs were on fire, and then he was violently yanked up out of the water. Ty put their faces close together 146 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

as Zane spluttered, trying to breathe and talk at the same time. Their noses almost brushed as Ty snapped at him.

“You wanna deal with me now, Zane?” he asked through gritted teeth, echoing what Zane had told him as he"d dismissed him from the poker room.

Before Zane had a chance to answer, Ty dunked him under again, holding him there for just a few seconds this time before pulling him back up. Zane coughed out water and choked desperately for breath, one hand gripping Ty"s forearm, blinking his eyes hard against the stinging saline. The combination of it all broke Zane out of the alcohol-induced mindset, and he lost what detachment he"d been clinging to.

“Stop,” he gasped out between coughs. “Wait—”

Ty shook his head and vehemently forced Zane"s face under the water again. A split-second later he pulled him back up, gripping his chin with his other hand as he continued to hold Zane by his hair. Zane choked hard, dizzy now from the lack of air, the dunking up and down, and the buzz burning off. It all brought the whole evening crashing down on him like a leaden weight.

“I"m sorry,” he got out in a hoarse, panicky garble. “I"m sorry!”

Ty was breathing hard from the effort of manhandling him, his breaths gusting across Zane"s wet face in the cold air. The hand in his hair loosened, sliding down to his neck to keep Zane"s head above water. Ty"s other hand let go of Zane"s chin and wrapped around his waist as Zane tried to get his feet under him. Ty held him up in the water and rested his forehead against Zane"s. For the moment, it was all Zane could do to weakly grasp at Ty"s arms. Despite the water being relatively warm, they were both shivering as Ty held Zane close to him.

“Damn you, Zane,” Ty panted finally as the disturbed water lapped at their bare chests.

Zane coughed and choked again as he tried to get in air, breaths hitching as the delayed panic set in, and his hands shook visibly as he tried to hold on. His legs wouldn"t cooperate. It was all he could do to nod.

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Ty stood up straight, water streaming off his arms as he pulled Zane up with him. “Come on,” Ty muttered, his teeth chattering as he got Zane"s arm over his shoulders to help him out of the heated pool.

He began leading Zane toward the wide steps. Off-balance, Zane wavered a little even with Ty helping him along, and when they got out, he was shaking hard from the adrenaline and shock and was shivering from the cold.

The cold air outside the pool"s dome hit Zane like a sledgehammer, the last straw breaking any buzz, any pride, and any confidence Zane had in himself.

Ty kept his arm around him as he led him toward the entrance that would take them to their cabin. The effort seemed to have taken all the steam out of him as well, because he was sedate and silent until they got back to their stateroom. He made sure the door was locked behind him; then he pushed Zane gently toward the bathroom.

“Get in the shower,” Ty ordered tiredly. “Get warm.”

Zane nodded and laid a hand on the wall as he took a few wavering steps, but when a wave of dizziness threatened, he considered kneeling down there and being miserable for a while. The arguments he remembered without even the faltering filter of intoxication left him feeling ashamed and unworthy. He felt sick thinking about the very first glass of whiskey.

Ty moved around him, struggling out of his wet trousers and leaving them and his soaked briefs in a puddle on the bathroom floor.

He grabbed an artfully rolled towel from the basket on the counter and began wiping himself off. He glanced over at Zane as he finished up, looking him up and down with clear contempt. He tossed the towel at the floor in front of him. “Goodnight, Corbin,” he muttered as he walked past him, his shoulder brushing Zane"s none too gently as he moved toward the bed.

Zane squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before he walked slowly to the bathroom, stepped inside, and shut the door behind him.

He got the shower started, turned it up hot, climbed in, and slumped against the wall. His eyes burned, irritated from the saline used in the pool. Between that and the shower spray, it was easy to explain away the tears scattering down his cheeks.

148 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

Chapter 8

WHEN Zane woke, it was sudden. His eyes snapped open as he inhaled sharply, and he jerked upright to look around, heart already pounding.

“Morning,” Ty greeted drily from where he sat on the couch. He wore a thin pair of pajama bottoms and fuzzy pair of slippers and had his heels propped on the table in front of him. He was flipping through a book of Sudoku puzzles.

Zane blinked at him several times, trying to process through the adrenaline. He couldn"t remember if he"d been dreaming or what had woken him. It had been a long time, weeks, since he"d awoken so abruptly. He was sitting up in the bed, nude under the tangled sheet, and his chest and throat hurt. He needed a drink of water, because he was parched.

Then Zane remembered why.

He drew in a slow breath and lay right back down so he could stare at the ceiling.

“Water and ibuprofen on the table there,” Ty offered as he sipped something out of a delicate china cup. The butler service had obviously already been there to deliver breakfast.

Zane tried to swallow and couldn"t, so he rolled to his side and reached out a hand that was embarrassingly shaky to pick up the glass.

In short order the ibuprofen was down, the glass was empty, and he was again looking at the ceiling. “Thank you.” His voice came out very raspy, even after the water.

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Ty merely hummed in response, his attention back on the Sudoku book in his hand. He was being surprisingly cordial this morning. Zane really hoped it wasn"t to cover serious anger. Ty could still be furious, even after working off some of it during the debacle in the pool. Zane raised both arms and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. Not so much because his head hurt—he"d never really suffered classic hangover symptoms—but because remembering how upset Ty had been hurt more than any dunking.

Ty didn"t speak again. The only sounds he made were the clink of the china as he set it aside and the shuffling of the pages as he turned them.

Well, drawing out the inevitable would only give them both heartburn. “How much trouble am I in?” Zane asked hoarsely.

“I"m not your keeper, Garrett,” Ty responded evenly. “No one died.”

Zane sighed. He knew no one had died. He knew exactly what had happened last night. He just didn"t have perspective, because when he drank, he focused in on whatever he thought his goal was to the exclusion of everything else. Last night, Ty had been part of

“everything else.” That was the problem: Ty wasn"t his keeper—Ty was his conscience.

Zane sat up and scooted back to lean against the headboard.

“Lorenzo Bianchi brought Corbin Porter a present,” he rasped. “A sign of goodwill and respect between friends, he said.”

The hardness in Ty"s eyes didn"t fit with the fluffy bedroom slippers. It was almost comical. “I suppose the word „moderation" isn"t in an alcoholic"s vocabulary, hmm?” he asked easily. If he was still angry, he was hiding it well.

Despite the lack of outward signs of anger, every comment cut deep. Zane felt hollow as he met Ty"s eyes. “I didn"t think my tolerance would have dropped so much,” he said softly. “I thought I could handle it.”

Ty continued to look at him, his face expressionless. The lack of emotion was wholly unlike Ty; usually he couldn"t be trusted to hold his temper and his eyes were easy to read. The lack of outward emotion 150 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

simply meant he was trying very hard to hide whatever he was feeling.

Finally, he set the book aside and pulled his feet off the table. “At least you know that for the next time,” he observed.

Zane wrapped his arms around himself, knowing he wouldn"t get any sympathy or comfort. Ty had never given him any reason to think he suffered addictions like Zane did, and despite making an effort not to drink around his partner, Ty"s reactions suggested no small amount of disdain for Zane"s substance abuse problems—ever since his first snarky comment eons ago when they"d first met: “
What, you’re a
recovering alcoholic
?
”

Ty certainly didn"t want to hear Zane boo-hoo about it. Zane wished, though, sometimes, that Ty would at least acknowledge how goddamn hard it was for Zane to say no to so much every single day of his life.

Ty was still watching him. “You do realize you"ll probably be expected to drink again, right?” he asked softly.

The thought hurt Zane so badly inside that it had to show on the outside somehow. He could still taste the liquor, and his throat and belly burned for it. He nodded jerkily. It would make everything easier to handle, clearer to see, smoother to swallow. It would cool him off and soothe his nerves. And with every sip he"d damn himself further.