Touch & Geaux (Cut & Run 7)

“Drew the short straw, huh?” Ty said as Zane came up behind him. Ty couldn’t look him in the eye now, not even through the mirror that hung over the back of the bar. The last time he’d been called a coward, Zane had been the one defending him. It was dizzying to see how all they’d built could unravel so quickly.

Zane slid onto the stool beside him. Ty doggedly stared at the bar top. He didn’t want to look at Zane right now, didn’t want to feel the pain that came with those dark eyes.

“I was out of line, saying that in front of everyone,” Zane said. His voice was soft, but still cold.

“You wanted to take me down a peg or two in front of the boys. You did it. Congratulations.”

Zane sighed, and Ty felt the gust of his breath against his cheek. “This is where you’re supposed to apologize too, and we start trying to make sense of what we have left to us.”

Ty glanced up sharply. “What we have left to us? Why are you so ready to walk, Zane? I was doing my job. You of all people should understand what that means.”

Zane grunted. “Don’t you dare throw that in my face. You know as well as I do that whatever you’ve been doing the past two years was anything but your job.”

“Please,” Ty sneered.

“How about apologizing for lying to me? For spying on me? Using me?”

Ty slammed his hand on the bar. “I never lied to you, Garrett, not about us! Never once did I tell you anything that wasn’t true, not when it came to you and me. And I sure as hell didn’t use you for anything.”

“Well forgive me if I don’t believe a goddamn word you say. The only way I hear the truth from you is when someone has a gun to your f**king head. Or mine!”

“Someone did have a gun to your head!” Zane started to get up, but Ty reached out to grab him. He didn’t dare let him turn away, afraid Zane wouldn’t ever turn back again. “After everything we’ve been through, why the hell can’t you believe me?”

“Because you lie.”

The words hit him in the gut, and he gasped for air.

The curtain rustled and Ava came through carrying three reservoir glasses. She set them on the bar, looking between Ty and Zane with a raised eyebrow.

“You two going to sit there glaring at each other all night?” she asked before ducking below the bar to retrieve a wooden box from underneath.

Zane didn’t flinch. He continued to glower at Ty, the anger and betrayal roiling in the air between them. They were both frightened, and the only thing they knew to do when they were scared was lash out.

Ty leaned closer. “You can be angry for as long as you want, Zane. It doesn’t change what’s happened, and it doesn’t change the way I feel about you. Remember that, if nothing else.”

Ty left it at that, turning away from Zane to take one of the glasses. They were specially made for preparing absinthe; thick and heavy, with a wide mouth and a small reservoir in the stem. They were quite beautiful, as drinking glasses went. Ava pulled three ornate spoons from the wooden box and set them on the bar.

The silence stretched thin. Ty had tried every avenue. He’d explained himself, pleaded, reasoned with Zane, and professed his love over and over. None of it had made a dent in Zane’s armor. Ty peered sideways at Zane. There wasn’t much else he could do, and Zane seemed just as willing to toss it all away now as he had earlier. “This is the part where I drink and don’t give a damn if it bothers you,” he whispered. “Feel free to look away.”

Zane’s lip curled and he narrowed his eyes. “No need to be concerned about me. Maybe a stiff drink will settle your nerves.”

“My, my,” Ava said. “I see that gris-gris is working already.”

Ty snorted. He didn’t know if it was the gris-gris, but he and this town sure as hell were cursed.

“Thank you for throwing the cheap glasses instead of these,” Ava said as she poured a reservoir full of light green liquid into each glass. The bottle was labeled Vieux Pontarlier. It was the very best absinthe you could buy, made exactly the same way it had been two hundred years before and imported from France.

He knew Zane had delved into all manner of chemicals, legal and illegal. He wasn’t sure absinthe had made it to the Miami scene, though, and he wasn’t sure Zane would know what Ava was doing.

Zane glanced from the spoons to the dark bottle she set on the bar, then back to Ty for a moment. He looked suspicious, as if he thought Ty was about to do something dangerous or illegal.

There was a completely mistaken aura surrounding absinthe as that of a mysterious, addictive, mind-altering substance, giving it a gothic horror sort of taboo. It was all completely unfounded, of course. It was just about the only thing Ty could drink while on the job, because while absinthe did get you drunk, it also made you unusually lucid, creating the illusion of a waking dream. He functioned well. It was all he had drunk for nearly two years while undercover.

He set the spoon on his glass, making sure the special lip underneath caught the edge of the glass to keep it in place. Then he plucked a sugar cube from the bowl Ava had set down and placed it on the center of the spoon.

Ava turned to fill a pitcher with water.

“What is this?” Zane finally asked, sounding annoyed to have to ask.

“Absinthe. The real stuff, not the tourist trade.”

Zane frowned but didn’t say anything. Ty didn’t try to set any of his preconceptions straight.

“We’d sit and do this every night,” Ava told Zane as she returned with the pitcher full of ice water. “You should try it.”

“Garrett’s got poor impulse control. Don’t you, Garrett? Has to stay away from the cocktails.” Ty poured the water out over his sugar cube. The water and dissolving sugar mixed with the green absinthe below, turning it a weak, milky green.

“That’s right,” Zane snarled. “Maybe you should learn a thing or two about it.”

Ty removed the spoon, shaking his head.

“Every night after we sang, we’d go sit in that corner there, pour a glass of la fée verte, and laissez les bon temps rouler,” Ava told Zane with a hint of bittersweet irony. She leaned her elbows on the bar and took a sip of her drink. “And every Saturday night,” she continued, voice lower, growing huskier, “we would pick a plaything to join us. You would have been chosen, no doubt.”

“He was,” Ty muttered.

After what felt like a drawn-out moment of silence, Zane said, “Let the good times roll, huh?”