by A J Lange
The mournful sounds of classical piano streamed quietly through the speakers. Too late to voice an opinion, Zane had to admit the music suited the driver in a way his own classic rock probably suited him.
Strike two, he thought, if anyone was keeping score. Should he be keeping score?
"Do you play?" Gray asked, noticing the way Zane’s eyes were trained on the CD changer.
"Piano? Nah. But I strum a little guitar." Zane fidgeted in his seat. He could use a little Zeppelin right now to calm his nerves. "Do you?"
Gray’s fingers began to tap in time to the rolling chords wafting from the speakers. "Yeah," he shrugged. "It's just a hobby, I'm not terribly proficient anymore."
"Were you once, though?" And now this was an image Zane would never be able to scrub from his brain; Gray seated at a baby grand piano, dressed in something elegant. No, wait. Dressed exactly as he was now, grungy jeans and day-old beard, playing Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, intense expression on his handsome face.
Zane wanted nothing more than to be in that moment for real. Maybe classical music wasn't so bad.
"So, tell me, Zane. What do you do for fun? Hobbies?"
Zane frowned. "I work?" He didn’t really have hobbies. Or fun. Unless sex counted. Did sex count as a hobby? Zane was pretty sure Gray wasn't asking about his sex life, though.
Gray just laughed. "Yeah, me too."
Zane liked the way the grin lit up his face and he found himself grinning back.
"So we're both workaholics with polar opposite taste in music and cars. Sports?" Zane relaxed against the seat, some of his nervousness sliding away.
"Lacrosse," Gray said, lower lip between his teeth to hold back a smile.
Zane groaned. "Football."
"European or American?" Gray asked, one brow raised.
"American," Zane exclaimed indignantly.
Gray sighed and shook his head, as if disappointed, but Zane could see the way his eyes crinkled in amusement.
"Where did you grow up?" Gray slowed to a stop at a four-way, slanting his body slightly toward Zane’s as he waited for an answer.
"Here. Kansas." He tried not to notice the way the other man’s t-shirt tightened over his chest and shoulders when he turned, and failed. In his mind, he could still see the button down as it glowed in the fluorescent light of the bar, how smoothly it had fit across the planes of Gray’s chest before tucking neatly into his trousers.
"Maine," Gray chuckled, interrupting Zane’s reminiscence. "We're hopeless."
"Did you always want to be an archaeologist?" Zane couldn’t really see Gray in an Indiana Jones get up, although honestly, summer blockbusters equated the sum total of Zane’s exposure to the field of archaeology. He could, however, easily see him as an investment banker, or maybe a lawyer. Something in a nicely tailored suit.
He swallowed, throat dry. His sudden preoccupation with Gray’s clothing was…something he couldn’t quite interpret.
"No, not always." Gray shook his head. "Don't laugh, but I wanted to be a librarian," he said sheepishly.
Zane barely contained a groan of frustration. Mother of Christ. Yet another kink he didn't know he had. He was beginning to think this outing was a seriously bad idea.
Gray mistook his silence for disbelief. "What, you don't think I could pull it off?" He leaned over to pop the glove box open, elbow brushing Zane’s knee.
Zane held his breath and hoped Gray didn’t notice the way he tensed up at his nearness.
He was so close Zane could smell his shampoo. Jesus.
Mercifully, Gray found what he was searching for and flourished a pair of glasses triumphantly, before he slid the frames into place. "See? Librarian chic."
Zane did groan then, audibly. Fuck. He felt lightheaded, like he was falling, and realization dawned.
But Gray laughed again, mistaking the look on Zane’s face and oblivious to his epiphany, pushing the glasses atop his head. "Well, it didn't work out, anyway. I fell in love with history even more than books."
Zane decided the safest course of action at this point was to just lose himself in the sound of Gray’s voice as he talked. He didn’t even remember to tell Gray that here, finally, they had something in common, because Zane loved books and always had. He was too distracted by the sudden, irrefutable acknowledgement that he was hopelessly attracted to the animated archaeologist seated next to him.
So instead, he concentrated on breathing in and out. And in and out.
Shit. He really needed to talk to Tanner.
Chapter 3
Zane was going to have to settle for freaking out via text to Tanner later. (Although, as a rule, he preferred to leave his emotional crises without any form of paper trail. Tanner could be a real bitch about using Zane’s very occasional moments of weakness against him at the most inopportune times. Like, say, Christmas dinner. At Kenny’s. In the presence of Bonnie and Lily and half the staff of the pub.)
He and Gray arrived at the dig site long before they had to endure any awkwardness. And before Zane acted on an intense and incredibly inappropriate desire to lick the rough stubble on Gray’s jaw. So, crisis averted. Somewhat.
When they stopped, Zane unfolded himself from the passenger seat and glanced around. As far as important historical sites went, he was less than impressed, but he schooled his expression carefully, lest Gray see his disappointment. They had essentially parked in a field, and other than the half dozen or so neat squares cut approximately ten inches deep into the soil, it looked like any other Kansas roadside.
Gray walked around the front of the car, jiggling the keys in his hand, and for one heartstopping moment Zane thought he must have read his mind on the whole chin licking thing because the professor didn’t slow until he was entirely into Zane’s personal bubble. Zane had to physically restrain himself from taking a step backward. Gray was so close, his forearm was going to brush Zane’s stomach if he breathed too deep.
So Zane didn’t breathe.
“Kind of disappointing, isn't it?”
Zane blinked. “Huh?” Oh God. At this distance, in the morning sun, Zane could see the way Gray’s iris was ringed in navy, spokes of a lighter hue circling the pupil.
Gray tilted his head as he studied him. “Most people expect fancy equipment, or excavated ruins or something.”
Zane realized Gray was talking about the field. “Oh! Yeah, I mean, no. Not disappointed. I,” he swallowed. “I didn’t know what to expect, so…” He trailed off helplessly as Gray’s brow furrowed even more. Holy Christ, how does someone look that freaking hot while frowning? Zane suddenly felt sorry for Gray’s students. They must have a hell of a time paying attention in class.
If Gray found his behavior odd, he was doing a good job of hiding it, because the next thing Zane knew, he was being tugged along by the arm, strong fingers gripping the soft flesh of his bicep.
“How about the grand tour then? Archaeology one-oh-one.”
Gray was in front of him now, walking backward across the grassy earth, effortlessly graceful. Zane was thankful for the widening space between them so he could breathe a little easier, but the full frontal assault of Professor Sloan kicked up a new swarm of butterflies in his stomach.
They stopped at one of the squares, the edges cleanly excised, grass unperturbed around the perimeter. A yellow flag atop a thin metal rod was planted to the left of where Gray kneeled, and he explained how the flag represented an artifact find.
Zane nodded when he thought it was appropriate, or when he felt Gray’s eyes linger a shade too long on his face. He didn’t understand everything, but he liked the way Gray’s fingers sifted through the soft overturned earth, and the earnest way his eyes lit up as he told Zane about the Native American oral myths he wanted to research in conjunction with this and other nearby digs. He especially liked the way Gray’s lips formed around the words, maybe just as much as the sound of his warm, smoky voice.
The dry Kansas air tore at their clothes in strong gusts. Zane was
beginning to understand Gray’s perpetually messy hair, and he blinked hard to keep the whorls of dust from lodging in his eyes.
And then, because Zane was fate’s bitch, things took a hard turn south.
He allowed Gray to talk him into sitting next to one of the unflagged squares of earth with him, and try his hand at excavating.
“First rule of archaeology,” Gray handed Zane a trowel with a wickedly sharp edge. “Never place your shovel on the ground blade up.”
Zane smirked. “Looks like one of my brother Tanner’s garden trowels.”
“Your brother is a gardener?” Gray demonstrated slicing carefully through the hard-packed earth.
“Uh, no. He’s a lawyer.” Zane practiced shaving his own bit of dirt off the smooth inner edge, scowling when it proved more difficult than it appeared. “You might have seen him at the bar. Long hair. Disturbingly tall. Chicks falling at his feet.”
Gray laughed, a low breathy sound as he dug in at an angle on a particularly stubborn bit of dirt. “Why's a lawyer tending bar?”
Zane shrugged. “Partly to help me out, good bartender’s harder to find than you think, and partly for the extra cash. You might know his wife, Lily, she’s a student at KU.”
Gray hummed as he pressed the tiny clumps of dirt through a sifter. “Lily Nolan? I don’t think she’s in any of my classes. I would have recognized the name when you gave me yours.”
Zane swallowed a sigh. Gray’s oddly precise phrasing, combined with an intense scrutiny as he brushed his fingertips lightly across the holes of the sieve, wrecked havoc on his senses. He welcomed the next gust of wind, because he was suddenly burning up. He tried not to imagine all of that focus and intensity directed solely on him.
He should really text Tanner now.
He reached into his hip pocket for his phone, and leaned heavily on the opposite fist. “Motherfucker!” he yelped, yanking his hand to his chest. He had broken the first rule of archaeology and placed his trowel in the dirt, face up.
Gray was on him in seconds, pulling his hand close to look at the damage. He pressed hard on the wound with the hem of Zane’s t-shirt, even as bright red blood dripped down Zane’s wrist.
Zane hissed in response. “My shirt.”
“Zane,” Gray admonished, exasperated. He pulled him to his feet and dragged him toward the car, positioning him near the back as he popped the trunk. “Hold here,” he said, pressing Zane’s fingers against the cut.
Zane wished he could more fully appreciate the warm tingle that shot up his spine at the way Gray had manhandled him off the ground, but there was no time before Gray was peeling back the shirt and squirting cold water over the wound from a bottle he fished from a cooler.
“Son of a bitch.” Zane grimaced. The blade had been as sharp as it looked, but as the water washed the blood and dirt away, Zane could see the cut was neat and thankfully shallow. Another inch and a bit more weight and it might have been a different story.
“Sorry,” Gray murmured, low. He handed Zane the bottle of water. “Keep pouring this over it, it needs to be cleaned.” He turned back to the trunk and grabbed another bottle of water and a first aid kit.
The cold helped numb the area somewhat, but even so, when Gray decided it was clean enough to dab with iodine, Zane flinched; not so much at the burn, but at the electricity that spiked from his arm to his stomach with every slide of Gray’s thumb as he rubbed circles on his wrist. Once he was satisfied the wound was clean and disinfected, Gray expertly wrapped the cut with gauze and a roll of bandages. His hair brushed Zane’s cheek as he worked, head bowed over his handiwork, hands gentle.
He smelled nice, Zane thought absently.
When he finished, he looked up and said, “I guess this part of the day was a bust, huh?”
Zane couldn’t decide if he was more disappointed that the day was apparently over or that Gray was moving away, taking his body heat with him. He shivered, in spite of the bright sun. For all his worry about finding things to talk about, or his confusing reactions to Gray himself, Zane was shocked to realize he’d had more fun in the past two hours than he’d had in a really long time. In a dry, windblown, prairie field with a stranger.
He supposed bringing an amateur on a visit to your archaeological site lost some of its appeal when your visitor impaled himself on a shovel.
He grimaced, thinking of the shit ton of work still facing him at the bar, and opened his mouth to request that Gray take him back, when the professor turned to him with a wide smile. “So. What do you want to do next?”
Zane ignored the flutter of…excitement? Relief? But…the pub. The pub would not be ignored. “Truthfully? I really need to get some inventory sorted out before we open tonight.” Which sucked, but maybe it was for the best if Zane cut his losses here; clearly Gray wasn’t nearly as affected by Zane as Zane was by Gray, and a little distance and time for processing wouldn’t hurt either.
And then there was the whole Hi, my name is Zane Nolan and I’ve never been attracted to a man before thing. Zane definitely needed to process the hell out of that.
Gray dropped the lid of the trunk closed. “Okay. Let’s do that.”
Zane’s jaw dropped open.
Gray grinned, head tilting. “What?”
“I, uh,” Zane stammered. “You want to help me do inventory?” He winced at his own incredulous tone, but inventory was boring ass hell. Everyone knew that.
“Zane, what do you think archaeologists do day in and day out?” Gray waved his arms to indicate the dig site. “I inventory tiny bone chips and shards of ancient pottery. You inventory booze.” He winked as he passed Zane to climb back into the car. At the last possible second he dipped his head low to Zane’s ear, the deep tenor of his voice sending a shiver all the way to Zane’s toes. “The only difference is, they have to call me doctor.”
Zane snapped his mouth shut in time with the slamming of the driver’s side door and grinned. Okay. Maybe Gray wasn’t quite so immune after all.
Chapter 4
When Tanner and Lily arrived that afternoon, they stopped short at the sight of Gray behind the bar, stacking mugs, white apron tied around his slim hips. He offered them a wide smile and Lily swallowed audibly. Tanner glared down at her, but she just shrugged. What? She mouthed.
"Gray, have you seen the…" Zane trailed off when he saw his brother and sister-in-law. "Oh, hey." His gaze darted between the three and he cleared his throat nervously. "Um, Grayson Sloan, this is my brother, Tanner, and his wife Lily."
Gray wiped his hands on the apron and stepped forward, smile still genuine and friendly.
Tanner shook his hand, appraising Gray in one slow sweep.
To his credit, Gray didn't even blink. He offered his hand to Lily, who broke the tension by pumping it up and down excitedly. "Professor Sloan, I'm a huge fan of your work."
And that, finally, flustered Gray, who rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, and looked pleadingly at Zane. Zane shrugged and grinned. Blushing and disconcerted was a good look on him.
Gray, it turned out, was an organizational fiend. He could look at a box of supplies and practically pull a spreadsheet from thin air, neatly titled and color coordinated for ease of reading. When Zane whined that he would never be able to maintain such a rigid system, Gray scowled and told him he was being pig-headed and ungrateful.
Lily took Gray’s side.
Zane called her a fangirl.
Tanner stepped between the three before things could get heated and dragged Zane to the kitchen, where he shoved cases of frozen beef patties in his arms and nodded at the walk-in cooler. "Stock, Romeo."
"Oh, fuck you, Tanner," Zane groused, but he propped open the walk-in's door and began stacking the boxes of hamburger on the stainless steel shelves.
Tanner chuckled, noting with amusement that Zane’s cheeks were tinged pink. "So, really. What's going on?"
Zane kept his back to Tanner, and took his time lining up the cardboard edges. "Hmm?" Zane was not
hing if not a master at stalling.
"Oh come on. You practically drooled all over this guy a few nights ago, and today you've got him helping out with inventory? You never let anyone behind the bar. I've just." Tanner paused, gentling his tone. "I've never seen you like this."
Zane closed the cooler door, then leaned against it, letting his head fall back with a thud. "I don't know, man," he groaned. His eyes drifted closed and he was suddenly, bone-crushingly, tired.
"What did you do to your hand, anyway?" Tanner moved on to the next pile of stock, an array of paper and Styrofoam products. He used a box cutter to carefully slit the packing tape.
Zane surveyed the increasingly dirty gauze wrapped around his palm. "I cut it out at Gray’s dig site." He pointedly ignored Tanner's raised eyebrows. "And, I like him, okay? He's a nice guy and I think he's lonely."
Tanner hid a smirk. "But, do you like like him?"
Zane threw a stack of carryout boxes at his head. "God, Tanner, what do you think?" But his stomach clenched with nerves and he held his breath as he awaited Tanner's answer.
Tanner shrugged, a small smile on his lips. "I think I've never met anyone more your type in my entire life." He winked at Zane. "Of any gender."
Zane released the pent up breath. "Yeah, yeah," he muttered. The flood of relief made him dizzy.
"No, but seriously, Zane," Tanner paused, and Zane could tell he was choosing his words carefully. "I personally don't care who you hook up with, you know that. But I don't know that Joe's Thursday night crowd is ready for the Zane Nolan Gay Romance Hour."
Zane grimaced. "Very funny." Then he sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands. "You know, this is hands down the weirdest conversation we have ever had."
"I'm just saying, you should probably take every precaution." Tanner smirked again. "And I don't mean just in the dirty way."
"Oh my God, Tanner, gross!" Zane threw the whole case of Styrofoam at him then, and Tanner was laughing too hard to duck. Bullseye.
Tanner's words gave Zane something to ponder while he finished stocking the freezer, and even after, long into the night. Tanner was right (of course, Tanner was usually right, although Zane would deny he thought so on pain of death). Zane Nolan was a renowned ladies man. The patrons of Joe's, and his extended family and friends, would certainly take note if he suddenly started dating a guy. He licked his lips nervously and sought out the man in question from across the bar. Gray was refilling the flavored syrup bottles, bottom lip between his teeth as he concentrated on the task.