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The kid shrugged. “I reckon so. Bad enough to shut the street both ways. I heard a second car drove straight into the bus when the rescue crews were pulling people out.”

I bit down hard on my lip as I dropped the handful of coins into my pocket. The unusual bustle on the streets began to make sense. The Loop was the heart of the business district. With its central subway link inaccessible, any fucker who couldn’t catch a cab would be walking home. The accident’s location made my skin prickle. Pete was based in West Loop. If he hadn’t left work on time, there was a good chance he’d been called to the scene. A good chance he’d been there when the second car hit the bus.

In a daze, I left the shop without another word. I wandered back onto the streets and tried to reason with my overactive imagination. Even if Pete had been sent to the accident, that didn’t mean anything bad had happened to him. He wasn’t a fireman—he wouldn’t be pulling people out—he’d be waiting for them somewhere else, right? But even as I thought it, I knew that was wrong. I didn’t know shit about paramedic protocol, but I knew Pete and Mick, his partner on the ambulance and long-time friend, had been reprimanded more times than they could count for ignoring it. If someone needed them, they didn’t stop to consider themselves. Pete came home bashed up all the time because he’d done something he shouldn’t. It drove me fucking crazy.

I lit a cigarette and took a deep breath. Pete was fine. If anything had happened to him Maggie would know. She would have called me; at least I hoped she would. Pete had tacked my cell number to her refrigerator in case of emergencies. He’d been thinking of her, not himself, but still. Maggie would call me. I knew she would.

That dubious knowledge was of little comfort, but I didn’t really have anything else. I pulled out the list Ted had written me and made my way to the sandwich shop, but despite my best efforts, I still forgot half the stuff on it and had to go back. It was a pattern that continued for the rest of the day, and as soon as my last client vacated the chair, I packed my stuff up and left. Ted raised an eyebrow as I pushed past him, but he made no comment. He was used to me being strange.

A longer walk probably would have cleared my head, but I was home before I knew it and opening the door to an empty apartment. I dropped my stuff in the hall and walked through the living space. I scanned the room for signs of life, any clue that Pete had come home in my absence, but I found nothing. The apartment was just how I’d left it. My cell phone was blank when I pulled it out of my jeans, and as far as I could tell, there were no messages on the apartment phone.

Frustrated, I dropped my cell phone on the bed and headed for the shower. When I’d washed all the ink from my hands and arms, I got out, dressed, and poked around in the kitchen for dinner. For once, there was actually food in the cupboards. Shame I wasn’t hungry.

The evening drew slowly into night, and there was still no sign of Pete. I tried to distract myself with work and laundry, anything to keep my mind off what I was now almost certain he was doing. There was no other explanation. Even if he’d been working a double shift, he should have been home hours ago. Just before midnight, I made the mistake of flipping the channels on the TV. Stupidly, I let it fall on the news channel.

The screen filled with burning vehicles and bleeding firemen, and my stomach dropped like a stone. The cool calm monotone of the newsreader echoed in my head as she expanded on the sketchy information I’d learned in the store. Four people dead, dozens injured, and an unknown number of rescue workers hurt when a second vehicle had hit the stationary bus.

My heart pounded, but I couldn’t look away. When the report finished, I clicked the TV off and set the remote down on the coffee table. My movements were slow and deliberate, as I fought the huge part of me that wanted to hurl it across the room. I wanted to hear something shatter, anything to drown out the noise in my head. I wanted to put my fist through the TV screen, to feel the glass slice my skin, to feel the blood as it oozed out of….

Shit.

I sat on my hands and I didn’t move for a long time. The light from the single lamp was low and dim. It cast an eerie glow in the living room as I stared at the blank TV screen. The initial panic I’d felt faded to a dull ache in my chest, holding me statue still until finally, just before two in the morning, I heard a key crunch in the lock.

His footsteps were heavy in the hallway, and my heart sank when I saw his face. I’d expected him to be tired, and even upset, but his empty stare was truly harrowing. I’d never seen his warm eyes so lifeless and cold.

“You’re still up,” he said flatly.

Instinctively, I leaned forward as my body was drawn to him. “Couldn’t sleep. You okay?”

“I’m going to bed.”

He pushed himself off the doorframe and walked past me without a backward glance. I watched him go, still perched on the edge of the couch, and listened to him move around the apartment. His shower was short, and a few minutes later the bedroom door closed with a quiet click. The sound reverberated through my head, and a breath I’d been holding for hours escaped me.

I lay back on the couch and closed my eyes. The rejection stung, but I got it. He’d had a bad day, night, however long it had been, and I’d spent enough time wrapped up in my own shit to recognize when someone wanted to be left alone. I drifted off to sleep content in the knowledge that he was safe in his bed. The space he needed seemed a small price to pay.

I
T
WAS
still dark when he came to get me. He shook me awake, hauled my stumbling sleepy ass into bed and proceeded to tell me everything he needed to say without words.

His hands were everywhere as he kissed me—my hair, my hips, my back. He pulled at my clothes and dragged me over him, desperate for something I didn’t understand. I kissed him back, responding the only way I knew how, but no matter what I did, it wasn’t enough. He needed more, and it wasn’t until I was fucking him against the headboard, harder than I’d ever fucked him before, that some of the turmoil in his eyes began to fade.

After, I lay on my back with him draped over my chest. I toyed with his short hair and traced the bruises and scrapes I’d discovered all over his arms.

“I’m sorry,” Pete said into the darkness. “I’m not used to anyone being here when I come home from something like that.”

“S’okay, it’s not like I don’t do the same to you all the time.”

I felt him smile against my skin. “You’re getting better at that.”

I hummed lazily and peaceful silence fell over us for a while, but I knew he wasn’t asleep. “Was it really bad?”

My question was quiet. He didn’t raise his head, and for a moment I thought he wouldn’t answer, until he sighed and stilled his fingers on my stomach.

“It was rough. Some of the worst shit I’ve ever seen. There was a fire in the second car. We couldn’t get them out.”

“Get them out?”

A shudder ran through him. “The people who died… they burned alive, Ash.”

I couldn’t imagine the horrors he’d seen. “I’m sorry.”

He finally looked up. “You don’t need to be. Sometimes these things just happen, and I have to deal with it. If I hadn’t come home to you, I’d have brooded over it for days.”

He’d never struck me as the brooding type; of the two of us, that was all me. My theory held up a few moments later when his trademark grin began to creep back over his features.

“So what have you been doing for the past few days? Get up to much?”

I shrugged slightly. “Just work and stuff. I have something for you, actually.”

“Oh yeah?”

I shifted and pulled my personal sketch pad out of the nightstand. It was where I did my sketches that weren’t for the shop. I flipped through the pages until I found what I was looking for and handed it over.

Pete took the book and examined the page. His eyes widened as he took in the drawing. “Holy shit. This is for me?”

I nodded, chewed nervously on the inside of my cheek as I traced the outline of one of the stars. “This one here is already there. I’ve added a few to come down your chest, and the others trail over your shoulder and taper off. I can draw something else if you don’t like it.”

“Are you kidding me? This is awesome. Will you do it for me? Tattoo it, I mean?”

“Um, I guess, if you want me to,” I said, suddenly uncertain. “Are you sure?”

Pete rolled his eyes. “What did you think I was going to do with it? Take it to someone else?”

I hadn’t really thought that far ahead. In all the weeks I’d spent working on the design, I’d been so wrapped up in the details, I’d never considered what would happen next. Stupid, really, because there was no way I could let him take it to another artist. I’d only ever let one person recreate one of my designs, and although the chick was my mentor back in Philly, I’d still wanted to rip her damn face off. From that day on, I’d made it a rule that every design I drew had to be etched by me.

Besides, the idea of putting a needle gun to his skin was strangely exciting.

Pete held up my sketchbook. “What else have you got in here? Anything good?”

I nodded at his silent request to flip through the pages. The book was pretty new, so I was reasonably sure I hadn’t drawn anything weird in it.

“Is this you?”

I glanced at the sketch he held up. “No, it’s just some kid.”

Pete frowned. “Are you sure?”

“It’s a girl. I don’t even know her.”

“So why did you draw her?”

I shrugged, confused at his interest in the random sketch. “I draw lots of people I don’t know.”

“It sure looks like you. When did you see her?”

His skepticism was mildly irritating. I took the sketchbook from him and tossed it back onto the nightstand. “I don’t know. I’ve drawn her a few times, so it was probably years ago. Why do you care?”

He held my gaze for a long, searching moment, but just as I was starting to squirm, he shook his head and his expression cleared. He sat up gingerly. “Sorry, you know I get my crazy on after double shifts. Hey, I’ve got you something too, sort of. You want to come see it?”

Curious, I slid out of bed and helped him up. “Is it in the living room?”

“Not exactly.” He retrieved two discarded shirts from the floor. “Have you got socks?”

I pulled the T-shirt over my head and snagged my discarded sweatpants from the foot of the bed. “Socks?”

“Yeah, socks. Here you go.”

I caught the balled-up socks he threw me, and once we were both dressed, I followed him out into the living room. He stopped and turned to me as we neared the fire escape.

“Do you trust me?”

“I guess.”

“How about if I asked you to close your eyes and walk with me, would you do it?”

I thought about my answer, but not for long. “Yes.”

Pete’s grin was a mile wide as he held up his arms for me. “Close your eyes, fucker.”

I did as he asked and gripped his hands as he directed me into the hallway. He let go of me briefly to open the door to the fire escape. Age-old fears bubbled up in my chest, but they disappeared the moment he took my hand again.

A few more steps and I heard his satisfied sigh. “Open up.”

I opened my eyes and sucked in a sharp gasp of air. I hadn’t been out on the fire escape since the night I’d cut my hand. That night, my eyes had been blind and unseeing, but I’d changed since then, and in the long hours I’d spent worrying about Pete tonight, the city had changed too. At some point in the past three hours, the streets below me had been covered in a thick blanket of fresh snow.

Awe swept over me. Pete was right; he’d always been right. The pure-white city
was
like another world.

I let out a long breath. “It’s so white.”

Beside me, he chuckled. “It won’t be for long.”

“Will it melt that quickly?”

“No, it’s here to stay now. It’s just the city will make it dirty. This is the cleanest you’ll see it all winter.” He nudged me with his elbow. “Do you want walk in it?”

I tore my eyes away the swathes of pure white. “Now? But you need to sleep.”

Pete brought his hand up to cup my face. “Not really, Ash. All I need right now is you.”

Despite the icy breeze from the open door, I felt nothing but warmth as his rough, simplistic sentiment washed over me. I went willingly as he pulled me out onto the deserted, white streets. I tugged him close as the cold air hit me and wrapped my arms around him.

His eyes blazed as he stared at me, but it was the best kind of heat. He smiled, and for the first time in my life I believed that, for him, I could be more than I’d ever dreamed.

Pete

January 2009

I
WAS
alone when I woke up the morning after I’d topped Ash. A quick scout of the apartment told me he was out, so I got in the shower, then got ready for work. I stumbled into the kitchen a little while later to find a note tacked on the refrigerator.

You big-dicked motherfucker….

He was concise, I’d give him that, and I had to laugh. I’d gotten in trouble for the size of my dick before. Smirking, I scrawled a vulgar reply before throwing some clothes in a bag and getting my ass out of there.

I came down the stairs just as he let himself back into our building. His crazy blond hair was easy to spot, but he didn’t see me until I was right in front of him. He blinked his surprise. Rather than ribbing him for being half-asleep so late in the day, I suddenly found myself caught by his eyes. It was a fate that often befell me. He had blue eyes,
really
blue eyes, and I got lost in them all the time. Most days, there was nowhere else I’d rather be.

He cleared his throat and reached into the grocery bag in his arms, then handed me a sub from our favorite deli down the street. I grinned like a fool as the growl of my stomach pulled me out of my stormy blue haze. He looked after me well when I worked nights—sandwiches, fresh coffee, and fuck-hot sex. The order changed from time to time, but what more could a man want? Besides, I’d slept late and run out of time to eat. He knew all too well that I was a grouchy motherfucker when I didn’t get fed.