police cars parked at the foot and the head of the alley.
"Hands up!" someone yelled.
Phury stared into the dealer's panicked eyes and felt no sympathy and no complicity. "I gotta go. Later."
Phury wiped the memory of himself from the four cops with the guns and the dealer with the aw-fuck-me expression and dematerialized with his buy.
Chapter Forty-two
Qhuinn led the way through the tunnel that ran underground from the Brotherhood's mansion to the training center's office. Blay stayed behind him, and the only sound was their boots. The meal they'd shared had been the same, only silverware on silverware and an occasional, Could you please pass the salt?
Dinner's great conversational drought had been broken only by a rainstorm of some kind of drama upstairs. When they'd heard shouting, they'd both put their forks down and run into the foyer, but Rhage had looked over the balcony and shaken his head, telling them to stay out of it.
Which was cool. The two of them had plenty of their own shit to deal with.
When they got to the door that led into the office closet, Qhuinn punched 1914 into the security pad so Blay could see the numbers.
"Year the house was built, evidently." As they stepped through the closet and came out next to the desk, he shook his head. "I always wondered how they got here."
Blay made a noise that could have been anything from "Me, too," to "Fuck you with a chain saw, you rat bastard."
The route to the PT suite didn't require a leader, and once they got into the gym, it was hard not to count the yards Blay put between them as soon as he could.
"You can go now," Blay said as they came up to the door marked EQUIPMENT ROOM/PT. "I'll manage the cut on my back."
"It's between your shoulder blades."
Blay gripped the knob and went again with the noise in the back of his throat. And this time it was definitely not a me-too kind of thing.
"Be reasonable," Qhuinn said.
Blay's eyes stared straight ahead. After a moment, he opened the door. "Wash your hands first. Before you touch me, I want you to wash your hands."
As they went in, the guy made a beeline for the gurney that Qhuinn had been operated on the night before last.
"We should get a time-share on this bitch," Qhuinn said as he glanced around the tiled room with its stainless-steel cabinets and medical equipment.
Blay popped himself up on the table, shrugged out of his shirt, and winced as he looked down at the barely closed bleeders on his chest. "Shit."
Qhuinn let out all the breath in his lungs and just stared at his friend. The guy's head hung off his neck as he examined where he'd been cut, and he was beautiful like that, his shoulders wide, the pads of his pecs thick, his arms corded with muscle. What made him all the more appealing, though, was his self-contained reserve.
Hard not to wonder what was underneath all that modesty. Qhuinn got on with the nurse shit, grabbing some gauze, tape, and antiseptic wash from the cabinets, then putting it all on a push tray and scooting the lot over to the gurney.
With the supplies gathered, he went over to the stainless-steel sink and pressed the foot pedal to get the water running.
While he washed his hands, he said quietly, "If I could, I would."
"Excuse me?"
Qhuinn pumped some suds into his palms and scrubbed all the way up his forearms. Which was overkill, but if Blay wanted him superclean, then that was what he was going to be. "If I could love a guy like that, it would be you."
"Yeah, on second thought, I'll work on myself and to hell with my back - "
"I'm serious." He released the pedal to stop the water running, and shook his hands over the sink. "You think I haven't thought about it? Being with you, that is. And not just for the sex shit."
"You have?" Blay whispered above the dripping.
Qhuinn dried his hands on a stack of blue surgical towels to the left and took one with him as he went over to Blay. "Yeah, I have. Hold this under the wounds, would you?"
Blay did as he was told, and Qhuinn squeezed some wash over the gash on the guy's sternum.
"I didn't know - Motherfucker!"
"Stings, huh." Qhuinn went around the table, to his buddy 's back. "I'm going to do this one now, and I think you'd better brace yourself. It's even deeper."
Qhuinn