“Oh Lord,” Zane said under his breath as he shook his head and looked out the window. A soft laugh from behind them drew his attention, and he looked over his shoulder to see Cameron biting his lip, trying not to smile.
Zane wrinkled his nose and looked back at Ty. “It’s like those tests in grade school with a whole long list of questions to answer, and all you had to do was get to question three, sign your name, and turn it in.”
“What’s the answer?” Ty asked all of them.
“I refuse to participate on the grounds that I hate you both,” Julian murmured.
“I feel like I should know this,” Zane said under his breath.
“Is it the animal the Lion King is serving for dinner?” Cameron asked, a wry undertone to his voice.
Ty shook his head.
“The elephant isn’t there,” Julian finally said in an irritated voice. “Because you just stuffed it into the refrigerator.”
“That’s right,” Ty said as he tried not to smile. “Last question. There’s a river you have to cross that’s patrolled by crocodiles, and you don’t have a boat. How do you get across?”
“Ask the crocodile for a ride,” Cameron said.
Ty shook his head.
“Swim,” Zane said instead.
Ty turned his chin and looked at him for his reasoning.
“What about the crocodiles?” Cameron asked.
“The crocodiles aren’t there. They’re at the convention,” Zane said with a shrug, and Cameron scowled at him.
Ty grinned before looking back at the road.
“You realize those are questions they ask schoolchildren to test their reasoning skills, yes?” Julian provided sardonically.
Ty nodded, still grinning.
“So did you get them all right when they asked you?” Zane asked.
“No,” Ty answered. “For their purposes, you weren’t supposed to get them right. They said they accepted me because my answers were wrong but precisely what they wanted to hear.”
“I’m sure I cannot imagine what you came up with,” Zane said, shaking his head. “You figured I’d pick it apart logically. Which is the total opposite of what you do.”
“I wasn’t sure what you’d do,” Ty told him fondly.
“If you’d asked the last question first? I’d have said shoot the crocodiles,” Zane admitted.
Ty shook his head, smiling.
“Grady’s answer was build a bridge,” Julian murmured from the back seat.
Ty looked up at the mirror, surprised. “That’s right.”
“How’d you know that, Julian?” Cameron asked.
Julian looked up, meeting Ty’s eyes in the mirror. “Because it’s what I would have said.”
“How sweet,” Zane muttered.
Ty’s eyes lingered on the mirror before he was able to tear his attention away and focus on the road again. He shifted in his seat, unsettled and wishing he’d never said anything.
“What mile are we at now?” Cameron asked.
Ty’s gaze darted to the side of the road, seeking out a structure. They came upon an overpass, and he found one of the tiny blue signs he’d noticed that told the mile to the exact decimal. “142.7.”
A few seconds later, they came upon another mile marker.
“How the hell is he doing that?” Cameron asked as Zane chuckled.
Ty looked into the mirror, only to find Julian’s dark eyes already watching him. He could tell that Julian knew exactly how he was doing it.
“How’d you two end up together, anyway?” Zane asked, oblivious to Ty’s sudden discomfort and Julian’s eyes boring a hole into his soul.
“I was his waiter,” Cameron answered.
“How… romantic,” Ty said as he honestly tried to find a more appropriate word.
“It was,” Cameron murmured.
Ty and Zane shared a look. Ty supposed no one would call the way they met romantic either. Love was love, though. Ty wanted desperately to reach out to Zane and touch him. He refrained, tightening his fingers on the steering wheel instead.
“He’s the most important thing in my life,” Julian said, his low voice echoing what Ty was thinking.
“How did that happen?” Zane asked.
Julian raised one finger, all the movement Ty’s method of restraint allowed him. “Love isn’t a gentle thing. I’ve found it carries a club and a bullwhip and doesn’t care when or who it strikes.”
“My knight in shining plate armor,” Cameron murmured.
Zane didn’t try to hold back his soft laugh, though it trailed off. Ty glanced over to find Zane looking at him wistfully. “Kind of like getting pushed off a cliff,” he said without taking his eyes off Ty.
Julian was silent for a moment, merely watching Ty and Zane. Observing them. “I don’t consider it a problem. Loving Cameron is easy. He’s the reason I try so very hard every day not to be killed,” he said with a hint of what might have been humor.
“And the danger it puts him in?”
“I almost lost him to it when I tried to shield him from it,” Julian answered unflinchingly, not even hesitating to say the words as Cameron watched him. “I kept things from him, things I knew would scare him. When he found out the true dangers of being with me, he was indeed scared and angry with me for keeping them secret, and he sent me away. We got a second chance. Now we deal in truth. He is his own man, he makes his own decisions. My conscience is clear on that note.”
“Except when he’s about to freeze to death in a blizzard,” Ty murmured while trying to ignore the sword chopping at his own conscience.
“Ty,” Zane whispered, shaking his head.
Ty huffed at him.
It was a few minutes before Zane finally asked, “How did you know that you loved him?”
“Difficult to say,” Julian answered thoughtfully. “A number of things, really. The biggest, however, was the excruciating pain it caused me to think of life without him in it.”
Cameron was smiling, watching Julian like he was the only thing in the world.
Julian laughed. “Something that torturous can only be love.”
Zane snorted, carefully avoiding looking at Ty.
“I see you’re familiar with it,” Julian observed drily.
Ty glanced at Zane again, unable to keep his lips from curving into a smile.
“Yeah,” Zane said as he turned around and eased back into his seat. “Yeah, I’m familiar with it.”