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felt sort of foolish. Decided to wait.”
    Still clutching the towel at his waist, Dink slowly shook his head. He glanced around the room, focused once again on Mac. “Don’t ever feel foolish with me, Mac. We’ve got too much history, too much between us for that.”
    Mac stared at him. So many images crashed into his mind, so many memories, and the words came spilling out, unfiltered and painfully honest. “I watch your show every night. Did you know that? I mean, I see you here the way you are now, standing in my bedroom wearing nothing but a towel with your hair all wet and slicked back, your eyelashes spiky, and I’m picturing you on the damned TV, not a hair out of place, makeup perfect, wearing a suit and tie.” He laughed, feeling even more awkward.
    Dink smiled softly. Not the practiced news anchor smile, but the one Mac remembered from long ago. His fingers moved nervously over the knotted towel. Water beaded on his shoulders and in the mat of hair on his chest. “Behind that desk, I’m wearing faded jeans with that suit, if it makes any difference.”
    Mac stared at him a minute, felt his heart rate speed up. His voice cracked, sounded unusually hoarse when he said, “There are nights, sometimes, when I picture you naked behind that desk. I’ve never forgotten what it was like between us, Dink. Never.”
    Dink sat beside him, enveloping Mac in the familiar smell of Mac’s soap overlaying the subtle scent that was uniquely Dink. He stared at Mac for a moment and sighed. “I wasn’t going to, but I have to ask. Have there been many others?”
    Mac shook his head. “No. No men. Very few women.” He felt foolish, admitting the truth, but he could always be honest with Dink, even when it hurt. About everything but who and what Zianne really was. He’d not been honest about that. He would, though. Tonight he’d tell him everything.
    “Zianne was always there, in my head. I tried dating, but it was a long time after she left before I even attempted to go out with another woman. No good. Tried seeing a few women just for sex, but I was better off with my own hand than trying to fuck someone who wasn’t her. I even thought, for a while, that I’d be better off if I tried to forget her.”
    He laughed, but his laughter choked off, like a sob. Not what he wanted at all. Not tonight. “That lasted about an hour. She owns my heart, Dink. She always has. But you?” He reached out and placed his fingers against Dink’s chest. Felt the steady ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump beneath his fingertips. “You own a part of me that even Zianne can’t touch. You have from the beginning.”
    Dink downed the drink in his hand and set the glass aside. Then he leaned forward and started working at the buttons on Mac’s flannel shirt. Mac watched him—not helping, just watching—and concentrated instead on the way Dink chewed on his lower lip, the intense focus he gave to each button.
    He was as nervous as Mac. There was nothing now of the famous anchorman, the reporter who’d terrified Mac with his stories filmed in dangerous war zones around the globe, who sat before a camera and calmed a frightened nation with his smooth, unruffled approach to whatever crisis occurred. No, right now there was none of the polish or the finesse. He wasn’t Nils Dinkemann, America’s eye on the world. Not here, not now.
    Not with his fingers trembling as he worked the buttons free down the front of Mac’s shirt. Not with his audible swallow as he slipped the soft flannel over Mac’s shoulders. Mac finished taking it off. Then he kicked off his shoes, unzipped his jeans, and slid them over his legs.
    He’d skipped shorts after his shower earlier, and there was no hiding the erection that curved up thick and hard, almost touching his belly. Dink didn’t say a word, though he had to know it was all for him. Because of him. He slid to the floor and grabbed Mac’s thighs in both hands, leaned close, and nuzzled the thick, dark hair