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offered Eli a cup. God. Tasted as good as it smelled. “For what it's worth…Richie and I were friends first.”
     
    “And now you…”
     
    “I love him,” Taye said, simple and unashamed. “It was only afterward that I understood I always had. Think about that too.”
     
    Right. Like Eli would be able to stop . He lifted his cup to Taye and drank deeply.

Chapter Four
     
     
     
    Eli tugged on his second glove and stamped his boots in the fresh layer of snow still falling from the sky in slow, lazy drifts. A Chicago boy, snow didn't bother him. It'd be a hell of a thing to slip and fall on his ass when he was on his way to proposition his best friend.
     
    He made a face to himself. Proposition. Nice word choice there, Eli . More like…face the music. That'd do. And in this case, as with all others when the music promised to be rough going, a smart man went bearing gifts.
     
    Eli chuckled under his breath. Not so different from Marybeth, was it? If he'd pissed her off, he'd bring home a single rose or a bouquet of irises, or on the occasion of one spectacular fuckup, he'd managed to scrape together the cash for a tennis bracelet. Lucky him, Zane was a little easier to please. Eli pointed himself in the direction of the Starbucks on the corner facing the hospital and started walking.
     
    As he walked, absently watching the puffs of steam that wisped around his face with each breath, Eli applied his mind to the status quo. After Taye had left, he'd fallen asleep. Hadn't meant to and sure as hell hadn't thought it possible, but either good coffee miraculously wrought from stale beans and a drip pot was a soporific, or Taye had slipped a Valium or three into the pot. Eli wasn't sure which and frankly didn't think he wanted to know. The pot had been suspiciously clean when Eli woke. Either way, the quick nap helped. Gave him a brain reset, as it were. A fresh perspective.
     
    And when he'd glanced out the window and seen Zane working at the station beneath the free clinic's skylight, slumped in a chair and hunched over a stack of charts, Eli had known: reset or not, the new way in which he saw Zane hadn't changed.
     
    More important, neither had the old. The nap had let that surface. No matter what else, Zane was the closest friend of Eli's life. So maybe it was a little weird to lean on the guy who'd thrown you into a tailspin. So what? He could count on Zane through the worst of anything else.
     
    Only made sense to do that now.
     
    Granted, the coffee wasn't just a peace offering. Zane wasn't the only one who could play mad scientist and work up experiments. As one last test before diving right into the lion's den, Eli wanted to get a good look at the world and make sure he knew where he stood. Zane deserved no less.
     
    Comparison and contrasts. Go.
     
    Could I be attracted to Diana? he asked himself, waiting for the light. Several idiots decided they'd scramble across the walk during a lull in traffic. Great. They'd probably be scraping the bastards off the pavement later on. Diana. Hmm.
     
    No, he decided. Diana might be pretty with her pixy haircut and her tight little curves and her sassy smile, but she was one hell of a firecracker and she liked 'em young. High maintenance and quick to fly off the handle. Not like Zane, who'd sit calm and quiet and think his way through the situation at hand. He might come up with something as explosive as Diana, but hey, at least his fuse was on a sensible rigging.
     
    Am I attracted to Holly? Eli asked himself once he was across the street, the fragrance of Pike Place already rich in his nose as the Starbucks door opened and shut on a stream of foot traffic. Jesus, why didn't they just install revolving doors already and be done with it?
     
    Holly…no . That one didn't take too much thought. He'd have to take Keith out of the picture, and frankly Keith was the one guy around who could probably take Eli in a fight. Also, he'd overheard far too many details about