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tiny smile working against Danny’s lips. “Five years,” Miller mumbled.
    “We’ve been engaged for five years.”
    “Whaaat?” Danny laughed, elongating the word with the remnants of his Kansas drawl. “What’s the fucking holdup? Damn, she’s a lot more patient than Amanda ever would have been, I’ll tell you that.”
    “How long were you and Amanda engaged?”

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    Danny shrugged. “A couple of hours.”
    “A couple of hours,” Miller parroted. “Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”
    “What can I say? I’m a spontaneous kind of guy,” Danny grinned with a raise of his eyebrows.
    “How’d you meet her?”
    “I was down in Mexico, doing a job for Hinestroza. She was there on vacation. I met her in a bar. We danced and drank too much tequila and I woke up the next morning with a ring on my finger and this on my arm.” Danny lifted up his right sleeve, revealing a tattoo of barbed wire encircling his bicep. “Apparently Amanda wanted it to be intertwined A’s and D’s, but thank God I wasn’t drunk enough for that.”
    “You’re a big tattoo fan, I take it?”
    “Didn’t have much choice in the matter, actually. You work for Hinestroza, you get a tattoo. After that it didn’t seem like such a big deal to get more. At least he didn’t brand me like some of the drug bosses do.”
    Miller marveled at how nonchalant Danny was, talking of being tattooed or branded as if he were discussing some vaguely unpleasant but inevitable chore—cleaning out a backed-up toilet, maybe, or doing his taxes. “Is a snake still Hinestroza’s mark?”
    “Yeah. Matches his laugh.” Danny tossed his cigarette onto the saucer he was using as an ashtray. “You want to take a look?” Miller nodded without realizing he was going to, beer bottle poised against his lips as Danny hiked up his shirt, holding the bunched material over his head. He twisted on the couch to give Miller a view of his upper back, a curled-up serpent painted between his shoulder blades. It had the diamond markings of a rattlesnake, but the colors were brilliant jewel tones, dark purple, emerald green, deep ocean blue.
    Miller’s eyes were riveted on the vision of the snake coiled across Danny’s tight muscles, the flickering lights from the TV making the colors shimmer and breathe. The tattoo was beautiful, really—unless Shades of Gray | 55
    you knew what it meant.
    “Can you see it?” Danny asked, his voice muted through the layers of cotton.
    “Yeah, I can see it,” Miller replied, husky and low, his stomach pitching forward like an off-balance drunk. He was horrified by his own desire to breach the space between them and lay his hands across Danny’s marked skin.
    Danny pivoted back around, his shirt inching down in a slow-motion glide as Miller’s eyes helplessly followed its descent. Neither of them spoke and the silence wasn’t easy; it popped and crackled with possibilities. Miller’s eyes swerved back to the TV, his finger stabbing viciously at the remote. He could feel the tension in his face, a furrow etched between his brows, his mouth locked up tight.
    He risked a quick glance at Danny, who was watching him with steady eyes, a newly lit cigarette dangling from his lips. Miller felt sweat popping up along his brow, his breathing too rapid for his sedentary position. He reached for his FBI training, switched on his finely tuned ability to disengage, and looked away.

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    MILLER knew he’d overslept from the strength of the sunlight slanting in through the edges of his blinds to lay warm fingers across his face.
    Jesus, only two days living with Danny and already he was on deadbeat time. Staying up late drinking beer and smoking, sleeping in past his years-old five-thirty a.m. wake-up call. Judging from the light it had to be close to eight o’clock. Fucking pathetic, Miller.
    He rolled out of bed with a groan, thankful at least that Danny hadn’t broken into the bourbon yet. Even