My gaze passed the doorway to the bedroom, where Liam, clad only in jeans, pulled a T-shirt out of a drawer.

His body was a riot of taut skin over hard-packed muscle, faintly gleaming with sweat. Broad shoulders that curved into strong arms, planks of abdominals that slid into a flat stomach and bridged a lean waist and sculpted chest. Every inch was solid, curving muscle, so that he might have been carved of stone . . . except for the jagged scar across his left arm, a band of puckered skin halfway between shoulder and elbow.

I turned, walked stiffly back to the bar.

Maybe I’d just make mine a double, I thought, adding rye, sugar from a small covered dish, and bitters to the glasses.

Liam walked back into the living room, opened the small refrigerator. He looked inside, took out a glass pan, checked beneath the foil, glanced back at me. “Roasted chicken?”

My stomach grumbled in response, and he grinned. “I’ll take that as a yes.” He took two small plates from a cabinet, portioned chicken onto each one.

I sat down on a bar stool, slid his drink to the spot in front of the next one. “Where’d you get chicken?” Meat, especially fresh meat, wasn’t easy to come by in the Zone.

Liam walked over. “Moses has friends. I bring him electronics every once in a while, and he rewards me. I don’t cook much, but I have the skills to roast a chicken. But I do it at Eleanor’s. Her kitchen’s better than mine.”

“I’m surprised Containment lets him keep all that stuff.”

“They think he’s a hoarder. Which he is,” he added, setting a plate in front of me. The portions were small. And when I looked back at the pan, I realized he’d split up the last of it for us.

“But that’s not all he is. Just another example of Containment not being attentive to the details.”

He picked up a piece of chicken, took a bite, swallowed. “I didn’t think to ask—you want a fork?”

“No. I’m good.” I didn’t need a middleman getting between me and my chicken. I pulled off a chunk of meat, closed my eyes to savor it. “Damn, Quinn. That’s pretty good. Thank you for sharing.”

“Sazerac’s not bad, either,” he said, but he was frowning when he put the glass down. “Except that I’m not sure I like Sazeracs. I don’t really like the licorice flavor.”

I laughed. “Then why did you tell me to make one?”

He shrugged. “It’s as prewar New Orleans as you can get. And you seemed pretty impressed with yourself.”

I harrumphed, turned back to my dinner.

•   •   •

We ate companionably for a while, talking about Paras, about the war. The things people in the Zone, or at least in the Quarter, always seemed to talk about. So when we’d devoured the chicken, and cleaned up the plates, I tried to switch up the topics.

“So, what do you do when you aren’t, I guess, working?”

We’d gone back to the bar. I nursed another Sazerac while he opted for bourbon on ice. “I visit Eleanor. Play cards with her and Victoria or Maria, whoever’s on duty.”

“Does Eleanor cheat?” I asked, thinking of what he’d said about Moses.

“Not with me.” He paused. “At least, I don’t think she does.”

“Does she win a lot?”

His eyes narrowed as he thought it through. “Actually, yeah. Damn. I gave her a chocolate bar last week.”

“Well, that’s worth cheating over.”

“I can get you one.”

I shouldn’t have looked as eager as I did. “You can?”

Like gum, chocolate had also been cleaned out of closed stores and empty houses. And what remained hadn’t fared well—chocolate, heat, and humidity weren’t a good mix.