Sticks and Stones (37 page)

“What’s more than convenience?” Zane was deliberately obtuse as he opened his own bottle.

“You and my brother,” Deuce answered bluntly.

“As partners, it’s generally advisable that you at least tolerate each other most of the time,” Zane spun out. “Sometimes it takes more effort than others.”

“You’re not as good at evading a question as he is,” Deuce advised with a nod at Ty. “He knows there’s no pie,” he told Zane with a small smile.

“You sure about that?” Zane asked, raising an eyebrow.

Deuce shrugged and leaned forward to put a hand gently on Ty’s shoulder. Ty twitched with the contact and muttered something unintelligible. Deuce pursed his lips and looked back up at Zane. “He knew the drugs would get him soon. He was just stalling until he fell back asleep. He’ll never talk about dad to anyone. Never has, never will.” He leaned back and threw his feet up onto the edge of the bed. “I’m not trying to put you in a tight spot,” he assured Zane quietly, reverting back to their other discussion. “I’ve just never met anyone he was serious about,” he explained.

Zane forced himself not to react, to just take a drink.
Serious
. Then he let himself look at Deuce. “And you think you have now?”

Deuce shrugged nonchalantly. “When I say never, Zane, I mean it. I’ve known him all my life. He never had a junior high crush. He never had a high school sweetheart. Even when he was in service and going through college, there was no one he was even remotely hung up on. There was always something more important to him than being in a relationship. The Corps. His Bronco. Football. His favorite Crayola sleeping bag,” he said with a hint of a smile. “I like you, man. I think you must be good for him. But just remember what I’m telling you before you start thinking too hard. I don’t think he’d even know what to do with himself if he loved someone.”

Zane’s heart tried to pound harder, and he took a slow, steady breath, reminding himself that Deuce’s comment about love didn’t apply to him. He still had to swallow hard. “I know what’s important to him,” he finally settled on. “And his partner’s not at the top of the list.” He actually gave Deuce an honest, though wry, smile.

Deuce returned it with a sad one of his own and looked down at his brother once more. He waited for a moment before glancing back up at Zane. “I would argue differently,” he stated finally. “Just don’t let Dad find out,” he advised in a near whisper.

“You know, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Zane muttered, turning his gaze back to Ty, who was tossing fitfully again. Zane thought his own stomach was tossing just as badly now as he looked at his partner. At his
lover
.

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” Deuce replied with a long-suffering sigh before taking a drink from his bottle of Mountain Dew.

“Because there’s no way I’d willingly talk to a shrink about my partner,” Zane added, still not looking at Deuce as his hand crunched the plastic Coke bottle a little.

“Certainly not,” Deuce agreed amiably. “Not that you have anything you need to get off your chest, anyway, am I right?” he said.

“Not a thing. All is right in the world,” Zane continued, making himself ignore the tightness in his chest and focus on what he and Ty did best. “And Ty and I might just get through two days without a fight. Now, I said ‘might’, mind you.” He looked at his watch. “Two hours to go. It’ll be a new record.”

“You fight a lot, then?” Deuce asked in a casual tone.

“That’s an understatement,” Zane groused before taking another swallow of his drink.

“Is this on-the-job fighting or after hours?” Deuce inquired curiously.

“I have yet to determine that there is any difference.” Zane paused. “Any
appreciable
difference,” he corrected himself, thinking about how they got along at the office as opposed to in the bed in his hotel suite.

“I gather it’s not unresolved sexual tension,” Deuce observed. “Could it be, deep down, maybe you enjoy the fighting?” he suggested in an offhand manner.

Zane snorted. “It’s not deep down. We really do enjoy… fighting.” He made himself take another drink to stop the smile, his eyes still focused on Ty. God, he wished Ty would wake up and argue with him right now. It would go a long way toward reassuring him that Ty was going to be okay. He could really go for a good fight, one where they yelled about something stupid and pushed each other around and ended up fucking each other silly and then holding each other all night after. He remembered their quiet talk in front of the fire in the trail cabin, where he’d deliberately told Ty something about himself that he knew full well Ty would take advantage of. More ammunition.

“So your observation that you may go forty-eight hours without a fight is actually one of disappointment,” Deuce surmised clinically. “The way you express your appreciation of each other is through insults and barbs. Once you start being nice to each other, it signifies an ebb in interest,” he pointed out with a smirk.

“We’re never nice to each oth—” Zane cut himself off and twitched. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Ty, even knowing Deuce was watching, and Zane knew right then and there that he wouldn’t be giving Ty up without a fight. Ever. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before turning a glare on Deuce.

Deuce merely raised one eyebrow and smiled in return. “And how does that make you
feel
, Special Agent Garrett?” he asked in a slow drawl.

Zane rolled his eyes, reached out, and popped Deuce on the back of the head, just like his mom did. “Asshole,” he muttered as he tried to suppress the panic threatening at the edge of his awareness.

Deuce laughed softly and twisted the cap back onto his bottle. “You’re welcome,” he said smugly.

“You better hope he’s really asleep,” Zane threatened.

“Because you don’t want him knowing how you feel about him?” Deuce asked.

Zane’s shoulders tightened. “He knows enough. Why else would we fight all the time?”

Deuce examined him for a long while before turning his eyes back to his sleeping brother. “I don’t know about that. Has he already started being nice to you?” he asked gently.

“We have our moments,” Zane allowed reluctantly, knowing he was contradicting himself.

“And you don’t know if that’s just him being a decent human being or if it’s that he’s lost interest in trying to goad you on,” Deuce supplied softly.

Tipping his head sideways, Zane met Deuce’s eyes. “We’re partners. We don’t have to be at each other’s throats all the time,” he said with a slight shrug.

Deuce sat with his feet still propped on the bed and his arm resting on the side of the chair. He ran his finger back and forth across his lower lip as he watched Zane. “Ty has a protective streak a mile wide,” he finally said. “He always has. He takes a lot on himself. He doesn’t like to be leaned on because he’s terrified of letting people down. So being charged with protecting something, especially if it’s a job he’s not sure he can do, it’s something that weighs heavy on him. So when he has a choice, he only protects the things he holds close to his heart,” Deuce continued, giving his chest a pat.

“And?”

“That’s for you to figure out, Zane,” Deuce answered with a shrug.

Zane didn’t have anything else to say. He was pretty sure Ty cared about him, just as he cared about Ty. They were partners. They watched out for one another. They depended on each other. Only Zane was finding himself more and more attached to Ty—and that was something that scared him.

Deuce sat silently as Zane mulled it over, the hiss of his bottle cap as he twisted it off the only sound he made. “I’ll send Ty the bill,” he finally said with a small smile.

“
S
HOULD
he be traveling as sick as he is?” Mara Grady asked worriedly as she fussed back and forth between Ty and the pies she was preparing in the kitchen. “Maybe he should stay here until he’s feeling better.”

“I’m feeling better, Ma,” Ty called out from where he sat on the couch, covered in blankets and holding a mug of hot chocolate his mother had shoved into his hands.

“You are not,” she insisted from the kitchen as she banged a pie plate onto the counter and began rattling utensils and plates.

“God hates me,” Ty muttered from under one of the heavy quilts she had draped over him.

Zane snorted from where he was sprawled in a rocking chair across from the couch, under an afghan of his own. Mara had taken to mothering him too. “If God hated you that cat would have bitten you somewhere more sensitive,” he said, teasing.

“Yeah, wait ’til the drugs wear off and I can tell which one of you is real,” Ty grumbled at him. He sniffed at the air as the smell of apple pie began to waft to them.

“When do you have to go?” Mara called.

“Leave the boy alone,” Earl told her from his seat in the kitchen, and their voices dropped as they continued talking quietly to each other. Ty sat and scowled at Zane.

“I’d say it’ll freeze that way, but you might like it to,” Zane murmured as he rocked, the chair squeaking a little.

“When are we leaving?” Ty asked.

Zane was quiet for a long moment as he watched Ty. “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

Ty inclined his head and frowned harder. “You’re not leaving me here,” he whispered harshly.

“Don’t you think you need to rest and heal up instead of driving all the way back to Baltimore?” Zane asked. “It’ll be a hell of a lot easier for you to fly home. It’s only a short drive to the airport in Charleston.”

“Don’t you think you should be baking pies or something?” Ty responded gruffly.

“I bet you already know how,” Zane said. “
Deliverance
.”

“What the hell does that have to do with pie?” Ty asked in annoyance.

“Just a comment about your wide and varied skills.” Zane paused. “Of which healing seems to need some practice.”

“I heal just fine,” Ty argued. “And you’re one to talk,” he added, pointing at the colorful bruise that stretched from his very black eye along the full line of Zane’s cheekbone, which was apparently so painful that Zane hadn’t shaved his beard off yet. Zane wrinkled his nose and winced.

“You boys want more hot chocolate?” Mara called out as Deuce came thumping into the living room and threw himself onto the couch beside Ty.

“No, ma’am,” Ty and Deuce both called out.

“I’m good, thanks,” Zane answered as he gave Ty a disbelieving look.

“What?” Ty asked him defensively.

“All I’m saying is, you have a chance to kick back and relax, have someone take care of you. Maybe you should take advantage of it.”

Ty blinked at Zane slowly and pushed the quilt off his head as he leaned forward. “Do I look relaxed to you?” he asked in a low voice.

Beside him, Deuce began to chuckle softly. Zane raised an eyebrow, still rocking gently. Ty began to struggle with the heavy quilt, trying to get out from under it. Deuce moved beside him, pulling the edge of the quilt out from under himself in an attempt to help, and Ty growled as the throbbing in his hand got worse and worse.

“What do you need?” Mara asked as she came into the living room with a tray of more hot chocolate and set it on the coffee table. “Stop your fussing,” she ordered as she swatted Deuce away and recovered Ty with the quilt he’d just managed to get off.

“You’re killing me, Ma,” Ty protested as he began struggling with the quilt again, fighting against the cumbersome cast on his hand. “Killing me,” he muttered with emphasis as she tutted and headed back to the kitchen.

Zane watched the circus with a slight smile, looking back and forth between Ty and Deuce.

“Stop it,” Ty told him in a growl.

Deuce began to laugh softly. “She just misses you,” he offered. “Let her baby you some. She’ll let up,” he advised.

“I’d be more tempted to listen to you if you weren’t snickering gleefully while you said it,” Ty told him. “Garrett, when are we leaving?” he asked Zane stubbornly as he gave up the fight against the quilt and started trying to go the other way instead, lifting it up over his head.

“Your family wants to spend some time with you,” Zane reminded him gently. “Without someone around to remind you about work, I’d guess.”

“I can see them any time,” Ty countered.

Deuce cleared his throat pointedly, and Ty growled at him as he finally extricated himself from the quilt and tossed it on the floor triumphantly. Zane was shaking his head slightly, the look on his face pretty much classing that answer as bullshit. Deuce was looking at him in much the same manner.

Ty rolled his eyes at both of them and sighed. He sat silently for a moment, trying to ignore them and the intense throbbing in his hand. Finally, he looked around the room and pursed his lips. “It’s kinda cold in here, huh?” he muttered as he leaned forward and retrieved the quilt to wrap up in it again.

“Zane’ll take care of your Bronco. If you don’t want to fly, I’ll drive you home at the end of the week,” Deuce offered.

“And I promise I’ll take care of your Bronco,” Zane repeated.

Ty sighed and glanced sideways at his brother. He couldn’t honestly say he wanted to go anywhere but to bed. “Don’t look at me,” Deuce told him as he leaned forward and picked up a mug of hot chocolate. “I’m not a couples counselor,” he reminded.