Fish & Chips

by Abigail Roux

  Zane winced.

  He moved on through the bedroom to check the balcony and then walked to the bathroom, where the door was ajar and one of the sinks was running.

  Ty was bent over the sink, shirtless, letting the water run into the palm of his hand and then repeatedly splashing his face. Relieved, Zane looked him over: Ty’s face was pale and drawn, and the shirt he’d been wearing when he’d come to see Zane at the poker table was on the marble counter beside him, a single drop of blood on the collar clearly visible.

  Ty abruptly jumped back, his hand going to the knife on the countertop. He jerked to a stop, his back against the marble tile of the bathroom wall, weapon in hand, breathing hard as he stared at Zane.

  Zane let out the breath he’d been holding and looked Ty over while slowly lowering his gun. He felt his focus snap into place: on Ty now, rather than Bianchi and Armen like before. “What happened? Are you all right?”

  Ty lowered his head slightly, glaring at Zane as his hazel eyes flashed with anger. “Had a party,” he answered in a deceptively calm voice as he straightened up and stepped back over to the sink to turn off the water. “Sorry you missed it,” he added as he set down the knife, picked up a washrag, and dabbed at his lip gingerly.

  “I should have been here,” Zane said as he reached out to lightly touch Ty’s chin and turn his head so he could look at the split lip.

  Ty flinched away from him and smacked his hand away, snarling wordlessly at him. The calm façade was gone just as quickly as it had come. He shoved Zane away from him and followed to shove him again, right out of the bathroom. He balled his fist as if preparing to take a swing, but then he gritted his teeth and flexed his fingers, snorting loudly. It always took Ty a lot of effort to rein in his temper once he’d lost it, and he visibly struggled with it now.

  Now Zane knew what had happened was serious. He tried to study Ty more closely to see if he was hiding an injury. He appeared to be unharmed aside from the bloody lip. “What happened?” Zane asked him again.

  “Fucking Italians!” Ty blurted with a wave of his hands, launching into another threatening temper tantrum, and Zane actually leaned back in surprise. Ty’s next words were shouted. “They tried to toss me over the railing! I don’t speak Italian, Garrett!”

  “The railing,” Zane repeated blankly. Then it clicked. “The railing? As in into the ocean railing? What did they want?” Scenarios began playing out in Zane’s head, every one of them ending badly… because he wasn’t there. Zane felt ill, all that lovely Scotch suddenly threatening to make an appearance.

  Ty just seemed to grow angrier in the face of Zane’s belated concern. He stood fairly trembling as he balled his fists at his sides, trying to calm himself. That was an exercise in futility, in Zane’s learned opinion, but no way was he voicing that now.

  “They didn’t say anything to give you an idea of who they were?” Zane asked carefully.

  “I think they were Guardia di Finanza,” Ty said through clenched teeth, the Italian words rolling off his tongue as if he did speak the language. “Even Italian cops wear cheap suits. Del was supposed to meet with them, and when I missed it, they came looking for me.” He waved his rag at the trashed stateroom. “They took the fucking wire taps I found. I’m guessing they flipped the place, then came after me when they didn’t find them here.”

  “The wire taps were with you,” Zane concluded. He inhaled deeply and nodded, believing Ty must have had a hell of a scare for him to be this livid. Staying in character would have made him fairly helpless, and Zane felt a stronger pang of worry that he tried to quash. “That was what you came to tell me about,” he said, though he wasn’t sure what he’d have been able to do about it.

  “Not that it matters now,” Ty snarled.

  “It’s done, Grady. Let it go. We’ll find the wire taps,” Zane said as he walked over to the desk, put down the gun, and started to pick through the contents scattered across the top of it. He was having enough trouble focusing on anything besides his partner to worry about the past now. Ty was silent, and when Zane glanced over at him, he found Ty still standing in the doorway to the bathroom, watching him with a mixture of anger and what might have been pain. It was similar to the look he’d given Zane at the poker table.

  For a moment, Zane was glad he’d enjoyed so much whiskey. If it weren’t for the calm and cool it gave him, he’d either be really upset over Ty’s near-death experience, so quickly on the heels of the climbing wall “accident,” or he’d be giving Ty a smack upside the head right now, damn the repercussions. Instead, he waited for Ty to continue.

  “Do you have any idea what we lost tonight?” Ty asked him in barely controlled anger.

  Zane swept the mess of papers into the desk drawer before leaning both hands on the desk and looking at Ty, feeling exasperated. “No. But whatever it was they hung you over a railing for, Ty, it wasn’t worth your life,” he said, trying to reason with him though he was growing more upset by his partner’s lack of control. It was wreaking havoc with his own, and he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. He wasn’t feeling the buzz much anymore, and it was starting to affect him. “So forgive me if I’m a little less concerned about some information than about you standing here.”

  Ty watched him silently for a moment. “You don’t really seem all too concerned about that,” he accused finally.

  “What do you want me to do? Fall on my knees at your feet and thank God you’re still breathing? You’d laugh,” Zane retorted with a wave of his hand.

  The heated emotion in Ty’s eyes finally drained away as Zane watched him. “Yeah, I guess I would,” he said finally. He turned and tossed his rag into the bathroom in disgust, then moved into the cabin and bent to begin gathering the scattered contents of their bags without another word.

  Zane resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Ty was in a snit and would have to sleep it off, and Zane didn’t feel charitable enough to play peacekeeper while coming off a buzz. Maybe he gave in too much as it was. Shaking his head, he took off his jacket and started picking up clothes as well.

  They’d thrown most everything in the cases and drawers when Zane decided he didn’t want to stay there while Ty was silent and moody. First he considered going back to the casino; odds were good Bianchi and his Scotch whiskey would still be at the table. It was tempting. Very tempting. But after a long minute’s thought, Zane instead grabbed his swim suit and kicked off his shoes. A swim would be just the thing to work off the annoyance crowding his head.

  Ty was kneeling beside the bed, going through a pile of jewelry that had been upended. He had picked up one of Corbin’s cuff links and was looking at it with a deep frown, turning it over and over like he’d never seen one before. When Zane moved, Ty looked up at him. “You’re going for a swim?” he asked incredulously.

  “Would you rather we walk the halls looking for the men who attacked you? That would certainly be restful,” Zane answered shortly.

  Ty stood slowly, looking at him as if he was just seeing him for the first time. “Are you always like this when you’re drunk?” he asked with disdain.

  Zane frowned. Now Ty sounded like the asshole he’d first met, distrustful and superior, and he was making a judgment call while overemotional. Typical. “Like ‘this’?” he asked as he unbuttoned his dress shirt.

  “Not giving a shit,” Ty provided sadly.

  Zane stood and took a few steps toward Ty as real anger sparked his temper. “You think I don’t give a shit about you?” he asked with precision. “Just what kind of response are you expecting from me here?”

  “I don’t know, Zane,” Ty answered. His voice was flat and tired. “I expect you to be my partner. I expect to be able to trust you. I expect you to stay at least moderately sober, and I expect you to listen when I tell you it’s important,” he rattled off, his voice getting sharper.

  “If it had been life or death, you’d have gotten your point across,” Zane said, the anger flaring in the face of Ty’s cold composur
e, and Zane just let it loose. “I am doing my job, and I am handling the drink just fine.”

  “Oh yeah?” Ty asked, clearly unimpressed. “All right, then,” he said as he looked down at the cuff link in his hand. He held it up. “Tell me about Bianchi’s cuff links.”

  Zane narrowed his eyes, setting his hands on his hips. “What is this, some kind of test?”

  “You’re a detail guy, right?” Ty asked him in a casual tone. He still held Corbin’s cuff link between his thumb and forefinger. “You were doing your job. Playing poker. Examining your opponents. Looking for tells, details that could give you clues to their personalities,” he said. “What did Bianchi’s cuff links look like?”

  Zane opened his mouth to answer and found himself grasping. He could see Bianchi’s face. His black tuxedo jacket, the white sleeve fastened by…. He frowned.

  Ty watched him expressionlessly, finally lowering his hand as he pressed his lips together and nodded. “That’s what I thought,” he muttered, and he tossed the cuff link to Zane.

  Zane caught it awkwardly, still preoccupied. He should have known that detail; he was sure he’d seen those cuff links. He looked at the one in his hand, turning it over, feeling a resurgence of annoyance. “So tell me why cuff links are important to notice at a poker game.”

  “Other than the fact that he rubs his finger over them when he’s nervous?” Ty asked quietly. He pointed at the one in Zane’s hand. “It’s a bug. And from what I learned tonight, I’d bet Bianchi’s are too. Armen wasn’t wearing any.”

  Zane glanced down at the jewelry, suspicious, and skimmed his memory for seeing Bianchi do that. Ty couldn’t have been there for more than three minutes, and he’d noticed that? Concern Zane didn’t want to feel prickled down his spine, and he hated it. “So it’s a bug. That’s no good to us if we’re not the ones listening,” he said, tossing the cuff link onto the bed.

  Ty shook his head and turned away.

  “You’re not seriously going to tell me that I’m negligent because I don’t remember what his cuff links looked like,” Zane said coldly.

  “We’ll talk about this when you’re sober,” Ty told him with finality as he knelt back down to continue going through the pile of trinkets on the floor.

  “If I’ve committed such a terrible mistake that you’re this upset about it, I should probably know,” Zane said, even though he could feel his control over his emotions slipping.

  Ty stopped and remained still as he knelt, his head down. When he looked up, his entire body was tense. “I needed your help, Zane,” he said softly. He looked over at Zane and stood. “Your partner needed you. I had the key to the case in my fucking pocket,” he said in frustration, holding out his hand. “You think I don’t know how important what you were doing was? You think I would have interrupted you if it hadn’t been something huge?”

  Zane struggled to parse Ty’s reply, his own annoyance and doubt and now a revived nausea throwing him off kilter. He swallowed hard, trying to pull it together, trying to refocus and find that cold space again. Ty was great at giving guilt trips. “All right,” he said. Fuck, he needed a cigarette and a drink.

  “All right,” Ty echoed. “That’s all you have to say? All right?”

  Zane was sick from the mixture of frustration and upset that Ty’s accusations caused. It was giving him a headache. “There’s no point, is there? I was wrong. You’ve made your point very clear.” He pushed his shirt off his shoulders and dropped it on the bed.

  Ty watched the shirt hit the bed, then looked up at Zane. Something in his eyes sparked suddenly, and he moved toward Zane quickly. “You want to go for a swim?” he asked as he moved on Zane and grabbed him, taking his forearm and pulling and turning it, jerking Zane around to face the opposite direction. His fingers dug into Zane’s shoulder from behind as he held his other arm and shoved at him, using the twisted arm to guide him toward the door. “Let’s go for a fucking swim,” Ty snarled as he slammed Zane’s chest and face against the cabin’s door. He held him there with the weight of his body as he reached for the door handle.

  The unexpected sudden spin made Zane dizzy, and he was so shocked by Ty’s abrupt manhandling and his head thumping hard against the door that he couldn’t even pull himself together to throw him off. Ty wasn’t gentle as he pushed him down the corridor that led out to the outer deck. He didn’t mind running Zane into walls or doorways anytime Zane gathered himself enough to resist, and Ty kept wrenching the twisted arm painfully to keep Zane from being able to struggle. When they burst outside, the cool evening air hit them; the brisk wind carried the smell of the sea. Even along the Florida coast, it was cool enough on a December night out on the ocean that the decks were virtually empty, save for the bravest or most inebriated of guests. The pool itself was deserted, even under the glass roof, glowing a peaceful blue-green in the night as a low mist of steam hovered over the warm water.

  Ty shoved him toward it, muttering about him being a drunken idiot. Something finally clicked as the past half hour flashed through Zane’s head. This could be bad. Very bad. As they approached the pool, he started to struggle a little, but he was already off-balance, and Ty just twisted his arm a little more. He’d certainly shed the submissive personality of Del Porter, danger be damned, apparently.

  Ty forced him to the edge of the pool, snarling in his ear. “I’ll be goddamned if I get killed ’cause you’re too drunk to care.” And with that, he hooked his foot around the front of Zane’s shins and shoved him from behind, pushing him into the pool.

  Even with the warning, Zane barely got a breath in before he hit the water in the shallow end of the pool with a noisy splash. His hip and shoulder painfully struck bottom in the four feet of water, stunning him, and he gasped out what breath he had before surfacing to look for Ty. He’d just barely gotten in some air when he realized Ty was in the pool with him, right beside him.

  Ty reached for Zane’s head and forced him under water again with another sweep of his legs to knock Zane off his feet. Zane reached to cover Ty’s hands, to pry them loose, but Ty’s fingers twisted in his hair, and Zane couldn’t even struggle much. He lashed out at Ty’s torso, but the water slowed him too much for it to have any effect.

  Despite Zane thrashing on his knees on the bottom of the pool, Ty held him under water until Zane’s lungs were on fire, and then he was violently yanked up out of the water. Ty put their faces close together as Zane spluttered, trying to breathe and talk at the same time. Their noses almost brushed as Ty snapped at him.

  “You wanna deal with me now, Zane?” he asked through gritted teeth, echoing what Zane had told him as he’d dismissed him from the poker room.

  Before Zane had a chance to answer, Ty dunked him under again, holding him there for just a few seconds this time before pulling him back up. Zane coughed out water and choked desperately for breath, one hand gripping Ty’s forearm, blinking his eyes hard against the stinging saline. The combination of it all broke Zane out of the alcohol-induced mindset, and he lost what detachment he’d been clinging to.

  “Stop,” he gasped out between coughs. “Wait—”

  Ty shook his head and vehemently forced Zane’s face under the water again. A split-second later he pulled him back up, gripping his chin with his other hand as he continued to hold Zane by his hair. Zane choked hard, dizzy now from the lack of air, the dunking up and down, and the buzz burning off. It all brought the whole evening crashing down on him like a leaden weight.

  “I’m sorry,” he got out in a hoarse, panicky garble. “I’m sorry!”

  Ty was breathing hard from the effort of manhandling him, his breaths gusting across Zane’s wet face in the cold air. The hand in his hair loosened, sliding down to his neck to keep Zane’s head above water. Ty’s other hand let go of Zane’s chin and wrapped around his waist as Zane tried to get his feet under him. Ty held him up in the water and rested his forehead against Zane’s. For the moment, it was all Zane could do to weakly grasp at Ty’s arms. Despite
the water being relatively warm, they were both shivering as Ty held Zane close to him.

  “Damn you, Zane,” Ty panted finally as the disturbed water lapped at their bare chests.

  Zane coughed and choked again as he tried to get in air, breaths hitching as the delayed panic set in, and his hands shook visibly as he tried to hold on. His legs wouldn’t cooperate. It was all he could do to nod.

  Ty stood up straight, water streaming off his arms as he pulled Zane up with him. “Come on,” Ty muttered, his teeth chattering as he got Zane’s arm over his shoulders to help him out of the heated pool. He began leading Zane toward the wide steps. Off-balance, Zane wavered a little even with Ty helping him along, and when they got out, he was shaking hard from the adrenaline and shock and was shivering from the cold.

  The cold air outside the pool’s dome hit Zane like a sledgehammer, the last straw breaking any buzz, any pride, and any confidence Zane had in himself.

  Ty kept his arm around him as he led him toward the entrance that would take them to their cabin. The effort seemed to have taken all the steam out of him as well, because he was sedate and silent until they got back to their stateroom. He made sure the door was locked behind him; then he pushed Zane gently toward the bathroom.

  “Get in the shower,” Ty ordered tiredly. “Get warm.”

  Zane nodded and laid a hand on the wall as he took a few wavering steps, but when a wave of dizziness threatened, he considered kneeling down there and being miserable for a while. The arguments he remembered without even the faltering filter of intoxication left him feeling ashamed and unworthy. He felt sick thinking about the very first glass of whiskey.