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Zane’s eyes narrowed, and he slowly pulled his hand free to let it fall limp at his side. His partner was obviously tenser than he let on. “I remind you of the ‘You’re coming with me, I don’t plan on losing another agent’
comment,” he said mildly, once more strongly scolding himself inside for wanting to ogle—and grope—when he got a free show. He sighed inwardly.
He always behaved these days. Maybe he was a pansy-ass now, just like Ty said. The thought made him slightly ill.
“What you do in your free time is none of my concern,” Ty was saying as he pulled up the briefs and then toweled off his wet shoulders and arms. The towel passed over a tattoo on Ty’s right bicep, but Zane was too far away to discern the details other than the fact that it was a face of something.
He fought back the urge to squint in order to make it out.
“Are we even going to attempt to work together, or shall we just agree to meet every few days to compare notes?” Zane asked, voice cool. “I’d rather know now than waste more of our precious time.”
“You think this case is gonna be easy for one man?” Ty asked in response as he grabbed his jeans. He turned around to look at Zane again as he stepped into them. “Awful big leap, thinking you’re smarter’n the killer.”
“You’ve yet to act like you want me around, Grady. Don’t start now,”
Zane snapped.
“I don’t act. And I didn’t say I wanted you around,” Ty responded calmly. “I implied that I needed you.”
“Well, mark my lucky stars, I’m flattered,” Zane drawled in annoyance. Ty didn’t seem to care if he was unprofessional, so Zane took the opportunity to be just that. Too bad Ty was so determined to be a bastard. Off the clock, they might have gotten along. Over a bottle of whiskey. Zane gritted his teeth.
“You look a little tense,” Ty observed wryly.
Zane didn’t mention his line of thought. “You implied, so what do you need?” he asked instead of responding to Ty’s comment.
“It’s okay to be tense. I’m tense,” Ty told him with a careless shrug.
“You going back to Federal Plaza?” he asked in answer to Zane’s question as he pulled on a black T-shirt that had writing in white block letters that said
“I’M UNDERCOVER.”
Zane blinked at the shirt before shaking his head slowly. “Yes.
Why?”
“When you get back, will you come check on me?” Ty asked, unembarrassed by the request as he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled his socks on.
“You going to do something that may make you not be here?”
“Hopefully not,” Ty answered wryly as he stomped his foot down into one beat-up cowboy boot. “A few blocks from here is pretty close to where that hooker reportedly worked. I’m going to go talk to the ladies.”
“Several responses come to mind.”
“And I’m sure all of them are wildly clever,” Ty responded sarcastically as he stomped into his second boot and then stood and stretched.
Zane deliberately looked away from the wiry body stretching out in front of him. “A couple,” he acknowledged. “You want me to come along?”
Ty raised an eyebrow and gave Zane a slow once-over. He cleared his throat and licked his lips as he stretched his arms over his head, then flopped them back down to his sides. “Have you ever, umm … picked up a hooker?”
he asked with a straight face.
“Yes.” Both on and off the job, but that wasn’t necessarily germane to the discussion. Zane tilted his head as Ty’s eyebrows climbed in surprise. “So, yes or no? Either way, I’m eating first.”
Ty tilted his head, thinking it over. This could be a good chance to see how Zane would handle himself on an investigation without hurting much of anything as far as their current one went. “Yeah, okay,” he agreed finally as he reached for his military surplus green canvas jacket. He picked it up and looked at it, then cut his gaze to look Zane over with narrowed eyes, taking in the way he was dressed. “Yeah, okay,” he grumbled again as he threw the jacket down and went to rummage through his things for his other jacket to wear. He didn’t want them looking like f**king twins.
He stripped his T-shirt back off as Zane waited, picking up a clean white dress shirt instead. He was very conscious, as he changed, of the fact that the little round scar on his lower back was probably visible, still new and pink on his tanned skin. He glanced over at Zane and cleared his throat self-consciously, turning toward him again as he slid into the shirt. He wasn’t sure why it bothered him that Zane could see the scar, but it did. Perhaps because he hadn’t been the only one that particular bullet had gone through.
The other agent just caught sight of the scar, recognizing it for what it most likely was. While Zane had been lucky enough to avoid being shot, he had plenty of other scars, inside and out. He made no comment and pretended not to have noticed.
“So where we going for dinner, garçon?” Ty asked as he grabbed his wallet and stuck it in his back pocket.
Dragging his eyes away from Ty’s body again, Zane ignored yet another new nickname and answered, “Morrison told me about a barbecue place down several blocks. Family-owned, original recipes.”
“Mmm, New York barbeque,” Ty responded sarcastically with a wrinkle of his nose. “No go. I need … fish.”
“Fish.” Zane shrugged. “Okay, we can find a place. Unless you already have something in mind?” He really didn’t care. He’d eat anything. It was just the cocktails that got him in trouble.
“We’ll walk,” Ty suggested as he attached an ankle holster and checked that his backup was loaded. He dragged out his shoulder holster and did the same, then slipped his beaten leather jacket on and flexed his shoulders experimentally with a frown.
“Strap’s twisted,” Zane offered. He walked over and reached up under the jacket to flip the buckle so the strap laid flat along the back of Ty’s shoulder. Ty turned his head wordlessly and raised his eyebrows as Zane stepped into his space and f**ked around with his weaponry.
Now, Zane wasn’t a stupid man. He’d seen Ty tense earlier at a slightly perceived threat. It wasn’t ignorance on Zane's part, getting so close without being invited. But he wanted his new partner to know that he wasn’t afraid of him. That he wasn’t quite the paper-pusher he made himself out to be.
