Fish & Chips

It read that the tank was half empty. Plenty of air left. Zane shrugged. Why was Ty looking at it? Zane held out both hands, palms up, and lifted them in a “what"s up?” motion.



Ty shook his head and pointed to his mouthpiece. He then made a quit motion across his throat and pointed at the gauge again. He wanted Zane to turn off the air? That couldn"t be right. Zane shook his head, shrugged, and peered at Ty, waiting for him to elaborate.



Ty threw his head to the side, rolling his eyes behind the mask in frustration. Then, to Zane"s growing surprise, he pulled the mouthpiece out of his mouth and shrugged out of the tank, leaving him with no air at all. Zane called out a garbled “what the hell” through his mouthpiece and grabbed at Ty"s arm as he looked around for one of the yellow suits. If Ty was jerking him around, Zane didn"t want the instructor to see it. But another look told Zane that Ty wasn"t having fun anymore.



Ty pointed at Zane, then himself, and then jerked his finger upward. Ty wanted them both to surface. Ty waved at the air tank and swiped his fingers across his throat again, Zane glanced down at the discarded tank, and it clicked. Despite what the gauge said, the tank was out of air… just as Ty had been for some time now.



Zane nodded, but he caught Ty"s arm and tapped his own mouthpiece and then Ty"s chest. Zane just had to pull the strap off his equipment, and they could share the mouthpiece and the air.



It had worked in that James Bond movie. Why not now?



Ty nodded jerkily. He wasn"t flailing or panicking. Much like his reaction to dangling over the rock wall platform, he was maddeningly sedate. But he had probably been holding his breath for a while, and if the air tank hadn"t been full, there was no telling how much air he"d been able to get in that last gasp. When Zane got the mouthpiece free, Ty took it and hastily put it to his own mouth, breathing in deeply before handing it back and nodding.



He reached for the discarded tank and slung it back over his shoulders, his motions clumsy in the water. Then he pointed upward, touching his watch with several slow, exaggerated taps. Zane nodded as he resettled his mouthpiece without fastening the strap and started swimming up toward the light. They had a long way to go.



But Ty wrapped an arm around Zane"s neck, pulling on him forcefully and shaking his head. His eyes were almost an aqua color behind the mask, the color of the sea and sun far above reflecting to play tricks with the light. He looked Zane in the eye worriedly as he stopped their progress, and they hung in the water together in the silence, an oddly peaceful moment in the midst of an emergency. Zane knew Ty was trying to tell him something important, but he just wasn"t getting it, and that worried him almost as much as his desire for them to get to the surface quickly.



Then Ty shook his head and tapped his watch again, each tap slower and more deliberate than the last before pointing upward again.



Zane frowned and shook his head as he clenched his fist in the water.



He knew getting frustrated wouldn"t help, but he hated not being able to understand.



Ty seemed to sense what he was feeling, and he patted Zane"s hand with one hand as he reached with the other to Zane"s belt and loosened one of the weights, letting it fall away. They began to float upward lazily. Ty took hold of the mouthpiece, giving Zane a moment to take one last deep breath before he pulled it out of Zane"s mouth. But instead of putting it to his own, he held it out to the side and leaned in to kiss Zane as passionately as the dive masks and the water allowed.



The strength in it surprised Zane, and he clutched at Ty, trying not to let the kiss distract him from their problem. Not the best of ideas when they didn"t know what had happened to Ty"s tank.



They didn"t know what had happened to Ty"s guide rope on the climbing wall, either.



Zane pulled back, eyes wide as he looked at Ty, then up to the surface and back. There could very well be danger up there.



Ty was shaking his head, as if telling Zane not to think about it.



He took a deep breath from the mouthpiece and then popped it back into Zane"s mouth. They were rising very slowly, clutching each other close and being pushed around one another by the current in a leisurely dance that would have been wildly romantic and fun in any other scenario. Schools of tiny, colorful fish darted around them playfully.



Bubbles chased them upward.



Ty seemed determined to make them go slowly, and Zane slowly calmed. Ty would have been more concerned and active if they were in any imminent danger. So he shifted his arms to hold Ty closer and evened out his breathing as they gently ascended.



They were making progress, though it was hard to judge how much more time it would take to get there. Zane knew one thing; Ty never would have made it to the surface if he"d been down there without help, especially not if Ty believed he had to ascend this slowly.



When Ty took the mouthpiece once more, he drew a deep breath from it, then nudged his nose against Zane"s and kissed him again. This was a gentler kiss, a languid indulgence that could almost make Zane forget someone could be trying to drown them.



When Ty broke it off, he looked up and took one more deep breath from the mouthpiece, and then he placed it carefully back in Zane"s mouth and dropped a few more of their weights. They rose faster, picking up speed as Ty began to kick toward the surface.



When their heads broke the surface of the water, it was loud, the splash of the water against them and itself nearly deafening Zane for a moment. Ty gasped deep for air and yanked his mask off. He appeared just as relieved as Zane felt as he blinked away the water that streamed into his eyes. Zane jerked his mouthpiece out and looked around. They were about thirty yards from the dive boat, where one of the crew was waving at them. He turned to Ty and reached to take the empty tank off his shoulder.



Ty batted at his pawing hands. “You can"t swim and hold onto it too,” he said in a harsh voice. Instead he reached out and yanked Zane"s mask off his head, both of them treading water with difficulty as the waves lapped at them. Ty didn"t say another word. He just pulled Zane closer and kissed him a third time as they bobbed in each other"s arms. Zane let Ty control it—and him—as they gasped for breath through the kiss, not letting go.



When Ty finally pulled back, he lifted his chin out of the water and looked at Zane seriously over the gentle roll of the waves. “That"s for the air,” he gasped out, still slightly out of breath.



“What the hell happened?” Zane asked.



“I felt funny. Giddy. Not supposed to feel like that underwater.



Come on,” he grunted, and he turned and began swimming with sure, powerful strokes toward the boat.



After that kiss, Zane was about as out of breath as Ty had been.



But he gamely started swimming after him.



The crew had already helped Ty aboard the flat end of the craft when Zane reached it, and several strong hands gripped him and pulled him out of the water as well. He knelt beside Ty, who was taking in deep, grateful breaths of the warm Caribbean air.



“I"m sorry,” he said to Zane as he reached out and patted his shoulder. He was speaking with the British accent, and after all that happened below the surface, it seemed wildly inappropriate. “I couldn"t let us surface too quickly. I was afraid we might be deep enough to risk the bends.”



“So that"s what you were trying to say.” Zane shrugged out of the tank as one of the dive instructors took the weight from his shoulders.



Ty shrugged in embarrassment, his cheeks reddening under his tan as another instructor knelt next to him to take his pulse. Worried, Zane reached out partway but stopped, then remembered he could touch his fake husband without looking odd. So he did reach out to touch the top of Ty"s thigh, then his cheek. “You okay?”



“I"m fine,” Ty answered with a vigorous nod. He looked up and met Zane"s eyes for a moment, then turned his gaze to the woman kneeling beside him. “Bushed against the bottom down there. Suppose I knocked something loose,” he told the girl with a carefree laugh and an elegant shrug of his shoulders. It was enough to fool a stranger, and the woman smiled at him worriedly and helped him out of the useless tank.



“It happens to the best of us,” she offered kindly. “At least you didn"t panic and had someone close enough to help you.”



Zane ran his hands through his hair to slick it back and kept watch over Ty carefully. “We"ll just have to take it easy this evening,” he said, letting his hand drop lightly onto Ty"s knee. He knew he was venturing into touchy-feely territory, but damn it, what had just happened was scarier now, thinking about it, than it had been under the water holding Ty in his arms. He knew why Ty was keeping a lid on it, but he wanted to scream from the rooftops that someone had just tried to murder his lover. Again.



Ty smiled at him but remained silent. They didn"t want the staff getting wind of yet another attempt on their lives. The news would spread like wildfire on the ship, and they"d already had more attention than they wanted.



After a few more moments to make certain they were both well, the two instructors left them sitting alone near the bow of the little boat.



Ty waited until no one was within earshot before he leaned against the back of the padded seat and muttered, “I"m beginning to dislike this case.”



Zane groaned and rubbed his eyes. “I hadn"t really anticipated murder attempts,” he muttered.



Ty"s hand slid onto his knee, resting there in a familiar gesture that would have felt so odd just a week ago. “We"ll figure it out tonight. I"m tired of sitting around and waiting for someone to kill me.”



Zane moved his hand to cover Ty"s as he silently agreed, watching his partner instead of the blue Caribbean tossing gently behind him.



AFTER a long, hot shower, Zane simply pulled on one of the plush bathrobes in the bathroom and joined Ty in the main room. He was hungry after their excursion. “Hey, want some sandwiches or something?” he asked before flopping on the couch and putting his feet up on the low table in front of him. It would be six hours before dinnertime, according to the itinerary that ruled their lives.



“Anything but fish,” was Ty"s disgruntled reply. He was pacing, having foregone the robe after his shower in favor of the soft, tattered jeans he was probably going to end up stealing from Del Porter. He had his head lowered as he worked toward making a groove in the floor in front of the balcony, striding slowly back and forth.



Zane decided to suggest the short walk to a nearby counter-service shop that served burgers and fries. Comfort food sounded like a brilliant idea, and he was sure Ty could use something normal. But for this moment, he sat silently and watched his partner. He could almost literally see the smoke rising above Ty"s head.



“Okay, here"s what we know,” Ty blurted as he turned on Zane and pointed a finger at him almost accusingly. “Vartan Armen hired Del to spy on Corbin Porter. When he saw us playing the happy couple, he decided his plan had backfired, right?”



Zane blinked at the outburst and answered with a drawn-out, careful, “Yeah.” Something about that idea bothered him, but he wasn"t quite sure what. But Zane was somewhat surprised to discover that the idea of him and Ty described as a “happy couple” engendered both laughter and longing.



“And then we have the Italians in the mix, and if Dolce and Gabbana were legit Guardia di Finanza agents, I will eat my shoes,” Ty went on with a careless wave of his hand as he turned and paced away from Zane in agitation. “So we make the logical leap that the Italians are crooked or working off the books. Agreed?” He turned back to look at Zane with raised eyebrows.



“I guess it"s possible they could be Guardia di Finanza tailing Bianchi, but it"s not really likely that they would be sanctioned to operate on a ship under another country"s flag. So, yeah, they"re not legit,” Zane agreed.



“Okay,” Ty said, almost to himself. He abruptly stopped pacing and crossed his arms, lowering his head and closing his eyes. He covered his eyes with one hand and stood there, motionless. “Okay,” he repeated, his voice a soft, almost intimate murmur.



The low purr of Ty"s voice never failed to get Zane"s attention. It didn"t matter when he used it: at work, at home, out shopping, while eating… and now, thinking more about what Armen must have seen to deem him and Ty a “happy couple,” it made Zane wonder about what exactly other people saw.



“Let"s say I"m Armen,” Ty said, obviously not expecting Zane to comment. “And I have two business partners I want gone. Is it because the Italian authorities are onto them? Is it because I"m a greedy bastard and I want all the business proceeds to myself? If that"s the case, then I"d need their information as well, since the business has been compartmentalized. So I"d be after their laptops, cell phones, anything with business records.”



Once Zane figured out that Ty was mostly rambling, the majority of his thought processing returned to chew on the “happy couple” idea.



Zane knew people at the office saw them as partners who didn"t always get along. That was true enough. What about strangers who met them together while on the clock but not undercover?



A change in the tenor of Ty"s voice interrupted his thoughts, drawing him back. “I"ve planted Del with Corbin in order to get what I need from him, but I don"t trust him and I plan to eliminate him, too, when I"m done. Bianchi"s harder because he"s married, so I bribed someone in the Italian authorities to stake him out and then take him down.”



Ty was talking faster, warming to his train of thought. It was slightly disturbing to see him shift so easily into Evil Mastermind, and sometimes it made Zane wonder about how differently Ty"s brain must be wired. Ty made crazy, intuitive jumps that were more often than not correct. Zane was much more analytical, picking out patterns to connect the dots. So watching Ty like this was sort of awe-inspiring.

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