Zane nodded and smiled, fighting down his racing pulse as he looked into Ty’s eyes. Now that was something to really look forward to.

Chapter 9

“WHAT mile marker are we near?” Zane asked as he peered at the map they’d bought that morning.

“129.3,” Ty answered without cracking a smile or taking his eyes off the road.

Zane glanced at him and rolled his eyes. He set the map on the floorboard and took up his crossword puzzle book. A moment later they came upon a green mile marker. It read Mile 130.

Cameron watched it pass, and then leaned sideways to look at Ty in the rearview mirror. “How are you doing that?”

“Doing what?” Ty asked in a bored voice.

Cameron huffed and glanced at Julian, who was watching Ty with one eyebrow raised.

Ty tried to hide his smirk. He’d been doing it for a solid hour, and not one of them had managed to figure out how. Ty was once again behind the wheel, trying not to zone out as the road stretched out before them in a seemingly endless roll of pavement, snow, and Holiday Inns.

“He’s either doing complex math equations in his head, or he’s got GPS embedded in his ass,” Zane muttered.

Cameron huffed and Ty allowed himself to grin. He glanced at Zane, his only real source of amusement, and he smirked as he turned his attention to the road.

“Okay, here’s a quiz,” he said. “It was the last set of questions they asked before I got accepted for Recon.”

Zane looked up from his crossword puzzle to give Ty a sideways glance. “Are you this bored?” he asked in a knowing tone.

Ty shrugged. “Just trying to pass the time.”

“I live to be your favorite source of entertainment,” Zane drawled. “What are the questions?”

Ty glanced at him again, raising an eyebrow. Zane gave him an innocent look. Ty huffed at him, but he was still smiling when he asked the first question. “How do you put a giraffe in a refrigerator?”

Cameron groaned in the backseat. “If the answer involves knives I want out of the car.”

Zane tipped his head to the side, his brows drawn together. He opened his mouth to reply, paused and narrowed his eyes at Ty, then hummed. “Open the door and stuff it in.”

Ty glanced at him, trying to hide his smile. “Very good. How do you put an elephant in a refrigerator?”

Zane leaned his head back against the headrest as he drummed his fingers on his thigh. “I feel like this is a trick question. Same answer, though.”

Ty was shaking his head. “You have to take the giraffe out first.” He glanced in the rearview mirror at their prisoners. Julian was watching them, head cocked as he listened. Ty continued. “The Lion King is hosting an animal convention. All the animals attend except one. Which one is it?”

“Oh Lord,” Zane said under his breath as he shook his head and looked out the window. A soft laugh from behind them drew his attention, and he looked over his shoulder to see Cameron biting his lip, trying not to smile.

Zane wrinkled his nose and looked back at Ty. “It’s like those tests in grade school with a whole long list of questions to answer, and all you had to do was get to question three, sign your name, and turn it in.”

“What’s the answer?” Ty asked all of them.

“I refuse to participate on the grounds that I hate you both,” Julian murmured.

“I feel like I should know this,” Zane said under his breath.

“Is it the animal the Lion King is serving for dinner?” Cameron asked, a wry undertone to his voice.

Ty shook his head.

“The elephant isn’t there,” Julian finally said in an irritated voice. “Because you just stuffed it into the refrigerator.”

“That’s right,” Ty said as he tried not to smile. “Last question. There’s a river you have to cross that’s patrolled by crocodiles, and you don’t have a boat. How do you get across?”

“Ask the crocodile for a ride,” Cameron said.

Ty shook his head.

“Swim,” Zane said instead.

Ty turned his chin and looked at him for his reasoning.

“What about the crocodiles?” Cameron asked.

“The crocodiles aren’t there. They’re at the convention,” Zane said with a shrug, and Cameron scowled at him.

Ty grinned before looking back at the road.

“You realize those are questions they ask schoolchildren to test their reasoning skills, yes?” Julian provided sardonically.

Ty nodded, still grinning.

“So did you get them all right when they asked you?” Zane asked.

“No,” Ty answered. “For their purposes, you weren’t supposed to get them right. They said they accepted me because my answers were wrong but precisely what they wanted to hear.”

“I’m sure I cannot imagine what you came up with,” Zane said, shaking his head. “You figured I’d pick it apart logically. Which is the total opposite of what you do.”

“I wasn’t sure what you’d do,” Ty told him fondly.

“If you’d asked the last question first? I’d have said shoot the crocodiles,” Zane admitted.

Ty shook his head, smiling.

“Grady’s answer was build a bridge,” Julian murmured from the back seat.

Ty looked up at the mirror, surprised. “That’s right.”

“How’d you know that, Julian?” Cameron asked.

Julian looked up, meeting Ty’s eyes in the mirror. “Because it’s what I would have said.”

“How sweet,” Zane muttered.

Ty’s eyes lingered on the mirror before he was able to tear his attention away and focus on the road again. He shifted in his seat, unsettled and wishing he’d never said anything.

“What mile are we at now?” Cameron asked.

Ty’s gaze darted to the side of the road, seeking out a structure. They came upon an overpass, and he found one of the tiny blue signs he’d noticed that told the mile to the exact decimal. “142.7.”

A few seconds later, they came upon another mile marker.

“How the hell is he doing that?” Cameron asked as Zane chuckled.

Ty looked into the mirror, only to find Julian’s dark eyes already watching him. He could tell that Julian knew exactly how he was doing it.

“How’d you two end up together, anyway?” Zane asked, oblivious to Ty’s sudden discomfort and Julian’s eyes boring a hole into his soul.

“I was his waiter,” Cameron answered.

“How… romantic,” Ty said as he honestly tried to find a more appropriate word.

“It was,” Cameron murmured.

Ty and Zane shared a look. Ty supposed no one would call the way they met romantic either. Love was love, though. Ty wanted desperately to reach out to Zane and touch him. He refrained, tightening his fingers on the steering wheel instead.

“He’s the most important thing in my life,” Julian said, his low voice echoing what Ty was thinking.

“How did that happen?” Zane asked.

Julian raised one finger, all the movement Ty’s method of restraint allowed him. “Love isn’t a gentle thing. I’ve found it carries a club and a bullwhip and doesn’t care when or who it strikes.”

“My knight in shining plate armor,” Cameron murmured.

Zane didn’t try to hold back his soft laugh, though it trailed off. Ty glanced over to find Zane looking at him wistfully. “Kind of like getting pushed off a cliff,” he said without taking his eyes off Ty.

Julian was silent for a moment, merely watching Ty and Zane. Observing them. “I don’t consider it a problem. Loving Cameron is easy. He’s the reason I try so very hard every day not to be killed,” he said with a hint of what might have been humor.

“And the danger it puts him in?”

“I almost lost him to it when I tried to shield him from it,” Julian answered unflinchingly, not even hesitating to say the words as Cameron watched him. “I kept things from him, things I knew would scare him. When he found out the true dangers of being with me, he was indeed scared and angry with me for keeping them secret, and he sent me away. We got a second chance. Now we deal in truth. He is his own man, he makes his own decisions. My conscience is clear on that note.”

“Except when he’s about to freeze to death in a blizzard,” Ty murmured while trying to ignore the sword chopping at his own conscience.

“Ty,” Zane whispered, shaking his head.

Ty huffed at him.

It was a few minutes before Zane finally asked, “How did you know that you loved him?”

“Difficult to say,” Julian answered thoughtfully. “A number of things, really. The biggest, however, was the excruciating pain it caused me to think of life without him in it.”

Cameron was smiling, watching Julian like he was the only thing in the world.

Julian laughed. “Something that torturous can only be love.”

Zane snorted, carefully avoiding looking at Ty.

“I see you’re familiar with it,” Julian observed drily.

Ty glanced at Zane again, unable to keep his lips from curving into a smile.

“Yeah,” Zane said as he turned around and eased back into his seat. “Yeah, I’m familiar with it.”

TY PULLED the FBI sedan into the parking lot of the Commodore Perry Travel Plaza just as the sun was setting. It wasn’t snowing, but even on the Ohio turnpike there was at least six inches of snow, and when the frigid wind kicked up, the top dusting flew in their faces and stung anything that wasn’t covered.

They bowed their heads as they fought through the cold to the brand-new travel plaza building. It was mostly empty inside, with lots of open lobby space in a hexagonal shape around a center convenience shop.

Zane held tighter to Julian’s arm.

“Ooh, Starbucks,” Cameron said as he leaned toward the row of shops to their right.

“I thought they over roasted their beans,” Ty grumbled.

Cameron snorted.

“I’d like to get some gum or something,” Julian said to Zane as Ty led Cameron toward the restrooms.

Zane glanced at him and hummed as he studied the narrow aisles of the convenience store. “Try anything in there and I’ll put you down.”

Julian gave him a single nod.

Zane walked him over to the store, giving the restrooms a last glance. He and Julian meandered through the aisles of the convenience store, Zane watching Julian and Julian looking for something he didn’t seem to be finding. When he reached for a pack of gum, his linked hands knocked over an entire row of condom and tampon boxes.

Julian cursed under his breath, glancing at the clerk as he lifted his hands to show Zane that they were empty. Zane sighed and glanced at the clerk as well. She was watching them with a wary frown. Zane waved at her and smiled, and when he looked back at Julian, the man was stooping to pick up the boxes. Zane watched his movements closely, making certain he wasn’t doing anything nefarious. Then he plucked a pack of gum off the rack and led Julian to the desk.

Five minutes and a bathroom break later, they met Ty and Cameron in line for coffee.

“Everything okay?” Ty asked.

Zane spared himself a moment to just stare at his partner. He nodded before Ty could grow worried. They locked eyes, and Ty began to smile before he looked away.

They could not get home soon enough.

They filled the car with gas, Zane letting Julian stand in the cold wind to stretch his legs so he’d stop complaining, and then they hit the road again. An hour later they were closing in on Cleveland. Zane watched the Erie County water tower pass by, and he realized he was growing drowsy. He rubbed at his eyes and glanced at Ty.

“You doing okay?”

Ty jerked his head to the side and nodded. “Couple more hours we’ll get something to eat, some caffeine. I think we can get to DC tonight if we both drive.”

Zane nodded.

“Sleep,” Ty whispered. “I’ll wake you when it’s your turn.”

“Aw. That’s sweet,” Julian said in a wry voice.

Ty and Zane both ignored him.

Zane reached to lay his chair back, preferably on top of Julian’s head, but as soon as his fingers found the button, the car made a sputtering sound.

Ty raised his hand off the wheel and looked at the gauges.

“What was that?” Cameron asked. The car jerked and began to slow.

Ty managed to get the car off the highway before it died completely. It chugged and grumbled and lurched to a stop. The engine went quiet, throwing the car into the otherworldly silence of a landscape covered with snow.

“What?” Ty said in irritation.

“Did our car just die?” Cameron asked, an edge of panic to his voice. “Are we going to freeze now?”

“Yes,” Ty answered as he ran his hand over his chin.

Zane looked around them. The moon was out in full force, reflecting off the blanket of snow. They could see for miles, and it wasn’t a comforting view. There was nothing around them. There wasn’t even a glow of lights in the night sky that would signify a shopping center or small town within a few miles. “Fucking Ohio,” Zane muttered.

Ty exhaled, and the slowly cooling air frosted with his breath. “Cross,” he said, voice deceptively calm. “What did you do to it?”

“I haven’t touched the vehicle, Agent Grady.”

Ty looked at Zane, clenching his jaw. “What did he do in that travel place?”

“Got some gum. Knocked over some condoms. Took a piss, and stood in the cold.”

Ty rubbed his eyes, lowering his head. “Did you put a condom in the gas tank?” he asked Julian.