Cut and Run 1 - Cut and Run

answer he wanted to give. But it wasn't the correct answer, and he had no right to lie. “Nothing hard core,” he finally admitted. It had been a self-destructive couple of months, when he first got to Miami. He wondered if Ty would care.
    Ty straightened and turned to stare at Zane. “You back on the bottle?” he asked neutrally.
    Nothing other than a flat-out negative while steadily meeting Ty's eyes would convince him otherwise, and Zane couldn't do it. He shrugged a little. “Yeah."
    Ty looked away and shook his head, walking to the steps wordlessly and heading to the second floor. Zane sighed as he sat in the kitchen before slowly getting up to follow. Ty retrieved the pair of sweatpants he had been wearing before he was called in to Burns’ office, tossed his robe aside, and he was stepping into them when Zane topped the stairs.
    "Well, then,” he said as soon as he heard Zane enter the room. “You won't mind if I have a drink,” he said curtly as he brushed past Zane and headed downstairs for the kitchen again.
    Zane sighed. That answered that question. “By all means,” he said, going to the bathroom to put his briefs and dirty jeans back on and taking another look at the rip in his arm. He sniffed at it and ventured back down the narrow stairs to face Ty, who had retrieved a bottle from the refrigerator and was standing at the kitchen counter, drinking it as he played the bottle top over his fingers like it was a poker chip.
    Zane sat on the stool across from him, sliding a hand through his wet hair. “Now what?” he asked. It was a question that had many meanings.
    "Want a drink?” Ty offered sarcastically.
    Narrowing his eyes, Zane shook his head sharply. “Only when I'm in for the night,” he muttered.
    "Well, that makes it better,” Ty responded in the same sarcastic tone. “We all know the chicos in Miami sleep like babies."
    Zane's face went hard. “Why are you giving me shit over this if you don't care?"
    "Do I sound like a man who doesn't care?” Ty asked, trying to keep the hostility out of his voice.
    That brought Zane up short, and his sharp reply died in his throat. Ty sounded ... upset? He certainly looked angry. After four months apart, he was angry because Zane had started drinking and popping again. He didn't know what to say without going back into that dangerous emotional territory. “So you want me to leave off it again?” he asked, voice even.
    Ty closed his eyes and snorted in exasperation as he lowered his head. Rubbing his eyes and wincing, he shook his head and said, “That is sort of the idea of the whole being on the wagon thing."
    "And I obviously have so much respect for the whole being on the wagon thing,” Zane retorted, sliding off the stool and heading back upstairs to get his shirt. This wasn't going to go well, and he saw no reason to stick around for more abuse. He'd made his decision at the time, and at the time it had made sense. The sound of Ty's beer bottle crashing against the nearest wall followed his exit.
    Zane stopped midway up the stairs and turned to look down at Ty as the man stood in the middle of the kitchen. “What the fuck is your problem?"
    "You don't even care, do you?” Ty asked heatedly as the wall dripped and fizzed with Hard Lemonade. “You didn't give a damn if you were killed down there."
    Zane leaned his shoulder against the wall, tipping his head back to glare at the ceiling. What did you say to a question like that? The truth? “Why should I give a damn? I got the job done, and no one I worked with was hurt."
    Ty glared at him for a moment before lowering his head once more and placing his hands flat on the countertop to calm himself. “All right, then,” he finally said in a soft voice.
    Anger flared again in Zane, and he wasn't of any mind to repress it. “So now you're going to sit in judgment over four months of my life with no explanation? Fuck you, Grady.” He stalked up the steps and into the bathroom. For a long moment there he'd almost been convinced Ty did care.
    "You told me,” Ty called after him angrily, coming up the steps behind him, “how long it had been since someone gave a damn about you! You make it fucking impossible to do it!” he shouted as he rounded on the bathroom door.
    Zane froze, hands on the sink as he looked at the hurt that surfaced in his eyes and crossed his face despite his effort to swallow it down. After a tense silence he felt Ty standing nearby, and he said hoarsely, “Add