Cut and Run 3 - Fish and Chips

really liked it, and he smiled slowly.
    “What?” Ty asked him suspiciously as he met Zane’s eyes and saw the smile forming. He groaned. “What have you done now?”
    Zane shook his head, just looking at his lover across the table. “I didn’t do anything,” he protested, amused by Ty’s reaction. Now Ty knew how he felt every day when he woke up or came to work to see Ty smirking.
    Ty narrowed his eyes and pointed a warning finger at Zane, obviously not believing that he wasn’t up to something. Zane instantly noticed what was missing from Ty’s hand, and he found himself oddly disconcerted to see the ring gone. The finger was still noticeably swollen, and Zane could guess what had happened. “They had to cut it off, huh?”
    “Cut what off?” Ty asked, shoulders squaring as he sat back, almost offended.
    Zane had to laugh. “Your ring.”
    Ty looked down at his hand. “Oh.” He nodded. “Yeah, no way was it coming off without taking my finger with it.”
    “You sound disappointed.”
    Ty shrugged, and Zane could tell he was uncomfortable. “I miss it,” he admitted, making Zane’s stomach flip-flop. “It gave me something to do with my hands,” Ty continued, holding his hand up and moving his thumb as if he were playing with a ring on his finger.
    Zane snorted. Yeah, that sounded more like Ty than being emotionally attached to a piece of jewelry. Now he was kind of glad he’d left the necklace at home.
    They glanced up as a server arrived with bread and the drinks Ty had already ordered.
    Once the server was gone with their appetizer and entrée orders, Ty picked up his glass, which was full of soda instead of beer or champagne, and raised it to Zane with a smirk. “Here’s to being us again.”
    Zane chuckled and lifted his goblet of iced tea to clink it against Ty’s. “Hear, hear,” he said. “Bon voyage, Corbin and Del Porter.”
    “I can’t say it was fun,” Ty muttered wryly as he set his glass down. He glanced up at Zane almost carefully. “Did you hear what ended up coming out of the interrogations?”
    Zane knew that Corbin and Del Porter were now in New York under long-term investigation by the FBI for Corbin’s extended criminal activities. He hadn’t heard anything more about them, though. “No. Anything interesting?”
    Ty shrugged uncomfortably, as if he wasn’t sure the news was interesting or not. “Well, Del admitted he’d been hired by Armen to weasel his way into Corbin’s life, seduce him and spy on him, and send out information. But in the end, he actually fell for him. He said he was told about Armen’s plan to take over during the cruise, and he claims he deliberately orchestrated having himself and Corbin caught before the ship sailed to save Corbin’s life.” He looked up at Zane as he said the last, watching his reaction.
    Zane blinked in surprise, raising both brows. “That’s pretty impressive. Del didn’t seem to have much of a backbone, and that would certainly take one.”
    “I think he fooled a lot of people. Us included,” Ty said softly. “He had to have known he risked losing Corbin either way. He sacrificed himself.” Ty paused, letting that sink in. What he left unspoken was clear. Del had sacrificed his freedom and his heart just to keep the man he loved safe.
    Zane couldn’t escape the meaning in Ty’s words. “Takes a special person to do that,” he said quietly.
    Ty nodded and looked away. The knowledge put Del and Corbin in a different light than Zane had originally perceived. It reminded him that he shouldn’t make assumptions, especially when it came to matters of the heart.
    “I did finish and submit my report,” Zane finally said. “Took a while to figure out what to include and what to… edit.”
    “I hope you didn’t edit out the copious amounts of sex,” Ty said drily. He lifted his glass to his lips as he spoke, trying to hide his smirk. “Because I took detailed notes.”
    Zane chuckled as he picked up his water glass. “Wouldn’t that give McCoy a thrill,” he said deadpan.
    Ty was smiling when he set his glass down, his eyes on Zane with that same intensity Zane had been noticing more and more often. The kind that usually came right before clothing started being ripped off. It made Zane shiver even though he flushed with warmth. He tried to hold back the grin, propping one elbow on the table as he rubbed his fingers over his chin in a bid to hide some of the giddiness that threatened.
    Ty looked