Cut and Run 3 - Fish and Chips

his computer. Zane’s phone lit up again, and he keyed it with his right hand while answering a question from Clancy.
    When she turned away, he finally glanced down at the phone.
    What do you call a monkey in a mine field? A baboom.
    This time Zane had to close his eyes to keep his reaction under control. He had to admit: that one was funny. When he opened them, he deliberately turned his chin to look right at Ty in an open challenge.
    Ty’s feet were still propped up, and he was leaning one arm against his desk, fingers strategically covering his mouth as he shook silently. He was watching Zane, and his hand couldn’t cover the smile lines around his sparking eyes or the slight dimples that formed when he laughed.
    Damn, Ty Grady was a fine-looking man. Even more so when he was relaxed and smiling.
    Zane didn’t feel the urge to laugh anymore. Instead, he found his thoughts slightly more erotic, thinking about the man sitting several feet away and just exactly how fine-looking he was, both in and out of that suit. Zane pulled himself toward his desk in the rolling chair, just to get his lap under cover. Then he offered Ty an angelic smile.
    Ty shook his head and bit his lip to stop his silent laughter, though the dimples were still there as he grinned. Zane stared after him for a few moments, thinking about just how amazing it was when Ty smiled or laughed and his eyes lit up and the hard shell melted away from him.
    Ty waved his hand at Zane in apparent surrender as he turned his chair to face his own desk again, still shaking his head and laughing.
    Zane doubted that was the end of it and expected another text message within a few minutes, but Special Agent Scott Alston chose that moment to stand up.
    “Time to meet with McCoy,” he said to Ty and Perrimore.
    “Have a good time, guys,” Clancy teased as she sipped at her melting smoothie.
    Ty stood with a decent amount of grumbling and fanfare, making a show of gathering his files and his suit coat and getting his gun out of its drawer to slide it into his holster. Zane tidied a file, set it aside, and opened another as he watched Ty discreetly. “Say hello for me,” he said smugly. He knew that the only thing worse than paperwork, in Ty’s opinion, was a multi-departmental meeting where he was expected to sit still.
    “Don’t break anything playing solitaire,” Ty shot back as the three of them headed toward the elevators.
    Zane let the smile pull at his lips as he tapped his fingers on his phone and watched Ty walk away.
     
     
    T Y HAD his eyes closed, massaging the bridge of his nose as he leaned his elbow on the arm of his chair and slumped slightly. He was listening. Quite attentively, to his everlasting chagrin. But he could listen with his eyes closed.
    He was pretty sure he, Alston, and Perrimore had all been summoned to this meeting by mistake anyway.
    So far they’d been over the escalating violence in the city, in particular a nasty case of arson in which a second explosion had been rigged with the express purpose of injuring or killing firefighters. Everyone was up in arms about it, including Ty. There would be a memorial for the slain heroes next week.
    But while escalating violence could possibly be in Ty’s job description, arson certainly wasn’t.
    Next they hit on a bank robbery that had “professional job” written all over it. They’d caught a break publicity-wise with that one, since it had happened on the same day as the arson tragedy and hadn’t received much press yet. The White Collar dude whose name Ty could never remember was told to look for similar robberies in neighboring states over the weekend. Something that organized had probably been run before somewhere and would surely be run again. Soon.
    Weekend assignments. Awesome.
    And bank robberies weren’t Ty’s job either.
    Then the agenda moved on to the negative image the FBI was being painted with of late and several avenues the PR people had come up with to nip it in the bud.
    None of which had much of anything to do with Ty, so he still wasn’t exactly sure why he was supposed to be here at all.
    “So,” Special Agent in Charge Dan McCoy was saying, “we’re going to give them what they want so they’ll get off our backs for a while. And Grady, the next time you and your partner want to blow something up, at least pretend you’re sorry afterward, got it?”
    “Yes, sir,” Ty said as he opened his eyes and shifted to a slightly less outwardly