Cut and Run 3 - Fish and Chips

Other times, like on a mountaintop in West Virginia where he’d started lecturing men on the best way he could kill them, it could get a little iffy.
    Tonight could probably be considered iffy, too, if Zane couldn’t figure out how to get Ty to let off some of that steam he could see slowly building.
    Finally, Ty looked up from his salad and narrowed his eyes at Zane. “Do you speak Italian?” he asked calmly.
    “No,” Zane said in apology.
    Ty just nodded jerkily, as if he had already known that. “Crap,” he muttered under his breath as he went back to his salad.
    Zane understood Ty’s concern. Any little thing could break an undercover assignment, much less a big problem like not speaking a language. Maybe… maybe Corbin could be feeling a little possessive and decide he didn’t want Del going off on his own, even if it were with the lovely Norina, who, in theory, would be less of a threat to Corbin than her manly Italian husband. “She didn’t act like she expected a reply as she went on at you in Italian,” Zane reasoned. “She just seemed excited to meet you.”
    “God, I hope she speaks English,” Ty murmured as he put down his fork and pinched the bridge of his nose. “If she realizes I’m not Del, she goes to her husband, and we’re royally fucked.”
    Zane decided to throw his idea out there. “I could decide I don’t want to spend even an hour without you, and you could blame it all on your jealous husband.”
    Ty sighed and looked up at Zane seriously. “That won’t really move things along. And you don’t come across as the outrageously jealous type, anyway. No, you handle your end, I’ll deal with mine.”
    “Corbin struck me as a very possessive man. I’ve not pushed the idea,” Zane said as he pushed his empty salad bowl aside.
    Ty cocked his head, the Italian dilemma momentarily forgotten as he looked at Zane curiously.
    Zane shrugged slightly to play it off. “I don’t know how you’ll react. I didn’t want to risk it in a public meeting only to face your wrath after,” he said with a half smile. If he had his choice, he’d be a lot closer to his “husband” a lot of the time. But he was struggling to find that line they were supposed to be walking on this assignment, and he didn’t want to confuse what was coming from his interpretation of Corbin and what was truly coming from his own desires.
    Ty was silent for a moment, and then he gave a derogatory snort and said, “Face my wrath?”
    Zane leaned forward on his elbows and spoke seriously. “You haven’t seen me jealous.”
    Ty laughed and shook his head as if he thought Zane was joking. That was what Zane expected. He was getting better at predicting how Ty would react, at least in relation to the personal side of their partnership. He didn’t join in the laugh, instead picking up his water glass and leaning back in his seat to wait.
    Ty was still smiling when he stopped laughing, watching Zane in a mixture of amusement and wary confusion. After a moment when Zane still didn’t speak, Ty’s brow furrowed, and he cocked his head. “Seriously?” he asked, forgetting the accent he’d managed to keep up until that point.
    Zane glanced out the window at the now-dark sky, wishing he’d just let it drop. This wasn’t really public dinner conversation. “We’ll talk about it later. Let’s just say I’m sure I feel quite possessive of my very handsome husband.”
    Ty looked at him speculatively, the silence hanging heavy between them. It was an awkwardness they had rarely experienced. Zane waited for some sort of response. He couldn’t read Ty’s face, but he hoped Ty could recognize the honesty in his. Yes, under the right circumstances, Zane could see himself being very jealous. But he honestly wasn’t sure if he had that right, as much as he suddenly wanted it.
    Finally Ty shook his head decisively. “You get laid too often to be jealous,” he announced flippantly as he reached for his glass.
    Zane thought about arguing but instead gave Ty a smile and let it go. It was all semantics anyway, jealousy versus possessiveness. Dropping the topic now meant he could chew on the idea plenty himself later without Ty blowing him off with a joke.
    It only hurt a little bit.
     
     
    A FTER dinner and almost an hour of browsing and shopping, Zane was still preoccupied by Ty’s dismissive comment in the restaurant. You get laid too often to be jealous . Zane wasn’t too sure. Even before playing Corbin