Cut and Run 5 - Armed and Dangerous

whisper.
    Zane shook his head and climbed the rest of the steps, moving toward the little corner booth that was situated in the pilothouse. He set his gun on the tiny table and slid into a seat, turning to rest his elbow on the back so he could look into the galley. Nick had been really quiet, actually. Impressively so. Zane was just too attuned to noises in the night.
    “Mind if I get a drink?” Zane asked, his voice hoarse and dry.
    “What’s your pleasure?” Nick asked as he turned to the refrigerator behind him.
    “Water, tea, coffee, doesn’t matter.”
    Nick messed around in the refrigerator and finally pulled out a plastic bottle of water. He set the bottle and a glass of ice on the counter between them with a flourish and smirked. “Caffeine’ll keep you awake.”
    “I’ll be awake anyway,” Zane answered, but he pulled the bottle and glass toward him. “Thank you.”
    “No problem,” Nick said with a nod. He picked up his own glass again and leaned his elbows on the countertop. “What’s keeping you up? Aside from the people trying to kill you.”
    “I don’t sleep much. Even when people aren’t trying to kill me,” Zane said, smiling.
    Nick was nodding, watching Zane, though he probably couldn’t make out much since the only light in the room didn’t reach the corner where he sat. Zane wondered what Nick might talk about, if asked, or if he might share something about Ty that Zane didn’t know. Ty was their common ground. It was just talk between new friends, right? Only this friend knew Ty was with Zane, and he’d had his tongue down Ty’s throat a few weeks ago.
    Zane shrugged that imagery off. He’d have to deal with it soon, but he wanted to see what he could get out of Nick first.
    “I guess none of us sleep much. Ty’s down there muttering in Farsi,” he said as a way to break the ice.
    “He does that still?” Nick asked in amusement.
    “Only when he’s asleep or really, really pissed off,” Zane admitted, sliding the glass back and forth on the table near his gun. He kind of enjoyed the dig, letting Nick know that Zane was the one who held Ty at night. It might have been beneath him, but he didn’t care. “When he sleeps, he doesn’t sleep quietly.”
    Nick gave that a melancholy smile. “We were all like that, to a degree. You can be disqualified from making Recon if you snore, but what they don’t realize is that after half a year, every one of us talked in our sleep. Or screamed.”
    Zane emptied his glass and reached for the bottle to refill it. “I don’t think that’s something I’ve ever done. Talk in my sleep, I mean. Keep it bottled up, I guess.” Not to mention that a large part of the time he’d been undercover, he was sleeping with someone—or someones—he didn’t want knowing who he really was.
    “Not healthy,” Nick chastised, smiling and lifting his own glass to his lips.
    “Are you a friend of Deuce’s too?” Zane asked wryly.
    “Ty’s brother? I’ve met him a few times. I don’t know, something about combining the Grady traits with psychological training didn’t sit right with me. Made me nervous.”
    Zane laughed. “Grady traits? Like blustering out of tight spots and courage under fire?”
    “And being crazy enough to pull off the impossible.”
    “Gummi bears.”
    “Cheetos. And that look, like he knows exactly what you’re thinking and he finds it funny.”
    “I hate that,” Zane muttered, setting down his half-full glass.
    “Me too,” Nick said, laughing and looking down at the ice in his glass again. “God, I miss him sometimes.”
    Zane looked up at him, an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t want to imagine what it was like to miss Ty.
    Nick was silent too, watching Zane in the dim light again and drinking his water without further comment. Finally, Nick smiled and looked away with a shake of his head. “Ty told you, didn’t he?”
    It threw Zane for a moment, and he stared at Nick, wondering if he was headed for a showdown of some sort. “Yes.”
    Nick nodded, still looking down at the glass he’d set on the counter. “I was hoping he’d forget.”
    “He told me that night. As soon as he got home.”
    Nick nodded. “His brand of morality is pretty unique,” he said as he looked up to meet Zane’s eyes. He straightened and put both hands on the counter. “I owe you an apology.”
    Zane frowned, not sure how to handle the straightforward approach. “Am I actually going to