Cut and Run 5 - Armed and Dangerous

looked up at the mirror, surprised. “That’s right.”
    “How’d you know that, Julian?” Cameron asked.
    Julian looked up, meeting Ty’s eyes in the mirror. “Because it’s what I would have said.”
    “How sweet,” Zane muttered.
    Ty’s eyes lingered on the mirror before he was able to tear his attention away and focus on the road again. He shifted in his seat, unsettled and wishing he’d never said anything.
    “What mile are we at now?” Cameron asked.
    Ty’s gaze darted to the side of the road, seeking out a structure. They came upon an overpass, and he found one of the tiny blue signs he’d noticed that told the mile to the exact decimal. “142.7.”
    A few seconds later, they came upon another mile marker.
    “How the hell is he doing that?” Cameron asked as Zane chuckled.
    Ty looked into the mirror, only to find Julian’s dark eyes already watching him. He could tell that Julian knew exactly how he was doing it.
    “How’d you two end up together, anyway?” Zane asked, oblivious to Ty’s sudden discomfort and Julian’s eyes boring a hole into his soul.
    “I was his waiter,” Cameron answered.
    “How… romantic,” Ty said as he honestly tried to find a more appropriate word.
    “It was,” Cameron murmured.
    Ty and Zane shared a look. Ty supposed no one would call the way they met romantic either. Love was love, though. Ty wanted desperately to reach out to Zane and touch him. He refrained, tightening his fingers on the steering wheel instead.
    “He’s the most important thing in my life,” Julian said, his low voice echoing what Ty was thinking.
    “How did that happen?” Zane asked.
    Julian raised one finger, all the movement Ty’s method of restraint allowed him. “Love isn’t a gentle thing. I’ve found it carries a club and a bullwhip and doesn’t care when or who it strikes.”
    “My knight in shining plate armor,” Cameron murmured.
    Zane didn’t try to hold back his soft laugh, though it trailed off. Ty glanced over to find Zane looking at him wistfully. “Kind of like getting pushed off a cliff,” he said without taking his eyes off Ty.
    Julian was silent for a moment, merely watching Ty and Zane. Observing them. “I don’t consider it a problem. Loving Cameron is easy. He’s the reason I try so very hard every day not to be killed,” he said with a hint of what might have been humor.
    “And the danger it puts him in?”
    “I almost lost him to it when I tried to shield him from it,” Julian answered unflinchingly, not even hesitating to say the words as Cameron watched him. “I kept things from him, things I knew would scare him. When he found out the true dangers of being with me, he was indeed scared and angry with me for keeping them secret, and he sent me away. We got a second chance. Now we deal in truth. He is his own man, he makes his own decisions. My conscience is clear on that note.”
    “Except when he’s about to freeze to death in a blizzard,” Ty murmured while trying to ignore the sword chopping at his own conscience.
    “Ty,” Zane whispered, shaking his head.
    Ty huffed at him.
    It was a few minutes before Zane finally asked, “How did you know that you loved him?”
    “Difficult to say,” Julian answered thoughtfully. “A number of things, really. The biggest, however, was the excruciating pain it caused me to think of life without him in it.”
    Cameron was smiling, watching Julian like he was the only thing in the world.
    Julian laughed. “Something that torturous can only be love.”
    Zane snorted, carefully avoiding looking at Ty.
    “I see you’re familiar with it,” Julian observed drily.
    Ty glanced at Zane again, unable to keep his lips from curving into a smile.
    “Yeah,” Zane said as he turned around and eased back into his seat. “Yeah, I’m familiar with it.”

    T Y PULLED the FBI sedan into the parking lot of the Commodore Perry Travel Plaza just as the sun was setting. It wasn’t snowing, but even on the Ohio turnpike there was at least six inches of snow, and when the frigid wind kicked up, the top dusting flew in their faces and stung anything that wasn’t covered.
    They bowed their heads as they fought through the cold to the brand-new travel plaza building. It was mostly empty inside, with lots of open lobby space in a hexagonal shape around a center convenience shop.
    Zane held tighter to Julian’s arm.
    “Ooh, Starbucks,” Cameron said as he leaned toward the row of shops to their