Zane stared at him for a long moment. “No, it wasn’t constant. It was all I had to cut the pain when I got shot.” His hand went to his abdomen, where Ty knew there was a fresh, barely healing scar. “I know what I can handle.”
Ty examined him for a long time, and then turned his head to face the wall again. He sighed softly. “Okay,” he finally acknowledged quietly. It just wasn’t worth the fight it could turn into to continue the conversation, and Ty was getting tired of talking about it.
“Did you ever use?” Zane asked, curious.
“Never,” Ty answered immediately.
“But you drink,” Zane murmured, looking down at his hands, wondering if there was any way he could explain so Ty could have some idea of what it was like to be addicted. “Ever drink too much and still want more?”
“Every time I drink too much I swear it off for a week,” Ty muttered.
“But I pick the bottle up the next weekend. The next day. Maybe even that night,” Zane said softly. “Just until I get my fill. Feels good, not hurting anybody. Once I’ve had enough, I’ll stop. I won’t drink too much this time.”
Ty turned his head slightly, but didn’t quite look back at Zane. “I understand what an addiction is,” he said in a low, hard voice. “Not everyone is that weak.”
Zane’s body went totally still. “Everyone is that weak. Even guys who f**k a different woman every night just to forget somebody else.”
Ty’s shoulders tensed slightly as he looked back at the wall.
“Touché,” he said abruptly.
Zane raised a brow, staring at the other man. “Touché? That’s it? Five months ago you’d have clocked me for that.”
“What do you want from me, Garrett?” Ty asked in frustration. He turned his head slightly but still didn’t turn to meet Zane’s eyes.
Sitting up, Zane reached for him. “Look at me, Ty,” he said firmly.
Ty glanced over his shoulder, his jaw clenching angrily.
“What were you going to say first? Before your newly installed conscience caught your brain and had you say something else?” Zane asked, fingers tightening.
Ty looked down at Zane’s fingers as they dug into his arm, then back up to look sideways at Zane. “Some creative version of ‘fuck you’, I’m sure,”
he answered tightly.
“Then why didn’t you say it? Christ knows you’ve called me about every name in the book. Why not now?” Zane prodded. If Ty didn’t let some of that anger out somehow he was going to implode. Zane had seen it happen.
Zane had had it happen.
“Because,” Ty answered stubbornly.
“Because?” Zane parroted, refusing to back off. “Think I can’t take it?”
“Are you trying to start a fight?” Ty asked as he shook his arm away from Zane’s grasp.
“Apparently. And you’re determined to sit there all buttoned up and not hurt my feelings,” Zane said, catching Ty’s arm again, this time the forearm. “Let it go. There’s no one here to act for.”
“How many harsh words will it take to send you into a bottle?” Ty asked as he yanked his forearm away and smacked at Zane’s hand. “Not too damn many, I’m guessing.”
“How many times am I gonna have to rip down these walls you keep putting up before you f**king pop and go ballistic at precisely the wrong time?” Zane snapped, fingers grasping and tightening despite the smack.
“How long can you keep it all inside? ’Cause believe me, you’ve got no chance of doing it forever.”
Ty reached for Zane’s hand suddenly, squeezing his wrist to free his other hand. As soon as Zane’s fingers let go, Ty reached out and backhanded him.
If Zane had been a smaller man, he might have fallen sideways under the blow. As it was, his chin snapped to the side from the strength of it, and when he looked back at Ty, he had to lick a trickle of blood off his split lip.
When he spoke, his voice was strong and even with the surety of hard-won personal experience. “If you can’t learn to let go of the anger and frustration somehow, it will eat you up inside,” he advised. “And I don’t mean hiding in the bottom of a bottle or between some stranger’s thighs.”
Ty closed his eyes and looked away, visibly trying to calm himself.
“I’m sorry,” he finally murmured. He turned slightly and reached back to Zane, sliding his hand against the side of his face as he wiped the blood away from Zane’s lip with his thumb regretfully.
Zane pressed his cheek into Ty’s hand, looking over him with softer eyes, and his mouth quirked. “Well, I deserved it,” he said. “I don’t want you to go through what I did.”
Ty wasn’t quite sure what to say in response, and it showed clearly on his face. Instead of saying anything, he turned his head and let his hand slide away from Zane’s face. He picked up Zane’s hand and turned it over with a sad shake of his head. “You’re quite susceptible to that move,” he chastised softly as his thumb slid gently over the pressure point he’d utilized.
Grimacing, Zane rolled his wrist. “Yeah. I’ve worn the sheaths so long that I’m not used to having my wrists vulnerable. It’s hard to change a habit like that.”
Ty hummed thoughtfully and set his hands back into his own lap.
“Where’d the knives come from?” he asked abruptly.
“Jack Tanner,” Zane answered.
Ty raised an eyebrow and tilted his head so he could see Zane better.
“You worked with Jack at the Academy?” he asked in obvious surprise. Jack Tanner was an ex-SEAL, employed by the Bureau to teach agents going through the Academy the basics of not getting killed in hand-to-hand combat.
By the time Ty had gone through, Tanner was old enough and grouchy enough that he didn’t teach classes anymore; he merely picked protégés to run the lessons and supervised them.
Zane smiled slightly and nodded. “I needed the help,” he said.
“Remember me telling you about having to repeat? Yeah. Jack’s the reason I didn’t wash out the second time through.”
“I didn’t know he did one-on-one lessons,” Ty remarked with a small smirk.
“Only for special cases,” Zane said. “That, and Becky was a really good cook.”
Ty nodded and looked away uncomfortably. “Jack was always a sucker for a good ribeye,” he muttered.