Fish & Chips (44 page)

The little message icon in the corner of his phone"s display began to blink, indicating he had yet another message. He hadn"t even seen Ty move. Was it possible to schedule these texts ahead of time? That would take quite a bit of forethought, but it was just the kind of plot Ty would favor. Zane shifted around his stack of folders, took a drink of coffee, and checked the message.

You know you want to laugh.

Score one for Zane Garrett. He looked up slowly, face composed, raising one eyebrow.

Ty was watching him. He winked when Zane met his eyes, but he wasn"t fully smiling yet. He still wore that infuriating smirk. Instead of answering in any way, Zane sniffed and turned to his computer. That reaction would surely get another out of his partner. Besides, Zane was intrigued now to see what Ty would come up with that would be enough to get Zane to laugh despite his practiced control.

He didn"t have to wait long for Ty"s next attempt. His phone lit up, and Zane was able to catch a glimpse of Ty reaching out to set his own phone on the desk. Zane deliberately waited a couple of minutes before turning in his chair to change out files and check the message.

Did you hear about the guy downstairs who lost his left arm and
left leg in a wreck? Hes all right now.

| Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

Zane stared at the little screen really hard for a long moment before he was able to shake his head ever-so-slightly and turn away from the phone.

He slowly looked around at the rest of the team, wondering how none of them had caught on. Did they really pay so little attention? Or was it that they weren"t at all surprised to see Ty texting
someone
, and they just didn"t connect him with his partner? Zane knew Ty received about half a dozen text messages on a normal day from various people, but Ty rarely checked them or responded when he was working.

Zane deliberately shoved some files into his outbox and did not look in Ty"s direction. He turned his attention to a conversation between Clancy and Perrimore about calling a judge for a search warrant, but he was hyperaware of his partner.

He heard Ty"s chair squeak as he moved. Ty"s chair always squeaked because he was so damn hard on the thing, always moving around and fidgeting. His chair stayed broken and noisy, just like 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 Divide & Conquer |

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.

TY 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.

| Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

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 miserable position. He wasn"t sorry, though. That fax machine had deserved what it got. And Zane had laughed his ass off.

There were only thirty minutes left in the work day, and then he was free to go do cartwheels in the parking lot. He glanced at Alston, who was asking another question, and then Ty"s pants pocket vibrated.

Divide & Conquer |

He actually jerked in his seat before he could stop himself, quickly leaning forward to place his elbows on the table and cover the reaction.

“Something to add?” McCoy asked.

“Nothing constructive,” Ty admitted with an innocent smile.

McCoy rolled his eyes slightly and nodded. As he continued outlining the plan to make the Bureau more “fan-friendly,” Ty leaned back again and pulled his phone out of his pocket slowly. He kept it under the table as he slid it open and pressed the button that would open the text message he"d received. Ty was almost surprised to see that it was from Zane and not one of the usual suspects.

Baby seal walks into a club.

Ty pressed his lips together tightly and looked up at McCoy as he tapped out his response to Zane"s weak opening gambit.

You shouldnt club baby seals. Bastard.

It wasn"t a minute before the phone vibrated in his hand again. He quickly set it to silent so no one would hear the vibrations, and then he glanced down at it to read the new message.

Energizer bunny arrested. Charged with battery.

Ty"s lips twitched as he tapped out a quick response.

Is he being held in a duracell?

He returned his attention to McCoy just in time. McCoy slid a file across the table toward him, and Ty opened it as he massaged his left temple.

It was a proposal that outlined a plan to pull as many government and municipal service organizations as possible into a softball league and then open up the games to the public. Ty huffed in amusement.

“Think you could get the ball rolling on that if it"s the plan we go with?” McCoy asked.

Ty nodded slowly and then looked up at McCoy. “I know a guy who knows a guy,” he drawled with an easy smile.

| Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

“I thought you might,” McCoy said, sounding pleased with himself.

That was why Ty was here, then, because he"d played on the Bureau team ever since he"d been transferred to Baltimore and knew just about everyone. That had to be it, because everyone knew Ty didn"t give a shit about public opinion and had nothing to do with bank robberies or fires.

McCoy moved on to the White Collar dude who still didn"t have a name but had a whole hell of a lot of opinions, and Ty surreptitiously checked the phone again. The message icon blinked at him, and he flipped the phone open to read it.

Two peanuts walk into a bar. One was a salted.

Ty stared at it for a moment before looking up and licking the corner of his mouth to keep from smiling. Why the hell couldn"t Zane have done this when Ty was bored out of his mind and not sitting in a meeting? He was probably out there Googling jokes on his computer.

“Grady, what do you think?” McCoy asked.

Ty looked at his superior for a split-second of indecision, knowing full well he had absolutely no idea what he"d been asked. “I think it"s a shit idea,” he finally answered confidently.

“Care to expound on that?” McCoy asked him wryly.

“Not really,” Ty answered, his voice not quite as steady.

“Okay, at least we"re all in agreement on that one,” McCoy replied as he took a piece of paper that probably outlined another PR

proposal and tossed it over his shoulder.

Ty slowly let out the breath he"d been holding and began tapping a response to Zane.

Fuck you zane. Fuck you. So much.

The answer came back quickly. Zane had to have been sitting there waiting.

I’ll get you a salami sandwich for dinner. With extra mayo.

Divide & Conquer |

Ty looked up and around the table, trying desperately to concentrate on what they were saying as he jabbed at the keys of his phone to respond. Zane"s attempts at seductive innuendo were funnier than his jokes.

All Ill get from you is fired.

If you go for an interview at a rubber stamp company, try to make
a good impression.

Ty fought not to roll his eyes as he looked up from the phone he was still trying to hide in his lap. He refused to let one of Zane"s bad puns have the last word.

He had to sit for a moment, searching his store of bad jokes for an appropriate answer. He hated to sink to Zane"s level, but you had to fight pun with pun.

He looked up and took the next five minutes to answer questions and try to at least appear involved in the meeting. The idea about the FBI softball team and setting up tournaments with other city and state agency teams that would be open to the public seemed to be taking root. And Ty had become the focus of the planning, so he had to pay attention.

Ty liked the plan, actually. He didn"t know if it would work, but it was never a bad thing to put a human face on the big bad blue line every once in a while. A downside, as he pointed out, was that they might get backlash if too many people wondered why cops and ambulance drivers were playing softball while the city was being ransacked. But hell, they were already taking heat, so it couldn"t hurt.

Ty jotted down a few notes, people he"d need to contact within other agencies to see if they could set something up, city fields and scheduling and things that he really didn"t have time to deal with but would anyway. Then the conversation moved on, and Ty leaned back in his chair.

He stared at McCoy listlessly as his mind began to wander again.

He tapped out his response to Zane slowly, trying to get the message out and pay attention at the same time.

| Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

If a hunter can shoot a deer with either hand does that make him
bambidextrous?

Have you seen eagles catch their prey? They’re really talonted.

Ty closed his eyes. The puns were too much. They were just too stupid for his brain to deal with at the end of a long day. He decided to raise the white flag and live to think another day, so he eased back in his chair and slowly punched in the last message.

You win. Ill do anything please make it stop.

It took a minute, but Zane"s answer finally popped up.

Promise you’ll scream for me tonight.

Ty stared at the phone for just a moment too long. When he cleared his throat and looked up, McCoy was watching him expectantly.

Ty smiled at him widely, the smile that said he knew he"d been caught and wasn"t McCoy glad he was so good at his job so he didn"t have to punish him?