Zane laughed again. “I guess he would know,” he said with a shrug. “I never played baseball. Or softball.”
Elaina looked at him askance.
“I can play football though,” Zane offered in a conciliatory attempt.
She shrugged off that news and looked back out at the field excitedly as the FBI team took the field to a smattering of applause, boos, and catcalls from the crowd. Zane joined in the clapping as most of the players jogged to their positions, but Ty and Alston, who was pitching, both waltzed out as if they had all the time in the world.
Ty had his head down, his glove in one hand and his mask in the other, and somehow he"d already gotten his face and short hair dirty. It wasn"t easy for him to saunter in the bulky gear, but he managed to pull off the attitude anyway. The gear fit his frame well, and it only added to the illusion that he was larger than he really was. Zane knew that in most rec league softball games, the catcher didn"t bother to wear gear.
But this wasn"t your average slow-pitch softball league. The pitchers threw overhand, and they played with a regulation-size baseball. The women who were involved were athletes, not out there for show, and there was certainly no one drinking beer in right field.
64 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux
Ty had sent Zane a text one night earlier in the month, joking that it was
srius bizness
.
As Ty got closer to home plate, he looked up into the bleachers, his eyes almost immediately settling on Zane.
Zane felt his heart beat hard a couple of times, and he had to draw a breath, because for a second, he was short on air. Then Ty smiled that half smile of his, the laugh lines at his eyes and mouth appearing, before he gave a quick wink. Then he ducked his head and slid his mask on, turning his back on the crowd as he stopped behind home plate.
Zane swallowed hard. That wink had been for
him
.
Crystal-clear revelation struck Zane like a bolt of summer lightning sizzling through the chill February air.
He wanted Ty with him, wanted him badly. Needed him as a partner, and not just at work. Craved him as a lover more than he"d ever jonesed over heroin. Connected with him in so many ways that Zane couldn"t see a way to untangle himself and didn"t even want to try.
Ty loved him. Zane believed it. Zane had also believed he didn"t have it in himself to love Ty like he deserved. It wasn"t Ty"s fault.
There was so much pain connecting Zane to the past, a tenuous lingering link between Zane and Becky, his wife years gone now, that Zane had skipped right over the obvious signs. He"d been too busy grappling with letting go of what was gone and wondering if he had any right to grab hold of what was in front of him.
It was important to Zane to understand when craving Ty had become needing him, and when needing him had become caring for him, and if it was possible for that caring to truly become even
more
.
Because Ty deserved nothing less.
Zane could see it now. The craving he worried about wasn"t an addiction. It was far more wrenching. Something significant enough that Zane was changing his entire life to be worthy of it, and there just wasn"t any other possible explanation.
Divide & Conquer | 65
He loved Ty Grady with all there was to give of his heart, and in the end, all it had taken was one wink for Zane to finally come to terms with it.
As he sat dealing with the sudden realization, the world continued on without him. The players continued warming up. Alston had taken just one warm-up pitch, feeding into the cocksure, evil empire image the Feds team cultivated. The fans in the stands around him continued talking and eating and fussing with their various seating options, and Elaina jabbered on beside him.
Ty stood talking with the umpire, his body language clearly saying he was joking around with the man. He was loose and at ease, having battled past the painkiller and his natural inability to be still.
Another moment later he stepped away from the umpire and knelt behind home plate as the first batter of the game approached the batter"s box. But Ty wasn"t there for more than a heartbeat before he raised a hand to call time and stood back up.
A collective groan ran through both teams and the crowd.
“Oh, good grief,” Elaina said as she rested her chin in her hand.
Zane shook himself out of his thoughts and looked to Elaina before turning his eyes back to Ty. “What?”
“He does this every game,” Elaina complained. “He says the plate"s crooked!”
A woman sitting behind them laughed. “He says it"s latent OCD.”
Zane frowned. Ty"s shoulders were straight and stiff, in total contrast to the loose relaxation he"d exhibited just a couple minutes before. That wasn"t OCD. Zane leaned to the side to try to get a better look at what was going on.
Ty and the batter were standing together, Ty pointing down at the plate as the batter nodded. The umpire was shaking his head, holding his mask in his hand and frowning. It was anyone"s guess what they were saying to each other, but whatever Ty was saying, he was adamant. Finally, he yanked his mask off and knelt over the plate, pointing to something Zane couldn"t see.
66 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux
“It"s not the freaking major leagues, Grady! It doesn"t have to be perfect!” someone shouted from the visitor"s dugout.
Zane shifted on the metal bleachers as he watched. “Something"s wrong,” he murmured.
The batter stepped closer and took his bat off his shoulder, pointing it at the plate. Ty reached out and grabbed the end of it quickly to stop him from poking it, then stood and held up both hands impatiently, like he was begging them to listen to him.
He turned to scan the bleachers, his eyes finding Zane quickly. Zane recognized the look on his partner"s face and was moving even before Ty started toward the fence backstop and waved to him.
He met Ty at the fence, reaching up to twine his fingers through the chain-link. “What"s wrong?”
“The plate"s wrong,” Ty said under his breath. “It"s not crooked anymore.”
“Maybe someone fixed it?” Zane asked. He had no doubt that Ty would notice if it was sitting differently than usual. He just didn"t know if it was something worth stopping the game over.
“I"ve been bitching about it for weeks, and they finally fixed it in the middle of the night last night?” Ty muttered as he looked over the crowd restlessly. His eyes met Zane"s. Looking at him this close, it was easy to see what the painkillers were doing to him. “It"s too high.”
The plate was not the only thing that was too high. But what Ty was saying made it sound like someone had wedged something under it. “You really think it"s trouble?” Zane asked quietly. “There"s plenty of cops around.”
“That"s what I"m worried about,” Ty told him as several people shouted at them in annoyance. Ty ignored them like only he could. “Do you have your phone on you?”
Zane pulled it out of his back pocket and offered it to him. They struggled almost comically to get it through the chain-link as those around them became more vocal with their displeasure.
Divide & Conquer | 67
“Why don"t we just take it up and adjust it?” the hitter asked Ty curiously.
Ty finally pulled the phone through and glanced over his shoulder at the man as he flipped Zane"s phone open.
“Who are you calling?” the umpire asked, obviously perturbed.
“Bomb squad,” Ty answered gruffly.
Zane"s fingers clenched on the fence. Ty wouldn"t joke about something like that. “Better start telling people to clear out,” he told the ump evenly. He"d back Ty up no matter how stoned on painkillers his partner was. “Is there a field announcer?”
“Are you shitting me?” the umpire said incredulously. Other players were beginning to drift closer, obviously realizing that something was wrong beyond the crooked plate and Ty"s supposed OCD.
Alston came jogging up to them from the mound, and Ty took a quick step and pointed at him. “Stop!” he shouted urgently before Alston could get to home plate.
The tone of his voice seemed to do the trick. They all knew Ty didn"t screw around, and he sounded truly scared.
“I"ll get the announcer going,” the umpire mumbled as he hurried toward the wooden tower near the dugout.
Zane watched silently as Ty quickly gave information over the phone while the players on the field came in to the dugouts to wait.
Word hadn"t gotten around yet. Zane glanced over his shoulder at the stands. Lots of families and kids were here. His eyes fell on Elaina. She looked incredibly small and innocent sitting there.
The chain-link rattling near his head drew his attention back to Ty. Ty"s fingers gripped the fence, and he looked through it to the bleachers.
“Do me a favor, Zane?” he whispered.
Ty looked really worried, which didn"t do much for Zane"s peace of mind. “Yeah.”
68 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux
“Grab the kid and don"t let her out of your sight, okay?” Ty requested as he looked at Zane finally. “As soon as people hear „bomb", they"re gonna panic and scatter.”
Zane nodded slowly. There was a story there somewhere related to the “he and Mommy used to date” comment. But it didn"t matter.
“Yeah, I"ll do it. Be careful.”
Ty merely nodded and reached up to touch Zane"s fingers through the fence before turning away. He picked up his helmet, then jogged toward the home dugout as the speakers blared on.
“Ladies and gentlemen, at this time we ask you to please move in an orderly fashion toward the south field.”
Zane took a couple of careful steps backward, still watching Ty, before he turned to the stands to find Elaina. With just a few strides, he was next to her. “C"mon, Elaina,” he said, holding out his hand.
“What about Mommy?” Elaina asked as she climbed down the bleachers.
“Ty will get her and the rest of the team,” Zane said as she slid her hand into his, and he started walking, almost immediately hitching his steps shorter because his legs were so long compared to hers.
They were almost across the parking lot when the cute brunette from second base caught up to them and took Elaina"s other hand. “Are you Garrett?” she asked Zane breathlessly.
“Yes, ma"am,” Zane responded automatically. He looked at Elaina and noted the strong resemblance. Dark-brown hair, large eyes so brown they were nearly black. “You must be Mommy.”
She laughed slightly and nodded. “I"m Shannon.” She didn"t offer her hand, though, instead reaching down and picking Elaina up so they could move faster. “Is this for real, or is Ty going off the deep end?”
Zane glanced at her, surprised. “I"d say it"s for real.” He pointed at the dugout on the far side of the next field. The lower part of it was made of wooden planks, the upper part more chain-link. “That ought to be a good place to hunker down. We"re far enough away.”
Divide & Conquer | 69
“God, I was hoping he"d just had too many painkillers,” the woman said under her breath. She pulled her daughter higher on her hip and quickened her pace. Zane heard sirens in the distance as they reached the other field.
Zane stopped at the steps to let Shannon get into the dugout first, and then he waited as several other people passed by, distractedly offering an arm to help them clamber down the concrete steps, watching for Ty as fire trucks pulled up at the field. He hated being back here doing nothing.
He finally spotted Ty, standing next to the blue bomb squad truck and speaking with one of the techs. He was gesticulating erratically, obviously worked up, and the tech seemed to be trying to reason with him. Finally, two firemen came up to join the conversation, and one began leading Ty away, toward the dugouts. The fireman was larger than Ty by quite a bit, a true hulk, and though Ty didn"t appear happy with the arrangement, he went along without fussing until they reached the dugout where Zane stood.
“Does this belong to you?” the fireman asked Zane in a deep, booming voice, scruffing Ty by his jersey collar like a stray dog.
Zane raised a brow at the phrasing but nodded anyway. “Should have made sure he was wearing his tags, I guess,” he answered as he tried to judge Ty"s condition.
Ty rolled his eyes and shifted his jaw in annoyance. “They don"t believe me,” he told Zane under his breath. “This is Tank, by the way.
He runs people over.”
The big fireman laughed heartily and shook his head. His teeth gleamed bright against his black skin. “Gotta lead with the shoulder when a big dawg is blocking the plate. You know that.”
“Yeah, shoulder, not front bumper,” Ty shot back.
Tank looked to Zane. “Shape he was in last time I saw him, I"m not surprised he"s like this.”
“You sure knocked him for a loop,” Zane confirmed before asking Ty, “Are they checking it out?”
70 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux
Ty pressed his lips tightly together and nodded, looking at Zane sideways like he knew he"d be in trouble. Tank spoke up when Ty didn"t. “He told them if they didn"t, he"d go on record saying he put it there himself so they"d
have
to check it out.”
Zane snorted. “Jesus, Ty,” he muttered, shaking his head.
“There were tool marks!” Ty insisted.
“Take it easy, Bulldog,” Tank said as he turned and patted Ty on the back hard enough to send him stumbling forward into Zane, who reacted automatically and raised his arms to grab hold of him.