This is a work of fiction. I do not own Ty, Zane, Cut and Run series, or “I drive Your Truck”. Respectively they belong to Abigail Roux and Lee Brice. Song lyrics in italics.
Eighty-Nine Cents in the ash tray
Half empty bottle of Gatorade rolling in the floorboard
That dirty Braves cap on the dash
Dog tags hangin’ from the rear view
Old Skoal can, and cowboy boots and a Go Army Shirt folded in the back
This thing burns gas like crazy, but that’s alright
People got their ways of coping
Oh, and I’ve got mine
Zane started into the old Bronco. He didn’t have to count the change that was in the ashtray, or see the Gatorade bottle that was still half full partially hidden under one seat, as if waiting for Ty to come back at any moment and finish it off, to know it was there. Knuckles white he clenched the unyielding metal. His eyes moved from the floor, knowing from experience that if the old Bronco ran too long the floor boards would get hot beneath foot. Ty hadn’t had a chance to fix it before….His jaw locked, muscle ticking in his cheek as if that would stop the stuttering in his heart. The dog tags hanging from the rear view mirror were like a taunt. Having rested against Ty’s chest for so long…The Braves hat on the dash. Ty had always protested the thought of washing it, superstitious to the core, and Zane was glad that he had. Now. It was harder to fight the tears as his eyes moved to the back seat. Cowboy boots from their last trip to Texas, and the Marines shirt folded up on the back seat. Ty’s military training still inherent even years after he’d been out. Zane managed to let go of the door enough to pull it open, and climbed into the driver’s seat. It was just a little too short for him, but he refused to move the seat back. He’d given up every addiction for Ty. As much as he craved the numbness, going back to it was too much like a betrayal to Ty’s memory. And Zane couldn’t do it.
I drive your truck
I roll every window down
And I burn up
Every back road in this town
I find a field, I tear it up
Til all the pain’s a cloud of dust
Yeah, sometimes I drive your truck
I leave that radio playing
That same ole country station where ya left it
Yeah, man I crank it up
And you’d probably punch my arm right now
If you saw this tear rollin’ down on my face
Hey, man I’m tryin’ to be tough
And momma asked me this morning
If I’d been by your grave
But that flag and stone ain’t where I feel you anyway
The Bronco started with a purr as he turned the key. For being almost twenty years old, the old truck ran practically like new. But he didn’t expect anything less from Ty. His hands clenched on the steering wheel and he had to close his eyes as the country station came in. Ty had listened to everything and anything. If he turned it up, maybe it would drown out the sound of his heart breaking all over again. Shifting into gear he pulled out of the gravel drive way and sped down the road. Bluefield had plenty of back roads, and Zane had found more than a few. He remembered Ty showing him around, secret places he’d had visited as a child. Back woods places he’d gone to hoping for peace of mind. Inevitably, Zane always ended up in that spot. He swallowed hard, eyes burning as a tear made its way down his cheek. Ty would probably punch him if he saw it and call him a pansy. The thought only brought a flickering smile and more tears. Mara had asked him that morning if he’d been to Ty’s grave. He had, but not for the funeral.
Nick had pounded on his door for what had felt like hours demanding that he show himself. Some of the names that had come out of the Marine’s mouth didn’t bare repeating but Zane hadn’t even pulled himself from the spot on the couch. In all honesty, he couldn’t really say how long it had been before someone had convinced Nick that if they didn’t leave they were going to be late, probably Owen or Kelly. Zane couldn’t go. Couldn’t force himself to endure the insincere smiles and pats on the shoulder while everyone told him how sorry they were for his loss. They didn’t know what he’d lost. Couldn’t even begin to comprehend. A day, or maybe two, he had managed to drag himself there. The engraved words B. Tyler Grady A hero until the end echoed numbingly through his thoughts. The words were hollow. Like Zane’s heart, and like the graveyard. Ty had an energy about him. Constantly in motion even when sitting still. The too quiet concrete garden didn’t say Ty to him, regardless of where his body was laid. Somehow, Mara’s strained voice demanding he get his ass to West Virginia over the answering machine had gotten through the haze he’d been walking through enough to manage to pack and buy a plane ticket. He’d almost been relieved not to have to stay in the home that he and Ty had built where every breath and every crevice was filled with a memory, maybe if he’d been a little less masochistic he would have been more appreciative.
I drive your truck
I roll every window down
And I burn up
Every back road in this town
I find a field, I tear it up
Til all the pain’s a cloud of dust
Yeah, sometimes I drive your truck
I’ve cussed, I’ve prayed, I’ve said goodbye
Shook my fist and asked God why
These days when I’m missing you this much
Zane tried to breathe. The cool crisp mountain air didn’t seem to loosen the tightness in his chest any. Even with all the windows down. He slammed his palm against the steering wheel swearing, even as the road grew blurry before he blinked the tears away. “DAMMIT TY! You just had to leave before me?!” Zane wasn’t even sure whether he was talking about Ty leaving Baltimore to act as support for another team or if he meant dying. Maybe both. Probably both. The road he was on could hardly be called a road before ending at the river and Zane threw it into park. “You fucking bastard.” The words coming out broken as the tears came quicker. Zane couldn’t count the number of times he’d fucked up in his life, and moments he regretted, but this was the one he wasn’t sure he could come back from. One he wasn’t sure he wanted to come back from. Again, he hadn’t been there. States away where he couldn’t do anything. Arms crossed over the steering wheel Zane put his head in them and just let the tears come, it’d already been a month and he knew the pain was never going to go away. Zane didn’t know how long he sat like that before the tears finally ran dry though he still didn’t raise his head. “I miss you.”
I drive your truck
I roll every window down
And I burn up
Every back road in this town
I find a field, I tear it up
Til all the pain’s a cloud of dust
Yeah, sometimes, brother sometimes
I drive your truck
I drive your truck
I hope you don’t mind, I hope you don’t mind
I drive your truck
“I miss you, too.” Zane didn’t even blink. Somehow, the idea that he was hearing voices of the dead didn’t even faze him. He was sure Deuce would have something to say about that if he told him. Some way to psychoanalyze him.
“Fuck you.” Zane told the ghost of his partner not even bothering to look up. An echo of a memory, of Ty saying he didn’t play at crazy flitted through his mind.
“You already have….Just not recently.” There was always something that was amusing Ty. He couldn’t even manage to be dead serious. He almost smiled to himself imagining Ty groaning about his awful puns. Zane flinched hard when a hand reached through the open window. He was about to growl something nasty to whatever poor person was interrupting his fantasies only to find startled eyes on Ty. Zane swallowed past the thickness in his throat. Maybe he should talk to Deuce. “You’re not sleeping are you?” There was quiet concern in the question. The black beneath Zane’s eyes could have been paint they were so dark.
“I never do unless you’re in bed with me.” Zane answered automatically. Ty knew it as well as he did, he didn’t have to say it. Zane didn’t have any explanation for how the apparition before him was able to open the door and pulled him unresisting out of the truck. Zane hadn’t bothered with the seat belt. A passive disregard for his own health, much like his addictions had been. But the arms around him felt too real. Too solid to wholly be a hallucination. The lips suddenly against his too familiar. “Ty…”
“I’m sorry Zane. I didn’t know what they were doing. The explosion had me out for a week and when I came to enough to ask ‘what the hell?’ Burns said they’d seized the opportunity to make it look like I’d been killed.”
The information had Zane’s head reeling for a moment before one thing stood out loud and clear. Ty was alive.
The fist took Ty by surprise, the pain shooting up the whole side of his face. “You fucking BASTARD!” When Ty looked back at Zane his eyes blazed. Ty stopped the second swing reflexively.
“Hey! It wasn’t my idea Garret! You think I wanted to let everyone think I was dead? You? Mom? Dad? Grandpa? Deuce? I tried like hell to at least make Burns let me contact you, where do you think he got that shiner?”
The response wasn’t a verbal one as Zane grabbed him by the shirt and threw him up against the Bronco, immediately covering him with his body and kissing him violently. It still surprised Ty when Zane managed to manhandle him, but it didn’t stop him any from immediately pressing up against the taller man and returning the kiss. Ty couldn’t stop the groan that came from him. A month without even seeing Zane or hearing his voice was far too long as far as Ty was concerned. Especially when the assignment had only supposed to have been a week.
They were both breathless by the time the kiss ended, and Zane pressed his forehead against Ty’s. Full lips curled into the customary smug look that was both endearing and annoying as hell. “So you missed me, huh?”
“Shut up Grady.” Zane immediately growled before giving Ty an alternate use for his mouth. Ty was somehow managing to still smirk at him when the kiss ended, but the look in his eyes was tender, healing the broken pieces of Zane’s damaged heart.
“I love you, too, Garret.”
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