Battle It Out

SUV, he hunched over and heaved up the contents of his breakfast into the gutter.

Zane
Isaac Thorne’s home was under siege and the gothic looking guy barring him from entry was seconds away from a beat down.
“Who are you?” Goth guy said with his hand on the door, keeping it from opening farther.
Music blared, head banging loud, matching the punk’s attitude. With suspicious, dark eyes, the guy kept his skinny ass in the doorway.
“Fucking Christ,” he muttered, feeling the headache starting behind his eyes.
“We come with gifts.” Dillon held up a six pack of beer.
Zane slapped a hand flat against the open door with a loud crack and the annoying twerp jumped, but didn’t budge. It was laughable that the guy thought he could keep two Special Forces soldiers from entering the house, and he resisted the impulse to punch the punk in the nose.
“Bart, let them through.” Isaac’s voice drew his gaze like a magnet.
“God damned right you’re going to let us through.” He scowled through the quick rush of relief at Isaac’s appearance and pushed his chest into Goth guy’s face, causing him to stumble back and scramble out of the way.
With cool blue eyes and light blond hair, Isaac attracted attention whenever he entered a room. Or maybe it’s just my attention.
Three years ago almost to the day, Isaac Thorne had walked into his life, but it was one year ago that his life had been permanently altered when Colonel Liam Cobalt had gotten the insane idea to pair him with Isaac in the field.
During missions so long it’d make a man forget what sleep felt like, Isaac had kept him awake with one snarky comment after another. Right now, though, the snark was missing and so was the light teasing he’d become used to and even looked forward to hearing.
Dillon handed him the six pack of beer, breaking him out of his fixation, before stalking the few steps into the living room. Once there, Dillon snapped off the head banging music, pretty much oblivious to the complaints from the party.
“Peace?”
Zane stepped forward holding out the beer, and the normally talkative soldier seemed to be at a loss for words.
“It’s your favorite, remember?” He quirked one eyebrow.
“Yes,” Isaac said. A smirk curled the corner of his mouth before his lips pressed tightly into a flat line. Damn it, there went the light from the room.
“Dillon.” Isaac threw up his hands, turning on his brother. “This is my party. Don’t turn off the music, just pick something else if you don’t like it.”
“Who’s he?” The gamers in the room glared at Dillon.
“Dillon, meet the room.” Isaac raised a hand and swept it around. “Room, meet my older brother.”
A collection of ooh’s and ah’s ran around through the group of gamers crowded in the den.
“And this is Zane.” Isaac waved a hand at him.
He scowled at the group of gamers, silently daring them to ooh and ah at him. They hastily glanced away.
“Be nice,” Isaac scolded him, that teasing lilt like a blast of sunshine.
“I am nice,” he grumbled, thrusting the bottles at Bart. “Make yourself useful.”
Glaring, Bart clutched the rattling six pack and made for the kitchen.
Zane slowly scanned the rooms closest to him; first the den and then the hallway. No signs of the boyfriend, and one of the reasons Isaac remained mad at him. There had to be more reasons, but fuck if he knew what they all were.
So what if he called Rolls Royce a fucking fancy pants? Okay, it might have been in a room full of people at Dillon and Luke’s engagement party, but wasn’t he entitled to his own opinion?
Isaac disappeared through an open archway that led to the kitchen.
Dillon, thank fuck, put on some Jagger before following after Isaac.
“Hey! I wondered when you were going to show up,” River’s voice from the hallway drew his attention. River had Maddox in tow.
“Any food left? I’m fucking starving.” He stepped forward and gave River a fist bump.
“We left you a crumb,” Maddox smirked, sliding his arm around River’s waist.
“Better have left me some cake.” He eyed the captain.
“There’s plenty,” River promised.
“Are you two in the living room?” He grimaced at the young punks gathered around the widescreen television, playing Isaac’s X-box, eating his food, and pretty much being annoying.
“Hell no, the rest of the unit’s out back,” Maddox said and disappeared, tugging River out the back door.
Zane gladly followed them through the kitchen and out onto the massive covered patio that ran the whole length of the back of the sprawling one-story house. The living room music faded with the distance between them and the punks in the living room.
He loved this room. The California sun kept the back patio den-like room warm, so while the structure was screened in to let the breeze blow through, the patio did have a roof for unexpected rain.
Lounge chairs, a massive black sectional, and a brown, cracked leather sofa filled one side of the room, with a food table set on the other. It was a man’s dream room and he and the rest of the unit had had a hand in its design.
The leather couch had seen better days. He’d almost lost a finger helping Isaac carry the damn thing to the patio.
“What do you need this old piece of junk for?” he’d said, hefting the couch sideways to get it through the back gate.
“I like it.”
“My ass created a crater in it,” he grunted and placed the couch he’d been on the verge of tossing away down on the concrete floor.
Isaac pushed it up against the house and plopped down in the crater.
“I like it,” the man scowled at him.
He’d laughed. “You’re weird, Thorne.”
That had been last summer, during better times. A time when he and Isaac had moved in sync. A time when he had known what to say to make things better.
Dillon ruffled Isaac’s hair on his way toward a sectional that sat across from the old