Axel said nothing other than to give Fox directions. There was a time for jokes and a time for work, and he didn’t want to distract Fox while the guy was driving.

Or maybe he just didn’t want to get too close to examining what the hell had pushed him into kissing Fox.

He had to admit that it’d worked, though. Fox looked on the brink of tears, and it was the only thing Axel could think of to bring him back from the edge…

That, or it was just an excuse for something he’d craved all along.

His screen flashed in time with his cell ringing, and he checked the caller ID before he answered. “What’s up, Jones?”

“Marsters - I mean Kennedy,” Jones gasped into his ear. “We lost him.”

Axel cursed out loud. “Any idea how?”

“He had the whole thing planned. He must’ve known we’d tail him sooner or later. He went into a restroom and never came out. We got suspicious, went in there, and yeah. His clothes were in a stall. We’re reviewing footage now to see if we can identify when he left.” Jones sighed. “Sorry, boss. He must’ve walked right out under our noses.”

“Or he’s still in the restaurant, making like he’s a member of staff. Check everyone. Make sure he’s not playing you for fools and waiting for you to turn your backs. Call me when you’ve got something.”

“Yessir.”

Axel tried so hard not to grind his teeth as he pocketed his phone.

“Let me guess,” Fox muttered. “He got away?”

Axel raised his chin. “Yeah. Looks like we got a damn master of disguise on our hands.”

Fox nodded. “I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s been impossible to get good security footage. If he’s swapping disguises at every available opportunity that makes eyewitnesses all but useless, and security cameras just as bad. Don’t be too hard on your team.”

“No.” Axel agreed. “These things happen. We’ll get him. I just—”

Fox’s phone rang, except because it had paired with his car stereo, the sound came from the speakers. The stereo display changed to display the word OFFICE.

Fox thumbed a button on his steering wheel. “Walker. You’re on speaker.”

“Oh, hey! In public?”

“No. With the FBI.”

“Good.” The voice was a man’s, and it sounded reasonably deep and friendly. “Hey there, FBI. Okay, Fox, your dude.”

Fox hit the turn signal and pulled the car off into the parking lot of a gas station. “Go ahead, Peter.”

“They used a VoIP system, so every call from every phone in the building was automatically logged on their servers. Of course, they were cheap assholes, so they didn’t record the calls, but there’s a lot of activity between Marsters’ office and a number in Hidden Creek. I’ve dug out a name and address for you, just in case it’s his auntie and she makes good cookies. Assuming his auntie’s name is Xavier Rodriguez, which is the most generic name I’ve ever heard.”

“Nice!” Fox hit buttons under the stereo to bring up the GPS. “Okay, hit me with it.”

Axel watched as Fox stabbed the street and house number into the GPS. The pale glow from the dashboard made his pale skin look washed out and emphasized dark circles under his eyes, which Axel hadn’t noticed back in the motel room. He frowned to himself.

He knew that look. He knew it too damn well. He usually saw it in the mirror.

Fox was pushing himself too hard.

“We’re on our way,” Fox said once the GPS had picked a route. “Go home, Peter. Get some sleep.”

“You bet. I’ve gotta stay beautiful, you know? Be careful.”

Peter hung up before Fox could answer, and Axel idly looked out the windshield as Fox pulled them back onto the road.

“Fake identity, you think?”

“Probably,” Fox grumbled. “I couldn’t guess who for, though.”

Axel leaned back in his seat and propped an elbow against the door frame. He let his fingers fidget with the air vent nearest to him on the dash while he formulated his thoughts.

What did you say to a guy you’d kissed anyway? It wasn’t like kissing a woman, was it? Was there some kind of dance around the whole thing? Were they supposed to have coffee after something like that?

Was coffee still a euphemism for sex?

He bit the inside of his cheek and looked away from Fox so that he could pretend to study the road while he picked at his thoughts.

Maybe Syria was the problem.

When Fox’s mission had gone FUBAR, Axel had moved fast to extract him and his precious data. And when Fox had gone down, knocked out by the grenade which had thrown their Humvee into the air like it was made of paper, Axel had shielded the spy with his own body while the rest of his team kept them alive long enough for Fox to come around. And what had Fox said to him?

The words came back easily, even after all these years.

“If you wanted me under you, dude, all you gotta do is ask.”

He felt the prickle of heat in his cheeks and kept his face away from Fox. The last thing he needed was for the only other man in this car to notice him turning red as a Twizzler.

Shit, maybe if he’d just kissed Fox in Syria they would have got this—whatever this was—out of their systems and everything would be normal right now. Or if Fox had kissed him. Why did it have to be Axel’s fault this was all screwy right now?

It didn’t have to be anybody’s fault. Fox wasn’t doing this to him, and Axel sure as hell wasn’t doing it to himself. It was just… a thing, and… sometimes things happened. For… reasons.

Maybe if he wasn’t so uptight this wouldn’t be bugging him so damn much.

He heard Fox sigh softly, and figured the silence was probably stretching out into awkward territory, so he tapped on the air vent idly and said, “So you were a hacker?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah.” Fox sounded wistful. “It’s how I got into the CIA. You know all the agencies watch people like me in case we turn into either assets or threats. Well, I was awesome, so I got offered a job.”

Axel nodded and watched a truck overtake them. His gaze automatically assessed the vehicle, taking in the large number of Texas-themed stickers over the back of the cab and tailgate, along with a couple of stickers commemorating loved ones who had passed. It was an old vehicle, but well-kept, and the driver stayed well within his own lane.

“Straight from your degree to the CIA, huh?” Axel watched the truck pull ahead and then turn off to the left at an intersection. “You ever go places other than Syria? For work, I mean.”

“Rarely.” Fox obeyed the GPS and soon they were driving alongside the trees of the woods at the center of Hidden Creek. “Afghanistan, Pakistan, a couple of trips to Georgia when Russia started getting fruity over there. Mostly I sit in offices and do all my work from afar, though.”

Axel nodded again, and finally felt able to turn to face Fox. “You ever freeze up like you did today?”

It was a risk, asking something like that while Fox was driving, but he hoped the fact that he was responsible for their lives right now would keep Fox from flipping out.

Fox’s jaw rocked and his eyes grew hard. He glared straight ahead. “Really?”

“Really.” Axel shrugged. “You can talk to me, man.”

He could see Fox’s knuckles whitening from a too-tight grip on the wheel.

“I guess,” Fox muttered. “Not for ages, though.”

“Right,” Axel agreed. “You said earlier. Were those other occasions around fire, maybe?”

“Does it matter?”

“Kinda. Yeah. It matters. I’m not a psychiatrist, but I’ve seen this plenty of times, Fox. There’s nothing wrong with it, or with you. Post-Traumatic Stress—”

“Do you have any idea how much spare time I have to see yet another psych team, Axel?” Fox cursed as he almost missed his turn, and wrenched the car so hard to the right that Axel had to grab the dash to stay steady. “None. Absolutely zero. Every day I take off work is a day someone could wind up dead because I wasn’t there to dig out the data we needed to save them. I cannot afford the luxury of wallowing around while some shrink just talks to me for weeks on end. There’s no way any terrorist is gonna put their plans on hold because I’ve been benched. I have a country to protect, and I can’t do it from the sidelines!”

Axel nodded as he listened even though it made him ache just to stay silent. Fox was in pain and he felt like that pain resonated with him on the most basic level, like Fox’s anguish was in some way his own.

He would do anything to take that pain away if he could. No hesitation, no question about it. Seeing the hurt in Fox’s eyes, the strain in his voice, was worse than being shot. It tore into him and left him reeling, gasping for air. He fought to keep himself steady, to be the rock that Fox so obviously needed.

It wasn’t fair. Here was this bright, smart guy who gave every waking hour to his country. He was a hero. Oh, sure, people might not see that on the surface, what with Fox’s delicate features and his slender body. He was like Axel’s total opposite in that regard, all flex and subtlety where Axel was hardness and strength. But that didn’t make Fox any less of an asset and it sure didn’t make him any less of a man.

All heroes deserved rest and reward. They needed time to lick their wounds and to heal from them before they returned to the fight, and somewhere in the past eight years Fox hadn’t been given what he needed.

Today, that missing care could have got Fox killed. Who knew what other lives would be lost in the future without Fox’s keen intellect to stop the enemy before it launched an attack? There was more than one life at stake, as there always were with these things. Nobody who went to war fought for themselves.

They fought for those who couldn’t. They fought so that those who were born free stayed that way.

They deserved to be cared for.

He realized it was all kinds of hypocritical for him to get so angry that Fox was doing this to himself when he knew it was the same damn thing he lived with. And maybe Fox’s reasons were different, but that didn’t make the duty of care go away.

How could Axel make sure Fox got the help he needed when he refused to look after himself?

He bit his lip, then shook his head. “I see the point you’re making,” he said. “But you could get hurt. And if you get yourself hospitalized, you still won’t be—”

“This is it.” Fox cut in without looking at him and pulled the car up alongside the curb. He nodded toward an isolated house with a single light beside the front door, but the Texan habit of blackout screens made it impossible to tell whether any lights were on in the house.

Axel eyed him and didn’t press the point. They had a suspect to track down, and no time to waste.

So for now he let it go.

For now.