“You asshole,” Fox hissed as he smacked Axel’s shoulder. “You could’ve gotten killed!”

Axel’s expression shifted slightly, from worry to relief. Fox couldn’t figure out why, and he didn’t care.

“Still can,” Axel said. “We’re not out of the woods yet.” Axel pulled out his cellphone and made a quick call.

Fox listened and tried to keep watch as Axel muttered their location into his phone and requested backup.

Axel didn’t look too pleased and he shoved his phone away.

“You hauled me around like I’m a sack of cattle feed, man.” Fox picked up where they’d left off.

“Yeah.” Axel snorted. “It was carry you or lose you, Fox. I didn’t have time to ask permission.”

The anger inside him didn’t shrink back at that. It was like Axel was deliberately stoking the flames of his humiliation.

No. No, he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. This was the guy who had almost swallowed Spike’s lies, if only for a minute. He had to be feeling betrayed, maybe even humiliated. You didn’t then take that sense of betrayal out on the man you’d slept with the night before.

Yeah, like that’s never happened to anyone ever.

Fox stole a look toward the house, peering through the windows of the cruiser, but he didn’t see anyone. Whatever Spike and his mooks were up to inside, they weren’t likely to step out into what could be a hail of gunfire.

They had a moment’s respite.

He stared at Axel then looked away as guilt nibbled at his fury.

It wasn’t fair to blame Axel, to somehow put the blame on him for saving Fox’s ass. Axel was a hero and he always had been. He couldn’t get more heroic if he tried. Special Ops veteran, FBI agent, serving his country and saving asses all over the place.

And Fox?

Fox, who froze up when there was a fire or when bullets started to fly.

Fox, who had yet again let Syria blindside him in the middle of a life-and-death situation.

Fox, who had killed a man and maybe wouldn’t have been forced to do it if he was more in control of himself.

He turned away so he could rub at his eyes with the back of his hand and take deep breaths to keep from crying. All these years he’d been so sure he was fine, but then, he hadn’t ever really been in situations like this, had he? No, he was the smart-mouthed guy who was safe in his server room, tracking criminals from halfway around the planet. He could be whoever he wanted, say whatever he liked, because he never had to face his country’s enemies, never had to look them in the eye and pull the trigger.

Well, today he’d pulled the trigger.

Even now, his thoughts were rife with the guilt of taking a life, but it was a distraction. A pretty picture his brain distracted him with because he didn’t want to face the truth.

He didn’t want to face that Axel was right.

Fox was a ticking time bomb.

Worse, he was a time bomb who could have cost Axel his life.

“You should have left me behind,” he whispered.

Axel snorted at that. “Don’t be ridiculous. If you were still back there you’d be dead by now.”

Fox rounded on him and jabbed a finger against his chest, avoiding the darkening bloodstains to find a patch of still-clean shirt. “But you’d have had better odds while they were focused on me. They could be under lock and key by now!”

Axel clicked his tongue. “I’m the tactician, Fox. I am far more likely to survive if you’re still alive. Without you I lose fifty percent of my firepower and the ability to cover my own position.”

“Bullshit!” Fox hissed at him. “You know neither of us matter. What counts is getting the job done, whatever the cost! America comes first, Axel! Always!”

Axel narrowed his eyes, and his cheeks paled. He turned away, checking out the house, so that Fox couldn’t see his face clearly.

“You’re wrong,” Axel muttered.

“I’m wrong?” Fox shifted away from him slightly. He told himself it was so he could get better cover, but he knew that was a lie.

Maybe he’d told so many lies he couldn’t tell them apart any more. Had he lied so well that he’d fooled himself? Was that it?

He rested his forehead against the car door. “Look. I might not always be right, but I’m never wrong.”

He heard another snort from Axel. “Idiot. Your pride is gonna get us shot if you can’t pack it away where it belongs.”

Fox ground his teeth.

How could Axel say such things? How could he be so fucking calm about it, too?

“I’ll show you my damn pride,” Fox snarled. He rounded on Axel and pointed at him. “You have no idea what it’s like to get your advice ignored time and time again because you’re the scrawny little geek nobody seems to see. I’ve been called nerd my whole life, and somehow that gives people permission to think I don’t matter and that my knowledge isn’t valuable. So when I say that arresting these assholes is more important than my life, I mean it, Axel! That’s not pride, that’s logic. That’s knowing the value of what we have to do here.” He sucked in air. “And I can’t stop them alone, but you can. If I’m a distraction to them, well then maybe that’s all I’m good for in this situation, but don’t you dare tell me my life’s more important than yours. You could have got killed and you just—” he gulped for more air. “You jumped right up in front of that guy. I watched you do it! He was right there and he could’ve taken your goddamn head off and you just… bounced out at him like it was his birthday!”

Axel didn’t speak and for one crazy moment Fox thought somehow he’d wasted his breath, that maybe Axel wasn’t even listening.

Or maybe—somehow—he’d been shot after all and was already dead.

Ice clutched his heart and he turned to face Axel.

Axel was still there, still crouched behind the wheel of the cruiser, head down where Fox couldn’t see his expression. His shoulders were hunched, and his breathing was so shallow that Fox could barely see him move.

“Are you done?” Axel said, his voice thick and heavy.

Fox’s hands trembled, and he leaned against the car again to try and hide it. Axel’s words were a pin to the balloon of his anger, and when it burst all he was left with was the upset and the fear, the guilt of seizing up and the crawling terror of losing Axel.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “I guess I am.”

“Okay.” Axel turned toward him at last.

His eyes were reddened. Glassy. The strain in them was so tight it could snap at any moment. There was little other color to his face, like the blood had drained away and left him empty.

“How dare you say that.”

Fox blinked at him. “What?”

“How dare you sit here and tell me that your life isn’t worth shit,” Axel snarled. “Or that I wouldn’t listen to you because you’re smart. Only an idiot ignores the words of a man as smart as you, Fox. It isn’t my fault that you’ve been surrounded by those idiots all your life, but I am not one of them. Listen to me. I know this is terrifying. I know you ought to be tucked away in an office somewhere, saving all our lives in total anonymity miles away from the front line, but you’re not. And you know why?”

“Why?” Fox spat the word at him.

“Because you’re the bravest man I ever fucking met, dumbass.” Axel gestured toward the house. “Because you’re here, now, acting like everything you do doesn’t matter to anyone, but it does. You save lives, and you’ve been doing it ever since I first met you. You went to Syria, for crying out loud, just to retrieve a thumb drive. Because it would save lives. Because you can tell wrong from right.” He took a deep breath. “Because you’re a hero.”

Fox had the weirdest urge to laugh. He felt light-headed and sick all at the same time, like he was going to puke and fall over while he did it. The ice around his heart cracked, but it refused to break apart and leave him free.

“You’re so full of shit,” he whispered.

“Yeah?” Axel curled his lip. “I’m not the only one.”

Fox ground his teeth. His heart raced, and his body felt like it was priming itself for fight or flight though he couldn’t figure out why he was reacting that way. His brain felt like it was already fried, like the world was crushing him with its weight, and now even Axel was against him.

Axel reached out for him, and Fox recoiled, but he wasn’t fast enough. Axel’s fist closed around his shirt, and then dragged him closer, until their noses bumped together.

Then Axel kissed him hard and his world fell apart.