Michael.

Austin recognized him even from a distance. Michael looked the same as ever. His short, dark brown hair framed a boxy face, and his broad shoulders stretched the soft cotton of his T-shirt. He closed the car door and stepped around it to join the black-haired man, but Austin read into his posture, and he knew Michael wasn’t happy about it.

Something really is going on here. Michael, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?

Austin turned to look at Hale, hoping to talk with him quietly to come up with a plan, but when he turned his head, he was surprised to find that Hale was already there. There was an overjoyed expression on his face, but Michael only saw it for a second, because in the next moment, Hale had latched onto him and kissed him deeply. A jolt shot through Austin, not entirely unpleasant, and brought with it a barrage of feelings.

Arousal, first and foremost. His dick twitched, and his body naturally wanted to pin Hale to the ground and kiss him back ferociously.

Behind arousal came guilt. Austin wasn’t gay, had never claimed to be gay, and had never fantasized about a man in any way. Hale was cute, but that was where it ended for him. It wasn’t like he found his eternal optimism and endless energy charming. He enjoyed spending time with Hale, but in platonic, innocent ways that had nothing to do with how his dick was now rock-hard, and his lizard brain was urging him to tug Hale’s pants off and fuck him senseless.

Then, behind the guilt, there was anger and sorrow. Anger, because he didn’t understand what his body wanted from the man who was kissing him, and sorrow because he knew that Hale wasn’t kissing him for no reason—he’d probably just excited himself over finding his missing cousin, and needed an outlet. It wasn’t like Austin was special. To Hale, he was a convenience, that was it.

When Austin reasoned that out, the sorrow grew stronger and clouded his judgment. He pushed Hale away, selfishly pinning him down under the guise that he wanted the kiss to end.

It wasn’t natural to feel this way for another man. He didn’t like it, and he didn’t want anything to do with it.

“S-Sorry,” Hale whispered. His eyes were partially lidded, and his lips were glossy from their kiss. He looked so damned cute that Austin wanted to take him by the hair, hold his head in place, and show him what a real kiss was like.

Not that he would.

It was just an urge—a totally natural sexual response to being sexually stimulated. Once he got over the initial pangs of lust, troublesome thoughts like that would fade, and life would go back to normal. At least, that’s what he was banking on. Now that they had visuals on Michael, and they knew the warehouse was in use, they had to pay more attention than ever before.

“Get inside and for the love of god, don’t complain about it.” The man Austin didn’t recognize pointed at the door by the metal loading bay. He fitted a key inside and tugged it open. Michael said nothing as he stepped inside. The man followed and closed the door behind him. Austin heard nothing more.

“That was Michael,” Hale admitted in a tiny voice. Austin realized he was still pinning him—he rolled off and gave Hale his space. “He’s alive!”

“I don’t like the looks of the guy he was with,” Austin admitted. “He was carrying.”

“Like, a weapon?”

“Michael wasn’t comfortable being there with him, but he listened without arguing or talking back. There’s no way that some random stranger could force Michael into doing something he didn’t want to do if he wasn’t armed. Whoever Michael is with is dangerous, and after what I saw, I’m pretty sure that they’re holding him hostage or using him for something.”

“I… What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to do nothing,” Austin said. “We’ve got the information we need. We have license plate numbers—I memorized it.”

“I sent it to myself in a text,” Hale said. “But what is a license plate number going to do for us? We can’t go to the police. If the police get involved, those people, whoever they are, are going to hurt Michael.”

“I don’t want to argue about this right now, okay? This is not a good place for argument. Can we agree that, now that we know where Michael is, we need to rethink our plan and come up with a new one?”

“Yes.”

“Then what we need to do is get out of here.” Austin glanced at the warehouse and strained his ears for any sign of approaching traffic or other activity, but detected nothing. “You need to follow me quietly. Remember not to slam the car door. We’re going to try to get out of here without being caught or otherwise found out, okay? For Michael’s sake, we need them to think no one knows about this place.”

“Got it,” Hale said. “I’m ready. I’ll follow you, and I’ll be cautious and quiet about it.”

Austin took Hale at his word. He rose to his knees and crawled slowly away from the warehouse, putting some trees and brush between their location and the doors before he dared stand. All the way, he felt self-conscious. The pressure from Hale’s lips lingered on his, and his heart still pounded in his chest. The urge to make Hale his remained even as they made their way back to the car. Austin opened Hale’s door for him, then made his way to the driver’s side and took a moment to compose himself before he started the car. When they’d cleared the crumbling road and made it back onto I-45 destined for Hidden Creek, Hale opened up.

“I really am sorry about what I did back there, Austin. I… I wasn’t thinking, and it wasn’t fair for you. I got excited and my brain kind of short-circuited. It won’t happen again.”

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” Austin mumbled. “It’s done, right? It’s in the past. We have other, more important things to focus on. We found Michael, and we’ve determined that he’s in trouble. We need to plan our next steps.”

Hale frowned. “I get where you’re coming from, but in my mind, if we’re going to continue to work together on this, we need to be able to trust each other. I invaded your personal space and violated our trust. I’m sorry. I need to know that we’ve worked through this so that we can continue to work together smoothly in the future.”

Austin spared Hale a quick glance. Fundamentally, he knew that Hale was right—that trust came before all else in teamwork. On an emotional level, he didn’t want to think about what had just happened, or the way it had made him feel. Hale had already called him out once for getting hard when they were together, and the last thing that Austin needed was for Hale to realize that he was hard again. He didn’t want him to get the wrong impression.

“If I tell you that all is forgiven, will you move on?” Austin asked.

Hale’s frown intensified. “Only if it’s true.”

“All is forgiven, and it’s true,” Austin said tersely.

“That doesn’t count.”

“Why not?”

Hale sighed. “Because you didn’t mean it. I don’t want to be a sick in the mud, or dwell on something that’s uncomfortable for you, but it’s like… it happened. What can I do to get you to trust me again?”

“You can stop talking about it.”

Hale huffed indignantly. “You know that’s not what I’m talking about! Why do you have to be so difficult?”

The quiet stretch of I-45 they were on was deserted. Austin’s hands had started to shake, and this time, the tremor ran down the side of his body and into his leg. For safety, he pulled into the shoulder and brought the car to a stop. Then the turned his head and looked Hale in the eyes. There was fire in Hale’s expression, and it didn’t look like it was going to burn out any time soon.

“I need you to stop talking,” Austin said. “Give me five minutes to get back to town. Let me park. Let me take you inside so we can discuss this, but for now, I need you to drop it. Please, Hale?”

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Hale huffed. “I’m only trying to apologize.”

He didn’t understand, and Austin was sure that he never would. He wasn’t entirely sure what was going on himself. His brain and his body were telling him different things, and no matter how he tried to rationalize what he felt, he couldn’t come to peace with it.

There was only one way he could get it out.

He reached out, threaded his fingers through the hair on the back of Hale’s head, and kissed him hard. Hale gasped against his lips—a delicate noise that sank straight to Austin’s groin—then kissed him back. His tongue traced across Austin’s lip, and Austin met his tongue with his own, then made Hale’s mouth his.

His mind screamed at him that he wasn’t gay and that he shouldn’t be enjoying this, but his body didn’t want to listen. His body had woken to Hale’s touch, and now it craved Hale in every way it could get him.

The kiss broke when they were both breathless. Austin drew back, panting, but left his fingers woven through Hale’s hair. He looked Hale in the eyes, wanting nothing more than to drag him into the back seat of the car and chase comfort in his touch.

“Do you understand why I don’t want you to talk about it now?” Austin asked huskily.

“Y-Yes,” Hale murmured. His eyes were almost closed, and he was simultaneously so wound tight he looked ready to pop and relaxed. “I’ll be quiet, and we can talk about what happened back at your place, like you asked.”

“Good.”

The full-body tremor had gone just as quickly as it had arrived. Austin took a deep breath, tried not to think too hard about how it was he’d fixed the problem so quickly, and focused on getting back on the road. Hidden Creek was only a five minute drive from where they’d pulled over, but with Hale in the seat next to him, he was more distracted than he’d ever been before.

He had five minutes to figure out what he was going to do about the divide between his mind and body—five minutes to decide what it was he really wanted from Hale.

Five minutes wasn’t nearly long enough, but there was no way around it. It would have to do.