“I guess there goes the honeymoon stage,” Jasper said.

Tucker kept loading the back of the truck with sand bags, letting each of them slump down loudly against the wooden panel floor of the truck.

“She’ll get over it,” Jasper said from his spot on the tailgate. He’d been sitting there the whole time.

Whenever Tucker would walk by, sandbag in hand, he enjoyed the brief mental image of dropping one of the thirty-pound bags over Jasper’s head. Anything to shut him up. He might even be lucky and get a snapped neck out of it.

“Take it easy with those,” Jasper said after Tucker’s last toss. He’d been increasingly rough with the bags, throwing them from an increasing distance. “Hey,” Jasper said after the following toss. “They might split like that. Then we’ll have sand everywhere.”

For the next bag, and for the furthest distance yet, Tucker stayed outside the truck. After rotating his body like an Olympian hammer thrower, he swung back and then released the bag into the air. It missed Jasper’s head by a few inches as it sailed into the truck.

“What the fuck?” he cried “What the hell was that?”

“Nothing,” Tucker said, wiping the sweat from his brow. “So you’re lucky.”

“I’m lucky?”

“Lucky I’m not doing anything,” Tucker said. “I’m taking it out on the bags, instead.”

“Oh.” Jasper got down off the tuck. “You want to take something out on me?”

Tucker turned from his pile of sandbags. Jasper was taking a few slow steps toward him. “Are you squaring up to me? You sure you want to do that?”

“You’re being a real prick about this,” Jasper said. “I put in a good word about her to Jackson. Without that, she wouldn’t be anywhere near here. And neither would you. Without DARC Ops, you might still be rotting away in some Humvee in Mosul, not knowing if Macy even existed out here. And she’d be back in Angola, probably hanging in a fucking meat locker until someone could pay the bounty.”

Tucker couldn’t hold back the rage. He lurched forward and shoved Jasper against his chest, knocking him back. Jasper stumbled over the pile of sandbags, landing over them on his back. Tucker readied himself in a defensive stance, readying for Jasper to get back up and come forward again. To square up for another exchange. But he just stayed on the ground, smiling.

“Feel better now?” Jasper said. “Get it out of your system?”

Now it was Tucker’s turn to sit on the tailgate, slumping there and holding his head in his hands, seeing Macy’s disappointed face in the darkness. A horrified face. He rubbed his eye sockets with the palms of his hands, but it wouldn’t go away.

“Look, Tucker, I’m sorry it had to play out like that. I really am.”

He didn’t believe him. For all Tucker knew, it could have been a ploy to break them up. To keep him focused. He opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on Jasper, who had hauled himself to his feet while Tucker was brooding.

“But we have to take these preventative measures,” Jasper said. “We have to vet people like that. We did the same with you. You know that. We’re a private intelligence agency. It’s what we do, man.”

“It’s still a pretty shitty thing to do when you know the ramifications.”

“I understand that,” Jasper said. “But it was necessary.”

Tucker muttered, “And the ramification for me, and her. You know what I’m fucking talking about.”

“I know,” Jasper said. “And I’m sorry.”

It was hard for Tucker to accept.

Jasper brushed the dirt and dust off his pants. “So can we get along? Can we move on?”

He’d be fine with moving on with Jasper, eventually. Probably. It wasn’t the first time that they’d bumped heads, but the situation with Macy was more precarious. Since their fight, he’d become more and more convinced that she might just move on, not with him, but from him entirely.

But where could she move on to? Where else in this world could she run alone that would be safer than with DARC’s help?

“What do you say, Tucker? Can we pull this out?”

“Fine,” Tucker said. He walked back to the truck and reached out his hand for a conciliatory handshake. “Yeah, we can do this.”

Jasper pulled in a hug, thumping him on the shoulder. “No hard feelings?”

He thought for a minute. “You’ll have to ask Macy about that.”

“She’ll be fine.”

“Really? You think she’ll actually show up?” Tucker looked around at their work, the sandbags all in place next to the tripod legs of the EMP gun. A 4- by 5-inch slit carved out in the tuck door, the gun port, all ready to go. And Tucker, himself, maybe all ready to go—if he could just figure out what Macy was up to. He hadn’t heard from her since the blowup at the gas station. When they’d arrived at the compound, she’d stormed right inside, right past Jasper’s welcoming smile.

“She’s not too happy,” Tucker said.

“Want me to talk to her for you?”

“And say what? Sorry? Tried that already. It didn’t go down well.”

Jasper shrugged. Tucker knew enough about the army medic that he was at least sometimes reasonable. He must have been aware of that portion of the guy code that outlined, in no uncertain terms, to not cock-block your fellow bro. Though even Tucker could maybe admit that the conquests of his cock paled in importance to the safety of the world. Or at least he could admit that now, thinking with the right head, just as long as Macy’s firm ass wasn’t snug up against him.

Right now, he doubted any part of him would ever be that close to any part of her again.

“I can find her,” Jasper said. “I’ll talk to her.”

“And you’ll say I forced Tucker to steal your data? That I’m an idiot?”

“You want me to say that you’re an idiot?”

“You,” Tucker said. “That you’re an idiot.”

Jasper smiled. “I’m an idiot. Okay. What else?”

“I don’t know. You tell me. What other stunts have you pulled to sabotage me and Macy’s friendship?”

“So it’s a friendship now?”

“Of course it is,” Tucker said. “That’s all it ever was.” He felt the sadness come rushing back.

“Hey,” Jasper said. “Cheer up.”

The few days of friendship they’d had could be the most he’d ever achieve as far as Macy was concerned. He worried that now, since he’d broken her trust, it would just be a steady free-fall through the oblivion. Back through the gaping hole of time and place. From friends to nothing. Could something like that happen so swiftly? Their reuniting, and reignition, certainly happened quickly. A falling out might be even faster.