“No.”
“You sure? You seem tense.”
“I’m not tense.”
“Right.” Shaw opened the folder, scanning the contents with that infuriating calm he always carried. “Negotiation scenario. We have two hours to develop and present a tactical response to a hostage situation. Parameters are here.”
Hudson forced himself to focus on the page Shaw slid across the table. Words. There were words on the page. He should probably read them.
“Hale.”
Hudson looked up. Shaw watched him with dark eyes holding a hint of amusement.
“You going to actually read that or?—?”
“Fuck off.” Hudson jerked the paper out of Shaw’s hand and read the scenario.
Hostage situation in an urban environment. Multiple civilians. Armed hostiles. Time-sensitive. Standard military mission with a hundred variables.
“Thoughts?” Shaw asked after a minute.
Hudson had thoughts. None of them were about hostages.
He cleared his throat. “We need to establish priorities. Civilian safety first, then neutralize the threat, then secure the area.”
“Agreed. What’s the approach?”
“Depends on the terrain. Do we have aerial support?”
“Let’s say we do.”
Hudson’s mind immediately went to helicopters, insertion points, the kind of flying he wanted to be doing. Shaw watched him, and Hudson realized he’d been quiet too long.
“Sorry. Yeah. Aerial support changes everything.” He forced himself to think tactically. Shaw's knee was still pressed close to his under the table, which—no. Tactics. Focus on tactics. “Insertion point here. Two teams. Distraction and extraction.”
They worked through the scenario for maybe twenty minutes, and it was fine. Normal. They were good at this; had been since day one. Their minds worked differently but complemented each other. Shaw saw patterns Hudson missed. Hudson took risks Shaw wouldn’t consider.
It should have felt easy.
Instead, Hudson tracked every movement Shaw made. He tapped his pen against the paper when he was thinking. He leaned forward whenever he traced something on the map, close enough that Hudson could count the few freckles across the bridge of his nose.
“Hale,” Shaw said after he lost his train of thought for the third time. “You want to talk about it?”
“Talk about what?”
Shaw shot him a look. “Don’t play stupid. You know what.”
Hudson glanced around. Everyone else were absorbed in their own scenarios, voices low, no one paying attention. But still. “Not here.”
“Then where?”
“I don’t know. Nowhere. We don’t need to talk about it.”
“So we’re just going to keep avoiding each other?”
“It’s worked so far.”
“Has it?” Shaw leaned back in his chair, arms crossed,watching Hudson with that unreadable expression. “Because from where I’m sitting, you look like you are about to pass out.”
