Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HUDSON
Hudson was losing his mind.
It had been three days since the locker room, and he had spent all of them trying to act like nothing had happened. It would have been easier if he could stop thinking about kissing Shaw again, but so far no luck.
Which is why, when Master Sergeant Chen announced strategic negotiation training and paired them, Hudson's entire body went rigid.
The training room had six tables scattered throughout the space, far enough apart that the groups were all out of earshot. The rest of the groups settled in—Reed with Novak, Briggs with Anderson, others Hudson barely registered because Shaw walked toward him and his brain went off the rails.
Shaw sat down across from him like everything was completely normal. As if Hudson hadn't had his mouth on him in more places than one.
“Hale,” Shaw said, voice perfectly neutral.
“Shaw.”
Close. Too close.
The table was smaller than he had expected, and when Shaw leaned forward to grab the folder in the center, his knee brushed Hudson’s.
Hudson jerked back like he’d been burned.
Shaw’s lips curved. “Nervous?”
“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.”
Hudson curled his hands into fists under the table. “I’m fine.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“And you’re an asshole.”
Shaw’s mouth curved. “So we’ve established. What are we going to do about it?”
“About you being an asshole?”
“About this.” Shaw gestured vaguely between them. “Because we both know it’s not going away.”
They were actually doing this. Right here, in the middle of a training exercise, surrounded by other people who could theoretically overhear if they paid attention.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Hudson said.
"I want you to stop pretending."
The words hit like a punch. Hudson stared at Shaw, mouth agape.
"Okay," Hudson heard himself say. "Hypothetically. If we were going to... do this again. What would that even look like?"
Shaw smiled. "Hypothetically?"
"Yeah. For the sake of the exercise." Hudson motioned at the negotiation scenario between them. "We're supposed to be practicing negotiation, right?"
"Right." Shaw leaned forward, amusement clear in his eyes. "So. Hypothetically. Party A—let's call him H—wants something. Party B—we'll call him S—also wants something. They need to establish terms."
"Terms," Hudson repeated.
"Ground rules. Parameters. The things that make this work for both parties."
A smile tugged at Hudson’s mouth. "Okay. So. Hypothetically. What does Party S want?"
Shaw held his gaze. He was quiet for a long moment—long enough that Hudson could see him work through some internal argument he wasn’t winning. When he finally spoke, it sounded like it took considerable effort. "Party S wants Party H to stop overthinking everything and admit he wants this too."
"That's not a negotiation term."
"Fine." Shaw tapped his pen against the paper. "Party S wants... discretion. No one can know. This stays between H and S."
Hudson nodded slowly. Made sense. Smart. "What else?"
"No complications. This is physical. Nothing more."
Physical worked. Physical didn't require him to figure out what the hell any of this meant. "Okay. And it ends when Selection ends. When we finish, this stops."
Shaw nodded. "Agreed. What else does Party H need?"
Hudson thought about it. About what he actually needed to make this work without completely losing his mind.
"No questions," he said finally. "About... labels or whatever. I'm not ready to—I don't know what this means. And I don't want to talk about it."
"Fair. No labels. No pressure. Just… this."
"This," Hudson echoed.
They stared at each other, the negotiation scenario forgotten between them. Around the room, other pairs were deep in their tactics, sketching plans, debating approaches. Hudson glanced around and caught Briggs watching them intently. His stomach lurched.
"So," Shaw said, dragging Hudson’s attention back. "Are we doing this or not?"
This was insane. Reckless. The kind of decision that could blow up in their faces in about a hundred different ways.
But Shaw observed him with dark eyes, and Hudson remembered the heat of him, his rock solid… everything, how nothing had ever felt that intense before.
"Yeah. We're doing this."
"Good." Shaw smiled slightly. "Terms established?"
"Terms established."
"Then we should probably get back to the actual assignment before someone notices we've been negotiating something else entirely."
Hudson laughed. "Right. The hostage situation."
"Which, just so you know, your insertion strategy won't work." He smirked.
"Excuse me?"
"The terrain's wrong for aerial insertion at that point. You'd be exposed for too long."
Hudson grabbed the map, suddenly competitive again. "No you wouldn't. If you came in from the east—"
"The east puts you directly in the sight line of the building."
"Not if you're fast enough."
Shaw leaned forward, close enough that his breath ghosted over Hudson’s face. "Fast enough isn't the same as smart, Hale."
"And playing it safe isn't the same as actually accomplishing the mission, Shaw."
They glared at each other across the table. Hudson felt that familiar spark of challenge, of competition—except now it was laced with heat unrelated to mission disagreements.
"Fine," Hudson said. "What's your brilliant plan?"
Shaw’s finger drew a circle on the map. "Ground insertion. Here." He tapped it. "Two-person team. Fast and without a sound."
"That's more dangerous."
"But more effective."
"How do you figure?"
Shaw started talking—laying out his strategy with that precise, methodical approach he had to everything. And Hudson listened, arguing points, suggesting modifications, falling back into their professional rhythm.
But now, every time Shaw's knee brushed his under the table, Hudson registered it everywhere. Like foreplay he had no control over.
By the time Master Sergeant Chen called time, they had a solid plan and a completely different agreement that no one else knew about.
They got up, gathering their materials. Around them, other pairs did the same, voices rising as people debated their solutions.
"Hale," Shaw said in a low voice as they headed toward the door.
Hudson glanced at him. "Yeah?"
"Storage room. Building C. 2300 hours."
"Tonight?" Hudson's throat went dry.
"Unless you've changed your mind."
Hudson saw the challenge in Shaw’s eyes and the slight curve of his lips—and reckless, immediate want hit him.
"I'll be there.”
Shaw nodded once and walked away.
The shelter had been impulse. The locker room, heat of the moment. But this? This was intentional. Hudson was choosing this. Choosing to meet Shaw. If he kept going, eventually he'd have to stop pretending he didn't know what it meant.
Future Hudson could deal with that—present Hudson was busy making terrible decisions.
Hudson pushed his food around his plate, chewing out of habit, hardly registering flavor.
Storage room. Building C. 2300 hours.
He had five hours.
"You okay?" Reed asked, nudging him.
Hudson blinked. "What?"
"You've been staring at your tray for like ten minutes. You sick or something?"
"No. Just tired."
Reed shrugged. "Fair enough. This week's been brutal."
Hudson nodded and forced himself to take another bite.
Across the hall, Shaw sat with a group Hudson didn't know well, looking relaxed. Like he hadn't propositioned Hudson in the middle of a training exercise.
Show-off.