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Cross chuckled, glad to take the tight look off Rusty’s face, but he wasn’t going to joke the topic away. “I want to be out, with you. I don’t know if there’s ever going to be an ideal time. I wish I’d done it while I was still playing.”

“We weren’t ready then.”

“I could’ve done it on my own. Come out as bi. Except then they’d have been sniffing around everyone in my life, and yeah, I didn’t want that for us.”

“And now?” Rusty did a good job of keeping his voice casual, but Cross could read tension in the lines of his body.

“Now I’m ready. Anytime, anywhere. I wanted to kiss you in that hospital parking lot after my surgery. But we should strategize, really think about your career and what makes sense. Maybe I should hire a PR person to plan—”

“No, don’t, not like that.” Rusty took a ragged breath. “I don’t want you and me to be this project with optics and scripted releases and whatever. Can’t we just come out when we’re ready, and what happens, happens?”

Cross thought that was optimistic, maybe na?ve. But then, so was Rusty in a way that Cross cherished and didn’t want to squash. “We can do that.”

“Maybe after development camp, like you said. Once I get to make whatever impression. And then there’s still two months of off-season for people to get tired of us.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Cross didn’t want to distract Rusty but he leaned over and kissed his shoulder. “Hey.” The emotions couldn’t be held back. “I love you.”

“Yeah?” A wide smile bloomed across Rusty’s face. “That’s cool ’cause I love you too. Although not cool because I can’t stop here and kiss you.”

“When we get to Eugene.”

“For sure.” Rusty reached across the gap between their seats and took Cross’s hand.

Cross looked down at their fingers woven together, at the length and strength and scant hair and short nails of Rusty’s hand.

He’d held Willow’s small hand sometimes and liked how his grip protected hers.

But he liked this even better, strength returned for strength.

They let go after a while since sweaty palms weren’t romantic. But for the remainder of the drive, as they talked about movies and hockey with a little baseball thrown in, Cross felt random smiles crossing his face, just for being beside the man who’d said, “I love you too.”

Eugene was a lot smaller than Portland, and it only took about ten minutes off the highway before they were pulling up to the modest house where Rusty had rented the basement.

“I don’t see her car,” Rusty said. “Let me text her so she knows we’re here.” He sent a text, got an immediate one back. “She says come around to the side, she’s in my old place.”

Cross opened the door and eased himself out. Technically, he could walk in this new boot, but his foot ached from two hours on the wrong side of gravity. He dug out his crutches and settled on them, then swung the door shut. Rusty led the way down around the house toward the basement slider door.

They’d reached the patio— two dark-clothed men jumped out of the bushes, guns in hand, ski-masks over their faces.

“Fuck!” Rusty whirled, putting himself between Cross and the men. Cross tried to go for the panic button on his smart watch, but he was unbalanced and the cuffs of his crutches hampered him. His heart raced and his palms went damp as he fumbled.

“Hands high!” The nearer man leaped to Cross’s side, grabbed his wrist, and aimed the gun at his head. “Don’t touch anything.”

“Okay, okay, relax.” Cross fought to keep his voice soothing, his training cutting in. “We’re listening.” The pounding of his heart made it hard to focus.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Rusty’s belligerence didn’t hide the fear in his voice. “Leave us alone.”

“Nope.” The taller man aimed his weapon at Rusty’s stomach. “Keep your hands up or you’ll find out how hard it is to score goals with a hole in your gut.”

Any hope they were facing a random mugging died. Cross gritted his teeth and balanced on his good foot. His ankle chose that moment to pulse a hot dagger up his leg. “I need my crutches,” he said. “Don’t shoot me if I fall over.”

“Hold still.” The masked man unstrapped Cross’s smart watch and flung it under the nearby bushes, then eased behind him, dug in his pocket, and found his cell phone. He tossed that off into the bushes too.

Cross wobbled, perhaps a bit more dramatically than he needed to. Be underestimated.

The masked guy behind him said, “Okay, crutches, but keep your hands on the grips or I’ll shoot you in the other leg.”

“What do you want?” Rusty demanded, hands high as the taller man removed his phone and the SUV keys and tossed them aside.

“Shut up.” The taller man stepped back and gestured with his gun. “That way, past the hedge, over to the van.”

“You’re making a mistake.” Cross tried to sound calm despite his shortened breath. “You don’t want to do this. So far, you’ve just waved guns around, but this is kidnapping.”

“No shit, Sherlock. Move it.” The smaller man thumped Cross hard between the shoulder blades and he staggered, just managing to catch his balance.

Sharper pain flared up his leg. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“We’re not resisting.” Cross gave Rusty a frown, trying to convey that message.

Rusty was inches taller and a lot more built than either of these guys, but muscles couldn’t beat guns.

Play along, keep things calm. “I’m going to walk forward now.

” He was aware, every time he put his good foot down, of the shoe he was wearing.

The shoe, and the tracker embedded in the heel of every pair.

Or were they only in the right-shoe heels?

Panic caught at his throat because all his right shoes were home in the closet.

But no. Amy was beyond efficient. If Cross was left-only for months, she would’ve made sure he was covered.

He hobbled forward, as slowly as he could get away with, limping heavily although the pain meant that was only a small exaggeration.

He prayed inside his head that Amy was her usual efficient self. Help!

“You can’t do this.” Rusty hung back, chin jutted out. “We’re not going.”

The shorter man looked Rusty up and down. “I can shoot you in the leg and drag you along. Might be easier.”

“No!” Cross couldn’t help begging. “No, please, don’t hurt him. As long as you have both of us, we’ll cooperate, right Rusty?”

The short man shoved Cross again and he stumbled forward.

“All right!” Rusty hurried to catch up. “Leave him alone.”

“Hands up, motherfucker,” the short man said. “Go on. One step at a time.”

The masked guys herded them through the hedge and over to a blue van.

They opened the back doors to an empty load space and short-guy snatched Cross’s crutches, tossing them back toward the hedge one by one.

“Get in.” Short-guy shoved him again and he slammed into the bumper with his knees.

He couldn’t hold back a whimper of pain.

Rusty whirled, snarling, and tall-guy whipped the gun against Rusty’s jaw. Rusty staggered.

“Next time, I’ll shoot you,” Tall-guy said, ice-cold. “Keep your hands in the air.”

Climbing into the back without using his hands was tricky.

Cross turned, sat his ass on the lip of the loadbed, and scooted back, pushing with his good foot.

The shorter guy stuck his gun in his hoodie pocket and climbed in after him.

A pair of handcuffs was clipped to a recessed eye bolt in the floor near Cross.

Following orders, he lowered his right hand and flinched as the short man clipped one cool metal cuff tightly around his wrist.

Short-guy told Rusty, “You next.”

Under the tall man’s unwavering gun, Rusty submitted to the same treatment on the other side of the van, his wrist locked to the floor. Then the short man hopped out and shut the doors behind him.

The front wall had a small window into the cab, the daylight bright enough for Cross to see Rusty easily.

A shadow moved across the window, and he saw one of the men peering back, watching them, ski mask still in place.

He resisted the urge to give the man the finger. Cooperate, don’t antagonize them.

“Well, this sucks,” he murmured, figuring out a way to sit with his back against the side and his legs outstretched. The van started up, then began moving.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Rusty ground out.

“On the plus side, my foot is now elevated.”

Rusty choked. “Was that meant to be funny?”

“A little bit funny?” A sudden stop had Cross sliding up against the covered wheel well, thumping his hip.

“I think I preferred the last time I was kidnapped, when I got to do my own driving.” Although not really, when Scotty sat in the backseat, a gun to his head, about to die if I hit a pothole wrong.

“How come you didn’t freak out that time?” Rusty stared around the back of the van, wild-eyed. “Dale said you were super cool.”

I hid it well. Cross tried to cling to his faith in his people, in Amy and her systems, but knowing they’d come after him wasn’t the same as actually being safe.

He might only be worth money alive, but criminals panicked, shit happened.

He fought to pull in long, slow breaths, counted to twenty, and steadied his voice against the racing of his heart.

“My dad sent me and Marie to kidnapping preparedness training when I was ten and she was fourteen.”

“Seriously?”

“He didn’t get to be an elite computer programmer by ignoring probabilities or failing to cover all the bases. Yeah.”

“Was it useful?”

“I learned some skills.” He didn’t want to discuss what.

There’d been a lot about getting out of restraints, and he could pick a handcuff lock with a paperclip or a shim.

He had a tool in his wallet. But the ski-mask guy was still watching through the window.

Cross might get his own cuff off, but he wouldn’t be able to free Rusty before the kidnappers realized they had a problem.

And with the damned boot, he couldn’t run even if they got the chance.

He murmured, “Stay cool, speak softly, cooperate unless you have a great shot at getting away. Try to get your kidnappers to see you as a human being like them.”

“Fuck ’em.” But then Rusty lowered his voice. “I think the short guy’s Tyler. I’m so sorry.”

“Shh.” Cross shuddered, and barely breathed his words.

“If it is, don’t let them know we know.” Victims who saw their kidnappers were a lot less likely to go home safely.

And if it was, Tyler’s obsession with Rusty plus his drug use gave this a whole added unpredictability.

Shit. What if he wants more than money? What if this isn’t just for ransom?

Will he hurt Rusty? His stomach cramped with nausea.

“So this is my fault,” Rusty moaned.

“No fault, no blame. We’re gonna hang in there.” He added on another faint breath, “Trust Amy.” Rusty had barely any interaction with her, but Amy oozed competence. Cross figured a reminder that the pros would be after them in a hot minute would help.

“Will she—?” Rusty shook his head. “No, don’t tell me. Here.” He shifted around and lifted Cross’s boot to better elevation on his thigh. “How’s your ankle?”

“Been worse,” Cross told him, and when Rusty took up a one-handed massage of his calf muscles, Cross murmured, “Thank you,” even though it twinged his foot.

Bloodflow was good, elevation was good. Rusty doing anything he could for Cross in this scary situation was, well, everything.

I love you. He didn’t say it because it was leverage for the kidnappers. But he thought the words hard.

Amy would suspect by now that they had a problem.

As soon as his shoe-heel tracker got more than five hundred feet from his smart watch off his own property, Amy would get an alarm.

As a teen, he’d been chased down more than once, pre smart-watch, for forgetting his phone different places.

But he hadn’t done that in years, so Amy would be on high alert.

The speed they were travelling would tell her he was in a vehicle.

The Highlander’s stationary GPS would show it wasn’t his own car.

Amy will be after us. She’ll help.

That certainty wasn’t enough to calm the flutters of panic in his belly.

His vision went dark and hazy around the edges and his throat tightened until he couldn’t breathe.

Sharp pulses of pain in his chest felt like an oncoming panic attack.

No! This is not the rented Navigator. No gun to Scott’s head.

No gun to Rusty’s head. He focused on the feel of Rusty’s fingers on his skin. He’s alive. We’re both alive.

He wished it was another nightmare. I might wake up any minute. But the fiery pain in his ankle and the full-sensory impact of metal under his ass and the engine in his ears and his own sweat already soaking his pits said no.

All we have to do is survive. Stay calm. Get free. He wrestled with his panic, trying to be cool for Rusty. Remember your training.

Cross shifted his ass on the hard loadbed to make sure his wallet was still in his pocket.

Trying to escape was supposed to be a last resort.

Wait for rescue unless the situation was going bad.

This had to be about money, right? Tyler wasn’t just in it for revenge.

He could’ve shot them right there at Mrs. Murinko’s…

Rusty stopped rubbing Cross’s ankle and reached toward him as far as he could.

Cross reached back, squeezed Rusty’s fingers before the uncomfortable position meant they had to let go. Stay cool, stay calm, mon chou. We’ll be okay. He prayed that was true.