Chapter 46
“You were off your game today, Firefly.” Breaker’s voice interrupted my thoughts as I pressed the bar back into its rack. He leaned over me in the gym with his hands on his hips, like he had anything important to say. “You and your little mouse get into a fight last night, or what?”
“My little mouse?” My brow twitched. “The fuck is that supposed to mean?” Asking him that question was a sign that I was ascending to a new level of masochism that went beyond punishing my body through strength training, and I regretted it as soon as I said it.
No matter how he responded, I was guaranteed to hate the answer.
“How long have you known me?” Here we go with the obtuse questions.
“Over two years too long.” I scoffed, and grabbed the bar again, over this conversation before it began.
“And have you ever known me to miss small details?”
Considering everyone missed the fact that Vann is a fucking woman using an illegal A2 installed on an illegal CHRONO, yes Breaker, I have known you to miss small details.
“Just fucking say it.” I started doing slow reps to calm myself down.
His grin was playful and yep, I’m going to hate it. “Did you fuck him and ruin your friendship?”
An exhale was violently knocked from my lungs as I dropped the bar on my chest, completely fucking stunned. It would be a wonder if I didn’t have some broken ribs of my own after that impact.
“Whoops, looks like I should have been spotting you before I asked that question.” Breaker added with a mocking smirk. “That response is rather telling though.”
I replaced the bar in pure frustration and sat up on the bench. Fuck, that hurt. “Do you want me to break your nose again?”
“Weird that you still haven’t said no.” Breaker shrugged, painfully immune to my threats.
It was genuinely annoying that he went through life without a care, knowing he could defend himself well enough to back up his mouth.
A necessary skill for someone like him, to be fair.
Half his fighting ability probably came from the fact that he never knew when to shut the fuck up.
“He’s a guy,” I said, the lie burning my tongue.
“Also not a no,” Breaker was so quick to point out.
“No.” I didn’t want to talk about her right now. Just thinking ‘her’ instead of ‘him’ in regards to fucking Mishka was enough to sour my mood all its own.
Why the fuck did everyone think I had romantic intentions with her when they all thought she was a guy, anyway? Even if they figured I didn’t care about gender, what part of our interactions implied anything other than simply being the captain and the cadet, trainer and trainee?
Was it the part where I broke her fucking ribs?
The part where I singled her out over and over again to torment her?
Or all the times I carried her sandbags up the hill and sent her down to do push-ups just to demean her?
Or perhaps when I targeted her in the simulator and slept off campus so I wouldn’t have to share a room with her.
I mean, I could admit, at least to myself, that after I faced off with her on the mat, I gained a bit of respect for her, and maybe I was curious about who she was with the way she spoke and fought and approached things, despite her obvious physical disadvantages.
But that wasn’t some kind of affection. That was just respect among soldiers. I’d known countless men who didn’t have half the balls she had, so of course I’d fixate on her. That was what drew me to Seba and Breaker, too. It wasn’t weird.
Since when did vague admiration and spending time together come off as intimate?
My parents didn’t exhibit either of those things toward each other, and neither did any other couple I knew who met in the matchmaking program.
The people who bought me for the night certainly didn’t treat me with respect.
Romance was lusting after each other like dogs in heat to make as many children as possible, not long, probing conversations and shared lifestyles.
That wasn’t what relationships looked like anywhere around me, so I failed to see how our dynamic resembled something “romantic.”
Women were too far separated from men in the way we were allowed to exist in Mictlan, and our lives were directed in entirely too different of ways, so how could there be common ground in this universe or any other?
I recalled all the times she’d fought like a wildcat on the mat, never giving up no matter how hard she was beaten down, the ways she’d light up during mechanics, choose to spend every off day in the gym, and the too much interest she’d had in my dumb fixation on mythology.
The way she always listened to me in the weight room or in training, even when she was angry, like she cared more about improving than to let herself be held back by her own frustrations and our strained relationship.
Then there were the ways she seemed to notice things about me that I didn’t fully understand myself, even if I hated hearing it put into words.
All of those little similarities between us that had fooled me into thinking we weren’t that different.
Who am I trying to kid? Outside of our physical bodies, we weren’t that different, even if I was looking for the holes in that connection now that I knew what I knew.
Reality was that the more I understood about “Vann Callan” the faster “he” had gone from appearing weak and annoying to fierce and cute in my eyes, like his person changed the character of his entire appearance, and reconciling that with the fact that ‘he’ was a ‘she’ had my whole chest constricting in a confusing and incomprehensible way.
But again, it wasn’t a romantic way. It would be a stretch to call it romantic when she’d held onto me on the back of my bike with the trust that a passenger needed, then nudged up against me on my childhood bed, in a sanctuary where I’d never invited anyone else.
It was just some dumb instinct that had me putting an arm around her to keep her there, because she fit so nicely in the crux of my shoulder, and it was more comfortable to share our body heat than to sit alone.
I thought about the way she’d touched me when I showed her the tattoos and scars I wanted to hide, and the fact that I somehow knew she wouldn’t judge or criticize me for it.
And I thought about the fact that, at some point, without even realizing it, I’d fallen asleep under the lullaby of our shared connection.
Maybe my body already knew what I was too stupid to recognize.
I felt the heat in my face before I could stop it, and I blamed my workout for the increase in blood circulation.
No, fuck, that wasn’t romance. That was alcohol and exhaustion.
It was mutual respect and bonding between men that offered that shared sense of safety and equal footing, because in her inebriated state, she saw me as a fortress where she could lay her head, and in my inebriated state, I saw her as a person who I could open up to.
And the worst part was that we were both right, because I would have put myself between her and anyone who would harm her that night, and she…
I knew she wasn’t going to see me as less than because of what I shared with her.
The fact that she was here to avoid getting forced into matchmaking only further established that she might understand my reasons and my traumas better than anyone else here could.
Still, even if that could be misconstrued as “affection,” no one else saw those moments, so what did everyone else keep recognizing that brought them to this ridiculous conclusion?
“So is the problem that he rejected you then?” Breaker was the most unwelcome voice to ever force its way past my eardrums.
“Why would you even ask that?” I wanted to know what he was seeing, but I’d be damned if I was going to ask him that directly.
“Want me to make a list?” He raised a brow as if I was completely oblivious. “You’ve been unusually obsessed with him since he got here, for one.”
“Because we share a room. I didn’t have much choice in the matter.”
“But you had a choice to avoid him all the rest of the day, and instead, you’re always making up excuses to train with him, sit with him at meals, engage with him in class, get up in his face in your off time, and you were even the one who asked me to come celebrate his making rank, because…
what was it that you said again? You ‘don’t like him or anything, but he doesn’t seem to know anyone else, and he earned it.
Everyone deserves to celebrate making rank.
’” He spoke in a voice slightly deeper than his natural tone, and I absolutely did not sound like that.
The way he remembered everything I told him, word-for-word, was unnerving and a bit damning though.
“And that’s not even touching on those cute expressions that you make whenever you’re interacting with him. ”
Cute expressions? Now I know he’s just fucking with me.
“Are you sure you’re not the one who’s obsessed with me?” I cocked a brow in his direction, blatantly refusing to respond to that long but nonsensical list. “You’ve been paying entirely too close of attention to everything I do, sounds like.”
Breaker laughed that laugh that was so bright and full of sunshine that it hurt my eyes. “Oh, you have no idea, Firefly.” He gave me a hard pat on the back, and I sighed. I hated feeling so conflicted, and I hated even more that he saw right through me.
Maybe I had done all of those things, but that wasn’t that different to how I treated Seba or him when we’d first become friends.
They just pushed back harder, so it never escalated quite as far, and we were of the same rank, so I couldn’t boss them around.
It only looked differently with her because she was more in need of attention overall.
As always, he had it all wrong. And even if he hadn’t, I sure as fuck would be staying far away from her now.