8. Mika
MIKA
With a groan that probably would have made more sense in a zombie movie, I tipped the box over the edge of the rented dumpster at the edge of the driveway leading to the outpost.
“Okay,” I grunted, pulling the dolly back, heading toward the house as Aidan threw a bag over the edge. “I think that about covers it.”
“We still have to dust, sweep, scrub, and mop every corner,” he said in a tired voice that I felt down to the depths of my soul.
It was day four of being put to work around the outpost; the first day had been cleaning up the debris from the storms so it looked presentable to guests.
That had bled into the second day, and then we were put to work cleaning the floor of the main house and the outer building that Mav and Carter used as their home away from home.
Then, we had been tasked with cleaning the basement, and not just any clean, but the deep clean you paid professionals to do.
“We’re going to have to do that tomorrow,” I said. I peered up at the sky as the last bits of light drained out of it. “It’s almost ending time.”
“Yeah, okay,” Aidan snorted. “You tell Xander that.”
“Like hell I’m doing that,” I muttered.
Xander’s reaction when he’d found out about the bar brawl had been predictably cataclysmic.
We had all been tempted to come up with a story to explain the injuries, but the only believable one was that we were trying to stop a group of men harassing someone.
Considering the only believable lie was a story that made us look good, downright honorable in fact, none of us had the heart to follow through on it.
Better to be punished as wrongdoers than to be free as false heroes.
It was probably a good thing all of us had been involved in the brawl, though, because he hadn’t been able to decide who needed to be punished the hardest. He had barely listened to what any of us had to say before he let us know we were supposed to be representing our outpost when we left to have a good time in town.
Of course, the first thing was that we weren’t going to have any group trips to town because we couldn’t behave like full-grown adults.
The rest…well, that was what all the cleaning and maintenance was for.
The rest of our punishment wasn’t going to end until everything was up to his standards.
The problem was, a pissed-off Xander, a well and truly pissed-off Xander, was even more of an exacting hard ass than usual.
I knew we were going to be busy for a few days until he either calmed down or we all just…
dropped. And whatever they might think, the sympathetic looks from Cait, Trevor, and Mav were not making any of us feel better.
I noticed the way Aidan was walking and stopped him. “Hey, your leg bothering you again?”
He winced. “A little; it gets worse as the day goes on. Let me sit down for a couple of hours, and I’ll be okay.”
I reached down to cup his face, tilting it so it caught the light from the outdoor lamp. “Your bruises still look pretty ugly.”
“Well, I got punched in the face at least three times,” he said with a frown. “Might have been more. You lose count when your brain cells bounce around your skull.”
“It was your own fault,” I told him with a huff.
He pulled his face out of my hand. “And what, let you get railed on by some asshole? Fuck that, and fuck you for trying to say I should have.”
“And it damn near got you a concussion because you took your attention off the guy you were dealing with,” I told him sternly. “You and Reno—”
“Stop comparing us all the fucking time,” he snapped at me and I realized we were both worn out, hungry, sleep-deprived, and feeling pissed off and guilty about what had happened. “Do you really think your ex-boyfriend and your twin brother like being compared to one another?”
“Well, you—”
“I don’t care if there’s similarities, Mikhail! I don’t care if you liked me because I reminded you of Reno and there was something nice about that, and I don’t care that it’s not supposed to be weird or whatever; I get that. But I’m sick and…what are you doing?”
“Taking your hand,” I told him, and curled my fingers into his.
He didn’t return the gesture, but he didn’t push me away either, so it was a start.
“I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have got on your ass for defending me.
I would have done the same if I’d noticed, and you’re right.
You’re a dumbass for doing it, but in your shoes, I would have been the same dumbass, and I don’t have a right to ride you about it. ”
The anger flared for a moment and then, like a candle in a hurricane, it went out in an instant, and his shoulders sagged, his fingers curling around mine.
He inched closer, bowing his head to tuck it under my chin and taking a deep breath.
“I’m being an asshole for no reason. We’re all in this together, and here I am, yelling at you like you’re the reason we’re here when really I’m just hurting, tired, and ready to be back to fucking normal. ”
“You and me both,” I said, closing my eyes and tilting my head down to kiss his temple. “And really, I meant to thank you for chasing Reno off that night.”
“Chase him off?” he asked, pulling back to look at me in confusion. “When?”
“After we got out to the parking lot. Reno can be…a mother hen whenever I get hurt. When we were about five…it was one of those times our dad up and disappeared and we didn’t understand why.
Our mom was drunk, like usual, and told us he had died in a terrible accident, and that’s what happened when you didn’t love your family, when you weren’t with your family.
You died horribly and alone because no one was there to help you,” I told him.
“Jesus,” he bit out bitterly. “That’s…fucked up.”
“I only remember it because Reno remembered and brought it up,” I said with a shrug.
“I think because it…stuck with him way more than it did with me. He wouldn’t leave me the hell alone when I needed to get stitches a few years later.
Refused to leave my side and was always checking on the stitches, even when they were fine.
Same thing when I sprained my elbow in middle school, and got a concussion senior year. He just…you know—”
“We’ve all got ghosts,” he said with a nod of understanding.
“I expected him to be up my ass since that fight, but the minute you gave me shit about it, he backed off,” I said with a shake of my head. “I guess you scared him off.”
“Maybe,” he said slowly. “Or…yeah, I guess.”
“No…what?” I wondered.
He closed his eyes. “Can we…get inside? I want to eat and sit down.”
“Okay,” I said in a tight voice, and he turned to me, surprising me not with an impatient scowl but a knowing smile.
He kissed me. “I’m not stopping the conversation, but my leg feels like it’s going to fall off. I want to get food in my stomach and curl up in that loft above your lab, just you and me. I don’t care if I could fall asleep on my feet, I want to lie with you and sleep there.”
That stopped me in surprise. “Huh?”
“I feel like shit.”
“Yeah, I get that. I just…” Whenever he had felt bad in the past, his instinct had always been to retreat and handle it on his own.
We’d never spent the night together because while we were still figuring out what was going on between us, we were keeping it from the others.
“You know what? Fuck it, I don’t care. Let’s do that. I want to do that.”
“Good,” he said with a shy smile, and we headed back to the main building only to stop when we heard Xander’s furious snarl.
“You should have thought of how worn out and beat up you’d be before you got into a fucking bar-room brawl!”
And then our eyes widened when his volume was equaled by Colin.
“If you want to be a pigheaded asshole without stopping long enough to get your head out of your ass and actually listen to the people who are supposed to trust and believe in you, then that’s on you, Xander.
I don’t rightly give a fuck because I’m through being marched around, dragged through bullshit because you’ve decided you’re going to be judge, jury, and executioner when you haven’t even stopped to listen to anything but your own bullshit! ”
“Trouble in paradise,” Aidan whispered, but he sounded nervous rather than amused.
“You said Colin has been sleeping in the main house for a few nights,” I said slowly as we crept closer and through the door as quietly as we could.
He nodded silently as we crept up the stairs to find that we weren’t the only ones who had come to see the fireworks. Jake, Reno, and Trevor were in the hallway staring at the kitchen door, and I remembered it had been Colin’s night to cook, which explained why they were fighting there.
“I said from the start I wasn’t going to treat you any differently, so I don’t know why you think that’s going to change just because you don’t like the punishment you earned,” Xander barked and I peered around the corner to see he was standing close to Colin.
He rarely got close to people when he was pissed, so I didn’t know if that was a sign of how mad he was or how close they were emotionally, or some combination of both.
“You can back up right now, Xander,” Colin said, fearlessly putting his hand carefully but firmly on his chest and pushing him back.
“And if you think this is about my wanting preferential treatment, then you really have gone off the deep end into your own ego. This is about all of us who were there. I didn’t ask for preferential treatment, and before you say it, I didn’t ask you to make me their babysitter! ”
“They all see you that way,” Xander snapped at him. “Every single one of them. Each of them acts like you’re the second in command and then you let them do shit like this?”
“Let them? In case you didn’t notice, they’re grown-ass men who can make their own choices.”
“Could have fooled me. I thought maybe you might—”