Xander #4
Three more sets of eyes swiveled to me, Jake grinning. “Hey, Big Boss, you, uh…dunno how to say this but—”
“Maybe don’t?” Mika offered helpfully.
“Do we need to bury a body or what?” Jake asked in a rush. “Fuck it, I asked.”
“Oh,” Mika said, and frowned up at me. “Actually, that’s a pretty good question for once. Do we?”
“It’s not a good fucking question,” I growled at them. Jesus, what the hell? “And no! Now where is he?”
“Who?” Jake asked, and Reno got his arm free to smack Jake on the forehead. “Ow! Hey.”
“He’s looking for Colin,” Reno told him and then shoved his fingers up one of Jake’s nostrils.
“Hey!” Jake protested, rolling away and giving him a shove.
“Yes, that’s who I want,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “Can you pause for five seconds, stop being morons and just—”
“Uh,” Mika began and looked at the others who were averting their eyes, not looking at me.
“What?” I demanded.
“Well,” Jake began, and I knew it had to be something if the most oblivious man I knew was looking nervous.
“Do you know where he is or not?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Jake admitted slowly.
“So, where is he?”
Silence.
“Guys.”
Uneasy looks and more silence.
I heard a door open behind me. “Xander.”
I turned to see Cait standing in the doorway to her office. “What?”
“Come in,” she said. “You boys keep it down.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the four of them called back.
“Cait,” I began, but she gave me a look. “Fine.”
I went into her office, closed the door, and was quickly reminded why she came to visit me and not the other way around. Her office was cramped, and I could barely squeeze into the small chair in the corner as she took a seat at her desk, drawing out another bottle.
“I was going to give this to you for your birthday on my next visit, but this seems like as good a time as any,” she said, opening it and putting a glass down to fill and hand to me.
“Jesus, did he die?” I asked, heart skipping at the possibility. “Like Christ, did he go for a walk and break his skull on a rock or something?”
“No, he didn’t,” she began, and shook her head. “I forgot how you can freak out sometimes.”
“I’m not freaking out, but all of you are tempting me to,” I said with a glare. “What the fuck?”
“I’m not going to go into too much because I want to respect Colin,” she said slowly. “But he was…he was clearly not doing well after he left your cabin.”
“What? Why?”
“He didn’t say, but I think the reappearance of Mona certainly didn’t help.”
“Which is why I want to talk to him.”
“Well, he doesn’t want to talk to you…or anyone for that matter,” she said, pouring herself a small bit of the whiskey and sighing.
“He looked like a kicked puppy, but he was extremely sure that he didn’t want anyone bothering him.
And don’t even say it, because yes, I clarified that meant you too. He wants to be alone.”
“I don’t understand,” I said with a shake of my head. “If I could talk to him…since when the fuck doesn’t he want to talk? He always wants to talk, that’s all he does half the fucking time!”
“How long has this thing between you and him been going on?”
“What?”
“Don’t play stupid; that’s everyone else’s job, remember?”
I glared at her. “Does it matter?”
“I think it does…to him,” she said thoughtfully, swirling her small whiskey around in the glass. “Does it matter to you?”
I frowned, not sure what she was asking…or maybe not willing to admit it to her.
“I think maybe you should give that some thought,” she said seriously. “Because I’ve known you for a long time. You’re not a heartless man, but you can be a dense, thoughtless one sometimes. To the point of stepping on other people.”
“Thanks,” I said dryly.
“And he doesn’t,” she snapped, and I sat up straighter.
“So you think long and hard about what you’re going to say to him when you see him.
Because you’re going to see him. He’s taking some time to sort through how he feels.
God save us, he’s probably doing it so he can be in the right frame of mind to deal with you.
So you give him that time, because you can bet he’s going to be back at work tomorrow.
And then you’re going to be stubborn and try to talk to him, so you sit right there and you think, you think hard about what you’re going to say, and what he needs to hear. ”
“Cait, I don’t want to talk to you about—”
“Then don’t,” she said with a glare. “I have a new novel I want to be reading right now anyway, not dealing with not one, but two instances of your romantic melodrama.”
“You read dramatic romance novels.”
“Yes, I don’t have to live through them,” she snapped. “And so help you if this becomes a thing. If this becomes a pattern, I swear I will quit after setting your cabin on fire.”
“That’s…extreme.”
“So is your ex-wife showing up to find you making out with the latest addition to your team…along with everyone else here seeing it. So talk to me, or don’t. But you think, Xander, you fucking think, got it?”
I glared at her. “Got it.”
“Good,” she said, snatching her book off her desk, turning her music back up and leaning back in her seat to read.
So…that was apparently my plan for the night.