3. Aidan #2
Not infidelity, I had never cheated on him.
But there had been…complications on my end.
Everything worked perfectly fine, and sometimes I could perform without issues.
And yet there was always the specter, the lingering ghost of my inability to follow through.
I never understood it; I enjoyed sex, and I was attracted to him just as I had been attracted to others.
And yet…there was something that kept me from having a healthy sexual relationship with him, a lingering fear, an almost revulsion of the act itself that made me avoid it.
And that had created its own set of problems, its own promises, its own deceit.
My anger died down. I was still justified in being angry with him, but…I had my dishonesty as well.
“Great,” I muttered with a heavy sigh. “Now I feel angry and ashamed. This conversation is already going great.”
“Not my intention,” he said.
I glanced over as I dumped the diced onions into a bowl. “But you’re not going to argue.”
“Well, if it gets you to talk to me instead of fight me, I’ll accept it. I don’t want to make you feel like shit though,” he said with a wince.
“Not on purpose?”
“I hurt a lot of people by accident back then.”
“Huh, guess I’m not the only one feeling sorry for myself.”
“You are not.”
There was a weird comfort in that, and I turned to grab the garlic, peeling off some cloves. “So what? We say we’re sorry and move on with our lives; is that the point of this?”
“We have to start somewhere, don’t we? We can’t keep going on the way we’re going,” he told me, and I was reminded how much I hated it when he was right. “People are going to notice a lot more than they already have, and I don’t want Xander to notice.”
“He seems kind of…aggressive,” I admitted, chopping the garlic.
“Well, he didn’t want someone like you in the first place. I mean, not like—”
“Social media, whatever,” I said, using the knife to wave my hand to convince him to move on with the subject.
“Look, if he figures out we have a history, a romantic one, he’s going to get pissy and defensive.
He’s protective as hell of everyone here, and this place.
If he thinks for a second our past is going to affect the job, he’s going to pitch a fit.
And you’ll probably end up on the chopping block over it because you’re new and your position…
offends him, I guess,” he said with a shake of his head and a thunk of the bottle.
“I don’t want you to lose your job because of… all that.”
“Goddammit,” I muttered as I grabbed a pot and began filling it with water. “You had to be…to think about me. It would be your ass too.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been here longer and, uh…no offense, but it’s harder to find someone who can fill the dual role I do, than it would be for you,” he said.
I glanced at him, a little amused. “Kind of hard to argue with that. Fuck you for saying it, but you’re right, I’m sure.”
“I don’t want that to happen,” he said as I set the pot on the stove and, after a few clicks, got the burner going.
“I’d kind of prefer I didn’t lose my job over my asshole of an ex-boyfriend either,” I said, keeping my voice light.
“Oh, well, if you’re going to call me that, I assume we’re actually talking,” he said with a snort.
“What? Gonna assume you know me?” I asked, managing a light tone even though what I wanted was to fling a hard spoon at him. “It’s been a few years.”
“Weren’t you the one who said people don’t really change, they just…stiffen up?” he wondered.
I pulled a pan out and set it on the stove thoughtfully. “You know, I can’t remember which one it was, but it was one of Anne Rice's books, part of her Vampire Chronicles. I should download those again; it’s been ages since I read them. Used to love them as a teen.”
“I’m surprised; you used to love going back to books you'd read almost as much as reading new books,” he said.
I shrugged. “Things change, you should know that. Ugh, sorry, that wasn’t supposed to sound that bitchy.”
“I wasn’t bothered,” he told me, and I sighed.
“Right,” I said, wondering if he was really being that understanding or if he was just playing nice in…well, I guess in the interest of playing nice. “I still read books I’ve read before, but…I just don’t read like I used to.”
“A shame, I used to love watching you read,” he told me softly. “But…hard to blame you. I sadly don’t read like I used to either. Well, not outside what’s required for work. But…I have to ask—”
I eyed him, taking in his wariness but not getting any bad vibes. “What?”
“I mean…your title is Social Media Manager,” he reminded me, raising an eyebrow. “That’s…that’s not something I expected.”
The question wasn’t surprising, but the disbelief in his voice made me laugh.
“I mean, I guess I could say you’ve missed a lot in my life, but…
no, not really. You’re right, it makes little sense at all.
Hell, made little sense that I got the job in the first place.
I mean, why the fuck would some government outpost for Search and Rescue give a fuck about being popular online?
Why would they choose me when I don’t have that kind of experience? ”
“All great questions, and I’m surprised Xander hasn’t grilled you about them yet.”
“Oh, for some reason, he’s been holding off from asking me. I kinda think Colin has been distracting him.”
“You and Reno,” he said with a sigh, and when I glanced at him, he rolled his eyes. “He said something similar. Just a weird reminder of how much you used to remind me of him.”
“You said that a few times, back when we were together,” I said, waiting till the water was good and boiling before fetching the dry pasta.
While I was there, I retrieved the ground beef and the garlic butter from the fridge.
“Which was weird because, hell, you told your boyfriend he reminded you of your brother. But your twin brother? That makes it even weirder.”
He frowned at me. “Don’t…make it weird.”
“It’s already weird, want to ask him?”
“No!”
“Which means he’d agree with me, confirming the similarities between him and me, and further proving my point.”
“You proved nothing except that you’re a weirdo who’s making my brother a sexual part of this conversation, which is the weird part.”
“I think that’s the least weird part, but you know,” I said as I turned on the oven and began buttering the bread, “I wondered if your brother was as cute as you. Little did I know he was exactly as good-looking as you.”
“Oh God, don’t ruin the goodwill by saying what I’m afraid you’re going to say.”
I set the bread down and grinned. “I wonder how many of the guys you’ve dated, and how many of the girls he’s dated realized they know what the other brother looks like naked. I mean, it is the same, isn’t it?”
He stared at me, his features drawing back in horror. “Congratulations. I was afraid you were going to ask about a twin threesome, and instead you went for broke and found something so much worse to say. Fuck you for that.”
I cackled like a madman. “Amazing, so…is it?”
“I don’t fucking know,” I said with an aggrieved sigh. “I don’t examine Reno’s naked body, and I hope he’s not examining mine.”
“Eh, I suppose there’s always the showers,” I said thoughtfully, stirring the pasta.
“Then again, it’s not the same because neither of you would be hard but…
hmmm, no, my memory isn’t good enough to compare.
But am I really the person who would try to seduce my ex-boyfriend and then his straight twin brother to confirm whether their dicks are the same while hard? ”
Mika’s face was the picture of horror. “Why are you the way you are?”
“Oh, you know, difficult relationship with my mother, awkward one with my father, some not so great experiences as an in the closet teen, a couple of nasty boyfriends, one in particular, and I’m sure there’s some genetic and potentially cosmic reasons I have no desire to dig into,” I said with a wave of the spoon before dropping the meat into the pan and listening to it sizzle and spit.
“How is your mom, by the way?”
“Eh, we’ve…gotten better. I think time apart, some growing up on both of our parts, and you know, other shit, has helped.
We’re close…ish. Kinda weird to see your mom mature at the same time you’re growing up, but boom, here we are,” I said with a little laugh, moving the meat around, tossing in the onions as well. “You…uh—”
“I’m forever left mourning my own. I’ve just…figured out how to deal with the grief.”
“And the regrets?”
“Still figuring that one out.”
I nodded. “I wondered about that for ages afterward. Both for you and myself.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just…what I would have been like if I had lost my mother at the same age. I mean, I met you when I wasn’t even speaking to mine.
Hadn’t spoken to her for a couple of years.
And after some time, and her and I figuring out how to have a relationship without wanting to beat each other’s asses…
it made me wonder what state I would be in if I’d lost her before I had that chance.
Kind of helped me understand how fucked in the head that left you, how hard it would be to live with all those ugly feelings among the happy, good ones, but then to live with a whole new set of feelings because I’d never be able to figure out the first set of emotions and grow the second ones. ”
His silence as I cooked made me look, and I saw the thoughtful look on his face and winced. “Uh, sorry. That was…I think insensitive is a good start, and outright dickish is a safe landing zone.”
His mouth crooked. “No, you’re fine. I just…it’s still strange to hear people voice what’s going on in my own head. Not always exactly, but even being close is well…weird.”
“Right,” I said, seasoning the meat and onion mixture and grabbing the tube of tomato paste. “By the way, it sucks in a whole new way that I didn’t know about Reno before, let alone know him.”
“I…” he began, and I wondered if he was going to add anything, but I could sense his difficulty.