6. Mika
MIKA
A frustrated growl interrupted me. “Would you stop that?”
“What?” I asked in confusion and annoyance as I looked at my brother, who was scowling at me. “What is your problem?”
“You and that damned humming,” he huffed, gesturing in my general direction. “You’ve been off and on doing it all day and you can’t carry a tune to save your life!”
“I can, too.”
“Please. You’ve been humming the same three songs all day and I can’t tell what song it is, that’s how bad you are,” Reno grumbled.
“Rude,” I muttered. “Maybe you’ve just got a bad ear.”
“Or maybe you’re tone-deaf and can’t carry a tune,” he shot back.
“Fuck off,” I said, picking up a pen and throwing it so it bounced off the top of his head.
“Quit!” he snapped, and I smirked. “Don’t look at me like that, you haven’t won shit.”
“Anyone with any brains would understand that if there’s something to win or lose between us, you automatically lose,” I told him as I set the machine to compile.
Against all odds, Xander had argued his point, and our funding had been tweaked.
Not a huge amount, but enough for me to replace some of the sensing equipment and start getting reliable results.
Now, if only I could get them to upgrade the computers, I might not feel like I was living in the Stone Age half the time.
“God, I hate when you’re in a good mood,” he said, glaring at his screen.
Clearly he wasn’t having as good luck as I was today, and he was in a sour mood.
Much like someone else I knew, Reno could be in a grumpy mood only for something to come along and perk him up again.
It seemed Aidan and Reno had a hard time staying pissed for long with most things.
It was when they were well and truly pissed off that people had to worry.
They were easily frustrated and irritated, but they didn’t hold on to that mood for long, so if you’d done something for them to hold on to it, then you’d well and truly fucked up.
“Who says I’m in a good mood?” I wondered as I leaned back in my seat.
“Me,” he huffed. “I can tell. But why? You haven’t left the outpost to get laid, and that’s the only time you’re perky.”
“My good moods are not predicated on whether I’m having sex,” I said with a frown.
Okay, admittedly, over the past week, I’d had two more orgasms with another person than I’d had in the previous three months, so that was probably helping.
Aidan and I had managed a whole twenty-four hours before we found ourselves alone in the rec room again and shared blowjobs were the name of the game again.
Nothing else had happened, or anything more than blowjobs, but I felt I could safely chalk that up to the circumstances and not because his old problems were still rearing their heads.
At least, that’s what I kept telling myself.
We hadn’t spoken about those old problems much, or how they were still affecting me, but I doubted they were completely absent from his mind.
He hadn’t brought it up either, so I was left to wait and see what he would do.
It was all too possible that he could power through simply on the strength of not having been with me in years, so it was a matter of time.
“Are you getting laid?” Reno asked, and I ducked as my pen flew back in my direction.
“Hey! Quit,” I barked at him. “And why are you so focused on what I might or might not be doing in my free time? No wonder people make twin sex jokes around us with you trying to figure out where my dick has been.”
“You started it,” he said, and his stress ball sailed across the room and caught me above the eye. “Ha!”
“Maybe you should worry about getting laid,” I snapped and hurled the ball back, hitting him in the mouth. “Serves you right.”
“How am I supposed to get laid when I’m stuck here with a bunch of guys?”
“Apparently, Colin figured it out.”
“I am not Colin.”
“Then I guess you’re going to have to find yourself a straight man to seduce and who can seduce you into liking guys,” I said with a smirk. “Or you’re going to have to wait until you can leave again.”
“Maybe I’ll ask Aidan,” he grumbled, and I narrowed my eyes. “What? You guys are exes, not boyfriends.”
“You’re straight,” I said, walking slowly around the table, making my way toward him. “And you don’t poach the exes of your friends or your siblings! It’s a rule.”
“Maybe it’ll work out with him when it didn’t with you,” he said, raising a brow and then looking wary when he saw I’d closed the distance. “What are you doing?”
“Say something stupid again,” I warned him, picking up a tube that had contained a topography map I’d been using for comparisons.
“Maybe that’s the solution to both our problems,” he said with a defiant look. “You can have one of my exes and try your hand at being straight, and I’ll—”
“Shut the hell up,” I offered, and then gave him a whack. When he flailed, trying to grab it, I twisted it around and gave him another smack on the side of his head. His arms did nothing to spare him from my onslaught, and I gave him several good whacks.
Which stopped short when he launched himself out of his seat with a battle cry.
I grunted as he collided with me, and I was sent flying backward, hitting the ground with a groan.
I didn’t realize I had been disarmed until I felt the hard cardboard smack my forehead, and when I swatted him, I earned another smack for my trouble.
“Fat ass!” I growled and gave him a push. He, of course, refused to budge, so I was left with the choice of either removing him or taking the beating until he gave up. Considering he could be a stubborn little shit when he was riled up enough, I knew my only choice was to take him on.
Reno’s grunt was harsh when my fist connected with his stomach, doubling him over as my blow took the fight out of him.
I knew it was only for a moment; I’d hit him enough times over the years to know how to keep him down.
That one was just hard enough to stun him and give me the chance to give him a shove, so he’d get off me since his legs were no longer locked at my sides.
Gripping the edge of the table, I got up.
I thought I heard something, but I was distracted from solving that mystery when a knot of pain formed in my thigh.
I gasped, seeing Reno pull his foot back after he’d kicked me and made my thigh muscles spasm in one of the oldest and cheapest moves in the book.
“Charlie Horse bitch,” Reno grumbled and tried to get up using the same table I had.
Except I was pushing through the pain in a way I wouldn’t have done when we were kids and lashed out, catching him in the chest, sending him sprawling onto his back with a pained grunt.
My leg still felt like it was a knot of pain, but there was no way in hell, heaven, or on earth I was going to let that stop me because that meant letting my brother win.
And that wasn’t going to happen.
He tried to kick me again when I came after him, but I smacked him away, rolling him onto his side as I jumped on him, shoving my fingers between his ribs to make him squawk like a wounded bird.
I grunted when his flailing ended with a fist smacked roughly against my chest, almost winding me again.
I held on tight though he flailed and bucked, trying to get me off while I continued digging into one of his ticklish spots and making him gasp for air.
“Fuck,” I hissed as I was tossed away and landed on the floor, grunting when his knee smacked into the side of my head by accident as he awkwardly tried to get on top of me despite being winded from the torture.
I still had enough life left in me, however, and I twisted to grab his arms before his hands could find purchase on me.
I bucked, trying to get him off when one of his hands got free and the dirty bitch smacked me in the face before I bopped him in the forehead with my open palm, making him rear back.
We froze when a voice piped up from somewhere above us. “It’s bad enough I’m supposed to be keeping all of you intact from the dangers of the job. Do you really think it’s necessary to make my job even harder by hurting each other?”
Reno craned his neck, and I looked up to find Colin standing at the edge of the table.
He was leaning over, elbow on the tabletop, chin in his open hand as he watched us with a mixture of amusement and annoyance.
The three of us stopped, Reno and I breathing like wounded buffalo, and Colin continuing to stare down at us, as if waiting to see if we would continue.
Now the mood had been ruined completely, I didn’t have the energy to continue.
With a huff, I gave Reno a shove, and with an incomprehensible grumble, he got up and held out a hand, which I took to help me back to my feet.
With a grunt, I rubbed my chest, which felt like it had taken the worst beating, while Reno rubbed his stomach and side.
“I’m not apologizing,” I told Colin because Reno knew damn well the only time I was apologizing to him for fighting was if I went too far…and I hadn’t. “Just so you’re aware.”
“Please,” Colin said. “I was the government-assigned babysitter for a bunch of Marines. You two fight like little girls. Actually, scratch that; that’s an insult to little girls.
You had a quarter of the ferocity of a girl fight and with none of the hair pulling. Even toddlers fight meaner than that.”
“He started it,” Reno said, and when Colin and I both rolled our eyes, he gave an indignant huff. “He did, though.”
“How?” Colin asked in amusement, clearly willing to encourage my brother, despite that being completely unnecessary.
“He threw a pen at me,” he said, then huffed. “Fine, I threw something back and—”
We stared at him as he trailed off and grew pink in the face. Colin chuckled. “I was coming to inform you that Jake took care of the rest of your duty today, so outside what you’re doing here, you’re free to go.”
Reno perked up. “He did? That punk.”