Page 16 of Lifeline

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.”