Page 29 of Lifeline

“And you’re as obstinate as you’ve always been; you’ve just refined it,” I snorted. “Some things don’t change.”

“And some do,” he said, looking at me curiously.

“Is it…safe now?” Reno wondered, and I gave him an unimpressed look.

“Drama queen,” I said as I turned my attention back to my computer. “What’s a little verbal sparring between friends?”

“Sparring,” Reno muttered. “If I had a ‘sparring’ match like that with one of my exes, I’d be torn to shreds.”

“That sounds like a skill issue,” I told him, grinning when Mika laughed in what I thought was agreement.

Reno raised an eyebrow. “So, speaking of boyfriends⁠—”

I winced. “Must we?”

“I think we’re all going to need to accept the fact that Colin and Xander are…a thing,” Mika said, dropping onto the opposite end of the couch from me. “Not a thing I expected, though now I think about it…I suppose the signs were there.”

“You know, I wondered about that, but I always assumed Xander was straight,” I admitted.

“As far as we knew, he was,” Reno said with a shake of his head. “I mean, Colin’s a good-looking guy and all, but so good-looking as to turn a guy gay?”

“I doubt he’s gay,” Mika said. “And it’s probably a bad idea to go digging too hard into their business because that feels like the best way to get in trouble.”

“I can’t help but be curious,” I admitted and then looked at Reno. “Why, worried that if someone like Xander could be turned onto the glory that is dick, you’ll be next?”

“No!” Reno protested and sputtered when Mika and I laughed. “Shut up. You’re assholes.”

“Oh, God, don’t we know it?” I teased. “Don’t worry, if you have any gay thoughts you need to get off your chest, you can come talk to me. I’ll help you through it.”

He stared at me. “You’re just trying to get the package deal. You had my brother, and now you want me.”

“Hardly,” I said and smirked. “Though I guess if the opportunity presented itself⁠—”

“Stop,” Reno protested as Mika groaned. “Just…don’t.”

“Then again, you’re different from your brother. So if you were to suddenly crave meat in your mouth, you’d probably go after a different type than me,” I said thoughtfully, and Mika sighed, probably sensing the mischief bubbling in my soul. “You know, I can’t be sure, but I might be convinced to check it out personally. I would bet Jake is the perfect person to⁠—”

“Jesus,” Reno said, turning away with a grumble. “Bad enough I had to watch our doc and our boss make out in front of us and then…whatever the fuck happened with Xander’s ex-wife, but this? Fuck off, and fuck you for laughing, Mika.”

“I’m allowed to find something funny,” Mika said, but he was looking at his brother curiously. “That being said⁠—”

“I’m done with both of you,” Reno snapped. “I’m going back to the lab. Might even sleep there. Try not to kill each other without supervision.”

I watched Reno go, practically stomping off as he left the rec room with a storm cloud over his head. “Uh, what did I just do?”

“Not sure,” Mika said slowly, his head tilting slightly. “He’s been…I don’t know. Something is going on with him; I just haven’t been able to figure out what. I keep waiting for him to talk to me. He almost inevitably does when something is bothering him, but he rarely takes this long.”

“It bothers you that he isn’t talking to you about it, doesn’t it?” I guessed.

“A little,” he admitted, rolling his shoulders in a way that struck me. It was something he did when he was uncomfortable and unsure. “I⁠—”

I waited patiently, biting back the comment that was meant to provoke him to talk and letting him sort through his thoughts. Once, I would have waited only so long before I prodded him to say something. I just needed to remind myself that I needed time to sort through my head occasionally, and he needed that more than most.

“You weren’t the only one I hurt with my behavior back then,” he said slowly, staring at the blank TV. “I was on the other side of the country from him, and even then it seemed like there wasn’t enough space.”

“From him?” I wondered, confused, considering how great their relationship was and how well he had spoken of his brother back then.

He sighed heavily. “It wasn’t him specifically, just as it wasn’t you when I kept things from you. All I wanted was to get as much distance between the version of myself I had become growing up and the person I wanted to be when I finally moved out on my own. So that meant talking too much about my childhood or sharing what was going on in my head when it came to you and others, and it also meant I pushed Reno out of my life and created a large gap between us.”