Page 49 of Lifeline

I reached down to cup his face, tilting it so it caught the light from the outdoor lamp. “Your bruises still look pretty ugly.”

“Well, I got punched in the face at least three times,” he said with a frown. “Might have been more. You lose count when your brain cells bounce around your skull.”

“It was your own fault,” I told him with a huff.

He pulled his face out of my hand. “And what, let you get railed on by some asshole? Fuck that, and fuck you for trying to say I should have.”

“And it damn near got you a concussion because you took your attention off the guy you were dealing with,” I told him sternly. “You and Reno⁠—”

“Stop comparing us all the fucking time,” he snapped at me and I realized we were both worn out, hungry, sleep-deprived, and feeling pissed off and guilty about what had happened. “Do you really think your ex-boyfriend and your twin brother like being compared to one another?”

“Well, you⁠—”

“I don’t care if there’s similarities, Mikhail! I don’t care if you liked me because I reminded you of Reno and there was something nice about that, and I don’t care that it’s not supposed to be weird or whatever; I get that. But I’m sick and…what are you doing?”

“Taking your hand,” I told him, and curled my fingers into his. He didn’t return the gesture, but he didn’t push me away either, so it was a start. “I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have got on your ass for defending me. I would have done the same if I’d noticed, and you’re right. You’re a dumbass for doing it, but in your shoes, I would have been the same dumbass, and I don’t have a right to ride you about it.”

The anger flared for a moment and then, like a candle in a hurricane, it went out in an instant, and his shoulders sagged, his fingers curling around mine. He inched closer, bowing his head to tuck it under my chin and taking a deep breath. “I’m being an asshole for no reason. We’re all in this together, and here I am, yelling at you like you’re the reason we’re here when really I’m just hurting, tired, and ready to be back to fucking normal.”

“You and me both,” I said, closing my eyes and tilting my head down to kiss his temple. “And really, I meant to thank you for chasing Reno off that night.”

“Chase him off?” he asked, pulling back to look at me in confusion. “When?”

“After we got out to the parking lot. Reno can be…a mother hen whenever I get hurt. When we were about five…it was one of those times our dad up and disappeared and we didn’t understand why. Our mom was drunk, like usual, and told us he had died in a terrible accident, and that’s what happened when you didn’t love your family, when you weren’t with your family. You died horribly and alone because no one was there to help you,” I told him.

“Jesus,” he bit out bitterly. “That’s…fucked up.”

“I only remember it because Reno remembered and brought it up,” I said with a shrug. “I think because it…stuck with him way more than it did with me. He wouldn’t leave me the hell alone when I needed to get stitches a few years later. Refused to leave my side and was always checking on the stitches, even when they were fine. Same thing when I sprained my elbow in middle school, and got a concussion senior year. He just…you know⁠—”

“We’ve all got ghosts,” he said with a nod of understanding.

“I expected him to be up my ass since that fight, but the minute you gave me shit about it, he backed off,” I said with a shake of my head. “I guess you scared him off.”

“Maybe,” he said slowly. “Or…yeah, I guess.”

“No…what?” I wondered.

He closed his eyes. “Can we…get inside? I want to eat and sit down.”

“Okay,” I said in a tight voice, and he turned to me, surprising me not with an impatient scowl but a knowing smile.

He kissed me. “I’m not stopping the conversation, but my leg feels like it’s going to fall off. I want to get food in my stomach and curl up in that loft above your lab, just you and me. I don’t care if I could fall asleep on my feet, I want to lie with you and sleep there.”

That stopped me in surprise. “Huh?”

“I feel like shit.”

“Yeah, I get that. I just…” Whenever he had felt bad in the past, his instinct had always been to retreat and handle it on his own. We’d never spent the night together because while we were still figuring out what was going on between us, we were keeping it from the others. “You know what? Fuck it, I don’t care. Let’s do that. I want to do that.”

“Good,” he said with a shy smile, and we headed back to the main building only to stop when we heard Xander’s furious snarl.

“You should have thought of how worn out and beat up you’d be before you got into a fucking bar-room brawl!”

And then our eyes widened when his volume was equaled by Colin.

“If you want to be a pigheaded asshole without stopping long enough to get your head out of your ass and actually listen to the people who are supposed to trust and believe in you, then that’s on you, Xander. I don’t rightly give a fuck because I’m through being marched around, dragged through bullshit because you’ve decided you’re going to be judge, jury, and executioner when you haven’t even stopped to listen to anything but your own bullshit!”

“Trouble in paradise,” Aidan whispered, but he sounded nervous rather than amused.