Page 63 of Lifeline

“Mav thought it was hilarious,” Reno said. “I couldn’t decide if Aidan was doing it to get a rise out of Carter or if he was just trying to cheer Mav up because he seemed kind of grumpy.”

“How you figure out his moods with such confidence is beyond me,” I admitted.

“I guess I’ve worked with him more than anyone else, well, except Carter, obviously,” he snorted.

“Ah, right,” I said. Mav was the best hunter, tracker, and wilderness expert we had, but more so the first two. Considering Reno had to monitor indigenous species in the area occasionally, that usually meant using someone whose skills helped him get his hands on some animals. “Mav and Aidan, though…didn’t expect that. You and Aidan? Yeah, you two are weirdly alike. It’s not as if you have ever chosen a woman who was like me.”

“Oh, are we being honest about you and Aidan now?” Reno asked with a laugh. “Cool.”

“You saw him in his underwear when I was the only other person in the building,” I said, opening the back door and dropping my voice. “No point trying to keep it quiet after that.”

“True,” he said and followed me in, pausing and looking at me. “You’re both…good?”

“Yeah,” I said with an easy smile despite the trickle of unease at the back of my thoughts.

Because we were good, hell, I was amazing. Yet there was something I couldn’t put my finger on, something from Aidan. Sometimes it was like he was…holding his breath. Like he was waiting for a bomb to go off, or bracing himself to say something he was terrified to say aloud to me. I knew the latter thought could easily be paranoia that was well-founded and not completely fair. If he was keeping something from me, I had to give him the chance to come out with it and hope he would…and that it wouldn't be that bad. Otherwise, it was better to focus on what was working, which was pretty much everything else.

“Gross,” Reno said at whatever he saw on my face. “That’s your ‘I’m madly in love and getting laid like crazy’ face.”

“You have no idea what that face looks like,” I snapped at him.

“I heard you giggle the other day when he was groping you under the table when you thought I wasn’t paying attention, you giggled,” he said and laughed when I pushed him into the wall. “Well, that just confirms it.”

“Get your asses in here,” Xander growled, and we walked in, me carefully constructing my face into what I thought was appropriately professional.

We were the last ones to arrive, from the looks of everyone else standing or sitting around. Xander gestured for us to get moving, and we made our way over. I watched as the seats filled up quickly, and there were three spots left. I sat in the middle without thinking, expecting to be flanked by Aidan and Reno. There was only the briefest moment before Aidan shifted from my right to my left, dropping not next to Mav, but next to Jake with only a quick glance in Reno’s direction.

Jake’s expression soured briefly, but Reno gave nothing away as he sat between Mav and me. Cait stood in the doorway as Xander walked up to the counter that separated the kitchen and dining areas. “Alright, listen up. It’s no secret that we caught wind of a storm coming our way, and it’s looking like a bitch. So we’re going to take precautions in case it gets really bad.”

Aidan shifted next to me. “What does that mean?”

Xander glared at him. “It means all hands on deck. There is no time off, there is no being on call; we’re all on duty for at least the next forty-eight if not seventy-two hours. Normally that means working in pairs, but we’ve got a few exceptions we’ve got to deal with. First off, we’re going to address the way everyone treats Colin like he’s my second.”

“He is,” Mav grunted. “You think so, too.”

Xander stared at him, and for a moment I thought he was going to lose his temper; instead, he sighed. “Fine, so I do. But in this situation, that’s not the case. He’s got plenty of history with all sorts of bullshit, but he’s green when it comes to this shit, and we’re going to treat him as such. Which means while this is going on, it’s Mav who’s considered the second, so you go through him or me, got it?”

We all agreed Mav had been at the job the longest after Xander. He apparently had experience in that sort of work before he’d come to the outpost, but the only people I knew for a fact knew what that entailed were Xander and Cait, and probably Carter.

I couldn’t help but glance at Colin, and realized the rest were doing it too. Colin snorted. “Quit looking at me; it was my idea.”

“I was already thinking it,” Xander said, then scowled when most of us snickered at the childishness. “He’s still the medic though, so you listen when it comes to that, got it?”

“Got it,” we echoed.

“And you’ll be buddied up,” Xander continued, looking around. “Carter and Mav.”

“Shocking,” Reno muttered, and we chuckled.

“Shut it,” Xander said, but I would have sworn he smirked. “This is about comfort, skill, and how well you work together, so don’t get smart or cute with me. Next is, and don’t fucking say it, Jake and Reno.”

“Pfft,” Carter snorted, but he kept any comment to himself, more out of fear of Xander than because he was being polite.

We’d all seen it coming, but the lack of response from Jake or Reno made everyone look around uneasily. If they hadn’t noticed something going on between Reno and Jake, they suspected it.

“And me?” Aidan asked quickly, and I smiled. The man could walk into a room full of people and impulsively say the most mindlessly insensitive thing in the world without meaning the slightest harm. And yet, when he had a read on the room, he had it memorized, annotated, and was prepared to give a dissertation-level presentation if necessary.

The attention shifted back to Xander because, like Aidan, they were curious.