He looked up, startled for a moment again, before his scowl returned. “Go get some clothes on; I think I’ve seen enough of your bits.”
“Very true, at least this time they’re covered,” I said, turning away before he bit out another comment.
Truth be told, I didn’t blame him for being pissed. In his shoes, I probably would have been just as taken aback by stumbling onto a stranger whacking it in the communal showers. It hadn’t been my smartest idea, but compared to some of the other stupid shit I’d done in the name of getting off, it wasn’t the stupidest. When I next took the chance to get off, I was going to do it somewhere that at least had a lock on the door.
When I came out, dressed, Xander was nowhere to be found, so I drifted back into the kitchen and found a mug I could slap a lid onto. I saw Mika and Reno on the floor in the dining area, faces as red as their hair, chests heaving, and I was pretty sure there was a bruise on Mika’s jaw. They were laid next to one another, holding themselves up as they watched me.
“Who won?” I wondered.
“Intermission,” Mika told me, his hair resembling his brother's after spending the past few minutes wrestling like a ten-year-old.
“Ah,” I said. “Don’t you guys have things you should be doing?”
“There are more important things at the moment,” Reno said, glaring at his brother. “Like reminding this asshole what’s what.”
“The only thing you remind me of is that I should have had the sense to absorb you in the womb,” Mika snapped back, and I could see the two of them preparing to start the next round.
“Oh, by all means,” I said as they reached for each other. “But I hope you two don’t mind that while you’re doing that, I’ll stand right here and…enjoy the show.”
Mika hesitated. “What?”
“Two good-looking, identical guys getting all rough and…sweaty,” I said, adding a salacious and totally unnecessary tone to the last word.
They both grimaced, and I had to bite back a laugh at how perfectly in sync they were, down to the slightest twitch of a muscle before pushing away from each other. Reno huffed, getting to his feet before reaching down and taking hold of Mika’s arm. “You ruined it.”
“Ah, boner killed,” I said with a sigh, leaving the kitchen. I glanced into Cait’s office; she was hunched over the keyboard, but she glanced my way, her eyes flicking to the kitchen and smirking at me before tapping the side of her nose. Oh yeah, she knew I’d been a creep on purpose to break them up before one of them got hurt, broke something, or God save them, drew Xander’s attention.
Speaking of Xander, I could see him coming down a path in the woods as I pulled on my coat and stepped outside to meet him. I had assumed there was more to the outpost than one building, and that brief glimpse was enough to confirm my suspicion. He had the same scowl from yesterday and, from everything I’d seen of him, that wasn’t personal against me.For some people, it might be annoying to have a boss who was perpetually irritable, but for reasons I couldn’t explain, I found it amusing, and maybe a little endearing.
“That had better be just coffee,” he said as he came to a stop, his boots landing in a shallow puddle.
“I’m gonna guess you’re worried about booze,” I said, giving the travel mug a little shake. “Pure caffeine. It’s a little early to hit the bottle. Plus, aren’t we all technically on call?”
“You’re in training, which means you’re always on call. Reno and Mika are on call today, as am I, as is Trevor…wherever he’s wandered off to. Jake is out for the day. We’ve got a couple more guys you’ll meet at some point. One of them is on call, but the other isn’t.”
“Do they have names?”
“Is that important?”
“No, I guess not since I don’t have faces to put to the names. Not that it did me a whole lot of good with Reno and Mika.”
He blinked and rolled his eyes. “They pulled their twin trick shit, didn’t they?”
“They did,” I admitted with a laugh. “I thought I was dealing with some Jekyll and Hyde thing when Mika was the one who woke me up. At least it was a good warning that Mika isn’t nearly as serious as he makes out.”
And if that hadn’t been enough, rolling around on the floor flinging insults that were never intended to land with real malice would certainly have done it.
“Ugh, he’s got sense, and he’s smart…until he and Reno do that…thing they do,” he said with a shrug. When he saw my raised eyebrow, he sighed. “I don’t know if it’s a thing for brothers, twins, or just a case of one being an idiot and the other a potential idiot given the opportunity.”
“And Reno offers that opportunity,” I said with a laugh and a nod.
“Right,” he huffed. “If you keep ’em apart, they’re pretty decent. Reno has to be kept away from Jake, though, and don’t go thinking that Trevor is going to be of any use either. He lets them do whatever they want. And if he wants no part of whatever they’re getting up to, he’ll just leave instead of stopping them.”
“And the other two guys who are as yet unnamed?”
“Somewhere around the Reno level,” he said with a shake of his head. “They think I don’t know what they get up to when I’m not around, but they’re wrong. And no, Cait doesn’t tattle. She’ll tell me some shit, especially when she’s fed up trying to corral them, but she’s not giving me a full report. I doubt she tells me even a quarter of what she’s witnessed.”
“I notice you don't sleep in the main building. Does that mean you have your own quarters like Cait?”