Page 12 of Under Control

Espinosa looked at Alex like she knew what he was doing, then turned to leave again. At least she knew she wasn’t wanted in the lounge. Alex had never seen her hanging out with anybody casually on any of their trips. Some of the other officers did show up on occasion. Singh and Strobel would catch a movie together, and Chief Engineer Maler liked to play pool during his time off.

“That’s her in a good mood?” Bauer said once the door slid shut again. “She didn’t even look close to cracking a smile.”

“I don’t think her mouth has the capacity for a smile.” Giehl pushed Ackerman lightly. “See, you got chastised by Espinosa. That make you feel better?”

“No. Feel even worse now. My Dora…” Ackerman hunched his shoulders. He looked like he was about to cry. Over some chick? Alex wanted to tell him there were plenty of other chicks out there. Some of the women on board would be DTF, even if Ackerman was a huge prick.

“Isn’t your Dora anymore,” Giehl interrupted. He waved at Alex and Bauer. “I’m gonna take this loser to my cabin and get him drunk, take his mind off things.”

“He’s got the early AM shift,” Alex blurted out. “Don’t get him too drunk.”

“How do you even know that?” Ackerman asked. “You going through our schedules now?”

“Yeah. Sometimes Tracht asks me to check the schedules, or to rearrange something. And you requested more overtime hours, so I had to find out which hours you were doing first.”

“Huh? I thought Espinosa took care of scheduling?” Bauer asked. She set her cue stick down on the pool table, messing up the placement of some of the balls. Dang, Alex had kind of hoped they’d pick the game up again.

“I dunno. If she’s busy or it’s her off hours, Tracht has me do some of her work.” It should have annoyed Alex, having to do more work, but he liked the idea that Tracht trusted him with Espinosa’s job. Take that, Espinosa. Alex was just as good.

“So watch your mouth around him, Bauer,” Ackerman said. “Alex will snitch on you to the captain.”

“Whatever. There’s cameras everywhere anyway.” Alex countered. He turned to Bauer. “I don’t tell Tracht everything. He doesn’t really care unless it causes problems.”

“Yep. And that’s why Ackerman and I are leaving now. Because getting into fights with Alex always causes problems.” Giehl dragged Ackerman away, stopping only to pick up booze at the vending machines.

With just him and Bauer in the lounge, the silence seemed really loud. Alex picked up his cue stick and motioned to the table. “Wanna start over?”

Bauer grimaced and shook her head. “No, uh. I’m gonna go get ready for my shift.” She left with only one backward glance at him, a strange expression on her face. What, she thought Alex was gonna fuck her over? Well, screw her. Just for that, he’d be sure that Tracht knew every time she messed up.

===

Alex was in a shitty mood as he made his way back to their quarters. Even working out at the gym hadn’t lifted his mood much. He’d lifted weights until his arms were sore and run so long on the treadmill that he was still out of breath.

He hadn’t even done anything! Everything had been going fine until Ackerman and Espinosa showed up. And Giehl, the traitor, making it seem like it was Alex’s fault that people got in trouble. Carpenter had done it to herself. Rodriguez had straight up quit. Parsons—Alex stumbled over that thought. Parsons did bring it on himself. Trying to cheat Tracht. Trying to make Alex betray Tracht.

Some days Alex missed him horribly, even more than he missed Nick. Nick was a piece of shit and deserved everything they’d done to him, but Parsons…

That was over two years ago now. Forget about it.

There were other sailors who’d gotten into trouble since then. Tracht said the isolation got to them, especially the newbies who hadn’t done long hauls like these before. Alex thought they all needed to just hit the gym more often or get laid more. He’d never had a problem with long space trips.

Tracht was already inside, sitting on the couch and scowling down at something. Great. If he was in a bad mood, that meant Alex was going to have an even worse evening. At this point, he wondered why he hadn’t just kicked Ackerman’s ass. Either way he’d be in trouble.

Alex stripped off his clothes and tossed them in the hamper; Tracht ignored him the entire time.

“Yo,” Alex said, stopping so close in front of Tracht that their feet touched.

Tracht looked up at Alex. “Oh. Alex. I’m busy.”

“You aren’t on shift right now,” Alex said. His voice sounded sulky even to himself.

“What I’m doing can’t wait. Watch a movie or something.” Tracht went back to his tablet, which seemed to be running some of the security footage from the cargo hold.

Fine. Alex went to clean himself off, hoping Tracht would be finished with whatever he was doing by the time Alex was done.

No such luck. Tracht was still absorbed in his tablet. Alex sat down on the couch next to him and turned on the screen. He browsed through their movie selections and figured if Tracht wasn’t going to pay attention anyway, he might as well watch something he liked. He ended up picking the action flick he’d watched with Nadia the last time they’d been on Atalanta. It was flashy and loud.

Really loud once Alex turned the volume up.

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