Page 14 of Fire & Ice

Tripp:Brat? Me? :-P

Tripp:C’mon, Lee, I’m bored. Entertain me. I know you’re not on a call, I’m sitting right next to the scanner.

Leander:I am not on a call, but that doesn’t mean I am without work to do. Go and annoy Gunnar, I need to do a rig check. Zavier has been playing this ridiculous game where he plants expired medications just to see if we’re actually looking at the dates.

Tripp::( i’m bored

Tripp:how quick do you think you’ll regret choosing chores over me

Tripp:try not to think about my ass too much

Leander:you’re not funny

Tripp:I am objectively adorable

Leander:you’re distracting me, i have a very important job, as you know

Tripp:i’m worth it, baby. C’mon, talk dirty to me

Tripp:talk anything to me

Tripp:send me a dick pic

Leander:you know, it is true that we never talked about your lying to me yesterday. The way you ran and hid and spent an hour outside the ER, rather than risk you and I being alone together. If you’re this bored, we couldcertainly discuss that. At length, and in excruciating detail?

Tripp:uh i think i hear our tones gtg

It’s unnecessary to check the scanner to know that there are no tones and that Tripp is definitely not going on a call right now.

Closing his eyes, Leander locks his phone and slips it back into his pocket before taking a slow, deep breath, letting it back out while he prays for strength. He has to remind himself several times that Tripp is just beingTripp.In fact, that entire virtual interaction was completely on par with their usual relationship, long before any discussion of sex and submission came into play. If Tripp had asked for a dick pic two weeks ago, Leander would have shot back a photo of an anonymous, dismembered body part (courtesy of Google) without so much as a second thought.

The fact is, they aren’t in Dom / sub mode right now, and if he takes a step back, Leander can see that this is exactly how Trippshouldbe behaving. While it presses his buttons, that’snormal,and it shows that Tripp is adapting. That he’s not so affected or bothered by the shift in their relationship that it’s seeping into their usual back-and-forth banter.

It’s a good thing, Leander thinks.

“Meditating, boss?” Startled, Leander whirls around to find Marley leaning casually against the doorframe of the crew room. He moves towards her, heavy boots squeaking against the tile floor of the kitchen section of the common space, where he apparently forgot he was standing, in plain sight of anyone who might wander by. The whole room isn’t more than twentyfeet by twenty feet, a functional space divided straight down the middle by the shift to carpet.

On the side that doesn’t host a full working kitchen (plus a table and chairs for eating), there’s a hodge-podge of mismatched couches and recliners, plus a coffee table and a TV mounted above a bookcase that mostly holds DVDs. The far wall of the room plays host to a long countertop, currently cluttered with an assortment of chargers and empty holsters meant for various pagers and radios, plus a hanging literature organizer functioning as mailboxes, each slot labeled with someone’s last name.

“Marley,” Leander exclaims, clapping a hand to his chest. “You startled me.”

His partner looks amused as she crosses the room to flop down on one of the ratty couches, bright red hair spilling artfully over the arm and swaying gently in the air. “‘Sup, El Capitán? You seem…” She squints and raises her hands the way a director framing a shot might, thumbs and index fingers creating a window. Scouring his demeanor with what can only be described as suspicion, she eventually shrugs and tucks both hands behind her head.

“Something’sweird with you. YouandTripp, actually, now that I think about it. You know, he was supposed to meet me for drinks last night. Never showed, didn’t eventext. Weird behavior from such a reliable guy, right? And now you, Captain Anal Retentive, are, what? Playing Candy Crush and getting zen in the kitchen, instead of checking your truck to make sure every gauze pad is in its place? What gives?”

Ignoring the lowkey insults, since he knows that coming from theequallyanal-retentive Marley they’re actually compliments, Leander runs a hand through his hair and nods, starting for the door.

“You’re right, I should—”

“Don’t bother.” Marley cuts him off with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I did it already. Came in early to finish a chart from last night and jumped right into work when I finished. Changed the onboard oxygen, too. Oh—Zosia’s switching your expired drugs out, including your narcs, so you’ll just have to sign off on the new count when she’s done. I wouldn’t bother her, you know how she is with that stuff. All jokes aside, I think itislike meditation for her, you know?”

Nodding, Leander changes course, shuffling back into the crew room and sinking down into one of the recliners. He shifts to avoid the springs needling his ass and picks at the stuffing sticking out of the elderly chair’s arm, avoiding Marley’s shrewd gaze.

“So, you’re really not going to tell me?” She pouts obnoxiously and crosses her arms with a loud and pointed, “Humph.”

“I’m really not going to tell you,” Leander replies evenly, fishing the remote out from under the cushion he’s sitting on and absently flipping through channels until he finds something suitably mindless. With any luck, it will serve to distract his partner and divert her endless curiosity. “And if you keep bothering me about it, I will assign you the entirety of the B.L.S. chart pile to Q.A. for the rest of the month.”

“Whoa, shots fired,” Marley replies, flipping onto her side and tipping her head up to affix Leander with what he’s sure she believes is a charming grin. “So, what I’m hearing is, it’s juicy.”

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