Page 23 of Running Feral

“Yeah, I know.” The words come out softer than I mean them to. The moment feels tender between us, mostly because it’s surrounded by all the pain we survived together and the weight of our history. It drowns out the din of the bar, that it isn’t until Kasia finally turns away to serve someone at the other end that I realize I have a new customer.

“Oh hey,” I say, pleasantly surprised to turn around and see Micah leaning against the bar. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“I don’t feel very fancy,” he says with a sigh, looking down at some dirty, rumpled scrubs. He leans in to give me a kiss on the cheek, anyway, and something about it lightens me.

I made this place to be welcoming and inclusive. But there’s an inherent neutrality in that, which we needed to have in order to survive in an area that didn’t exactly treasure queer-owned small business. And while I left all my ‘straight’, fake macho bullshit in the past a long time ago, that hasn’t stopped me from forcing a lot of neutrality on myself.

Not hiding. Not lying. But always so, so neutral. Voice a little lower. Gestures careful and a little smaller. Nothing with even the slightest touch of lavender. At least when I’m in a mixed group. Combine that with my build, and people are going to assume what they’re going to assume. I don’t have to lie about myself to pass.

But I went from deep in the closet here, to the polar opposite when I moved to Chicago for school and threw myself as hard as I could into every stereotype in existence to overcompensate. Then I finally came back here to this careful, inoffensive blandness. It makes me hyper aware of the fact that I’ve never really known where I would lie on the spectrum if I weren’t always performing for a crowd.

All I know is that being around people like Micah, who are from here and get it, but are also queer and about as safe as can be, makes me relax. It makes me relax muscles I didn’t even realize I had.

Definitely all the bullshit code-switching muscles, which get a daily workout.

“Can I get you a drink?”

“God, yes,” Micah says as he slumps on the bar. “I’m never covering for a day shifter again. I hate days. There’s so much talking. It’s all the work, but you also have to follow dress code as well as deal with all the high-up doctors who think they deserve to get their ass kissed just for showing up. And, I swear, the clickety-clack of anyone in management following me down the hallway ‘for a quick word’ will haunt my fucking dreams. I would like approximately seven margaritas and a large-bore IV to dump them into my veins.”

I can’t help but smile, because Micah has that effect on people. Even though he never really stops rambling.

“Hey, Sav!” I yell the words into the ether, because he’s always lurking somewhere. And even if he’s (hopefully) not still doing whatever crime he used to do for a living, his situational awareness is still unimpeachable.

“Yes?”

He steps next to me, silent and graceful in his motions, even though he had some kind of terrible injury when he started here that I don’t know if he fully recovered from. Sav’s standing nextto me, but he’s looking at Micah, who is still leaning on the bar and giving his brother the warmest smile.

“You look terrible,” Sav says.

“Well ‘hello’ to you, too. I feel terrible. I need a drink, but Gunnar’s stalling. Will you break his kneecaps for me? Pretty please?”

He’s fluttering his eyelashes at Sav while I sputter out a laugh and hold out my hands.

“Wait wait wait. I need my kneecaps. Sav, your brother—”

“Stepbrother.” They both cut me off in unison, just like they did back at the apartment. It’s becoming a thing, but I decide that’s a rock I don’t need to look under.

“Micah asked for a very large margarita. Why don’t you show him what you learned?”

Sav’s face freezes like I just asked him to recite pi to ten decimals, but Micah’s grin only widens.

He lets out a quiet squeal. “Look at you! Learning big boy normal job shit.”

That earns him a glare from Sav, but it at least cuts through his momentary glitch of panic. The glare is kind of terrifying, but Micah is completely unperturbed.

“Show me-show me-show me!” He stretches one long arm out over the bar and touches Sav softly on the wrist, and I swear for a few seconds I can see the manblush.

“Whatever,” he grumbles before reaching for things and ignoring us.

I don’t look at him, because I know that won’t help when he’s trying to pretend he doesn’t care about impressing his stepbrother. I’m watching Micah, who is watching him rapturously as he fumbles around behind the bar, but the lull in conversation makes me realize something.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Hmm?” he answers, dragging his gaze over to meet mine several seconds after he makes the sound. “Yeah, what’s up?”

“I’m worried about Tobias.”

Micah tilts his head from side to side and blows out a breath. “I mean, that’s to be expected. Is there something specific you’re worried about?”

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