Page 37 of Static/Cling

Bjorn pressed the heel of one hand to his forehead. “You know what? Forget it. You’re confusing me. I just was trying to tell you, if you wanted to see if there was something there, with him, for you, to go for it.”

Much to his horror, Kassian’s heart cracked a little bit, at the look in Bjorn’s eyes, even though his expression was otherwise stoic. “I wouldn’t,” he whispered, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t do that to you. And you should tell him how you feel.” Hurriedly, he backed out of the room and scrambled for the safety of his pretend four walls.

Within seconds, Leif was standing next to his baffle. “You’re driving him a little bit nuts.”

“What did I do?” He swivelled his chair to face Leif, meeting his luminous gaze, and for a moment, he forgot basically everything.

“You know.” Leif stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Most guys are not this dense.”

“I—” Kassian frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“I know you don’t.”

“I’m not anything, you know. And you don’t seriously expect me to act on a physical attraction I may or may not feel when the two of you are so obviously—” He waved his hands stupidly in the air, like that conveyed any meaning at all.

“Obviously?” Leif tilted his head, like a curious cat. “Obviously what?”

“Obviously the two of you.”

“We will always be us, him and me. What you end up being is up to you.”

The way he walked away this time, resolute, back straight and stride purposeful, did not encourage any more of his questions.

Why the hell was the beefy side of his brain not arguing with him? Was he sulking? Gloating because both Leif and Bjorn obviously agreed with the side of him that kept telling him he was full of shit?

“Because you know what I think,” he whispered. “No point in saying it over and over if you don’t want to hear it.”

He scratched at his temple, as if that could dig out the annoyingly smug lizard-brain voice. “I just think it’s a bad idea.”

“You’d be wrong.”

“What do you know?”

“You.”

“Fuck off.”

“You know that’s not how you work.”

He knew. He could hardly pretend half of him didn’t exist.

Thankfully, the clanging alarm on his computer sounded off, snapping his attention to his screen and banishing his hedonistic half to silence.

Roger made an unhappy sound as he and Sal hurried across the room to stand behind his chair. His knuckles were white around the tennis ball, which had popped a seam in his grip.

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Fuck!”

“Problem?” Leif asked, so mild Kassian had to take a second to scowl at him, because even that quiet, his cool tone had made him jump and because where the fuck had he come from?

Kassian had seen him walking away.

Bjorn had risen and come to look too, though if he understood what he was looking at, it didn’t register in his expression.

“Yes, there’s a problem.” He should have tried harder to find the file. He should have stayed and traced it. He should have just gone back into the server, found it, and attached another sniffer to it, getting caught be damned. Now it might be too late.

“Tell me,” Leif demanded.

“Quiet.”

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