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“Here to drink your sorrows away?”
“I’m really not in the mood to deal with you right now.”
Isobel was nosy. She wasn’t very quiet about that and her brothers knew that better than anyone. The fact that Michael had willingly walked up to his ex-lover in his girlfriend’s bar when Isobel was right there was genuinely his own fault.
Alex was hunched over his drink like he had been for the last hour. He’d strolled in not long before closing and now the place was virtually empty with the exception of the town’s resident aliens and their select humans. But, still, Alex hadn’t been invited. He’d turned up on his own accord and Isobel couldn’t find it in herself to be surprised when Michael navigated towards him. She was more surprised it took so long.
“Didn’t realize my presence required a specific mood,” Michael said. They were technically speaking in hushed tones, but the bar was quiet aside from the pissing contest Max, Rosa, and Maria were having at the pool table, the medical jargon Kyle and Liz were conversing over, and the quiet Nirvana album playing quietly through the speakers. Isobel found Michael and Alex significantly more interesting than either of those.
“You know it does,” Alex sighed, swishing around the whiskey in his glass before downing it.
“Did something happen?” Michael asked even quieter than before. Alex didn’t respond. “Do I need to go kick someone’s ass? ‘Cause I will.”
Alex huffed a laugh and it was almost sad. Isobel leaned closer.
“So you’ve crossed into big brother territory? Good to know,” he said dryly. Micahel eyed him in a way Isobel had only seen him look at Alex Manes.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Mean’s you’ve made yourself loud and clear, Guerin, and so has everyone else,” Alex said, reaching over to steal his drink. Isobel tried to keep her reaction to herself but she’d never actually seen Alex drink so freely. He usually liked to keep on his toes.
“What are you talking about?” Michael prodded. Alex closed his eyes as he took a sip of the whiskey and, honestly, she was impressed it hadn’t been laced with something else.
“About the fact that I’m apparently really bad in bed,” Alex said, pausing, “Or maybe I haven’t quite gotten the hang of it with one leg yet and it’s throwing my off my game.”
Michael snorted a laugh, leaning closer in amusement, “You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I’m serious. Deadly,” Alex said, “You know, I had a date tonight. Super hot, super nice. It was all fun and games until we got back to his place, right? We’re making out, groping, all good.” Isobel had to lean to get a glimpse of Michael’s face. He looked just as shaken by Alex’s blunt honesty as she’d expected. It was hard not to laugh. “But apparently I was so bad that he didn’t have words.”
“Alex, I think I can speak for everyone in saying that being speechless does not equal bad,” Michael laughed, shifting as he tried to make himself less uncomfortable with the prospect of Alex sleeping with someone else just hours before this. A quick look around the bar proved that their close proximity had alerted some of the other patrons, namely Maria who had stopped trying to prove herself as the better pool player in favor of watching the gap between their biceps close.
“No, not speechless. He was like, ‘well, uh, yeah, that was… yeah’ and then basically kicked me out,” Alex huffed. Michael shook his head.
“Well, then he was an ass.”
“I don’t know, I feel like it had to be me ‘cause I thought it was going at least mostly good,” Alex sighed.
“No, look, trust me, it was not you,” Michael said, huffing a laugh, “Trust me.”
Alex looked to him thoughtfully, eyes investigating every single milimeter of his face. Isobel couldn’t help but smile and she looked over to see Maria still staring, but now Rosa was too and Max was trying not to.
“Why should I? How do I know every time with you, you weren’t just faking it?” Alex asked. Michael let out a soft laugh.
“Faking what? Enjoying it? Yeah, I’m not that good of an actor, Manes,” he said, “You’re just really good at what you do.”
“Oh, am I?” Alex challenged. Isobel’s eyes widened and she had to cover her mouth with her hand, trying not to ruin their little dance. Maria, however, seemed to be getting increasingly alarmed and the room had gone virtually silent, only the soft music playing in the background now.
“Any guy who acts like you’re bad in bed just doesn’t know what they’ve got,” Michael told him, voice quieter like he was aware that people might overhear but it wasn’t quiet enough, “’Cause you’re easily the best sex I’ve ever had.”
Maria scoffed and Isobel absolutely expected that to break the trance those two seemed to be in, but it didn’t. Which, honestly, was far more interesting.
“The best?” Alex said doubtfully, enunciating every single letter and seeming to capture Michael’s brain cells to hold them hostage. Isobel had a feeling that the only way he’d get them back is if he did something that really required no audience. “As in worthy of a repeat?”
“Easily,” Michael confirmed.
They stared at each other in silence and everyone in the room stared at them. It was almost weird to see them so close and talking so intimately, but it was only weird because they never did it with so many eyes on them. They really must’ve had a healthy amount of alcohol in their system to be ballsy enough to do that.
Isobel wondered just how obvious they needed to be before Maria got the memo.
They seemed to come out of it when Maria loudly put the pool cue down on the table, both sliding back into normalcy as if they hadn’t just had a whole moment in front of everyone. They were still sort of close, but there was some space between them and they were back to facing the bar rather than each other. Isobel shook her head in amazement.
“Guerin,” Maria said sharply, “Can we talk?”
With a sigh, Michael dragged himself off the bar stool to go have their talk in private. Or as private as it could be. The walls were thin and it didn’t take superhuman hearing to hear her saying how inappropriate that was. Isobel, on the other hand, found it hard to keep her laugh to herself as she slid in the seat beside Alex.
“You are one hell of a force to be reckoned with, Alex Manes,” she said.
“What?” he asked, batting his eyelashes all innocently, “Did I do something wrong?”
“You little minx,” Isobel laughed, shaking her head.
Alex smiled to himself and took another sip of Michael’s drink, sighing all content as Michael and Maria broke up over his public confession.
“Absolutely.”