ethereal

It doesn’t help that you and Carrillo are the same sort:  obsessively driven, which means you both suppress your feelings.  Obsessively rigid, which means you both pretend not to care about the other since it could be construed as a breach of conduct.  Irrationally stubborn, which means you each seem to be waiting for the other to give in first.  

Javi eventually decides:  it’s worse that you think no one notices.  It’s worse because it’s not blatant, exactly…but the two of you always seem to touch, and he’s not even sure either of you realize it.

He has so many examples he’s witnessed.  There’s the time you started to break cover in an alleyway shootout—how Carrillo laid a big hand on your tac vest, tugged you back to safety…and then left his hand there on your back, his fingers splayed for a moment before drawing away.

Or the time everyone went out for drinks at a crowded cantina, and how everyone crammed into a corner booth.  You had sat beside Carrillo.  In the shadows of the bar, Javi could just make out the way the Colonel’s arm was draped over the back of the booth, the tips of his fingers barely grazing your shoulder.

Javi would have bet anything that your hand under the table rested on Carrillo’s thigh, just as lightly, just as unconsciously.

Or the time Carrillo got scuffed up in the jungle, a nasty scrape on his temple that oozed blood.  You had forced him to perch on the bumper of the Jeep afterwards, swabbed him with peroxide, bandaged him up.  No big deal—you’d done the same with Javi a time or two.

But you’d never been so lingering with Javi.  That moment in the jungle, Javi felt like a voyeur, spying on a private moment in the middle of a Search Bloc operation.  You didn’t seem to be aware of how your free hand rested on Carrillo’s shoulder, how close you stood between his spread legs.  And Carrillo didn’t seem aware of how his hand was hooked around your wrist, holding you steady.

When Javi looked closer, he saw how the Colonel’s thumb drew soft little circles against the bare skin of your wrist.