Clover smiled when his muscles went lax, and he rested his head on the metal. This was all he needed. He was such a sucker for this bastard of a boyfriend.
The world slowed down after the urgency of their sex, and when Pyro’s weight settled on Clover, he was glad for the warmth it offered. Contentment penetrated him bone-deep, and he might have fallen asleep if Pyro hadn’t spoken.
“Thanks for taking another chance on me.”
Clover rolled into a hug. “Last chance, Pyro, so better make it last forever.”
Pyro’s eyes got all gooey, and Clover indulged in this moment of honest tenderness. He wouldn’t miss a second of this.
But then the phone rang with the melody Clover had set for Drake, he needed to pull away from the warmth that felt more right than it ever had. “At least we got to finish.”
Chapter 9 - Clover
The sun, which had previously only peeked out, coloring the clouds with an array of pinks and violets, showed itself at last, spilling a golden glow all over the suburbs of Denver. Its light didn’t hurt Clover’s eyes yet, but it might get there soon. The rays snuck between tree branches, creating a movie-worthy effect Clover would have appreciated any other time. But he wasn’t here to marvel at the beauty of nature.
Perched in a tall oak just outside the perimeter of a property in a peaceful neighborhood with more trees than people, he tried to keep his mind neutral, without shuffling into the fear that they’d missed their opportunity, and Boar had been smuggled somewhere else altogether.
He knew why he was here. It wasn’t because he was a master of tree climbing or a decent lookout, even though he was both these things. It wasn’t even because Tank was overprotective. This time, Tank had seen right through Clover and must have smelled the fear on him, so giving him a job where he could feel useful without being an obstruction to the others had been a conscious choice.
Clover hadn’t protested, because finding the courage to potentially face captivity again was near-impossible at this point. Sitting in a tree with a gun in his hand was the best he could do to be useful, but he needed to be a part of this operation, so he’d take that.
Tank and the others had decided to call in the police to smoke out the snakes instead of risking the lives of their small group against an unknown number of opponents hiding in the behemoth of a house with all too many turrets for a modern structure. Unlike most of the homes peppered throughout the woodland-covered suburb, this one had a fence as tall as Tank was, and sizeable thujas growing around the perimeter to further block the view from outside.
This was where Clover came in.
From the treetop, he was to report to Tank about any suspicious activity in the garden, but that was where his role ended. There wasn’t all that much to report yet. Two guards walked around the property at a lazy pace, oblivious to the rope slowly tightening around their throats. Twenty minutes back, a woman in chef’s clothes had joined them for a cigarette before retreating into the house to resume her duties. Beyond the rear end of the property was a thatch of woods, and farther yet—a public road with a small rest area devoid of facilities, beyond a wooden picnic table.
A small truck was parked there, close to an electric box that likely served the locals, but not much of interest had happened anywhere within sight since Clover’s arrival, and the anticipation to see Boar again twisted his insides.
Did Boar hate him for what had transpired on that awful night? Guilt was a parasite eating Clover up from the inside, but there was no escaping something that lived within.
Pyro’s attempts to run from his own grief had led him to drugs, and whenever he was sober, the loss of Boar was there to haunt him. His torment would end today, if everything went according to plan, but Clover didn’t even want to consider what might happen otherwise. He needed to keep faith. He had never lost hope that they would reconnect with the lost member of their chosen family, but being ‘alive’ and ‘well’ were two different things, and he feared the consequences of what had happened to Boar in all those months.
Clover swallowed, trying to see the road at the front of the building, but it seemed impossible. Tank had promised to inform him of any movement there, but a lot of time had passed since the anonymous call to the police, and he hadn’t heard anything beyond routine check-ins.
In the garden, the guard was playing a game on a mobile console, not at all alarmed. When Pyro’s voice came on in Clover’s earpiece, he expected more of the same, but the hope in the raspy voice had Clover’s entire body go tense.