“Meadow is my safe space. Clover is more like a trampoline park.”
“What does that even mean?” Logan asked.
“It means that she’s a lot to handle, and she’s similar enough to me in the chaos department that we drive each other up the wall. People think they can handle a trampoline park, and then they end up leaving barely able to move. We’ve had a prank war going since she moved in, and honestly, she’s a little scary. In a good way, I guess? No one’s ever been able to go toe to toe with me on that before. She’s great besides that, don’t get me wrong. I’m probably pitching her terribly. She loves Meadow and Forest, turned her whole life upside down to take care of Meadow when we couldn’t, and moved down here a few months ago to help us navigate Forest’s first year. Clover’s pretty cool, even when she’s being a menace.”
That sort of friend didn’t come around very often, and it only made me like Clover more. “I think it’s good for you to have someone around that gives you a taste of the chaos.”
Arlo barked a laugh. “Very true. So, you know Clover?”
“Barely,” Logan confessed. “I met her while she was out for a run with Forest, and she briefly visited the house. Oh, and once more at a club.”
Arlo narrowed his eyes. “When was the club?”
“A couple of weeks ago now.”
“Are you the reason I saw her sneaky walk-of-shaming through the yard at lunchtime?”
“I—”
“Don’t say anything,” I ordered Arlo. “She doesn’t want Meadow to know.”
“Wha—? Why not?” Arlo asked.
I could only shrug. “That’s a question for her. Can you promise not to say anything?”
“Yeah, yeah. Lips are zipped.”
What was going on in Logan’s head right now? A child definitely made things more complicated, but if Clover wasn’t really a mother, then that wasn’t an issue. Maybe he had beenbringing himself around to the idea of a kid. It had crossed my mind a time or two.
Our pack hadn’t had much in the way of serious discussions about our hypothetical future children, but no one was opposed to it. If Clover had been a mother—and she at some point got over her reservations about who we were in relation to Meadow’s pack—then we’d have been an instant family. It was a cozy thought, even if it didn’t match up with reality.
“Do I get the gossip?” Arlo asked with a grin. “Because I’m more than happy to wait on album stuff if you want to give me details. She’s been hiding out in the guesthouse a lot more, which, while peaceful, is getting boring.”
Hiding out? “Is she okay?”
“That’s a good question.” He pulled out his phone, balancing Forest in one arm and tapping away with the other. After a few seconds, his phone buzzed with a response. “She says she’s alive, just tired. Probably out with someone else I don’t know about.”
Tension shot through me, my spine stiffening.
Arlo eyed me shrewdly. “Don’t like that idea?”
I might as well be honest. If Arlo was going to keep Clover’s secret, it probably didn’t hurt to keep him in the loop.
“Not particularly, no.”
“Because he slept with her,” Arlo asked, gesturing to Logan, “or becauseyouwant to?”
Arlo put on a good front, so people underestimated him, but he was painfully good at reading people. I wasn’t going to spill my guts and tell him that Clover had been branded into every cell in my body since I’d fucked her on my desk at the party. I certainly wasn’t going to tell him I had thought about her every single day, had woken up spilling on my sheets with her image in my mind, or that I had fucked my fist a hundred times while trying to conjure every detail of her I could remember.
“Both.”
“And why aren’t you guys pursuing her if you want her?”
“She’s made it pretty clear she has no interest in being pursued for anything long-term,” Logan grumbled.
“I had no idea you were that bad in the sack,” Arlo said with a laugh.
Logan choked. “What the fuck, Arlo? I’m not?—”
