I’d never thought about kissing Tyler before it happened, but now that it had? What the hell was going through his mind when he did it? Had he gotten as hard as I had when his lips were touching mine? Because I could’ve used my dick to hammer nails. Just thinking about the warmth of his mouth and the excitement in his eyes was enough to make the rest of our walk out of the woods uncomfortable for my cock.
I was drenched in sweat by the time we arrived at the small back road where we’d parked. Tyler and I had followed them here in my car.
Jules went to the driver’s door of his truck. They’d swapped out their vehicles earlier, with Jules muttering something about being able to hose out the truck bed. Just as I thought we were going to get away from them, he swung around to face me. “Don’t go near the pawnshop again. Get rid of those clothes, including the gloves. Burn them. Hell, throw them away. Whatever. But dump them.”
Ari got up in my face, and I backpedaled because I hadn’t noticed him closing in on me.
“Ari!” Tyler said sharply. “I like him.”
“If there’s ever a hint of this, remember, you pulled the trigger.” His unflinching gaze bored into me. I hated every second.
“Yep, that was me. Pulling the trigger and killing a guy.” I tried to grin, but I was afraid I’d looked unhinged because Ari laughed.
“He’s fine,” Tyler said harshly. “He killed Mike for me.”
Jules and Ari shared a smile that bordered on lovey-dovey, a complete one-eighty from how they acted with me.
“Okay,” Jules said as Ari went around to get in the passenger side of his truck. “We’ll call when we need a favor.”
“A favor?” I squeaked.
Tyler pointed at Jules and slapped a hand over his heart. “I owe you twice now. Call me night or day.”
Jules and Ari left without another word or glance back.
“Well, that was fucking weird. Can we really trust them? What do you owe them for?” I shivered hard, and we got in my car. I let out a long breath as I started the engine and turned on the heat, even though the vents were still blowing cold air. It felt weird to stow the flashlight in the back seat. Each time I saw it I would remember what we’d done tonight. Perhaps I should get rid of it.
Tyler ran his hand over the dash. “They trusted me with something big.”
“Right.” In a haze, I got the car on the road and headed back to New Gothenburg. “Your life has been interesting, huh?”
He groaned and rested his head against the seat. “That’s one way to put it.”
We drove in silence for a bit and it started to snow hard. That weird thing happened where the snow coming toward the windshield became part of the setting for a deep-space movie. We were flying into warp speed. I stopped the car at a crossroads and pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes. I had trouble dragging air into my lungs.
“Eddie?” Tyler’s comforting grip as he took my hand almost made me lose my shit, but I’d lived my teen years under the boot heel of a fucking tyrant, so I pulled myself together through sheer force of will and drove. I glanced at Tyler, and in the glow from the dash light I noticed the bruises on his neck had become a brilliant purple. Fuck.
“You’re a mess,” I blurted.
Tyler flinched and turned toward his window, but I didn’t drop his hand. “You should see yourself.”
“Shit, I mean, you’re hurt. Worn out. Probably hungry.” Damn it, now I was babbling. I squeezed his hand.
“Where are you taking me?” he asked, voice barely audible.
“My house. So, Jules and Ari. There’s something off there, huh? Yeah, there is.”
Tyler barked out a laugh. “What was your first clue?”
He pulled off my glove and kissed my hand, and my heart took off faster than a herd of stampeding horses. I’d always had trouble getting close to people. How would I ever explain my past? My weird hangups? I couldn’t, so I didn’t. Well, with Tyler, I didn’t need to do that, and there was some solid comfort in the thought.
About an hour later, I pulled the car into my driveway, and Tyler gasped. I stopped the car and cut the engine. My place was an old 1970s A-frame painted fire engine red, which I loved. The huge windows were lined with blue and pink holiday lights. Inside, the Christmas tree glowed in the center of the living room. All the windows gave us a direct line to the holiday explosion.
“You live here? Christmas threw up on your house.” He stared wide eyed at the inflatable Santa and family of snowmen on the lawn. Each were about six feet tall and looked great with the heavy snow coming down.
“Well, you know, Dad would never allow anything like this. Waste of money and time, he’d say. And he’d always start fights around the holidays to justify calling us ungrateful and say we didn’t deserve nice things.” My fingers nervously traced around the steering wheel.
Tyler watched me like I was a pod person.
