“Charles Clifton, there’s a code, and you broke it.” She spins back, a sassy little spitfire. I like it a lot.
“Hey, now. First-naming me isn’t called for.” He winks at me in the rearview mirror.
“Your face is red, Clove. The photo of you two on stage is freaking hot.” I can hear the humor in Madi’s voice.
“I hate all of you.”
“You love us.” Savvy’s tone is smug. “You’re literally living a romance novel.”
I try not to laugh but fail.
“He’s laughing. Bumps him to a nine-point-five.” Madi’s a ballbuster.
“I’m right here,” I say.
“We know.” Savvy’s tone sounds like a good old Southern ‘bless your heart.’ “Clover’s a handful.”
“I’m aware. It’s a good thing I have big hands.”
Clover groans.
“She reads in the bathtub until the water’s ice-cold,” Madi offers. “And cries at dog food commercials.”
“That’s…oddly specific.”
“Traitors,” Clover mumbles.
Madi’s tone quiets. “When we say she’s a lot, we mean she’s the best of everything, Valen. Love, loyalty, kindness, forgiveness. She’s a lot of everything good, and we’ll gut anyone who hurts her. Capisce?”
“Madi, you’re not in the freaking mafia.”
I glance at a blushing, mortified Clover who has somehow made herself even smaller.
“I wouldn’t have Clover any other way,” I say, hoping she hears the truth because the more I see of Miss Clover Danforth, the more I want to know.
“He’s a good egg,” Chief calls from the back.
“Okay,” Savvy says finally. “He can stay.”
“Approved.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see Madi offering a high five to her screen.
Ridiculous.
They spend the next twenty minutes catching up while I drive. But I watch Clover. The way she lights up. The way she laughs. The way she completely relaxes into herself the longer they talk.
She’s not alone. She has people who love her. Who know and understand her. Who’d fight for her.
When this is over, when the threat’s gone and my job’s done—she won’tneedme to stay because she has a whole life in Happiness.
Her entire life has taught her that people don’t stay, they don’t stick around. How will I even go about proving that I’m different when I can’t even remember loving her the first time?
And do I want to?
We just kissed, for fuck’s sake. Once. So why am I even entertaining wild ideas like…like staying?
But Jesus. Not pursuingsomethingwith her would break me in ways I’m not sure could be fixed.
I know it to be true, just like the sky is blue and grass is green—Clover Danforth was meant to be in my life in any capacity I can have her.
