Theo’s face heated as he remembered all the times back in Sticky when he’d get home to an empty house, have a warm-up meal, and go to bed. He’d missed his mom, of course, but he hadn’t realized how isolated he’d been in ways that had nothing to do with living in a small town in the middle of nowhere. He wasn’t even living in a town here, but the three other people on this stretch of property had already decided he was one of their own.
Now if only he could convince Spencer of the same thing.
THE “hiring the new pilots” line turned out to be a trap.
Damien had Theo strapped in the front of the Black Hawk, both of them with coms helmets on, when Theo asked him how many interviewees Glen had lined up.
“Is that what Preston told you?” Damien asked. “Wow. Glen really is an asshole.”
“What’s that mean?” Theo asked, confused.
“That means that Preston doesn’t lie, and Glen knows that. And Glen also knew me and Preston wouldn’t be at the family dinner last night because we hump like bunnies on my first day back. So he told Preston a big old whopper to get you on the chopper with me today. He hired the damned pilots last week. Elsie can barely tolerate them, but she says she can deal for another seven months.”
“What’s in seven months?” Theo asked, now thoroughly confused.
“That’s the timeline the docs gave us before Spencer gets back up in the air. Around October.”
“But he’s not even back from the hospital yet!”
There was a silence, filled with the roar and dip of the helicopter as it sailed over the growing vineyards of Napa wine country, and Theo checked Damien’s face to make sure he wasn’t about to let them fall out of the air.
“What?” he asked, feeling stupid.
Damien—damn his beautiful arrogant soul—grinned.
“What?” Theo repeated. “What am I missing.”
“Yet,” Damien said, and Theo realized that he wasn’t flying in the direction of the hangar where Gecko Inc. was located. He was flying in the direction of Napa. Specifically, in the direction of the hospital.
“Oh my God.” Theo’s heart leapt and he had to fight seriously against a burning in his eyes. “Really?”
“Yessir, really.”
“Does he know?”
Damien gave an evil, evil chuckle.
“He doesn’t know?”
“Well, he probably does now, because Glen’s there with the truck, doing his paperwork.”
“Oh my God!” Theo held his hand up to his chest, trying to slow his breathing.
“Yep. Spencer’s coming home.”
Jailbroken
SPENCER was unprepared for Theo and Damien to come swaggering into his hospital room right when he was trying on the clothes Glen had brought from his apartment. Spencer and Damien used the place as a crash pad between short jobs sometimes. It felt cozy and familiar—but not like home. Not after a year of living out on the ranch.
And the clothes were sort of the same way.
“Where did my ass go?” he asked, looking at the sag in his jeans with dismay. “It wasn’t a huge ass, I admit, but it was an ass, and it seems to be missing!”
“Are you trying to get me to compliment your ass, Spence? Because if you’re ass fishing for ass compliments, then I think the physical size of your ass is immaterial.”
Spencer scowled at the cocky asshole. “Did you get laid last night, Mighty Lizard? I bet you got laid last night. Would you like to know the last time I got laid?”
“Not particularly,” Glen said, eyebrows raised. Cash had invented the nickname, but after he’d used it once in front of the others, Spencer had adopted it and was the only one who’d kept calling Glen Mighty Lizard. Glen and Damien thought it was hilarious, so Spencer took liberties.
“Well, you’re in luck because I don’t remember. I don’t remember when I got laid, and there’s a young man who is living in my house because of you and who keeps answering my texts when I probably sound like a raging fucking lunatic, and I’m on crutches with a leg brace, and I got no ass. I’m not a brain trust. I’m not a saint. I’m not that cute, and I’m not that funny, and now I got no ass.”
Glen rubbed a finger in the place where his eyebrows met like he was trying to massage away pain.
“To my knowledge, Theo has never seen your ass,” he said, all patience. “But if you open your mouth, I’m sure you can show it to him.”
“Why would he want to see it now?” Spencer snarled. “That’s all I’m asking. Look at me, Glen!” His knees gave a wobble, and he realized that, even with the brace to support the still-healing leg, he was going to have to sit down. He sank to the bed, his absurdly loose jeans tugging down because that was what they did when there was nothing to hold them up. “How am I going to look that kid in the eye?”
“Oh no,” Glen said, sounding perturbed, finally. “No. You are not doing this to me. Damien did this to me for a year and a half, but he didn’t tell me he was doing this to me, so all I knew was that my best friend had become the biggest pain in my ass. You don’t get to do this to me. I forbid it. Not after Damien. No.”
“What did I do to you?” Damien asked, practically crashing the door to the hospital room.
“You did the ‘Oh God no, Glen, my perfect heroic manliness has been damaged, and now I can’t go fuck the guy of my dreams, and I shall waste away in loneliness as a result!’ You remember that, Damien? A year and a half? Preston had to lock the two of you in an airplane for hours to snap you out of it, and a wall had to fall on me to help make that happen.”
“You guys are going to have to tell that story in sequence one of these days,” Theo said, hard on Damien’s heels. “And nobody’s wasting away in loneliness.” Theo turned his scowl to Spencer, where it melted and became, well, sort of a dewy smile. The whole world held its breath, and Theo took a couple of steps toward the bed.
“How you doin’, Spence?”
Glen and Damien evaporated, leaving a couple of lingering comments about finishing paperwork like trails of gauze in the air.
Oh, he was so bright and shiny. A shy smile on his face, his surprisingly wide shoulders filling Spencer’s vision. He looked happy and fit and tan—his brown hair even had some gold streaks in it from working in the sun, and Spencer’s hard-earned health seemed to shrivel and curl up on itself like a salted snail.
But he remembered Glen’s words about honesty, and how he’d been there for Glen’s recuperation after an injury, and how when Cash returned for Glen, he had not seemed to give a shit that Glen was scrawny and recovering. Maybe, if he could manage not to be too much of an asshole, Theo could forgive him for not having an ass.
“I am feeling puny,” he admitted.
“Yeah, but Spencer, you get to come home,” Theo said, sitting down next to him on the bed, so close their arms were touching. This had happened over the last couple weeks. He’d held Spencer’s hand, brushed his hair from his eyes as he’d sweated out his fever, kissed his cheek. A slow, pervasive physical closeness had snuck in, giving Spencer moments of comfort he could barely remember from his childhood. But unlike those moments, which he’d come to realize had been conditional upon him being a perfect clone of his parents’ beliefs, these were… unconditional. Theo seemed to accept Spencer for being his foul-mouthed, prickly self and to still want to sit close enough to rest his chin on Spencer’s bony shoulder.