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Tyler had expectations for his son, and Fletcher didn’t fit the bill.
And if Tyler wasn’t careful, he was going to lose his only kid because of those expectations.
4
Conan
The whirring sound of extremely loud sirens yanked me out of my slumber. Fletcher was groggily coming awake beside me. Somehow, he’d ended up resting his head on my shoulder, and I’d been slumped against the cushioned back wall of the rig, the laptop still between us with another movie playing that we hadn’t been watching when we’d fallen asleep.
The sirens continued, and I cursed, finally realizing what they were and what the hell it meant. “Fuck! Fletcher, get the fuck up!” I barked, jumping off the bed.
“What is that noise?” he groaned, slowly following me, his brain still not firing on all cylinders. But mine was. The wind was beginning to howl, somehow seeming even louder than the sirens. We had fuckingsecondsto get the fuck out of this truck and get to lower ground. Because as loud as that tornado was, there was no doubt it would damage this truck. Fucking total it. And I didnotwant my boy to be inside when it did.
I snatched Fletcher’s hand when he reached for his shoes. We didn’t fucking have time for shoes. This was a life-or-death situation, and I had no plans on dying today. And the thought of Fletcher even ending upinjuredwas enough to make me want to throw up.
“What the fuck?!” Fletcher shouted when I shoved open the cab door, the wind almost slamming it shut again. Everyone was running for cover in the gas station, but I knew that wasn’t a good option. We needed lower ground. Somewhere we could hunker down, and hopefully, the tornado would go over us.
“Run!” I barked, tugging on his hand once we were on the concrete lot. We ran full-sprint for the ditch by the road. The whistling was so fucking loud, it hurt my ears. Fletcher’s hand was sweating in mine—shaking, too. And I hated that we were in a situation where I couldn’t fucking help him breathe through his panic attack.
Once we were in the ditch, the tornado began to tear through the parking lot. I tackled Fletcher into the watery ditch and covered his body with mine. He was screaming and crying, his entire body shaking beneath me. Hail beat down on my back and my head. It hurt like hell, but I refused to budge.
The wind was so fucking strong, I could feel it pulling at me. Twisting my legs with Fletcher’s, I looked up for a split second to see if there was something I could grab hold of.
Fuck—right there. A piece of rebar was sticking out of the sidewalk above me. I wrapped my fist around it, holding on tightly, gritting my teeth. My other arm was bound around Fletcher’s waist, my face buried against the back of his head to protect him the best I could.
It felt like that tornado was ripping through the parking lot for hours, but I knew it wasn’t nearly that long. Hell, it wasn’t even minutes. Probably just mere seconds. But those seconds were the longest of my fucking life.
When the wind calmed and the hail stopped beating against my back, I released the rebar, my hand raw and bleeding from how tightly I’d been gripping it. I quickly leaned up and rolled Fletcher to his back. He was gasping for air, crying so hard his chest was wracking with sobs. I clutched him to me, forcing him to straddle me as I rocked him side to side, the fingers of my right-hand lacing in his hair as my left arm curled around him. Blood smeared everywhere, but neither of us cared or really even noticed. Not after what we’d just miraculously survived.
His chest was heaving, but he wasn’t sucking any oxygen into his deprived lungs. Fletcher’s eyes were wild and unfocused. “Breathe,” I commanded. I gripped a handful of his hair and pulled until I knew he was feeling pain. It was the only thing I knew to bring him out of his head. “Fucking breathe, Fletcher. You’re safe. You’re alive. It’s going to be okay. Just breathe, baby.”
He clutched at me, his chest shuddering with every painful breath he sucked into his deprived lungs. Whimpers ripped from his throat, but I kept talking to him. Kept rocking him. Kept pain pulsing repeatedly through his scalp to give himself something else to focus on.
He finally leaned back from me a little, swiping at his tear-stained cheeks. Our clothes were soaked from the rain and the water-logged ditch, and my body was in agony from the hail beating against me. My skull was pulsing with a headache from hell.
But we were alive.
“Conan…” His voice trembled, tears still glistening in his eyes.
I cupped his face. “I could’ve lost you,” I rasped.
He sniffled, his lips trembling. Not able to take it anymore,refusingto let myself live without him as mine for another fucking second, I slanted my lips across his and claimed my best friend’s son as my own.
Fletcher’s lips were salty from his tears, but I felt his muscles relax just a tiny bit as our mouths smoothly moved together. It was almost like our souls knew each other on the deepest level. That we were two pieces of a whole finally fitting together.
Fletcher’s fingers slid into my hair, and he clutched at the strands as he licked at my lips. I opened for him, so fucking greedy to have his tongue in my mouth. I groaned as he licked into my mouth, and our tongues danced together so beautifully, my heart soared.
Panting, I pulled back from him, brushing my thumbs over his damp cheeks just as the rain began pelting down again. His lashes were clumped together, his face red and puffy from crying, his eyes bloodshot, but he’d never looked so fucking beautiful.
I rested my forehead on his. “I love you,” I rasped.
He hiccupped, making me smile a little. His cold, trembling fingers ran down the back of my neck. “I love you, too, Conan.” He lifted his head, looking over my shoulder. Horror swept over his features.
“Oh, God,” he choked out.
I turned my head and cursed.
Oh, God didn’t even fucking cover the destruction awaiting us.
