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Payton woke to a hand gently shaking him. His eyes felt like he’d rinsed them with sand and he hadn’t even opened them yet. He blinked, waiting for the fog of sleep to clear. “Boone?” he croaked.

God, he felt like shit. He took a quick inventory of his aches and pains. His headache was now just a barely-there annoyance instead of the throbbing migraine from earlier. His muscles felt oddly stiff, but maybe that was from falling asleep wrapped around Boone? A smile bled across his face as he stretched his arms until his joints popped.

He’d gotten to sleep tucked beside him for…how long had it been? There were no windows in the rooms at the Watch, so time moved differently there. That hadn’t mattered, though. Boone’s scent, the warmth of his skin, the feel of his body had all lulled Payton to sleep.

Boone hooked a brow upwards, studying Payton’s expression. “What are you smiling about?”

“Nothing,” Payton lied, still smiling.

Boone had—thankfully—not turned on the overhead light in the bedroom, opting instead for a small silver lamp in the corner. It provided only enough light for the two to see each other.

“Sit up. I need you to eat and take some medicine,” Boone said.

Payton made a whiny noise he wasn’t proud of. “I just want to sleep some more.”

Boone didn’t take no for an answer, hands sliding under Payton to force him to sit with his back against the headboard. “You can sleep after you eat this.”

Only then did Payton notice the tray sitting on the bedside table. “You made me soup?”

Boone shrugged, sitting on the edge of the mattress next to Payton’s thigh. “Technically, Campbell’s made you soup. I just heated it up on the stove.”

Payton huffed out a laugh, then took the tray, noting the too large bowl of soup, the entire sleeve of crackers, and the can of ginger ale.

“I feel like I’m in a nursing home,” Payton said, picking up the spoon and taking a timid bite. It was good—a little salty, but he didn’t mind that. It felt nice on his dry throat.

“You were complaining about feeling nauseated earlier. I didn’t want to overwhelm your system. The ginger ale will settle your stomach, and the soup and crackers are bland enough to not trigger any kind of overwhelm to your already compromised system.”

“That’s a lot of words for ‘I didn’t want you to puke in my bed,’” Payton said.

Boone laughed. “Yeah, that too.”

For a few minutes, Boone seemed content to just watch Payton eat, but then he asked, “How are you feeling? Do you still have a headache?”

“No. I feel sleepy”—Payton yawned again at the mention of sleep—“more than anything. I’m so drained.”

“Well, yeah. You’ve barely slept in the last twenty-four hours and you have a dent in your skull.”

“Just a small dent. Hardly noticeable,” Payton mused.

Boone snorted. “Unless you shave your head.”

Payton shuddered. “I would look terrible without hair.”

“You couldn’t look bad if you tried,” Boone countered, shaking his head.

Payton looked up, trying to see his own hairline. “I don’t think you understand how much skull this hair is hiding. If I shaved my head, I’d look like Megamind.”

Boone barked out a surprised laugh, then took Payton’s skull in his large hands, gently feeling it. “I think you’re exaggerating a little.”

Payton’s lip curled. “Let’s pray you never find out.”

Boone laughed again, shaking his head.

Payton managed to finish half the soup and a few crackers, then used his ginger ale to swallow the two pills Boone gave him. It didn’t even occur to him to ask what they were. It didn’t matter. He’d swallow cyanide capsules if Boone handed them to him with that concerned look on his face.

When Boone stood and took the tray, Payton asked, “Are you leaving?”

Why did he sound so desperate? Boone set the tray on the dresser, then walked to his side of the bed to sit against the pillows. “No. They’ll come to me when they have something.”

Good.

Payton maneuvered himself until he was lying sideways, head on Boone’s thigh, his knees curled into his chest. “Pet me.”

“You’re like a cat,” Boone teased, even as his fingers carefully combed through Payton’s hair. “Demanding even when you want affection.”

“I can’t help that I know what I want and I’m not afraid to ask for it,” Payton said haughtily.

“I didn’t say it was a bad thing,” Boone murmured, looking down at Payton fondly.

“Are your parents alive?” Payton blurted.

Boone’s eyes went wide at the question. “I can’t figure out if you're calling me old or if you genuinely want to know.”

“I—You just never mention your family.”

“My mom’s alive. She retired to Belize with four of her girlfriends,” Boone said, his amusement obvious.

It was Payton’s turn to look surprised. “Really? Do you have pictures?”

“You want to see pictures of my mom?” Boone asked, reaching for his phone.

Payton rolled onto his back, gazing up at Boone. “Is that weird?”

Boone shook his head, handing over his phone. “Just swipe.”

On the screen, four older women in bikinis lay on lounge chairs, day-drinking mojitos by the ocean.

Payton looked from Boone to the picture. “One of these women is your mom ? She barely looks older than you.”

Boone shrugged. “She had me at sixteen, so I guess she’s not that much older than me.”

More Boone lore. Payton wanted to know more. He wanted to know everything. He gazed at the women. Two blondes, a redhead, and a woman with silver hair with a single streak of black framing her face.

“Which one is she?”

“Which one do you think?”

Payton studied each of the women. It was on the tip of his tongue to say the silver-haired woman. Boone’s hair had gone prematurely silver. It would stand to reason he got it from his mother. But then he noticed the redhead had the exact same eyes as Boone.

“The redhead?” Payton asked.

Payton’s heart kicked when Boone looked pleased with him. “How’d you guess?”

“You have the same eyes,” Payton murmured, swiping to the next photo.

This one was taken in the shadows of a bar somewhere. His mother wore a white jumpsuit that looked amazing on her. She was surrounded by people, men and women alike. In some photos, she looked poised and elegant, but in others, she was grinning like she was about to do something illegal or had her head thrown back as she laughed at something someone said.

“Your mom was sixteen when you were born?”

“Sixteen when she got pregnant, seventeen when I was born. My dad was twenty-four.”

“Oh, that’s…” Payton trailed off.

“Illegal? Yeah,” Boone said with a disgusted huff. “But I was born and raised in bum fuck nowhere. Nobody cared about some dollar store cashier getting knocked up by a roughneck. I don’t know if my mom actually loved him or if she was just grateful he didn’t bail when she told him she was pregnant.”

“Were you close with your dad?” Payton asked.

Boone’s hand settled on Payton’s throat, his thumb idly stroking the skin there. Payton’s lids fluttered shut for a few moments while he waited for Boone to answer him.

“No,” Boone finally said. “I think I met him maybe a handful of times. He would send birthday cards smudged with oil and stuffed with a hundred dollars. He worked on a rig off the coast of Scotland.”

“Dangerous,” Payton acknowledged, his eyes opening once more to look at Boone.

Boone nodded. “Very. He died when I was fourteen.”

Payton’s heart accelerated a little. “How?”

“The rig caught fire. All but a handful died.”

Payton nodded. “Brant Charlie.”

Boone’s gaze snapped to his at the mention of the rig. “How’d you know that?”

“You’re not the only one born and raised in Texas, remember? My father’s main headquarters are in Dallas. Oil is the family business. I had a morbid fascination with how dangerous the work was. Used to tell my dad I wanted to work on a rig just to watch him lose his mind, shouting at me that my path was already set.”

Payton’s father had always been insistent that he take all of the program’s teachings as gospel. He’d been raised with strict rules, and when they were broken, his father doled out swift and severe punishments. Though, that wasn’t in the playbook. Violence begets violence and all that. He seemed fine with overlooking that section.

“You would have hated it,” Boone said. “It’s dirty, grimey, back-breaking work.”

Payton studied Boone’s handsome bearded jaw. “You’d look great all dirtied up.”

Boone smirked down at him before taking his phone back and hitting a few buttons before he settled the device back in Payton’s hands. A much younger Boone stared back at him from the screen. He was decked out in desert cammies with a rifle strapped across his chest. He still had the same chiseled square jaw and long lashes, but his dark hair didn’t have any gray and his completely shaved face showed off his sharp cheekbones and pink skin.

The next photo was of Boone lying on the ground, eye pressed to the site of one of the biggest guns Payton had ever seen.

“You’ve always been so hot.”

“Thanks,” Boone said, like he was humoring him.

Payton took Boone’s hand—the one not on his throat—and brought it to his scalp once more, tipping his head against it until Boone snorted and began playing with his hair once more.

“What did your mom do after your dad died?” Payton asked after a minute. “It couldn’t have been easy raising you alone.”

“By the time he died, she had gotten her nursing degree. But he left her a pretty substantial life insurance policy. Plus, there was a lawsuit brought about by the victim’s families, us included. Everyone wanted the company to own up to their mistakes.”

“Did they?”

Boone nodded. “Yeah, years later. They were ordered to pay $1.2 billion dollars, divided amongst the families. After the lawyers took their thirty-three percent and the government took their share in taxes, my mom had about four million dollars left. She used it to pay off her house and her car and then socked the rest away to keep making money until she retired. Which she did about five years ago.”

“She seems like a real party goblin.”

Boone laughed softly at Payton’s assessment. “She missed out on a lot while raising me. Now, she gets to make up for lost time.”

“Do you get along?”

Boone nodded. “Yeah. I don’t think I’ve ever had a single fight with my mother.”

Payton didn’t know what was more surprising: Boone’s answer or the way it kicked Payton in the stomach.

“Must be nice,” he muttered, unable to hide the bitterness in his words.

Boone’s hands on him moved a little faster, like he was trying to distract him from thinking too hard about any one thing. “What about you?”

“Like I said, my father was a nightmare. I was raised in Texas just like you. Until my father sent me to that pretentious boarding school for budding lunatics. He still monitored me closely, but from afar. I was finally officially free of him once I went to college.”

“Tell the truth,” Boone said. “Did you really get your degree in video game design to piss off your father?”

“Of course,” Payton said. “He wanted me to graduate with a political science degree. Video game design was the antithesis of that.”

“Remi said you’re a shit coder. How do you design video games if you can’t code?” Boone asked. “Don’t you need that skill? I’m not an expert, so maybe I’m wrong.”

“No, you’re not wrong. You can’t design games without coders, but if I coded anything, it would be more basic than the original Atari.”

Boone snorted. “I’m old enough to have actually played on one of those.”

Payton rolled his eyes at the age reference. “Just because a game needs coders, it doesn’t mean you have to be a coder to come up with a game idea. I focused on the actual game design component. I wrote the proposal, the lore, the characters. I sketched out ideas for the overall story aesthetic and world-building. Essentially, I created the narrative and then left making it a reality in the hands of a very good team.”

“Weren’t you designing a video game before you came here?” Boone asked.

“Mm,” Payton confirmed. “My senior project. I submitted a game proposal for a complex D&D based RPG. The instructor liked it so much he asked me to consider putting together a team and submitting a proposal.”

“Did you?”

Payton nodded. “Yeah, I got the team together, helped create the Kickstarter campaign, and then left it in their hands when I had to come here.”

“Did they finish the game?” Boone asked.

Payton snorted. “Creating a video game that complex can take four to six years. I’ll be neck deep in bodies before it ever sees the light of day.”

“And you don’t miss it?” Boone asked.

Payton shook his head. “There was no real passion. I just have a good imagination. I wanted to infuriate my father. And it worked. Mission accomplished.”

Payton had gotten into more than one screaming match with his father over the trajectory of his “career path.” He was always destined for Project Watchtower. His father thought he should be honing his skills on international diplomacy and intergovernmental laws. But that was what Watchtower’s training was for. He’d learn whatever he needed there. He didn’t want to waste what little freedom he had left learning about political science.

“What about your mom?” Boone asked hesitantly. “Are you close with her?”

Payton shot Boone an incredulous look. “My mother—if you could call her that—avoided me like the plague. She was terrified of me from day one. She acted like they’d adopted a feral panther and not a child.”

“How old were you when you were adopted?”

“Four, I think?” Payton said.

“They thought you showed signs of psychopathy at four?” Boone asked. “That seems like a stretch.”

Payton shrugged. “What do I know? I suppose they were right, though, so maybe they saw something in me? Maybe my mom did, too? She tried to pretend—in the beginning, anyway—but it was so obvious. She physically recoiled whenever I touched her, always carefully pushing me away and saying, ‘Don’t hang on Mommy.’”

“What did your father say about that?” Boone asked.

“What could he say? I doubt he asked her permission before he agreed to participate in this…program. Which wasn’t exactly fair to her. I would hear them fighting about me at least once a week.”

Boone’s fingers tightened in his hair briefly. “Did that hurt you?”

Payton shook his head. “It…confused me.”

“Confused you?”

“Other kids’ mothers didn’t behave that way. They loved their children. Whereas mine found me creepy.”

“She sounds like she sucks.”

Payton snickered at Boone’s assessment. “You seemed to find me creepy for a while, too.”

Boone caught Payton’s gaze. “No. I never found you creepy. That was the problem. There was supposed to be some level of professionalism between us. I’m your headmaster. I was supposed to be guiding you, not seducing you.”

“To be fair, I definitely seduced you,” Payton teased.

“That you did,” Boone drawled. “Maybe before we even met face to face.”

“Tell the truth, it was that photoshoot, huh? The one with the pearls.”

Boone looked down at him, startled. “What?”

Payton grinned, his heart fluttering in his chest when Boone flushed. “I saw the magazine in your office drawer. That page seemed a bit more…worn than the others. What do you get up to in that office of yours, Waylon Boone?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Boone said, trying to sound breezy, but mostly sounding like he was choking on each word.

“Would you admit you jerked off to pictures of me if I told you that I still have that outfit in my closet?” Payton taunted.

Boone opened his mouth, then closed it, studying Payton’s face. Finally, he asked, “I don’t know. Do you still have that outfit?”

“Mm-hm,” Payton confirmed, sitting up to straddle Boone’s lap. “Right down to the shoes. Now, will you admit it?”

“Only if you agree to wear it for me the next time I fuck you.”

“Deal,” Payton murmured, letting his lips brush lightly over Boone’s. “Now, say it.”

“I jerked off to pictures of you in that magazine.”

“Pictures?” Payton asked, the corners of his mouth tugging upwards. “Not just the one?”

“All of them,” Boone admitted, his hands sliding under Payton’s t-shirt to grab his bare ass. “Every single one.”

“Fuck, that’s hot. I want to watch you jerk off to me in that outfit,” Payton admitted, rolling his hips so Boone could feel him hardening against his own length.

“We can’t do this again. You need some rest.”

“God, you suck sometimes,” Payton whined.

Boone gently pushed Payton off him, letting him settle with his head back on his lap.

“You said your father remarried?” Boone asked, as if the other conversation never happened. “Where did your mom go?”

“Mostly rehab,” Payton muttered. “Twice that I know of. But rich people don’t call it that. We call it a wellness retreat. You’ll be shocked to learn that her rehab in Ibiza was unsuccessful. Not sure who thought a drug facility in the heart of party central was a good idea. But the rehab in Switzerland failed, too. She was in Dubai for a while, but then she almost got thrown in prison for trying to board her flight with drugs on her. Last I heard, she was living at some holistic resort in Tulum, but that could be a rumor.”

“She seems like…a lot,” Boone said carefully.

Payton laughed quietly. “That’s one way to put it.”

There was a knock on the door. Boone sighed, then gently picked up Payton’s head, replacing his thigh with a pillow before going to answer it. Payton pulled the covers over him to hide his lack of clothing, then listened to the low hum of muffled voices, relieved when they grew louder. Boone was making them come to him.

When he returned, Archer and Mac were with him. They both looked exhausted. They probably hadn’t gotten much sleep either last night.

Boone returned to Payton’s side once more, replacing the pillow with his thigh, hands stroking through Payton’s curls. “What did you find?”

“More than I expected,” Mac admitted.

Boone’s expression shifted. He sat up a little straighter. “Meaning?”

“She had a burner phone taped above her closet door frame. Luckily, it wasn’t a flip phone. Just an old smartphone without a SIM card,” Mac said. “It looked like someone had wiped it clean.”

“What’d you do with it?” Boone asked.

“I brought it to West and Remi about an hour ago. I thought maybe you’d want to come with us to see if they found anything.”

“An hour ago?” Boone barked. “Why didn’t you tell me then?”

“Tell you what? We found a phone with nothing on it. That’s hardly breaking news. We figured we’d let you take care of your sugar baby for a little while longer before we dragged your old ass out of bed,” Archer shot back.

There was no heat to his words, but Boone snorted, anyway. “You’ve got some nerve calling Payton a sugar baby when you’re a billionaire married to a wildlife photographer.”

“I don’t know how many times I have to say this,” Archer countered. “My father is a billionaire. I am but a humble teacher. We both are.”

Boone rolled his eyes. “Even without your father’s money, you made millions as a professional poker player.”

“He donated all that money,” Mac said, looking fondly at his husband. “We’re not destitute by any means, but I don’t think I qualify as a sugar baby. Not at my age.”

Payton cleared his throat, breaking up the bickering. “Can you guys wait for us in the living room? I’m a little naked under here, and while I don’t care about that, I’m almost positive you will.”

“Yeah, I think one teacher seeing you naked is more than enough,” Archer said. “We’ll wait for you outside.”

Once they were alone, Boone turned to him. “I can go on my own. You need to rest.”

“Do you really think that’s going to work on me?” Payton asked. “I’m going. You’re not going to leave me out of this.”

“You need to rest. I don’t want you overexerting yourself.”

Payton rolled his eyes. “It’s just a bump on the head. I didn’t have major surgery or anything.”

“You and I both know you probably have a concussion,” Boone countered.

“Pants?”

Boone blinked at him stupidly. “What?”

“Where are the pants you offered me yesterday?” Payton clarified, voice dripping with mock patience.

“You’re so goddamn stubborn,” Boone grumbled, throwing off the covers and stalking to the dresser, yanking the drawer open with enough oomph to almost tear it from its home.

Payton snickered, earning another glare from the older man a moment before a pair of pants landed on his head, occluding his vision.

When he heard Boone give his own mean little laugh, he rolled his eyes. “Very mature.”

There was a loud knock on the bedroom door.

“Can you two stop bickering and hurry the fuck up?” Archer called.