09. Gay and Happy

254K 8.2K 3.6K
                                    

09

Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.

09. GAY AND HAPPY

After they parked in the driveway of Clarissa Bollinger's house, Julian paused to give Aiden a stern command.

"Even though this place looks abandoned, Clarissa may very well still be lingering around nearby. I need you to stay in the car until I check out the house. Until I come back to get you, do not get out under any circumstance. Understood?"

Julian's strict tone and hardened demeanor left no room for debate; Aiden was too exhausted, mentally, to try and challenge him anyway.

"Be careful in there."

"I'm always careful," Julian replied with a smug grin before exiting the car.

Aiden watched from the passenger seat of the car, his adrenaline pumping, as Julian extracted his gun before slowly approaching Clarissa's house.

The place really did look abandoned; the grass was high and looked like it hadn't been cut in weeks, there was dark green moss that crept up around the front and sides of the house, and one of the front windows was boarded up entirely by old blocks of wood. As shabby as the place looked on the outside, squatters probably loved it.

No one would ever think that someone actually lived here, and whether Clarissa did or not, Aiden and Julian would soon find out. If the latter turned out to be the case and she didn't stay here, it meant that all this was nothing more than a dead-end and that Clarissa was probably still out there somewhere currently plotting her next move against Aiden.

"Holy shit!" Aiden exclaimed from the passenger seat after he watched Julian kick the front door open, later disappearing inside.

It was then that Aiden had waited... and waited... and waited some more until almost fifteen minutes passed with still no word from Julian.

To hell with this. Aiden hopped out of the car and marched towards the tattered looking house with his head held high despite feeling nervous as hell.

Aiden knew he should have been more patient, but he just couldn't help himself. He didn't like feeling so damn useless. He couldn't just sit in the car idly and do nothing!

Holy shit, it smells like feet and ass in here. The stench of the inside of the house had nearly knocked Aiden off his feet. He covered his nose while navigating through the piles and piles of filth. The place was totally cluttered; it was a hoarder's dream home, but the lack of space made Aiden feel uncomfortably claustrophobic.

He eventually made it into the hallway which, fortunately, wasn't as packed with junk. It was a two-bedroom house and all the doors in the hall were open, so Aiden assumed that Julian had checked them already. The master bedroom was where Julian had been all this time. He was in a temporary state of shock by what he saw on the walls.

When Aiden entered the room, Julian probably wouldn't have noticed him had he not spoke up.

"Jesus Christ... What the hell is all of this?"

The Bodyguard | LGBT x CEO (Excerpt)Where stories live. Discover now