Out of Character (True Colors 2)

“Well, if it means I’m a friend…” Milo paused as he pulled up his jeans.

“A friend who looks damn good naked.” I couldn’t help the leer because he really did.

Milo’s laugh was deep and musical. “We better find that coffee before you tempt me into saying screw this hunt.”

“There’s another joke there…”

“Behave.” He gently walloped me with his sweatshirt before putting it on. “Doughnuts. Now.”

“Okay, okay.” I grabbed my stuff and led the way back downstairs, slowing my pace for Milo. “And I’m freezing, so we’ll take the car.”

“All right.” Milo grimaced and I couldn’t tell whether it was leg pain or frustration with my thinly veiled attempt to spare him the long walk to the doughnut place.

But my plan didn’t entirely work because I couldn’t find parking near Lee’s Bakery. Milo ended up hopping out to wait in line while I circled the block. When I returned, he had a white box and two steaming cups.

“Yours is hot chocolate. No soda before noon.” Laughing, he settled back in the passenger seat. “And I got you your favorite again, so try not to die of chocolate overload.”

“I’ll try.” I ended up driving us back to campus and parking in the lot near the library so we could enjoy the food.

“Now tell me how this works, anyway,” Milo said as he grabbed a second doughnut.

“So, like the public geocaching sites, you’re hunting hiding spots. These are even more secretive, with hidden lairs that you have to decipher clues to find, and themed caches. This site is all devoted to Odyssey, so if we can follow the clues, then there might, might be a card we can trade for inside. I’ve got the rare I won, plus two other ultra rares to try to equal the value.”

Milo frowned at that. “I don’t want you to have to use your personal stash of cards.”

“Eh. I found these the old-fashioned way, cracking packs.” Shrugging, I looked away. Honestly, I’d gone from resentful that Milo needed my help to being rather invested in his quest. I wanted him happy and wanted him to have a chance to redeem himself with Bruno. And helping him, having what he needed, made me feel twenty feet tall. “I got super lucky with finding the cards, but I haven’t found the right deck for them yet. I don’t mind using them to help you.”

“Well, I appreciate it.” Milo glanced around the parking lot before giving me a fast kiss on the cheek.

“Thanks.” My skin heated as I pulled out my phone and navigated to the site I’d bookmarked. “Let’s look at the first clue.”

Milo quirked his lips as he looked down at my phone with me. “It’s a lineup of Odyssey cards?”

“Yeah, but it’s a puzzle. Why these cards? Why this order?” Thinking hard, I tapped my fingers against my thigh, mulling over possibilities.

“Is this where we call your friends?”

“Chill. Let me think.” I could have called someone, of course, but I desperately wanted to solve the puzzle myself, wanted to be that kind of hero for Milo.

“Does it maybe have to do with the drawings?” Milo pulled out his sketchbook. “Like, they each have a human character in the foreground and a different building in the background.”

“I love it when you talk art to me,” I quipped as I helped him run through possibilities. Names of buildings in the pictures. What they represented. First letters. Our food was long finished, and the air in the car was frosty, but nothing was triggering a clue worth heading out into the cold for.

“Maybe we’re overthinking it.” Setting his pencil aside, Milo frowned. “I mean, they are all brick buildings. Not that we’ve got any shortage of those here—”

“Brick. Of course.” Grinning broadly, I all but crowed as I opened the car door. “The Brick family donated an obscene amount of money for the Brick Science Hall, like, a century ago. Now, why four cards?”

“Are there four floors?” he asked as he followed me out of the car.

“Are we sure I’m the genius one in this operation?” I matched my strides to his as we made our way past the library to the old science hall. “Let’s head to the fourth floor. And Boy Wonder, how about you figure out why it’s those four characters.”

We took a creaky elevator up to the fourth floor while debating what the characters represented on the card could mean.

“An archer, a gravedigger, some sort of chicken farmer, and a goth-looking chick walk into a bar…” Milo cracked.

“The farmer is raising a falcon army. And she’s a reaper,” I corrected automatically as I racked my brain, trying to make sense of the clues. “Which is sort of like an angel of death in the game.”

“Well, there’s enough dead creatures up here.” Milo gestured at the glass cases of taxidermy creatures lining the wide hall.