“Dude, those aren’t groceries. What is he taking in?” After a quick pause, Dion looked at me, “I’m going in—this may be the only chance. Cover me.”

“Going in?! Cover you?” I asked indignantly at my idiotic friend. Dion was hunched over and zipping across the street toward Tom’s garage before I could fully respond with reason. At that point I could text him a warning if I saw Tom coming back, but I didn’t know if he would even see it.

I stayed back to observe, attempting to contain shit from filling my pants. This was not a move that made sense to me. It was unplanned, and hell, for all we knew, Tom had a front door camera at his place. This was the type of neighborhood to have that kind of thing.

The last thing I wanted was for this man to have literally any connection to me. Staying off the radar was the only thing that made sense, and this would likely compromise that plan. The move seemed more likely to cause an issue than not, but I realized that after all of my dithering Dion had already slipped inside the garage.

Time seemed to lurch. The seconds dragged into infinity, and my heart kept beating louder and louder. The internal sound of it was so raucous that I looked around briefly to make sure no other neighbor had come out to investigate the booming. No one had… yet. The cool night air seemed to have dropped a few degrees since Tom pulled up, and my shiver returned, fueled by windy air swirling through the trees above.

I kept scanning back and forth between the house and the garage, looking for any signs of movement or life. A light came on inside the house, illuminating a window close to the front door. My internal alarm bells went off again, and I realized that my armpits were hot despite my body shivers.

I felt some sweat build on my forehead. I texted Dion “Get out he’s coming” as quickly as I could. For once I wished I had not turned off auto-correct, as “coming” was mistyped initially as “vimong.”

Jesus fuck, I thought as Tom’s front door opened a second later. It took all of my will to not blurt it aloud. Tom was not slowing down, and he marched right toward the garage, which contained his mystery sacks, lord knows what else, and my idiot friend Dion.

My internal monologue started running on overtime. Should I stop this? How do I stop this? I can’t let him see me… but… I need to do something. I started to come out from behind the tree. It was dark enough, and Tom was turned toward his garage, so I was sure my cover would maintain until I was closer. Should I… say I am selling magazines or something? Shit, what if he wants to buy one? Who the fuck buys magazines anymore? Maybe I should play the religious card. That’s dangerous too, he may actually know something about religion and my cover would be shit. Ask for directions maybe? Who does that ever!