Nothing Between Us

Keats flinched. “Sorry. He okay?”

Colby blew out a breath, not sure why he was sharing any of this with Keats but unable to stop. “Yeah, thank God. But I’ve been put on leave since I was the last one to counsel him. His parents want an investigation.”

“Counsel?”

Colby took another long sip of coffee. “Yeah, I’m a school counselor now. I went back for my master’s after … after I left Hickory Point.”

Keats’s head lowered and he picked at the food on his plate. They stayed quiet for a few more minutes until Keats shifted on his feet and cleared his throat. “You lost your teaching job because of me.”

Colby leaned back in his chair, the past pressing down on him with that, smothering him in the bright, airy kitchen. “No, I resigned. I knew the rumors wouldn’t stop. And really, I didn’t want to be there anymore anyway.”

Colby wouldn’t tell Keats that he’d been physically sick with grief for months, torturing himself with the constant what ifs, wondering what could have saved Keats, and knowing, deep in his gut, that he’d handled things all wrong. He’d seen too much of himself in Keats and had wanted to be there for him. But he should’ve known that offering that level of open conversation could be misconstrued by a confused kid. He hadn’t kept the boundaries clear enough. And that last night, when Keats had asked if Colby was bi, Colby had admitted that the rumors were true.

Looking back, it had been so inappropriate to share that. But he’d seen Keats tearing himself up for feelings and urges he was having, using his father’s hateful language as a constant internal soundtrack. He and his dad had had a huge fight that final night, and his father had threatened to send Keats to military school.

Besides the regular music classes at school, Keats had been taking guitar lessons two nights a week with Colby. But that final evening, he hadn’t shown up for his appointment at the rec center where they met. Late that night, he’d shown up on Colby’s doorstep instead, carrying his broken guitar. Keats’s father had smashed his son’s most precious possession against the wall.

Colby had made the fatal error of letting Keats inside. Keats had spilled everything about the fight with his dad. His father had found a sheet of lyrics Keats had written—a song called “Off Limits” that had made it sound like Keats was in love with a boy. His father had flipped his shit, called Keats every disgusting name in the homophobe handbook, and had told him he’d rather be dead than have a fag for a son. Even when Keats denied that the song had anything to do with that—that it was really about how everything he loved to do, like playing music, was off-limits—his father hadn’t listened. His dad wasn’t going to be satisfied until his artsy son turned into what he wanted—a tough-as-nails “man’s man” who would follow in his father’s and older brother’s footsteps into the Marines.

It had taken everything Colby had not to drive over to Keats’s house and beat the stupid out of Keats’s father. How could anyone look at Keats and not see how talented and amazing the kid was? But he’d controlled himself and had tried to be there for Keats as a sympathetic ear and to offer a safe place for him to express his feelings. But when Keats had asked him point-blank about his sexuality, Colby hadn’t been able to lie. Instead of saying that wasn’t an appropriate question to ask him, he’d been honest.

Colby had long suspected the kid was confused about his sexuality, and he’d wanted Keats to know that if he felt drawn to both guys and girls, he wasn’t alone, that it was okay to have the feelings he did. That being a “real” man had nothing to do with who you were or weren’t attracted to. But while Colby was busy trying to be Mr. Save the Day teacher, he’d been too stupid to realize that Keats’s confused feelings were a lot less hypothetical and a lot more personal. Not until Keats had leaned over to kiss him had Colby realized how wrong everything had gone.

And he’d handled the whole situation in the most immature and dangerous way possible, reacting out of fear, thinking of self-preservation first. He’d shoved Keats away and asked him to leave.

And Keats had. For good.

“So you left there and came here to be a counselor,” Keats said, breaking Colby out of his reverie. “Glutton for punishment?”

He huffed a quiet laugh. “Maybe.”

“And now you’re on leave because some kid tried to off himself?” Keats shook his head and ate his last bite of bacon. “I guarantee you they don’t pay you enough to be held responsible for the decisions of teenagers. I remember what I felt like back then. I didn’t know which way was up. No amount of talking or intervention would’ve made me change my mind about running away.”

“I don’t believe that,” Colby said. “I screwed things up that night. I should’ve handled it differently.”

“No.” Keats shook his head, his gaze shifting away from Colby’s. “You did what you needed to do so that you didn’t get tossed in fucking jail. I was messed up and terrified of what my dad was going to do. You were nice to me, listened to what I had to say, and seemed to give a shit. My head got all mixed up about it and I thought that maybe if I kissed you, you’d let me stay there and not send me back home. Plus, I think I needed to find out if what I was feeling was really attraction. You know, that maybe the reason I felt so out of place all the time was because I was into guys or whatever. But it was just reaching for straws.”

Colby considered him. “Was it?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. I haven’t wanted to kiss a guy—or do anything else with one—since.”

“So I scared you off guys for good. Good to know,” he said, trying to lighten the mood and chase away the dark memories.

Keats met Colby’s gaze for half a second. But whatever he had planned to say never made it out. He grabbed his plate and turned around to rinse it in the sink.

When he spun back around, he hitched a thumb toward the hallway. “Thanks for the breakfast. I’m going to grab my stuff and get out of here. You don’t have to pay me the money. You don’t owe me anything. Never did.”

Colby didn’t have time to respond before Keats had disappeared from the kitchen. But no way was this going to be the end of it. He hadn’t gone through the trouble of taking Keats home only to drop him back off on the street this morning. Colby followed him down the hallway and stopped in the doorway to the bedroom.

Keats glanced up after pulling his T-shirt over his head, his expression going wary when he saw Colby standing there. “What?”

Colby leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms over his chest. “What if I told you there was a way to earn that five hundred dollars? Would you feel better about taking it?”

Keats’s gaze flicked down Colby’s body almost too quickly to detect, but the color that instantly dotted his cheeks gave him away. Colby knew what thought had first crossed Keats’s mind. That Keats thought Colby would even go there irritated him. What irritated him even more was the answering ping that went through him at the thought.

Fucking hell.

“What do you have in mind?” Keats asked, tucking his hands in the back pockets of his jeans and trying to look nonchalant.

That was the wrong question. Colby didn’t want to admit to himself what had flashed through his head. But even if Keats wasn’t straight, Colby was smart enough to know it’d be a bad idea on so many levels to cross any of those lines. Beyond the fact that Keats was a former student and almost a decade younger than him, he no doubt still had a mountain of issues plaguing him. The guy needed a break, not more complications.

Colby managed to keep his expression neutral despite his errant thoughts. “Come with me.”

When he turned, he half-expected Keats to ignore him and stay behind. But to his surprise, without hesitation or questioning Colby’s intentions, Keats fell into step behind him. “Aye, aye, sir.”

Blind trust.

He hadn’t earned it. Not after how he’d let Keats down in the past. But Colby made a promise to himself right then and there that this time, he would be worthy of it.

SEVEN (#ulink_e56a827b-3a8e-5800-b8c4-f59f7604089a)

Georgia was cursing all high schoolers who ever lived and the manufacturers of triple-ply toilet paper by the time late morning rolled around. She’d worked for two hours in the yard, trying to get all the wet soggy mess out of her shrubs and trees, but it seemed like the stuff multiplied. And the damage that had been done to her flower beds—she couldn’t even think about the work it would take to get them back in shape. But hey, at least she’d spent hours outdoors without any panic attacks. She’d take that as a win. But by ten, she’d given up the effort and had gone inside to shower and write for a while.

She’d gotten one chapter under her belt in record time. Her main character, Haven, and her partner on the job, Mario, were having all kinds of sexual tension in this book, which was fun to write. Haven had walked in on Mario, finding him tied up in his hotel room, courtesy of the bad guys. After making sure they weren’t in any immediate danger, Haven had enjoyed his state a little too much and had toyed with him mercilessly. Her badass heroine was discovering her vixen side in this book, and Georgia had Colby and her midnight viewings to blame for it. But she liked the layers it was adding to Haven’s character, so she was going with it.

After the chapter, she had taken a break to look through résumés for virtual assistants, but right when she was about to email one, the doorbell rang. As usual, the sound sent an arrow of nerves through her, despite the fact that she knew doorbells rang in neighborhoods all day long. Packages, people hawking services, people preaching their religion of choice. It was a world of activity the nine-to-fivers were never aware of. But even so, her mind automatically shifted from green to yellow alert. With a sigh, she pushed herself away from her desk and went to the front door to check the peephole.

But it wasn’t a delivery from the UPS guy. Instead, a familiar face greeted her. One she was beginning to get used to. She unlocked everything and swung open the door.

Colby smiled from beneath the brim of a Billy Bob’s cap. “Hey, neighbor.”

“Hey,” she said, returning his smile. “What’s up?”

“Sorry to interrupt. I’m sure you’re working, but I wanted to give you a heads-up instead of just going for it,” he explained.

She tilted her head as she tried to decipher his meaning. “Going for it?”

Colby cocked his thumb to the left and another man walked up her front steps to join Colby. “This is my friend Keats. Keats, Georgia.”

Her gaze jumped to the newcomer, any stranger stirring distrust in her. But she realized it was Colby’s houseguest. The guy had tied his hair back with a rubber band, but there was no mistaking the sleeves of tattoos that covered his arms. It was something Georgia wouldn’t normally find herself drawn to. She’d never had a bad-boy complex. Okay, maybe she’d harbored a brief crush on David Beck-ham once upon a time. Whatever. But hell if it didn’t look exactly right on this guy. This very beautiful guy.

Eyes the color of sea glass met hers, but he didn’t offer a handshake, his hands staying firmly tucked in his front pockets. “Good to meet you, Georgia.”

His voice was deeper than she expected, melodic with a dash of Deep South drawl, like liquefied butter. She wondered if he sang as well as played that guitar he’d been carrying last night. She had the urge to demand he sing a few notes of something. “Same here.”

“So,” Colby said, putting a hand on Keats’s shoulder. “I’m lending Keats’s services and mine today to help you get your yard back in shape.”

“What?” she said, looking between the two of them. “Oh, no, it’s fine. I’ve been working on it. You don’t need to put yourself out—”