Nothing Between Us

He glanced behind him, trying to pinpoint the source of the sound, but the sidewalks were empty. He closed his eyes, grabbing on to the faint sound of the song. Lyrics he should’ve forgotten by now filled in the blanks in his head.

The yellow tape winds

The signs all warn

Fingers grab and twine,

And everything is torn.

I’m a trespasser, never will I belong.

My life is off-limits, everything is wrong …

Colby opened his eyes and shook his head as a chill moved through him. No, it couldn’t be. He must’ve had more to drink than he thought. He was so drunk he was hearing ghosts. Old demons were sliding out of the gutters and wrapping around him. He picked up the speed of his steps.

But as he moved forward, the sound of the guitar only got louder, the chords clearer. Like a man possessed, he took a sharp right, crossed the street, and followed the sound. The music grew crisp as he neared a closed record store. He turned another corner and found himself facing a small park. There was a statue of a horse at the center of a stone circle, and benches surrounded it. On one of the benches sat a guy with a guitar and full sleeve tattoos, playing a song that didn’t belong to him.

“Hey,” Colby called out as he walked into the circle. “What song are you playing?”

The guy glanced up for a second, his face in the shadow of the canopy of trees above him, and the music stopped. “Five bucks and I’ll tell ya.”

Colby peered at the open guitar case at the guy’s feet. There were a few bills in it. “That’s not your song to play.”

“The fuck it isn’t,” he said, and started strumming again.

Colby stepped forward, his heartbeat pounding. “Tell me where you heard it.”

“Price has gone up to twenty,” the guy said, not even bothering to look up this time. Thunder rumbled closer now and a gust of wind blew over them, rattling the leaves above them.

Colby gritted his teeth and pulled his wallet out. He dropped a twenty in the case. “Tell me.”

The guy’s blond hair had fallen in his face, but Colby could see his smirk. “In my head. I wrote it, asshole.”

Well, that just pissed Colby off. He kicked the guitar case shut with a bang.

The guy’s head jerked upward. “What’s your pr—”

But his green eyes went wide and his words trailed off as his gaze met Colby’s.

For a second, the pieces didn’t register, didn’t fit together in Colby’s fuzzy head. He just stared for a few long seconds. But when it all finally clicked into place, it was like a swift, hard punch to the gut. “Keats?”

That seemed to snap the guy out of his stunned state. He got off the bench with hurried movements and flipped open his guitar case to set his battered instrument into it. “No, man, ain’t me.”

Colby considered for a moment that he was seeing ghosts. He’d had a bad day. He’d had a lot to drink. Keats had been on his mind earlier. But when Colby gave the guy a longer look, he knew he wasn’t imagining things. The boy he’d known had grown a few inches and had inked up his skin. His hair was longer and he was leaner than Colby remembered. Harder. But there was no doubting those pale green eyes or the awareness that had flashed through them.

This was Keats. Alive.

Keats yanked his case from the ground and hitched a backpack over his shoulder, turning to go. He took two steps before Colby had a hand on his upper arm. “You’re just going to walk away?”

Keats tensed in his grip, and he turned cold eyes on him. “Unless you plan to throw more money at me, big man, I’m outta here.”

Colby let his arm go but squared off in front of him to block him, the dominant side of him shimmering to the surface. “Keats, if you think you’re going to blow me off and pretend you don’t know me, I suggest you rethink that.”

Keats’s smile was wry even though fear flickered through his eyes. “Blow you? So that’s what this is about? Not my thing, dude. But give me two hundred bucks and maybe I can forget that I don’t like cock.”

Colby stepped into his space, unsure what pissed him off more—that Keats was still keeping up this act or that what he said could be true—that the smart, quiet kid he used to know was now selling himself to keep afloat. He hoped to God Keats was just bluffing. But if the kid wanted to play this game, he could, too.

“Fine.”

Keats blinked, the tough-guy face faltering for a second. “What?”

“Five hundred and you come home with me for the night.”

“That wasn’t the offer.”

“You’re going to turn down five hundred bucks and a warm place to sleep?” he asked, knowing Keats had no more than thirty bucks in his case and that the cold rain would start falling any minute.

“Nobody gives you that much money for nothing,” he said, his expression tight. “And I don’t fuck guys.”

Even hearing the crass words roll off Keats’s lips had anger welling in Colby. So he was going to keep this bravado crap up. Colby crowded Keats against the side of the bench, using his size to the fullest advantage. He knew he wasn’t fighting fair. Keats was nervous even if he was trying to play it off. But there was no way in hell Colby was letting him walk away. If it meant playing as dirty as Keats was playing, so be it. He leaned in, meeting Keats eye to eye. “Do I look like someone who’d need to pay for a fuck?”

“Col—” he started, then caught himself. “Shit.”

Colby smiled and backed off, victorious. He took the guitar case from Keats’s hand, the burden of Colby’s awful day lifting a little. The situation was beyond screwed up. Keats was on the street—or close enough to it to be busking in a park. He hadn’t actually asked him if he had somewhere to go. But he was alive. That was enough to be thankful for. “Come on. Let’s get a sandwich and get indoors before the skies open up. I need to sober up before I can drive. But when we’re done, you are going home with me.”

The nothing-bothers-me attitude dropped from Keats’s expression and he looked … lost. “Why?”

“Do you have someplace better to go?” he asked, lifting a brow.

Keats’s jaw twitched and he glanced away, the shame in his eyes making him look more like the kid he used to know and less like—Colby counted off the years in his head—the twenty-three-year-old man he’d grown into. “Not if I don’t show up with some cash in my pocket.”

“That’s reason enough, then. I’m guessing five hundred will cover you. Come on.”

Keats followed him when Colby started walking back toward the main road. He fell into step with him. “Your … family isn’t going to mind you showing up with some stranger?”

Colby peered over at him, the question catching him off guard. “I live alone.”

“Oh.” Keats looked down. “That’s cool.”

Ah, hell.

This had trouble written all over it. Colby switched the guitar case to his other hand and put some distance between the two of them.

Line drawn.

FIVE (#ulink_28633a36-a85c-5391-8a30-4ad59fb6f766)

Georgia sat curled up in her living room, nursing a glass of wine and trying to plot out the next scene in her book on the legal pad propped on her lap. A rerun of 48 Hours was on in the background, but she wasn’t listening to it. Really, she hadn’t been able to concentrate on much of anything all evening. Instead, her eyes kept drifting to her living room window. Colby had said he might bring over burgers tonight. All day she had stressed about it, wondering if she would be able to manage it. She knew she couldn’t go over to his house, but she wasn’t sure she could let him in hers either. Every time she thought about it, she got that electric feeling in her muscles—like they were all going to seize up at once.