Roni Loren - Nothing Between Us

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.

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.