Page 140 of Jackrabbit

Colt was quiet for a long moment, his eyes digging into Beau’s shoulder blades. “You didn’t say goodbye.”

Closing his eyes, Beau’s heart lurched. Coward. He was a goddamn coward, and Colt deserved so much better. Colt deservedeverything, and Beau could hardly give him anything. But he owed him this.

He pulled his hands out of the engine and wiped them down as he turned to find Colt standing next to the tarp-covered Jackrabbit. Beautiful, beautiful boy, with his wide, green eyes and his wild curls—looking at Beau like Beau was something worth looking at.

“I didn’t know how,” Beau admitted as he tucked the rag into his back pocket. “Or if you wanted me to. You haven’t been around. I figured…”

“Figured what?” Colt asked, stepping closer. “That I was done with you?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Are you—” Colt took a sharp breath and let it out slowly before starting again. “You can’t seriously mean that. Not after—aftereverything.”

“Colt, you’re leaving.” Beau shook his head and ignored the way that thought throbbed like it had every one of the thousands of times he’d thought it in the past week. “You’re moving on to where you belong, where you’ve dreamed of being your whole damn life. It’s not—you don’t haveto—”

“I don’t have to do jack shit,” Colt snapped as he stepped closer. “This isn’t have to. This is want, Beau, I—Iwantyou. I’ve wanted you since the second I saw you. And you want me too. I know you do. So why are you doing this?”

“Because you have a future, and I don’t fit in it.” Beau threw up his hands and paced away, dropped his rag in the dirty bin and paced back. “You’re goin’, I’m stayin’, so why would you—”

“Stop.” Colt’s voice was laced with restrained anger as he walked over and stopped right in front of Beau, glared up at him. “Don’t do that. Don’t make this about logistics when we both know this is about Sutton.”

Beau’s jaw clenched, and his eyes darted to the open garage door before landing back on Colt. “It’s not—”

“Yes it is.” Shaking his head, Colt pressed his hand against Beau’s arm. “It is. That’s what it’s always been about. And I understand. I do.” His grip tightened. “But that doesn’t mean I have to sit here and watch you do this to yourself.”

“Colt—”

“No, look.” Another hand joined the first on Beau’s arm, small and warm. “You don’t get to just push me away because you’re scared. You can’t make that decision for me, for us.”

“What else am I supposed to do?” Beau asked, frozen there in front of Sutton’s Camaro with Colt’s hands on him.

“Come with me.”

Hell.

“I already told Liberty no. They’re gonna bring in Lou Parker, and he’s good. He’ll be good for you. To you. Still has connections I don’t.” Christ. Beau didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to stand in front of Colt and let him down again, but he didn’t know how to do anything else. “I can’t do it, Colt. I can’t. I’m—it’ll kill me. You’re askin’ me to watch you race the same tracks, watch you take the same risks. You’re askin’ me to stand there and—and give you away to that life every day.”

Colt shook his head. “I’m not asking you to give me away, Beau. I’m asking you to want me enough to stand with me. To hold me up, and stay. I want you on this adventure.” Colt squeezed his arm. “Don’t you miss it? Adventure?”

“There’s no more adventure for me. Don’t you see that? That life is done with me.”

Colt made a quiet, wounded sound and dropped his forehead against Beau’s chest. His voice was thick. “Stop. Don’t fucking talk like that. You’re forty-two, baby. You act like you’re going to die here tomorrow, like you’ll be buried under dust and engine grease in this town you fell into at your lowest.”

He moved his forehead back and forth like he was seeking something, and Beau tried to breathe. “But I see you. I see you when we watch playbacks of my races together, the way your foot moves like it’s on a pedal, your fingers twitching like you want to switch gears. I saw the way you looked when you hopped into that pit, like you were coming alive. Beau, you have so much left to give. Stop acting like you’re okay with this being the rest of your life.”

Chest rising and falling heavily, Beau looked up at the ceiling. Both hands were at his sides as they twitched for this, too, with the ache of wanting to hold this idiot boy who had no idea what he was offering or asking for. “I can’t.”

A shaky sigh, and all the fight drained out of Colt at once. He pulled back and rolled his shoulders, swiped under his eyes with the back of his hand without meeting Beau’s gaze. “Alright.”

“Alright?” Beau asked softly.

“Yeah.” Still not looking at him, Colt stepped toward the door. His pink-soled shoes crunched on the gravel, and Beau dug his nails into his palms to stop himself reaching out. Colt paused. “You said I’m like him. Like Sutton. That I reminded you of him.”

“Yeah.” Beau’s voice cracked, and he blinked his eyes to clear them.

“Then I can tell you, Beau.” Colt looked back at him with a fierce set to his eyes, his mouth, his jaw. “Sutton Tate would not have wanted his death to be the death of you, too.”

Beau listened to Colt’s footsteps fading, the faint thrum of the music filtering down the alley as he went back to his party. The crickets started again when the floodlights kicked off, and Beau was still standing in that empty garage between Colt's covered-up stock car and Sutt's half-torn Camaro.