Page 24 of Jackrabbit

He tried not to let the hot shame simmer in his chest when he remembered the way he'd just intentionally called himBeau. God, what had he been thinking?

“Mhmm.” Beau looked around at the others, a small smile at the corners of his mouth. “Where'd you run off to? S'your show.”

Colt shrugged and turned away to watch Joyce trying in vain to tame James' hair. His cheeks were pink at the attention. A flirty, dumbass response was on the tip of his tongue before he remembered that Beau had just put him directly in his place for doing just that. Maybe it had turned him on, but the message had been clear, hadn't it?

Back off. That's not what this is between us.

He looked away. “Just needed a minute is all.”

Chapter 15

Something was wrong with Colt. That was damn obvious. Five minutes ago, he’d been bouncing with his usual jackrabbit enthusiasm and flirting with anyone on legs. Then he’d disappeared, and now he wouldn’t even look Beau in the eye. His shoulders were rolled in like he was trying to make himself smaller, and there wasn’t a dimple in sight even when he was trying to smile like normal.

By the time Joyce had taken her food with her and the rest of the shop was wrapping up their day, the wrongness of Colt’s silence had settled into Beau’s chest like a stone. Just over three weeks he’d had that boy in his space all day, every day, and Beau hadn’t known until it was gone how much he’d come to expect the noise. The tapping of a foot or fingertips, the excited rambles, the directionless flirting, cursing a blue streak when he stubbed his toe or dropped something—Colt was always taking up space.

Not anymore.

Beau watched from his office doorway as Colt wiped down the counters with a look of concentration. The guys were shouting at each other in the shop, but Camila was leaning against a tool bench and staring inside at Colt. She was frowning. Was she seeing what Beau was seeing?

She caught Beau’s eye and looked away.

Frowning, Beau ran his hand down his mustache. Camila had disappeared at the same time as Colt had during the party, hadn’t she? Then he’d shown back up a second before her, and his whole demeanor was different. Now neither ofthem would look at him. Camila was Colt’s best friend. Maybe he’d told her what was wrong?

‘C’mon, Beau,’Colt had said, low so no one else heard. He’d had that mischievous smirk as he’d leaned into Beau’s space, and Beau had shut him down hard and intentionally. The little shit was a serial flirt, and he’d targeted Beau because Beau was currently his favorite target. But flirting was one thing. Saying Beau’s legal name here in this shop was another, and Colt was too comfortable if he thought he could.

Colt and Camila had disappeared right after that, though, and now they were both being cagey.

It was Beau’s fault.

Shit.

He’d shut Colt down on purpose because he was being too familiar, and now this was what he got. A quiet that made his teeth ache. Beau didn’t like this subdued husk of who Colt usually was.

But how was he supposed to fix it? He drummed his fingertips on the filing cabinet he had next to his door, the one he’d been searching through when his thoughts had brought him back to Colt. He’d been looking for numbers, connections he’d let fall through. Now that Colt’s monitor was off, he could—

Oh.

“C’mere, Colt,” he called.

Colt didn’t call anything back, didn’t rush, just showed up silently in Beau’s doorway and rubbed at his arm. Stayed in the threshold as Beau leaned back against his desk and pressed his palms into the edge. When the silence had stretched into uncomfortable territory, Beau realized he’d come to rely on Colt jumping right into conversations before he could even open his mouth.

“I think you should enter the local stock car circuit,” he said, the words spilling out to fill that damn quiet before it could eat him alive.

There it was. Colt’s eyes snapped up to him, his arm dropped, and his mouth perked up into that huge, dimpled grin. A spark of life, a little bounce as he took a step into the room. “What? Really? You think I’m—”

The room that had filled for a moment emptied again. Colt froze, his smile slipped, and he took that step back out of the room. “I mean—yeah. Yeah. I’d really like that, Mr. Moore. If you think I’m ready.”

“Wouldn’t have suggested it otherwise.” Beau crossed his arms and watched the stillness in Colt’s feet. He cleared his throat. “But we’ll need to find a way to get you a car. Some gear. And stock cars won’t do it in the long run. You’ll need to get your foot into professional developmental racing before you’re ready for the Cup series. Think Hardtower owns the series right now. But I wanna see you on a track, wheel to wheel with other drivers.”

The shop door opened and someone walked inside the lobby.

“I don’t know,” Colt frowned and looked at the floor. “I’d race for cash, usually. But obviously I can’t do that.”

“I could probably get you a car,” Beau mused. “But—”

“No.”

Beau blinked, and Colt was looking at him for the first time all day with a fire lit behind those green eyes. He shook his head. “No. Thank you, but no. I’ll figure out my own car.”