Page 53 of Jackrabbit

“Colt.” The hand on his shoulder shifted to the back of his neck. “Losing that race doesn't mean you failed Connor.”

The words hit him like blows, and Colt wrapped an arm around his stomach, the other hand shot up to grasp the wasp through his shirt. “That's not—you're wrong.”

Beau placed his free hand on top of Colt's, right over the wasp he'd made into a necklace himself. He squeezed and ducked his head to catch Colt’s eye again. “Connor wanted you to race. I guarantee you it wasn't about winning to him. He wanted to see you doing something you love, and that's all there is to it.”

Tears burned behind Colt’s eyes, his throat thick. “You can't know that.”

“Yeah, I can.” Beau stepped closer, warmth from his body seeping into Colt's. “I didn't know Connor, but I know what a man'll do to see his person happy. And I know he didn't give a shit about you winning so long as you smiled while you did it.”

“Beau, I sold his car,” Colt choked, squeezing his eyes shut. “I sold his car, the last bit of him I had, to chase my dreams. And I fucking failed. What was the point? What—what am Idoing?”

Beau tugged the back of Colt’s neck and pressed their foreheads together. A lock of wavy dark hair tickled Colt’s nose.

“You didn't fail.” Between them, Beau's voice was rough and low, the hand at the back of his neck tight but not painful. “You learned something. And Connor would have been proud as hell of you for it.”

Colt choked on a sob, and the tears that had been threatening flooded his eyes and spilled over. He reached out blindly and wrapped his hand in Beau's shirt,the other around his back. Grief burned through him like a backdraft, sharp and hot and loud.

Connor was in everything. All of Colt’s best memories.

The first time he'd held a wrench.

The first time he'd been pushed around a track in a motorless box car they'd built themselves from a radio wagon and cardboard.

His first kart.

His first win.

Even his first street race, revving next to Connor in the car Colt had bought with his winnings from the karting season.

Connor’s fingerprints were on every part of Colt’s dreams, and Colt hadn’t realized he’d been racing next to him still until he’d lost.

He sobbed harder, and Beau wrapped both arms around him to pull him close, pressing Colt’s face into his chest and resting his chin on top of Colt’s head. Beau murmured something soothing that Colt didn’t think was supposed to mean anything other than ‘I’ve got you.’

Exhaustion tugged at him as he fell apart, and his legs shook. Beau guided him backward and sat on the bed before tugging Colt with him, and Colt climbed into his lap, where he pressed his face into Beau’s neck and drowned. Beau let him fall to pieces and held them all together with an arm around Colt’s back, a hand running up and down his spine. By the time Colt had cried himself out, he was nothing but a limp mess in Beau’s lap. His eyes were closed, and he had one arm around Beau’s shoulders and the other fisted in the front of his shirt.

***

Colt was half-asleep in his lap, Beau’s shirt collar was soaked with tears, and Beau still wasn’t letting go. But he couldn’t sit here with a hundred-and-sixty pounds of man in his lap all night, so when Colt’s breaths against his neck evened out,he shifted. With one hand behind Colt’s neck and the other under his knees, he laid him out on the bed and covered him up.

As the sheets slid along Colt’s arms, Colt’s brow wrinkled. Then he sighed and burrowed into the covers until all that was visible of him was his wet hair. Beau sat on the edge of the bed, his thigh pressing into Colt’s stomach, and watched him sleep.

That bright, sunshine boy had so much grief buried in him. The same kind as Beau had—the kind that threatened to swallow you whole.

Colt’s hair shrank and spiraled into a mess on top of his head as it dried. One curl was stuck to his eyebrow, so Beau brushed it back into the others. The skin on Colt’s cheek was soft under Beau’s thumb as he ran it along the constellation of freckles across his cheekbone.

Colt sighed in his sleep, and Beau froze. What was he doing? There was nothing appropriate about this—his athlete in Beau’s clothes, Beau’s bed, with Beau’s hand on his face.

Christ.

What the hell was he thinking?

God, I fucking want him.

Swallowing, Beau pulled his hand back and stood. He made sure Colt’s feet were covered and made himself walk straight to the door, pausing and tipping his head back when he started to turn the handle. Do not look back. Don’t.

He did it anyway, drinking in the sight of the wild creature in his bed.

Then he slipped out of the room and shut the door behind him. Toast mrr’d at him from across the hall, his tail flicking.