Page 56 of Jackrabbit

In the bathroom, Colt ripped his shirt off and then froze, staring at his obedient ass in the mirror. Goddamnit. He'd folded like a lawn chair.

“You're pathetic, Rourke,” he mumbled to himself as he stripped off his joggers and unzipped the bag.

Inside he found his own black tee with a raptor skeleton across the back, and his own short, black workout shorts with t-rexes in every neon color of the rainbow. The same clothes he'd worn under his suit Saturday for the race. Beau had cleaned and folded them, and they smelled like his detergent, like his sheets, and Colt absolutely did not smell them.

Under the clothes was a pair of sneakers that definitely were not his, black and neon green with neon pink soles.

“You asshole,” Colt grumbled, pulling on the shirt.

Unfair that Beau got to gut-punch Colt with something cold and then melt him with something so goddamn thoughtful. The thought of Beau—mustached and all—standing in REI picking out neon fucking pink shoes made it damn near impossible to stay fully pissed.

He slung the bag over his shoulder and walked out in the short shorts he liked to call his hoochie daddy shorts.

Not anymore.

Beau was leaning over the counter, his ass and thighs testing the integrity of his shorts to the max. All big and hairy except the side of the left one, where a mess of wicked scars crept up from his knee to disappear into his shorts.

His short, short, shorts.

The title of hoochie daddy had been passed on. God bless America.

Maybe he wasn'tmadmad anymore, but Colt was still stinging from Beau's attitude. Being hot didn't make him less of a dick, and bribery would get him nowhere.

The cab was like an oven if that oven also had water inside it. The air was thick and hard to breathe through until Beau slid into the driver's side and turned the ignition. It rumbled to life, and hot air hit Colt square in the face. Air flow made things better, but not when that air was hotter than what you were breathing.

The truck cooled off as they drove, and Colt turned the AC vent toward himself. He sighed in relief.

Beau snorted. “It's hotter than this on the track.”

“Yeah, well, on the track, the heat is expected and a choice.” The heat was rising off the road in a visible haze. “This is just Mother Nature being petty. I can handle one. The other makes me wanna die. I don't make the rules.”

“Well, you better be expecting more heat, because we're going hiking.”

Colt scoffed at Beau, who was driving with one hand, his elbow on the window. “It's a hundred and fifteen degrees!”

“And you were perfectly fine running in it today,” Beau pointed out. “‘Sides, it's only ninety on the mountain.”

Colt’s stomach lurched.

"We're not going to the pass.” Beau tapped his fingers on the wheel. “Different trail. North side."

Colt relaxed. The mountain in daylight was mostly fine. It was only that specific stretch of road. He'd been up to the peak dozens of times for hiking or skiing, if they got enough snow to open the lodge. But seeing the section of guardrail they'd fixed and the golden rim Rosy had turned into a memorial was always a gut punch he didn't need.

He didn’t talk much through the forty-five-minute drive. Just stared out the window and reminded himself he was angry.

Beau parked them a few miles up from where the cacti turned into pine trees. Colt hopped out, took a long breath of pine-scented air, and raised his arms over his head. Needles crunched under his shoes as he stepped around the truck and looked around for a trailhead. He didn't find one.

“You brought me out here to kill me, huh?” Colt put one foot up onto a rock and started stretching. “There are easier ways. Eye drops in my Dead Wake, short walk off a tall cliff. That type of thing.”

Or get naked. Guaranteed death. But at least I'd die happy.

Wow, that was an interesting spider dangling from that leaf. Fat, hairy, wiggly.

“But then where would I hide the body?” Beau deadpanned, and Colt bit back his smile. “Lots of caves ‘round here. Toss your tiny ass in, bears'll be happy for the winter.”

The spider started to descend, and Colt shuddered. Gross. “Excuse you, my ass is not tiny.”

Shoes crunched on pine needles behind him, but Colt didn’t turn around.