Page 81 of Jackrabbit

If Beau doesn't do it first.

Beau parked the truck and got out like his joints were wired shut.

Colt let loose a long puff of air and unbuckled his belt before opening his door and hopping out, too, his legs not quite long enough to step down from the lift of Beau’s truck like Beau could. He watched Beau unloading for exactly forty-five seconds, muscles shifting under Beau's Jackrabbit t-shirt, shoulders unbelievably tense. Then he turned on his heel and walked toward home. The ache in his chest had been building for damn near three hours, and he was done.

“Where do you think you're going?” Beau’s voice carried across the drive, low and tense.

“Oh, so we're talking now?” Colt spun back around to find Beau standing by the hood of the truck, arms crossed.

Beau raised both eyebrows at him like Colt had said something out of left field, and cold anger bloomed in Colt’s chest.

“What am I supposed to say?”

“Excuse me?” Colt seethed. He stormed over until he was right in Beau’s space and shoved him in the center of his chest. He didn't move because he wasa fucking giant, but it made Colt feel better anyway. “‘What am I supposed to say?’ Fucking—Jesus Christ, Beau! Anything! I just won. Not mid-pack, not P3. I fucking won, and you've barely spoken to me since.”

He shoved Beau again, and Beau just…let him. And that pissed him right the fuck off. “You're being such an asshole, Beau. Fuck you. I'm going.”

Again, he started walking away, but this time Beau grabbed his shoulder before he'd gotten even a step. “Going where?”

“Where someone gives a shit about me, about this, about one of the craziest moments of my career.” Colt turned back around, shrugging off Beau’s hand. “Sam's still in town. At least he cares enough to—”

Beau was on him before he could finish, grasping both of Colt’s hips with those fucking hands, huge around Colt’s body. His thighs brushed against Colt as he backed him up to the truck before lifting him like nothing. He dropped Colt onto the hood and slid his hands down to push apart Colt’s legs and this was bullshit because Colt was madandgetting hard. Goddammit. Beau stepped between Colt’s legs, his sides burning hot against Colt’s inner thighs.

“What the fuck, Beau?” Colt hissed as he tried not to squirm. “You think you can shut me up by—by manhandling me?”

“Don't talk about him to me,” Beau murmured. He grabbed the back of Colt’s neck with one hand, and slid the other one to Colt’s thigh, his thumb pushing up the shorts Colt had changed into after a hasty shower at the track.

Colt chewed the inside of his lip and spread his legs wider—dammit. Why was he like this? He was supposed to bemad.

He pushed against Beau’s chest again as one of his legs hooked around Beau's stupid thick thigh. For balance. “You're gonna go all caveman on me about Sam? That's bullshit, Beau. Tell me why you're being like this!”

The hand at the back of his neck moved to his jaw as Colt shoved him another time, and Beau pushed closer, snarling through clenched teeth. “Boy, you're playing a dangerous game. You wanna act big and try to push me around?”

“No.” Colt shoved again, both hands, and Beau's grip on his jaw tightened. “No, I wantyouto act big and tell me why the fuck you just ignored me for three goddamn hours after I—”

“After you just nearly killed your fool self on the fucking track?” The words cracked into the still night so sharply it cut the crickets off.

Colt froze with one hand still on Beau, ready to shove again. “What?”

Beau’s chest was rising and falling underneath his palm—rapid, heavy. “That move. That—Christ, Colt. The way you took that turn. Do you have any idea—”

Beau’s voice had gone ragged, and he snapped his mouth shut like he couldn’t bear to taste the words anymore.

“But I won.” Colt shook his head because what the fuck? It was a good move. “It worked. Winning is the whole point, isn’t it? That’s what I wanted. What you wanted. ‘Show ‘em that grit, boy.’ Right?”

“Not like that. Not with that risk.” The thumb at the hinge of his jaw eased its grip, and Beau stroked just this side of too hard. “You could have spun out and taken P1 with you. And you’d have flown straight into that wall in a heap of metal. The whole pack was behind you, Colt.”

Oh. Oh, shit. This wasn’t about Sam at all, was it?

Colt ran his hand across Beau’s chest and gently gripped the front of his shirt. “But I made it, Beau.”

“You could haveeasilynot made it. Don’t you see that? I was watchin’ you on that screen, and I knew what you were goin’ to do the second you decided to do it.” Beau swallowed. “And I thought—”

Beau cut himself off again, working his jaw, still breathing too hard. Pupils small, mouth twisted under his mustache—Beau was scared.

Colt ran his thumb across Beau’s collarbone. “You thought I was gonna crash and not walk away from it.”

Like Sutton Tate had.