15. Chapter 15 #2
“What the hell is wrong with you?” The words were out of Beau’s mouth before he could think better of them, sharp and angry.
And Colt didn’t look blank anymore. His eyes burned as he looked up at Beau. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me, boy.” Beau stepped forward. “What’s wrong with you? You’re bein’ so goddamn distant and pissy. I’m gonna lose my mind.”
Colt threw up his hands, his neck flushing red with anger. “Jesus Christ. Is anything fucking good enough for you?”
“Good enough?” Beau clenched his fist at his side and shook his head. “The hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You know what the hell that’s supposed to mean,” Colt hissed.
He dug his hands into his hair and tugged it straight up before dropping them again.
“I backed off! You made it real fucking clear what my place is, and I finally stepped into it, and now you’re still mad at me? Are you serious right now?”
What the flying fuck?
“What place? What the hell are you talking about?” Beau was near shouting now, unable to tone it down, angry in a way he hadn’t been in literal years.
Power tools cut off one after another in the shop. His guys listening to him lose his shit. Christ.
“Every time I try to take a step closer to you, you shove me back!” Colt paced out of the office and then right back in, came up to Beau and pointed at his chest. “I get it, alright? I’m just a fucking kid to you, a nuisance, a goddamn pest that showed up on your doorstep and wouldn’t go away.
I can’t use your first name! I can’t even use your middle name like everyone else. I can’t — ”
He cut himself off with an angry snarl and stepped back again. “You know what? Forget it. I can’t—I need to go. I can’t do this right now.”
Then he turned on his heel and walked right toward the door, coveralls and all.
“Get your ass back here,” Beau all but hollered after him, stepping out of the office himself.
His heart was raging against his chest, his palms sweating, his eyes burning. How had this spiraled so goddamn spectacularly?
Colt stopped with his hand on the door but didn’t turn around. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr. Moore.”
Then he walked out. The door shut quietly behind him.
Through the front window, Beau watched him shove a hand into his pocket and pull out a pack of cigarettes—cigarettes Beau didn't know he still had. The light from the flame flared against the tattoos on Colt’s knuckles as he lit the smoke and kept walking.
The shop was dead silent. Colt stormed off in a cloud of cigarette smoke, and Beau stood in the wreckage of what he’d just caused for a long moment before he slammed his office door and left, too.
Camila would handle it, and he’d make it up to her later.
But if he had to spend one more second in that fucking office with Colt’s shouts ringing in his ears, he might damn well lose it for real.
***
His cat was purring on his chest while he sat on the back porch watching the sunset when his phone started to trill at him from his pocket.
He ignored it until it went to voicemail, but it started up right after.
Sighing, he dug it out of his pocket and checked the caller ID.
Camila. The shop had been closed for an hour already, but maybe something had happened.
“Merc,” he answered, stroking down the cat’s back.
“Thank fuck,” Camila breathed, and Beau sat up straight.
Her voice was thick like she’d been crying. Beau had seen her drop a hammer on her foot once, and she’d gone to the hospital for a cast without shedding a single tear. Whatever this was, it had to be bad.
“What’s wrong?” He picked his cat up with one hand and set him on the ground as he pulled himself to his feet. Camila sniffled, and Beau paced into his house. “You tell me what’s wrong right now before I have a heart attack. You hear me, girl?”
By the time she started talking, Beau was already stepping into his boots.
“It’s Colt.”
Beau froze. “What about him?”
“Today’s…” She sniffled again. “His brother died when he was sixteen, did you know that?”
“Mhmm,” Beau said, trying not to sound impatient.
“Connor drove down Morrow Peak with his headlights off and went off the side,” Camila told him. “And Colt, he…”
“Spit it out, girl,” Beau finally snapped as he grabbed his truck keys and yanked his front door open.
“He takes the drive every year on the anniversary of his brother’s death,” Camila finally said, and she hiccuped around more tears.
Beau forgot how to fucking breathe. “It’s so fucking stupid and he never listens, but he’s the best driver I’ve ever met.
It…he makes it, every time. But, Merc, a few days ago I said some stuff that really fucked him up.
About…about you. And he’s in a bad way today. Worse than ever.”
“Christ,” he hissed as he stepped out his door with untied boots and sprinted to his truck. “Where’s he start?”
“There’s a dirt lot at the peak, just before you hit the ski town,” Camila told him, her voice wobbling. “On the left. He starts an hour after sunset, just like Connor.”
“I’ll get him,” Beau promised, hoping to God and anyone who would listen that he wasn’t lying through his teeth. “Thanks.”
He hung up the phone without waiting for an answer and tossed it onto his seat, peeling out of the driveway in a spray of gravel.
It was the longest drive of his entire life, every second like a ticking bomb as the sun set in his rearview.
He made it to the peak forty-eight minutes after sunset, and damn near missed the turn, buried behind overgrown pines and brush.
Heart in his throat, he eased into the opening and scanned the little clearing.
Hard to miss the other car, a black 1995 Toyota Supra. His headlights illuminated the gold racing stripes along the hood, and the shimmering golden illustration of an angry yellowjacket all along the driver’s side.
Colt didn’t look up even as the headlights washed over his head of curly blonde hair. His arms were over the steering wheel, and his forehead was pressed into one of his thumbs.
But he was still here.
He hadn’t left.
Beau pulled around behind him and shut off his truck.
Flexed his fingers on the steering wheel, peeled them off one by one while he steeled himself.
Then he stepped out, boots crunching on a blanket of brown pine needles.
It was colder at the peak, especially at night, and gooseflesh pricked along his bare arms as he approached the other car.
Beau opened the passenger door.