29. Chapter 29
“Man, that was tough.” Xavier stepped up next to Beau and pulled off his hat to wipe the sweat off his forehead. “Colt’s gotta be bugging.”
“Mhmm.”
Colt had started in third and ended in fourteenth.
That wasn’t near as bad as it could have been, and was more or less what Beau had expected for his first time on a track.
You couldn’t train the street racing out of Colt without other cars around, so there was only so much Beau could do in private sessions.
It was a shitty lesson, and he’d hoped Colt wouldn’t have needed to learn it, but it would serve him later.
Camila approached with Liam trailing right behind her. “There he is.” She pointed toward the yellow Camaro pulling into Colt’s spot, though Beau’s eyes had been tracking him since checkers.
“Where’d your parents go?” Xavier asked, tucking his hat in his back pocket. “I’m in love with your mom, by the way. Thought you should know.”
“They knew he wouldn’t want them to see him after that, so they left.” Camila crossed her arms and worried her lip. “He…well, you’ll see.”
Beau could guess what she’d been about to say, though he tried not to. How should he know, anyway? He’d only known Colt a few months. Maybe he was wrong.
“I’m gonna go see if he needs anything.” Liam tossed a water bottle in the air and caught it. “Water, at least. I’ll be right back.”
He jogged away, dodging the crowd swarming the field.
When he approached the car, he pulled down the netting and leaned inside with one arm on the roof.
His body was blocking Colt from view, but it looked like Liam was talking to him.
After a minute, Liam stepped away from the car and set the water bottle on the roof before jogging back to them. Frowning, he shook his head.
“Dude, he’s messed up.” Liam picked at the front of his shirt and fanned it for air flow. “Wouldn’t say a word to me.”
“You go get him, Camila.” Xavier crossed his arms. “You’re like his hetero life partner—he’ll listen to you. Man, this is painful.”
“It won’t do any good.” Camila chewed on her thumb nail and shook her head. “He needs to process. It wouldn’t matter if it were me or Payton James himself. He won’t talk to anyone.”
“Knew that cocky little shit didn’t have it.” Tracker Kendrick walked past, smirking at Colt’s car with a woman in a leopard print body suit and red heels on his arm.
Xavier took a step forward, and Beau lowered his voice. “Don’t. He ain’t worth it.”
Kendrick must have heard him anyway, because he gave Beau a dismissive up and down before swaggering off. The woman in heels followed after as best she could with the spikes on her heels burying themselves in the soaked grass.
“Dick,” James murmured as he took a bite of a hot dog. “Reminds me of my old man.”
Someone answered, but it didn’t reach him.
Colt still hadn’t moved.
Beau gave it one more minute before he shook his head. “Go home.”
Whoever was talking stopped, but Beau didn’t wait to see if they’d listen.
If they didn’t, Camila would make them, and his feet were already moving before he’d finished speaking anyway.
Jaw tight, he let the crowd part around him instead of dodging, beelining toward that ugly ass car.
Colt was sitting in his seat, white-knuckling the wheel with his helmet still on.
Staring straight ahead as if he didn’t look away the race might start again and he could fix it.
Beau crouched down by the door and crossed his arms over the window, his knee protesting. There wasn’t so much as a twitch from Colt, so Beau reached around him to turn off the car.
The engine ticked as it cooled.
“Colt.”
Colt took a breath, his fingers flexing on the wheel.
“C’mon now,” Beau rumbled, unlatching Colt’s helmet. “Take it off.”
With an audible swallow, Colt peeled his fingers off the wheel and pulled the helmet off with unsteady hands. His hair was plastered to his skull with sweat, he was pale despite the heat of the cockpit, and his eyes—haunted.
Oh, he was haunted. Hell. Connor. This wasn’t just about the race.
Beau slid his hand onto the far side of Colt’s neck, spreading his thumb and forefinger against his slick cheek as he leaned in. “Boy, listen to me. Look here.”
Chest rising and falling once, Colt turned and stared somewhere around Beau’s ear. Better than the statue he’d been a second ago, at least.
“One thing at a time, alright?” Beau squeezed gently. “We’re gonna unstrap you and get you out. Then you’re gonna go sit in the truck and sip water.”
Colt blinked.
“Can you do that for me?” Beau murmured.
Colt nodded, and Beau exhaled.
“I—” Colt stopped himself and nodded. “Yeah.”
Beau let go of Colt’s neck so he could unlatch the harness.
He grabbed the water bottle off the roof and stepped back to give Colt room to pull himself out of the car.
Even if Colt had placed well tonight, there was every chance he was gonna be wobbly as a foal when his feet hit grass.
Adrenaline would do that. Beau kept a hand ready as Colt’s feet landed on the ground, and Colt’s knees buckled.
But he steadied himself with one hand against the side of the car and then stood next to Beau.
When Beau handed him the water bottle, Colt took it without comment.
They started their walk toward the truck.
Huge grasshoppers jumped and skittered away from their feet as they walked, some kids with empty paper cups chasing them and shrieking every time they almost caught one.
Other than the bugs and the kids, the crowd had dwindled enough that no one was paying attention to them.
Beau set Colt up in the truck with the music off and the AC blasting and went to load the car himself.
By the time he was finished strapping it down, Colt had unzipped his suit and drained half the water.
They drove away from the track in silence, and Beau kept his hands firmly on the wheel so he wouldn’t grab Colt’s hand or the back of his neck like he was itching to.
When they reached Beau’s house, Colt turned in the seat and folded one leg beneath himself. “I’m sorry. I know I fucked up. I saw the door, and I know you told me not—”
“Not right now.” Beau squeezed Colt’s shoulder. “Whatever you think I’m feeling about that race, you’re wrong. But you need a shower and food, and you need to rest. We can go over the race in the morning.”
Colt’s eyes darted up to meet Beau's before flicking to the house and back. And right at that moment, Beau couldn't pretend he hadn’t just offered what he’d offered. The boy had taken up residence on his couch several times, but it had always been an accident. This wasn't.
“Come on.”
Toast watched Beau walk in first, his tail flicking from his hammock by the back door—right up until he caught sight of Colt. Then he stood with a frantic, long meow and scrambled off his perch. His feet pattered across the floor, and he shoved himself between Colt’s ankles, already purring.
“Shower’s third door on the right.” Beau set Colt’s helmet on the island. “Laundry room’s next to it. Should be some clothes folded on top of the washer you can pick from. I’ve got an in-line water heater, so don’t worry about the hot water running out, neither.”
Without a word, Colt went down the hall, damn near tripping over Toast because the cat was following so closely.
Beau was pulling fruit out of the freezer when the bathroom door shut, and Toast gave an affronted yowl.
Beau leaned back to look into the hall, where Toast was settling outside the bathroom door, huffing like he couldn’t believe the audacity of his adopted human.
Beau shook his head and loaded the blender with cherries, pineapple, plain Greek yogurt, a banana, protein powder, avocado—he got the feeling Colt wasn't going to eat, but this would work for recovery for the moment.
He waited until the shower switched off before blending it.
It finished just as the bathroom door opened. Beau flipped the blender off.
Colt yelped, his feet thumping on the hardwood.
“Hey, crispy boy,” Colt murmured. “You trying to kill me?”
Toast chittered.
When Colt made it into the kitchen, Toast was riding across his shoulders, pressing his nose into Colt's wet curls and purring. Colt had taken Beau's gray sweats and an old band tee Beau used mostly to work on cars at home. They were huge on him.
And he looked adorable.
Beau smacked that thought down and turned away to pour the smoothie into a cup.
“Thank you,” Colt said as he sat himself on the couch. He settled Toast on the back and nuzzled the fur around his neck, and Toast's purrs turned crunchy and pleased. “I know I'm a mess.”
Humming, Beau handed Colt the smoothie. “Drink this and sleep. The mess will still be there in the morning.”
Colt kept one hand on Toast and sipped his smoothie while he watched Beau clean.
His eyes were heavy, and by the time Beau had the blender drying on the rack, they were half closed.
Toast was still purring on the back of the couch, and Colt was leaning against him while Toast licked Colt’s hair like he was a dirty kitten.
The boy had been running on adrenaline the entire day.
It was a miracle he’d made it this far before the crash, all things considered.
“Lay down.” Beau scooped Toast up, ignoring his protest, and grabbed the empty cup out of Colt’s hand. Toast crawled up to perch on Beau’s shoulders as Colt blinked awake, and Beau nodded toward the basket by his couch. “There’s blankets right there.”
“‘Kay.” Colt grabbed the top blanket and dropped down to bury his face in the back of the couch.
He was out in less than a minute, his breaths going slow as Beau dried the cup and set it back in the cabinet.
Beau took a glass tumbler out of the same cabinet and poured two fingers of whiskey in it.
He sat down in the armchair by the back doors.
If the chair happened to face the couch, that was no one’s business but his own.