Underside of Courage (Beautifully Disturbed Series Book 2)

by Sarah Zolton Arthur

  “RPW.”

  The wind begins to pick up, swirling around our heads and rustling his hair, pinking his ears and cheeks. Damn, it really is cold out here. I wish we’d found her in the library.

  “You’re a technical writer?” Elle turns back to me again. “Jesus, Collin, you’re slipping. Might well have said he’s a finance major.”

  I snicker under my breath. That’s my girl. The Elle I’ve been waiting to see today.

  “What’s an oxford comma?” She volleys back to ask Kip.

  “I have no idea.” Kip’s answer comes honestly, not funny or sarcastic, even if Elle and I snicker together this time. I can tell by the way he furrows his eyebrows, only for a moment, before laidback, confidant Kip slips back into place in front of my eyes.

  “He’s doing bad, Collin.”

  “Ly,” Kip corrects her. “Badly.”

  Elle bites down on her upper lip fighting back a smile.

  “You sir, are my new best friend,” she says, losing the battle with her smile.

  And I mentally punch the air, breathing out my relief.

  “Was that the test?” Kip asks.

  “Elle, here, is a grammar badass.” I move the palm of my hand to my heart, and pretend to scratch an itch so neither Kip nor Elle pick up on what my reaction really means. From there, I slide my sunglasses back over my eyes, then shove both hands in my coat pockets.

  “And she will judge you severely for grammatical indiscretions. Then it’s just a downward spiral. She’ll find fault in everything about you,” I continue. “The fact you had the guts to correct her on your first meeting speaks volumes. People are normally intimidated by her piercings and surly demeanor.”

  “Hey!” Elle cries. “I resemble that remark.”

  I bark out a laugh before the word “hey” totally clears her lips.

  Then Kip laughs.

  And finally Elle joins in with us.

  While still laughing, she keeps going. “So I guess this means you’re dating now.”

  Okay. Wow. Shit.

  She’s right.

  I have a boyfriend.

  I have a boyfriend, again.

  Kip’s laughter abruptly stops with Elle’s remark. When I turn to him, his face almost brings me to my knees.

  With my heart pumping ungodly fast from the combination of my fear, his look, and my happiness, I want nothing more than to bring Elle into my happiness by bringing her a bit of her own.

  She might be glad to know, when they go away this weekend to that concert in Chicago, Ben plans on making his move.

  He’s always been braver than me. Not needing someone else’s opinion to go for what he wants. So I won’t tell Elle. I don’t want to ruin his moment. Her moment. That one precious moment they’ll share together.

  Instead of saying any of that, I turn back to Elle. “I guess it does.” Then, because I can’t stop myself I mouth thank you and bend down to kiss the top of her head. “We should get going then.”

  It’s time. Kip passed. The moment couldn’t possibly get any better. And we have more people to introduce my boyfriend to. Elle stops me before we leave.

  “Wait, how did you know I’d be here?”

  I love her, but she’s clueless.

  So fucking clueless.

  How would I know? Maybe ask Ben.

  Shaking my head first, I jerk my chin to get Kip moving with me. Then, in lieu of answering, I shoot an “I know something you don’t know” smile along with an eyebrow quirk. And I walk away.

  “Do absolutely everything I wouldn’t do,” she shouts after us.

  “Return a damn call,” I shout back, slinging my arm around Kip’s shoulders. I wink at him.

  I’m officially dating Kip Daniels.

  We leave the courtyard walking on the wet sidewalk until reaching an overhang between two buildings. It’s here that Kip stops me by tugging on my coat.

  He turns under my arm.

  “Lips,” Kip whispers, covering my mouth with his, and he grasps handfuls of my jacket to pull us closer.

  It feels real, right.

  Okay. Wow. Shit.

  It feels so real, so right.

  But I’ve never… that is… the panic attack hits me like a freight train, again. The sweats across my brow and upper lip. Every sound making me jump or flinch. I can’t hold onto him. My chest feels tight, too tight to take in a proper breath. And my knees begin to buckle.

  I might not be able to hold on to him, but he doesn’t let me go. Keeping me standing, Kip searches my eyes, finds what he’s looking for, then grabs my hand.

  “Huhhh,” he draws out his sigh, dragging me to his car, which is the closer of our two in the parking lot. He unlocks the door, lowering me down into the front seat.

  Running around to the driver’s side, he climbs in, immediately starting the ignition to get us warming up.

  “You gonna talk to me now?” he asks. It takes several minutes for the car to begin warming, therefore it takes several minutes for me to warm up and calm down enough to answer him. “Collin?” He prods.

  On a huff, I launch in, giving him what he wants. “It’s the kissing—in public.” More shaky breaths pause the story, but I’m determined to get through it. “See Andrew and I, we could only be open around Ben. Before Andrew, I only got my kissing on park trails and behind fast food dumpsters. After him, well you know I only hooked up.”

  “There more?” he asks, patiently.

  I nod, but am too fatigued to go on. The panic attack took a lot out of me. “I freaked. I’m sorry.”

  “We’ll go at your pace. And Col, you look wrecked so I’m not gonna push for the more you have left to tell me, now. But you are gonna have to tell me.”

  “You deserve to know.”

  It’s so hard. Who wants to lay such an ugly past on a new relationship? But it’s time for him to know.

  Kip reaches for my hand, pulling it between both of his, to rest on his lap before I speak.

  “I’m out. Everyone here, you know, on campus, knows I’m out. But I don’t flaunt it. I’d meet a guy and we’d go back to his place or mine. No touching until we were safely behind closed doors.”

  “Why?”

  “When I was fifteen, I met a guy. We went behind some dumpsters at a McDonalds together. Some hockey jocks saw and they followed us. The guy got away, but um… ” I swallow back the lump forming in my throat. “The hockey jocks messed me up bad. Put me in the hospital.”

  “Hockey jocks put you in the hospital?” It’s now that Kip clears his throat, and squeezes my hand he’d been gently holding so tight it hurts.

  He shouldn’t have to know, it kills me to let him know how weak I once was.

  So it takes me a little bit to collect myself, but I tell him. Lay out the whole sordid story for him. The pain still feels real after all these years.

  My boyfriend takes my words, absorbs my pain as his own, but stays silent for a couple of beats longer after I’ve stopped talking.

  Then he lays out his honesty. But it’s exactly what I need.

  “Col, you’re not in Podunk, Indiana anymore. That being said, you don’t want to kiss, we won’t kiss. I mean, in public.”

  Not that I don’t want to kiss. Kip’s a great kisser. Bar none, the best kisser my lips have had the pleasure to kiss. A man should be so lucky to kiss Kip.

  Wherein lies the problem.

  And the reason for the beat down from the hockey jocks.

  Because a man shouldn’t be so lucky to kiss Kip.

  He reverses out of the parking spot and shifts into drive so we can leave the school. Large snow mounds cap off the end of each row in the parking lot, from where the snow plows plowed, turning some of the end caps into dead ends. We unfortunately hit a dead end. And with every spot filled, he throws the car in reverse, arm over the seats and his head and torso twisted so he can see behind us, Kip drives all the way back up the row backward until we hit clear lot for driving.

  I keep silent until he
’s moving forward again.

  And I wish I’d stayed silent. I mean, how many other ways can I humiliate myself in front of the guy?

  “We aren’t doing anything wrong.” It comes out sounding like I’m trying to convince myself. But what if we are?

  “We aren’t.” I know his answer is an answer to my statement, yet it’s every bit an answer to my question. Like he’s reading my mind.

  “Why shouldn’t I be able to kiss my boyfriend in public?”

  “You should.”

  Couple’s kiss. It’s what they do. I don’t want to hide, not with Kip. My eyes stay fixed on a point outside the windshield, up ahead of us, maybe the tail end of a car in the distance.

  I hear the blinker click on and feel the car move to the shoulder. Once the car comes to a complete stop, I feel Kip’s glare. I feel it. I know he’s looking.

  Slowly (reeling from every conversation we’ve had today, and honestly not sure how much more I can take. Today was supposed to be a celebration for Christ’s sake.) I turn to look at Kip.

  “Do it. I’m here. I’m waiting.” I’ve never seen such intensity in a man’s eyes before. At least not aimed at me. His words aren’t muttered as words, he’s thrown down a challenge.

  In a car. No one around. I licked my lips and lean in to Kip, pressing my lips to his. He grabs ahold of the back of my neck, pulling me closer, escalating the kiss in a way that I could live in his kiss forever.

  But we’ll have to get out of the car eventually.

  That’s when, decision made, I bring my hand up to push gently against his chest. Breaking off the kiss.

  And I turn my head away before I whisper, “The thing is… I don’t think I can do it. Not yet. Not out there.” Then I tip the side of my head, a gesture to show I mean the outside world. Cowardly words from a coward.

  Kip’s shoulders sag. I don’t only see his disappointment, but feel it.

  Shifting the car into drive, he pulls from the shoulder back on to the road. “Where are we headed?” he asks.

  “The Brew.” My voice comes thick. So thick I clear my throat and repeat again, “The Brew.”

  Chapter 9

  Kip

  We turn onto the road running perpendicular to campus. The salt trucks have come through sometime during the day, but the melted snow has started to freeze back up in some spots, causing slick areas of black ice.

  Two cars, now empty, rest in the ditches lining this stretch of road waiting to be towed. It’ll probably take hours. The last time, Collin tells me, he had to be towed, it took two hours to get to him because the list of people ahead of him was so long.

  I slow my speed way down. Coming from southern Illinois, we get some snow in the winter, but nothing on this level. And with more money going out than coming in to my ridiculously meager checking account, the five hundred dollars (best price) for four new snow tires was not something I could swing. My Camry might be old, but it’s all I have and all I’m going to have until I graduate and get a job that pays the kind of bank required for an upgrade, like that job at TGMT.

  Easing us to a stop in the left-hand turn lane, I belatedly click the blinker and toss a glance over at Col.

  He’s been quiet for the past few minutes.

  Quiet is not a place for him to be.

  “Tell me Col, arm around the shoulder?” I need to know my boundaries.

  He nods. “On campus?”

  “But not off?”

  “No.”

  So we’ll work up to it. I’ll get him there, that’s my promise to the both of us.

  “Fine uh... What about holding hands?” Then I amend, “On campus.”

  “I think so.”

  “Good. That’s good. We’ve got a jumping off point. See Col, we can make this work.”

  The red light flicks to a green arrow signaling for us to go, and the car falls quiet again.

  Why won’t he talk to me? It doesn’t matter how much he’s thrown at me today. We still have so much more to get through.

  But it seems like I’ll be the one carrying the conversation to fruition. “Tell you what, I’m leaving all public forms of affection to you for now.”

  Nothing from Collin.

  “You threw your arm over my shoulders, after we left Elle. You liked that, didn’t you?”

  Still silence.

  “Well if you feel like holding my hand,” I continue, hoping for some kind of reaction. “It’s there to be held.”

  It’s like I’m talking to myself here.

  “Purple. Because aliens don’t wear pants.”

  “What?” He finally asks.

  “I wasn’t sure you were listening.”

  “I’ve been listening.”

  We pass a billboard advertising some product. I have no idea what product as it’s one of those where you have to read the words to know what they’re selling. I’ve never understood advertising for drivers with small words. I don’t read them because I don’t want to take my eyes off the road long enough to.

  Though, the words don’t matter. It’s the picture that sticks. Two men standing next to each other laughing. They could be friends. Their proximity to one another suggests otherwise. I’m glad to see it, even if we are the advertising fad of the moment. Collin doesn’t see it. Or if he does, he never comments. He continues to stare off, back in his own thoughts.

  Dammit, if I don’t want to pull the car around, park, and kiss the shit out of him under that billboard.

  “Oh. And Col?”

  “Hmm?” At least he answers. His body language says he’s closed himself off from me.

  “If eventually you feel bold enough to kiss me, please, do it.” When I see him blink several times out of the corner of my eye, so I know he’s processed my words, I grip the steering wheel tighter and go for what I’ve been waiting to say. “But once you do, any of it, no going back. Deal?”

  He snickers through his nose. “Why not.”

  I know the man well enough by now. That snicker and that ‘why not’ only come because he doesn’t think he’ll ever get to a point where expression comes freely. He will though. I’ve made it my mission.

  We reach The Brew and I turn into the parking lot, circling the small lot several passes before a car vacates a spot in the back row. The store started life as a KFC built in the nineteen-seventies, so it still has that iconic shape. After the KFC went out of business sometime in the nineties, so the story goes, at the height of the Friends coffee house era, a couple of GHU graduates bought the property and opened The Brew, changing out the red and white for green and white. The awning over the door has green and white stripes. The booths and seat cushions are covered in green vinyl. And I’m sure the green has nothing to do with the coffee empire, Starbucks, which incidentally hasn’t been able to gain a foothold in the university neighborhood even though they’ve tried several times. If nothing else, GHU is loyal to The Brew.

  I pull in the spot leaving the car to idle. Collin reaches for his door handle, but I lean over and lay my hand on his to stop him.

  “No. We’re finishing out this portion of the conversation because when we go inside, I’m doing it celebrating that Collin Pratt is now my boyfriend.”

  His lips kick up. “You’re too good for me, you know that, right?”

  “Nah. We’re the perfect amount of good for each other.”

  At my words, Collin pulls his hand from under mine and rubs both of his vigorously over his eyes, then turns the whole upper half of his body my way. His eyes become glossy and he wipes at his nose.

  “Bear with me, Kip. Those jocks intended to kill me. I know they did. That shit stays with you.” Eyes pressed shut again, he swipes at them with the inside collar of his coat.

  “I’m shocked and horrified by what happened to you. No one should have to endure that.”

  Even though we’re in public, we’re in the car. Nobody will see me place my hand over the one he moved to rest on his knee, and I lace our fingers.

  He squee
zes mine back.

  “I just… I just want you to remember it doesn’t define you, Col. You don’t have to let it. Good things happened because of those idiots, too.”

  “Yeah, I have Ben. He stood up for me when he had no reason to even get involved. Don’t know how I would’ve made it out alive if not for his friendship.”

  “Now knowing you, I cannot imagine a world without you in it. What you survived, what those assholes thought they had the right to do to you. I get it. But Benton isn’t the only good to come from that town. You fell in love too.” I remind him.

  “Like I can ever forget. I fell in love and a good man died.”

  His eyes avert from mine. His head cast down. We’ve had enough heavy for one day. So with one final push before we get out of the car to go get us a couple of well-deserved coffees, I capture his jaw between my thumb and fingers, and force him to look at me.

  “I know it didn’t end how anyone would have wanted,” I give it to him softly. “But you learned how to love. So love.”

  I wish the big, strong toe-head of a man, who feels so much, could figure out how to take what I’m offering. All he has to do is reach out for it. My hand. My heart. It’s here, waiting.

  “Glad I’m here with you, Kip.”

  I’m sorry? He’s glad to be here with me. Is that… is that Collin reaching for me? So soon? I sit in my stunned stupor waiting on him to, I don’t know what I’m waiting for. Him to give a little more?

  “What?” He sounds embarrassed. I didn’t mean to embarrass him.

  “Collin. Just, you can’t say stuff like that and expect me not to kiss you. So do yourself a favor and keep those words under lock and key until you’re ready.” While the words tumble from my lips, I switch off the ignition and pull at the door handle to jump out, ready for my escape. The man is just too tempting, especially when he looks so vulnerable.

  He joins me at my side before I get too far away. As we walk, he’s so close but doesn’t touch me. Contradictory to what I want him to do, what should be so completely natural. I’d be a jackass, though, if I went back on my word. He’ll touch me when the time is right, and I’ll have to deal until then.