Underside of Courage (Beautifully Disturbed Series Book 2)

by Sarah Zolton Arthur

  “Damn it, Col. You could never lose me and you’ve never been unfaithful to my brother. We’ve been over this. Andrew was a real person. He was a real person who made you feel loved and happy and healthy and whole. Andrew’s not here anymore. Kip is. Kip is here and he has the same qualities. He does the same for you, if not better because of where he’s at in his life. Accept his love. Accept it and be happy because brother, we have one shot at this life and all I want is for you to be happy. You deserve it. No matter what those bigots back home think, you deserve it.”

  Ben might have been right.

  I might deserve it.

  It might be too late.

  “You’re right, you know. It doesn’t change anything. I hurt you. And I hurt you by using Andrew as a crutch. But since I have you here as a captive audience I’m going to explain a few things.”

  “No.”

  Gripping the steering wheel tighter, I ignore his rejection and power on. “He asked me to move with him the night he died. We were going to get an apartment together after I graduated.”

  Nothing.

  He doesn’t even look over at me.

  Well. Powering on—again.

  “I know it’s not news to you, but you’re the first man I’ve let in my life, really let in my life since him.”

  It’s now that he speaks, and I really wish he wouldn’t have. “But you didn’t,” he says. And although he’s wrong, he’s not wrong.

  “Are you hungry? We’ve been going all night.”

  Kip doesn’t want to eat with me. His eyes cut a death-glare zeroing in on my face. Asking him now, after he called me on my bullshit, makes me sound like I’m ignoring him calling me on my bullshit. I am messing up every which way with him.

  Instead of opening up, Kip’s shutting down on me.

  “I think I’m just ready to go home.”

  And there it is. As much as I hate to let him go, because we can’t go on hurting the way we both are, I know he’s not receptive yet. So as much as I hate to let him go, I let him go. “Okay.”

  We drive in silence back to the credit union so Kip can get his car. As I’ve said, I’m not ready for him leave, he can’t seem to get away fast enough—throwing open the front door before I put the car in park.

  Fear of finality sweeping through me, I hear my voice call out his name, “Kip!”

  One foot on the asphalt and one foot still planted against the floorboard, a death-grip on the door by the window to keep himself standing he turns his head slowly my way.

  “Yeah?” His voice breaks for the second time today. Out of fear? Sadness? “Yeah?” he asks again, a bit louder and with more ‘I’m pissed at you Collin Pratt’ behind the word.

  At first, I don’t say anything. A few long moments pass as I try like mad to figure out what I want to say to him, what might make him stay.

  “I love you.”

  Apparently, those shouldn’t have been the words. Like I’ve struck a blow to him, he winces.

  A barely audible gasp exits his lips as his jaws clench and his nostrils flare. His look says he hates me. No matter how angry he was when we broke up, he never looked at me like he hated me.

  But then, he couldn’t hold it. The hatred melts off his face in front of my eyes.

  “Jesus.”

  This is what he whispers just before he collects himself, and climbs the rest of the way out of the car.

  No door slam could’ve been louder than the soft click that door makes as Kip gently closes it on me, on the words I’d spoken, on us.

  Okay. Wow. Shit.

  I gave them to him. Whether I wanted to say them. Whether he wanted to hear them. I gave him those words. Too late or not. The first man I’ve loved since Andrew.

  As I’m too full of nervous energy to go home, I reverse from the parking spot and pull out onto the busy street. I drive aimlessly around the city looking for my missing friend.

  It’d be nice to say my motives are pure, to find her, but apparently today’s the day for honesty with myself, giving me no choice but to acknowledge my wandering no longer has anything to do with Elle and everything to do with a beautiful man named Kip Daniels.

  When my stomach grumbles for the umpteenth time, I wasn’t kidding when I asked Kip if he wanted to eat. I find my way to the Five Guys in Comstock. The name first brought me there. I mean hello? What card carrying gay man wouldn’t check out a place called Five Guys just once? The food kept me coming back. I haven’t stepped foot in a McDonalds since the incident when I was fifteen.

  On the inside, I take my spot in the line behind a little old couple who speak to each other in a foreign language. Listening to them passes the time while the cashier moves through the people up ahead of us at a steady pace.

  There’s a cute, dark haired, olive skinned guy working the open kitchen, he keeps turning his head to look at me as he slices tomatoes to toss in the metal bin all the men grab from when building sandwiches, giving off an ‘I’m interested’ vibe. Maybe he should be less interested and more focused on slicing so some poor unsuspecting burger eater doesn’t end up chewing on the cute guy’s finger by accident.

  Before Christmas I’d probably have extended an invitation for him to join me for the night.

  When my number is called, along with my burger and brown paper bag of fries, a napkin with a name and number written down accompanies the food on the tray. Apparently Mikal, the name printed on the napkin, is a true player in the game as his note to me alongside his number suggests.

  Wanna fuck, call me. The note says.

  Do I wanna fuck? Hell yeah, I wanna fuck. Having been celibate a month now, I can emphatically say I want to fuck. Just not Mikal, or any other man that’s not Kip, for that matter.

  I should sit, quietly contemplating my life, while eating my burger and fries. My head knows we’re over, but my hands and heart, the bastards, they conspire against me. The next thing I know, I’ve pulled out my phone, conning my fingers to dial a number I never thought I’d dial again.

  “You find something?” He answers his phone, no hello.

  “I’ve found something,” I answer back.

  “Where are you?”

  “Five Guys, Comstock.”

  “Really?” He asks first, then quickly covers his lapse in pissed-offness with, “All right. Be there as soon as I can.”

  He hangs up on me. No goodbye. That’s fine though. He’s on his way. That’s what matters.

  And I tear through the rest of my lunch. Crumpling up the papers to throw in the bin on my way out of the restaurant, where I lean against the hood of my car, sipping on my ice tea, while I wait for Kip to show.

  A little shy of a half hour passes before Kip’s brown Camry turns into the parking lot. Two more minutes I watch him circle to find a spot to park. He climbs out looking freshly showered. A change of clothing, dark-washed jeans and a hunter green V-neck sweater making the green flecks in his eyes sparkle. Normally Kip wears a T-shirt under his sweaters, but today olive toned skin peaks out through the V-neck taunting me.

  That’s as casual as he gets though, as I notice he’s shaved away the light morning stubble back down to smooth baby skin. I’m not complaining, although I’ve always found the slight roughness of his morning stubble sexy to look at and even sexier to brush my cheek or chin along.

  He moves toward me and my car, face expressionless. I move toward him unable to keep my face blank.

  We meet in the middle, not touching in any way. Exactly how I use to want it. But not anymore. Now I want him to reach for me. I want him to reach for me, and I know he won’t.

  Instead, he looks me in the eyes and asks in a voice he tries to sound angry, but to me, he still sounds deep and rich as dark roast coffee. “You said you found something?”

  “Yeah.” I take one step closer. “My courage.”

  Kip’s eyebrows shoot up, but that’s as much time to retreat as I’m willing to give him and I move in the rest of the way, throwing my arms around his neck cau
sing him to stumble back a step. Undaunted, because I’ve been waiting for this kiss, I press my lips against his for the first time in a month. I’m home in his arms. Christ, how could I have been so stupid to let him go?

  At first, he doesn’t kiss back leaving me hanging. So I kiss hard enough to make it count for the both of us until Kip, my Kip, kisses me back.

  When his arms wrap around my waist, I feel like shouting hallelujah and fist pumping the universe, but that would mean releasing his lips and letting my arms go from around his warm body. Not willing to make that mistake I let loose a small, relieved breath, the result of which has Kip rumble from deep in his throat, causing a shiver to slide down my back and Kip to deepen the kiss.

  I made the right choice.

  His hands trace a line up and then back down my spine, following the shiver he doesn’t know he caused, coming to rest on my ass. In public. In a parking lot. My heart flutters in my chest, not from fear for once. Well, not totally from fear. From elation. From astonishment that the world could see me curled around him, kissing him, being kissed senseless in return, and we’re both still standing.

  Each heavy glide of his lips over mine breaks down more of the self-preservation walls I’d built up over the years.

  “Really?” Some stranger’s voice meets our ears, thus breaking through our little love bubble and ending our moment.

  We’d had a moment, and now with that moment shattered Kip drops his hands from my backside, sliding back a couple steps away from me, putting some much needed headspace between us.

  From the look on his face, my headspace and his headspace speak very different words.

  “What are you thinking?” I ask, shoving my hands in my pockets because they still tingle from touching Kip, and I want to do it again, but he doesn’t seem down for that, so I don’t know what to do with them now.

  “I’m thinking, what are you thinking?” His answer comes out not quite harsh, but stern enough to know he doesn’t mean it the same way I do. “You don’t have any news on Elle, do you?”

  “No.”

  “You kissed me in public.”

  “I did.”

  “And you’re still alive.”

  “I am.”

  “So what now?” He warily rubs his hand across his forehead.

  “Now we have to talk. Kip can we go somewhere and talk?”

  “Will it make a difference?”

  “I just kissed you in the parking lot of a Five Guys.”

  His lip twitches. “Good choice, by the way.”

  “The name, right? Love the name, love the food.”

  “Meet me back at your place.”

  He turns his back to me. I watch as he climbs inside the Camry, starts the car and pulls away, not moving until the hum of the engine disappears completely. Then snap to and haul ass over to my car.

  Kip, my Kip, is meeting me at my apartment to talk.

  I roll down my window, letting the breeze and smell of sunshine invade my car, taking the drive home feeling lighter, more at ease than I have in years, maybe ever.

  Lord knows I shouldn’t feel light. Not with one of my best friends still missing. We have to find her. We will find her.

  For once though, I have to place enough importance on my life to see us through before I end up a shell of a man like Ben.

  In short, to help Elle, I have to help myself first.

  The only way is to talk it out with the man I love. And I know, deep in my soul know, Elle would be on board.

  He pulls into the same parking spot in front of my apartment that he pulled into a month ago—when I’d ripped his heart out from my chest. Thankfully today we don’t have that gruesome reminder of my stupidity hanging over our heads.

  I was DOA that day I’d pulled in next to him. Just like Andrew, no, worse since I’d still been breathing. How I’d accomplished such a feat, one of those curious wonders of the world. Like how farmers can drill large holes in the side of cows to manually churn the food within their stomachs, and not only does the cow not die, it doesn’t feel a damn thing. I was like those cows, a damned medical miracle. A dead man, a walking, breathing dead on the inside man managing through life with his head shoved so far up his own ass, so firmly rooted, it took a friend’s disappearance to pull it out again.

  I watch him exit his car.

  I watch his muscles move, the way each one contracts and ripples from just a simple effort like climbing out.

  Even his hand muscles clench when he grips the door to push it closed. I could sit here watching his musculature movements all day. Watching and remembering. Because I sure as hell remember the power of those hands, the way they feel when they hold me to him, when they caress running gentle touches up and down my arms while we lounge lazily in bed on a Sunday morning. The roughness of those strong fingers raking through my hair. Or the soft way he’d tilt my chin to look at him when he had nothing more than kissing on his mind.

  Damn I’d been stupid.

  Time to put my stupidity behind me. Outside, Kip leans against the hood of his ugly brown Camry waiting for me to get my shit together.

  I don’t know how our talk will go. But I kissed him in public, and he’s here waiting for me to let us in my place. As I watch him watching me, he shoots a chin lift. His chin lift could mean anything. I hope it bodes well for me, for our future together, because for the first time since I’ve known him the picture of one actually forms. And it’s beautiful. Full of love, and friends and family.

  Of course we won’t have any kind of future to bode well for us if I don’t get out my car to unlock the door.

  Kip follows me up the pavement keeping himself a few steps behind, not at my back suffusing my body with his warmth the way I want him to, need him to, and remains removed as the key slides into the deadbolt. With a wrist twist the door lock pops. With a shove I enter, holding the door open for him to pass through. The way he passes feels like a purposeful try to avoid brushing against me.

  The last five minutes have spiraled us in the wrong direction. The wrong direction.

  “Bedroom,” my voice comes at him huskier than intended.

  So he doesn’t surprise me by taking my meaning wrongly. “I’m not sure that’s such a smart idea—”

  “We’re just talking. I don’t want interruptions if they bring Ben home.”

  He nods. Once. Curtly.

  Inside my room Kip sits on the very edge of the bed by the footboard.

  “Shoes,” I order.

  “I thought we’re just talking?”

  “We are. But you need to get comfy because we’ve got a lot to go over.”

  His movements still mesmerize me, the fluid motion of his body as he does an action as blasé as toeing off each shoe. And then even after a month apart we slip back into the us we used to be in our bed when he slips onto his side of the bed.

  I don’t comment. Kip seems a bit skittish, so bringing attention to anything he does might set him running. No commenting when I slide in next to him either. That he releases a loud, defeated sigh, the kind that says he’s already come to some sort of a decision about us before pulling me into his arms, seems to surprise the both of us. Taking his surprises further, which apparently he’s full of today, his hand moves up from resting on my arm by my hip to cup my cheek. My cheek he presses against his chest. My spot.

  Chapter 29

  Kip

  How pathetic can a man be?

  One kiss and I’ve fallen right back into old patterns, my side of the bed? Really Kip? It’s dangerous.

  Toeing off shoes.

  Holding him with his cheek pressed to my chest.

  He shuts me down again, he won’t just break my heart. We’re way beyond heartbreak. He’ll shatter it. Obliterate it. Yet god, the feel, the heat of him lying next to me. His weight pressing from shoulder to hip into me. Leg half draped over my thigh. I’ve missed him. I love him. I love us.

  Since neither one of us feels compelled to move forward from our little r
eprieve just yet, we keep laying in his bed holding one another, quietly lost in our own heads. Honestly, I could continue all night. All night. Unfortunately cuddling with the love of my life won’t solve our problems or find our missing friend.

  Roughly twenty minutes in to cuddle time, I know, I check before brushing the light blond strands of hair away from his forehead to give myself an unencumbered view into those icy baby blues. Then bend and place a gentle kiss to the crown of his head. He stares up at me when I pull my lips back.

  A nod and a shoulder squeeze, then I tell him, “Fine. Let’s have it.”

  “I talked to Andrew.” Yep. He comes swinging with that little ditty right out to bat.

  “Psychic hotline?”

  I think I’m funny until the serious look he pins me with says I clearly am not. “Don’t make fun,” he scolds. “It’s important.”

  “Sorry babe—” Ooo, I wince from slipping with that endearment. See, dangerous to be holding him. Falling back into our old patterns. Quickly I correct my mistake. “Um Col, I was just playing. Go on.”

  The way he flinches at my correction, he wanted that endearment. Col though, he’s a professional, powering forward without missing a beat.

  “Went to the cemetery. He was there, I swear he was there. And Ben was there, and Elle. It’s crazy, but I swear he gave me permission to move forward in my life. When I should’ve been thinking about him, about how unfair life had been for him and me, about how much I loved him…all I could think about was how much I love you. Then Ben and Elle were going on about how great you are, how great we are together and instead of shutting them down, I just kept thinking I know.”

  “Glad you figured shit out.”

  “No. You’re not getting it.”

  “Yes, Collin. I am. You finally figured out you love me. I’m happy, man. Really. But I’m not living my life in the closet, and I’m not going to be made to feel bad for not. Won’t lie, I had visions of a future we could’ve had together. You want to pretend that we aren’t who we are to each other, nothing I can do about that. What I can do, find someone who wants to walk beside me holding my hand through life, not five feet away so no one gets the wrong idea about us.” Which would actually be the right idea.