Underside of Courage (Beautifully Disturbed Series Book 2)

by Sarah Zolton Arthur

She slides back inside the bedroom with Ben close on her heels. Somebody’s about to get some, again.

  Errol jumps up from the sofa and jogs into the open kitchen to grab us all beers from the fridge. After uncapping each one at the cupboard, he casually walks back, handing one off to each of us. Then he drops back into his seat.

  Sabrina takes a long pull from her bottle and swallows. A small ahh follows. “She seems good. Doesn’t she seem—”

  “Oh God! Oh God… Ben! Yes… yes, yes, oh yes… ” comes at us loud from the bedroom in one Ms. Elle Dinninger’s voice cutting off whatever Sabrina was about to say.

  Me, Kip, Errol and Bri, we all fall silent, looking at one another until, cue the laughter. Three. Two. One. And go. Once we start, there’s no stopping us. Not for about five minutes straight.

  Then Bri wipes at her eyes, calming herself down. “Laughter through awkwardness is my favorite emotion.”

  “Isn’t the line laughter through tears?” Kip asks. When we all turn to him, because really, how the hell would he know that? Kip shrugs. “What? Kayna came to visit.” He exhales. “Chick flick marathon.”

  “Ain’t no one crying here, but that sure as hell was awkward,” Errol answers for her. “Thank you, Sugar Nips.” He pulls Bri over to sit on his lap and kisses her cheek. “Every day should have a Steele Magnolia moment.”

  “See!” Kip points his finger, stopping to pause at each of us. “Errol knows it too.”

  Chapter 31

  Kip

  “Elle’s back in the hospital,” I hear Benton on the phone with someone as I pass by his ajar bedroom door.

  Dammit all.

  I can’t believe it. I mean, I know it. We were all there watching the gurney wheel her out of the apartment to the waiting ambulance, blood seeping through the slashes in her blue jeans. I’m just having a hard time believing it.

  Hospital? That’s a joke. She’s not at just any hospital, our beautiful friend transferred to the inpatient program at Forest View.

  We’d had her back, what? A few hours at best? She’d said she was hungry. We went to The Brew. Maybe if we’d just stayed back at Errol and Bri’s apartment, we could have avoided the fallout from her sister’s ugly mouth. I’m not even sure how her sister found us.

  Elle’s mother couldn’t even be bothered to come to Michigan herself. She sent her demon spawn instead. Neither of those bitches give a damn about Elle. The reason behind the visit was to yell at Elle, to tell her they’re disappointed in her.

  She’s sick. She needs help, not a reprimanding. How can you be disappointed in someone when they need you? She needs love. Support.

  Fuck her family.

  She’s ours. Our girl. Elle has our love always.

  But facing her demon sister, listening to that bitch unload a history Elle wasn’t ready to share with us yet. God, no wonder our girl fell off the deep end. Who wouldn’t?

  The stuff Elle’s sister told us was horrible. Elle looked stricken. Too caught up in her fear, sadness and embarrassment to think rationally. Now that we know there’s a problem, we’ve all promised to take better care of her, with Benton leading the charge. That man would die before he let someone hurt her again. Elle may not know, but she’s in the best hands now.

  I walk out to the kitchen where Collin leans against the counter eating a bowl of Lucky Charms.

  “Hey Cuddle-muffin,” he says to me around a mouthful of marshmallow goodness, so it sounds more like a slurpy, “ey uddle-uffn.”

  Cuddle-muffin? Someone’s in a good mood.

  He’s already dressed in a pair of low slung track pants, the navy blue ones with the wide silver stripe down each side that shows off his butt in a way that makes me so glad to be his boyfriend, knowing I’m the one who gets to tap it, and one of his tight navy blue T-shirts he must have to struggle to get around his gym forged biceps. I noticed his suitcase already waiting by the front door next to his cross trainers. “Coffee?” he asks, which again sounds more like, “offee?”

  I nod.

  While he pours my coffee, I pour myself a bowl of Lucky Charms. I’m dressed for the day as well. Though, I’m always a little more conservative than Col. I have on the black denim straight legs he loves so much on me, and a deep wine colored Henley he’s told me more than once since we’ve gotten back together is one of his favorite of my new acquisitions. My bag was packed last night but still rests next to the footboard of our bed.

  “Do you think we should be going? With Elle back in the hospital?” I ask while pouring the milk.

  Col stops eating mid chew.

  “Your best childhood friend turned lover turned friend again is getting married.”

  “I know. But I don’t want to leave Ben alone, you know? He just got her back and now she’s gone again. At least six weeks before they’ll even let him visit. Maybe you should stay.”

  That’s new too. I’m one of the few people he’s told to call him Ben. It used to only be Collin and then Elle when they started dating. I guess now that Col and I are on solid ground, he’s brought me into the fold.

  “You don’t want me to go?” Col sets his empty bowl down on the counter next to the sink, then turns back to look at me.

  “Yes, but he’s your best friend. He needs you.”

  “No.” Collin pauses, then he walks over to take my bowl out of my hands, setting it next to his. Whatever he has to say must be serious. To drive his seriousness home, he holds my face so he looks directly in my eyes. “You are my best friend, he’s my brother. I need to be there for you.”

  “So you’d choose your best friend over your brother?”

  “In this instance, hell in most instances, yes. Do I get to sleep with you?”

  “Uh yeah.” I laugh out.

  “Do I sleep with him ever?”

  “Point taken.” I happily wrap my arms around Collin’s neck. He pivots behind him to drop his bowl from the counter to the sink, where he fills it with water, then turns back around to me. His arm slides around my waist. We stand there holding each other for a minute when a thought hits me. “So would you call Ben your childhood best friend turned brother not lover?”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “I know, but you love me.”

  “More than you know,” he says softly, my cereal forgotten when he leans in to kiss me deep and long. It’s the kind of kiss to make a man forget another person resides in the house until he clears his throat.

  “Sorry,” Ben says to us, forcing himself between me and Collin to get to the cupboard above the sink where we keep the coffee mugs, laughing the whole time. “Don’t you two have somewhere to be?”

  “Kip here thinks you’re fragile.”

  Oh my god. I do not. “I do not. Thanks for throwing me under that bus, Pratt.”

  Benton pats my arm. “So it’s Pratt now? Good luck on getting some this weekend, there Col. You’re a good man Kip, but I’ll be fine. Elle’s getting the help she needs. I miss her, but I want her better. Besides, I have a date to bother Bri and Errol something fierce for the next couple of days.” And he winks.

  No wonder every girl to ever cross his path fell to his feet begging to be on the receiving end of that wink, even just once. If I were a girl, I’d be throwing myself at him.

  “You sure?” Collin asks.

  “Absolutely. Now you two go. Have fun. Raise Cain. Show that ex-boyfriend what he missed out on. Oh, and remember to call a cab if both of you are drinking, and just because you can’t get pregnant, doesn’t mean condoms aren’t your friend.”

  “Yes dad,” Collin answers him snidely.

  “It’s just… my boys are growing up so fast,” Ben teases as he pinches Collin’s cheek.

  “True. We need to get on the road if we’re going to make it in time for the rehearsal dinner.” It’s my turn to pat Ben’s back.

  The men continue to talk while I leave for our room to grab my suitcase. I love getting to call my room our room again. I love that Collin wouldn’t let me leave here
from the night we decided to reconcile, that he called up my roommates to give my notice. That my stuff, pictures of my family and friends, are placed around the apartment along with theirs. Important little knickknacks from Daniels’ family vacations past, or mementos from my time with Col are displayed around the bedroom.

  I love that once Elle gets released from the hospital, so long as the doctors give the go ahead, the plan is for her and Benton to get a place together, and Col and me to do the same. A place just ours. Not that we don’t like living with Benton and Elle, they’re great. But we’ve all reached that stage in life where the roommate comes part and parcel with the relationship.

  Collin leans, bent knee, foot cocked, against the front door waiting on me with the handle drawn up on his suitcase and his computer bag slung over his shoulder, as sexy as I’ve ever seen him look. And there’s a huge heart under all that sexiness. I’m a lucky, lucky man.

  When I walk back into the living room, dragging my suitcase behind me, Col looks me up and down as if he likes what he sees as well. He hardly knows what hits him as I drop the suitcase handle and slam my body into his, my fingers grip his T-shirt at each side of his waist, my mouth crushes against his for a hot, wet kiss. I’m talking about some serious heat.

  He’s trying to undress me, when I slap his hands away to pull back. “Now we can go.”

  ***

  “You sure you want Steak-n-Shake?” I ask him. We, just like last time, have taken Collin’s car due to mine being a piece of junk.

  “Yes. We had it last time. It was good, and I’m hungry.”

  Fair enough.

  Col pulls into the parking lot, swinging into a parking spot. We get out, and I meet him by his door as he bleeps the locks. Despite all the people around, he drapes his arm around my shoulder. Not sure why his touch surprises me? Still a little gun shy I suppose. He’s been true to his word since getting back together.

  We walk, pressed together, past the outside umbrella picnic tables, most of which are filled with couples and families. On a nice, warm, bright sunshiny day like today, it makes sense. The smell of French fries and steak burgers has my mouth watering.

  We just about clear the last picnic table when it happens. “You two faggots or somethin’?”

  I freeze, waiting for Collin’s reaction. We’ve discussed our worst-case scenarios. Aware they could happen anywhere. Though it’s me who goes to move away from him, to make Collin more comfortable, but Col’s arm tightens around my shoulders rather than loosens.

  Once we’ve made it to the door, he uses his free hand to pull it open and ushers me inside, but before following looks over to the assclown, nods and tells him, “Have a nice day.”

  “How you doing?” I ask him once the door closes fully.

  “We live our lives.” His response to me. We live our lives. If any moment would be an air fist pumping moment, now would be an air fist pumping moment.

  “Love you, Col. I’m proud of you.”

  We spend our time in line reading the billboard style menu hung over the soda fountains, and Collin, for his part, pretends as if the interaction didn’t happen. He pretended on his way home from Henry Ford too, and that night went stellar, not.

  We sit. We eat and keep the conversation flowing pretty easily, yet in the back of my mind, I can’t shake what happened outside. Me. I’m the unshakable one. But I’m not stupid, why he chose to come here of all places. It was safe for us last time and now it’s tainted.

  I want to beat the shit out of the assclown for ruining Col’s oasis. My man feels so deeply. An indisputable fact. Shit, he agreed to the whole weekend for me. Gone public for me. If that doesn’t scream big feels, nothing does.

  “You’re kind of far away,” he says.

  I notice he’s balling up his food wrappers to throw away. My food sits only half eaten in front of me.

  “Nah, I’m fine.”

  “No. You’re not. This about that idiot outside? Because I swear, I’m not gonna flake again.”

  “It seems I’m the one flaking. Ready to go? I’ll eat the rest while we drive.”

  I stand.

  He stands. But before we leave, Collin tugs my arm to get my attention.

  When I look up into those icy blue eyes, I wonder again for the millionth time since I’ve known him how someone could spit such ugliness at someone so inherently beautiful?

  “You don’t trust me yet,” he murmurs low, leaning into my body space. “I haven’t earned it enough. But you will. I’m devoting my life to earn your trust. And when I have it, I’ll devote my life to keeping it. Promise, Cuddle-muffin. Promise.”

  Promise, Cuddle-muffin. That’s what he leaves me with, not giving enough time for me to respond with anything more than a laugh. Where he got Cuddle-muffin, I do not know. Do I mind it? Absolutely not. Because at least he’s not calling me Kippy.

  Collin drops his hold from my arm and walks out of the restaurant. Assclown is gone when I pass by the umbrella picnic table, replaced by a young family. A mom and dad, a toddler and a squiggly, squealy baby, laughing and eating, enjoying the warm late spring weather.

  The baby is entertaining enough for me to forget we’re supposed to be motoring. “You wanna spend the night here?” I hear called at me from across the parking lot and whip my head around to see Col jogging toward me.

  “Sorry?”

  “You are out of it. Muffin, we have a rehearsal dinner to get to. Or did we make the trip for Steak-n-Shake?”

  I have a feeling he’s using these endearments solely to make me laugh. Yet another reason to love Collin Pratt. When I don’t answer he grabs hold of my hand, looking up to the baby’s laughter.

  “Come on.” He tugs on my hand but does it smiling at the mom, a chin lift to the dad, of which both the smile and chin lift are returned brightly and lacking any outward judgment.

  Once we’re back in the car, we’re gone. Nothing comes between us and the open road. A talkative Collin, as talkative as he’d been before the Steak-n-Shake, passes the time for us along the long stretches of highway. Maybe he’s really not bothered.

  All I can do is go with it. And I have something I need to discuss.

  “So, I got a text from Hart this morning.”

  “Okay.”

  Collin knows Hart.

  “Well, it turns out he was checking Gregory’s online classroom board, and me, Hart and Britney won the TGMT internship this summer.”

  “Oh my god, you’re fucking kidding me? Kip, that’s huge.”

  I know he’d hug me if we weren’t speeding seventy miles per hour.

  “The thing is, the internship is in New York.”

  “I stopped you from taking a job before, I won’t stand in your way again. We’ll figure something out. I promise that too.”

  “I have a solution, but I don’t know if you’d be down with it.”

  He waits.

  “Well Collin, how do you feel about New York?”

  “You’re gonna be there. You’re saying you want me there. Cuddle-muffin, I fucking love New York, then.”

  “What about Ben? Elle? Bri and Errol?”

  “They can come visit us. We have to come back for senior year, so it’s not a permanent move.”

  “I want to kiss you so damn bad—ly right now. Don’t tell Elle I messed up.”

  Finally the trip is almost over. We bypass my hometown by three off ramps, Jake and Darren deciding to have the wedding the next city over, halfway between their families.

  Collin checks us into The Hilton Suites, which happens to be where the reception will take place tomorrow night. He’s rented us a swank room, and not even the most expensive, but swank just the same.

  We rock, paper, scissors it out to see who gets to shower first. Collin’s rock beats my scissors. So while he scrubs away the day in the bathroom, I unpack us. Airing out our suits for the wedding, setting out dress slacks and button downs for tonight. The rehearsal dinner won’t be as formal as the wedding proper, but Jake�
��s mom has definite ideas of when formal and semiformal attire should be worn.

  It doesn’t matter, I’m not with her son any longer, she won’t hesitate to put me in my place for ignoring those ideas. For Jake to give in, he must really be in love and want special for Darren, because old Jake would’ve thrown a wedding the likes of which guests would think they’d entered a hippie commune with so much tie dye rainbow, just to piss her off. Theirs was a loving, antagonistic relationship. Sometimes I miss watching the banter. Like watching a verbal tennis match. My family does banter, just less antagonistic, more teasing.

  When Collin comes out wrapped in only a towel around his trim waist, water beads glistening across his sexy, sculpted pectorals, he’s cause to stop and stare. To ponder once again how I, Kip Daniels, ended up with Col as my man.

  When he unwraps the towel to dry off those same sexy, sculpted pectorals, instead of making me stare harder like it would on any normal day, seeing him kick starts my brain to work again. “I like you in the royal blue shirt, so the navy slacks and tie are yours.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah. You only packed the black shoes and socks. Remember you bought those navy knockoff Prada Oxfords from that online auction?”

  Silence.

  “Right. Well you bought them. I packed them. Along with navy socks.”

  “Kip?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Calm down. Everything’s going to go fine, okay? Thank you for packing for me. But we’re good. They’ll be happy to see you. He drove to Michigan in the middle of a semester, through Michigan snow to hand deliver the invitation. They want you there.”

  Collin has a point.

  Why am I freaking out so badly?

  His arms sliding around me after he’s pulled me over against his very hard, very naked body helps to calm me as much as his words. His lips pressed to mine do even more. Only when he rests his forehead against mine do I let the panic dissolve completely. Even naked, he gives me that. Only he has ever had that power.

  “Go shower,” he orders.

  After Collin has released me to “go shower” and I’m almost to the bathroom, I hear him mumble. “Never seen you so nervous. It’s cute.”