Authors: Roni Loren

Blurring the Lines-nook (19 page)

Colby gritted his teeth and pulled his wallet out. He dropped a twenty in the case.
“Tell me.”

The guy’s blond hair had fallen in his face, but Colby could see his smirk. “In my
head. I wrote it, asshole.”

Well, that just pissed Colby off. He kicked the guitar case shut with a bang.

The guy’s head snapped upward. “What’s your pr—”

But his green eyes went wide and his words trailed off as his gaze met Colby’s.

For a second, the pieces didn’t register, didn’t fit together in Colby’s fuzzy head.
He just stared for a few long seconds. But when it all finally clicked into place,
it was like a swift, hard punch to the gut. “
Keats
?”

That seemed to snap the guy out of his stunned state. He got off the bench with hurried
movements and flipped open his guitar case to set his battered instrument into it.
“No, man, ain’t me.”

Colby considered for a moment that he was seeing ghosts. He’d had a bad day. He’d
had a lot to drink. Keats had been on his mind earlier. But when Colby gave the guy
a longer look, he knew he wasn’t imagining things. The boy he’d known had grown a
few inches and had inked up his skin. His hair was longer and he was leaner than Colby
remembered. Harder. But there was no doubting those pale green eyes or the awareness
that had flashed through them.

This was Keats. Alive.

Keats yanked his case from the ground and hitched a backpack over his shoulder, turning
to go. He took two steps before Colby had a hand on his upper arm. “You’re just going
to walk away?”

Keats tensed in his grip, and he turned cold eyes on him. “Unless you plan to throw
more money at me, big man, I’m outta here.”

Colby let his arm go but squared off in front of him to block him, the dominant side
of him shimmering to the surface. “Keats, if you think you’re going to blow me off
and pretend you don’t know me, I suggest you rethink that.”

Keats’s smile was wry even though fear flickered through his eyes. “Blow you? So that’s
what this is about? Not my thing, dude. But give me two hundred bucks and maybe I
can forget that I don’t like dick.”

Colby stepped into his space, unsure what pissed him off more—that Keats was still
keeping up this act or that what he said could be true—that the smart, quiet kid he
used to know was now selling himself to keep afloat. He hoped to God Keats was just
bluffing. But if the kid wanted to play this game, he could too.

“Fine.”

Keats blinked, the tough guy face faltering for a second. “What?”

“Five-hundred and you come home with me for the night.”

“That wasn’t the offer.”

“You’re going to turn down five-hundred bucks and a warm place to sleep?” he asked,
knowing Keats had no more than thirty bucks in his case and that the cold rain would
start falling any minute.

“Nobody gives you that much money for nothing,” he said, his expression tight. “And
I don’t fuck guys.”

Even hearing the crass words roll off Keats’s lips had anger welling in Colby. So
the kid was going to keep this bravado crap up. Colby crowded Keats against the side
of the bench, using his size to the fullest advantage. He knew he wasn’t fighting
fair. Keats was nervous even if he was trying to play it off. But there was no way
in hell Colby was letting him walk away. If it meant playing dirty, so be it. He leaned
in close, his lips next to Keats’s ear. “Do I look like someone who’d need to pay
for a fuck?”

“Col—“ he started, then caught himself. “Shit.”

Colby smiled and backed off, victorious. He took the guitar case from Keats’s hand,
the burden of Colby’s awful day lifting a little. The situation was beyond screwed
up. Keats was on the street—or close enough to it to be busking in a park. He hadn’t
actually asked him if he had somewhere to go. But he was alive. And that was enough
to be thankful for. “Come on, kid. Let’s get a sandwich and get indoors before the
skies open up. I need to sober up before I can drive. But when we’re done, you
are
going home with me.”

The nothing-bothers-me attitude dropped from his expression and he looked…lost. “Why?”

“Do you have some place better to go?” he asking, lifting a brow.

Keats’s jaw twitched and he glanced away, the shame in his eyes making him look more
like the kid he used to know and less like—Colby counted off the years in his head—the
twenty-three year old man he’d grown into. “Not if I don’t show up with some cash
in my pocket.”

“That’s reason enough then. I’m guessing five-hundred will cover you. Come on.”

Keats followed him when Colby started walking back toward the main road. He fell into
step with him. “Your…family isn’t going to mind you showing up with some stranger?”

Colby peered over at him, the question catching him off guard. “I live alone.”

“Oh.” Keats looked down. “That’s cool.”

Ah, hell.

This had trouble written all over it.

***

Want to know more about the book? Check out the
Nothing Between Us
page on Roni’s website! It’s also available for
pre-order
on all the major sites.

About the Author

Roni wrote her first romance novel at age fifteen when she discovered writing about
boys was way easier than actually talking to them. Since then, her flirting skills
haven’t improved, but she likes to think her storytelling ability has. Though she’ll
forever be a New Orleans girl at heart, she now lives in Dallas with her husband and
son.

If she’s not working on her latest sexy story, you can find her reading, watching
reality television, or indulging in her unhealthy addiction to rockstars, er, rock
concerts. Yeah, that's it. She is the
New York Times
and
USA Today
Bestselling Author of
The Loving on the Edge
series.

Website:
www.RoniLoren.com

Twitter:
www.twitter.com/RoniLoren

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Want to read more?

The Loving on the Edge Series:

Crash Into You

Still Into You
(novella)

Melt Into You

Fall Into You

Caught Up In You

Not Until You
(8-part serial available now; complete novel available November 2014)