Visions of all those miserable years of torment in school flitted through his brain. The Princess nickname that had stuck after football camp, the rumors, the insults and digs hurled his way. The goddamned locker room. Hey, Adam, what are you doing in here? The girls’ showers are that way. Hey, Adam, what’s it feel like to take it up the ass? Is that why you’re in private lessons with Mr. Wilkes? Does he tell you you’re pretty while you suck him off?
“You don’t have to apologize,” Colby said with a sigh as he moved closer. “I know what it’s like to be confused—about the things you like or don’t like, about the desires that flash through your mind, about all the outside consequences that are tied to those kinds of decisions.”
“Yeah, but you’re so . . . together and cool with it all. I don’t—”
Colby laughed and propped a hip on the arm of the love seat across from Keats. “You think being attracted to guys was a fun discovery for me? You think I’ve always been at peace with who I am?”
Keats shrugged, remembering Colby when he was his music teacher. The guy always seemed to be on an even keel despite living in a conservative town that was prone to judging him. “I don’t know, seems like you’re of the ‘haters gonna hate’ school of thought.”
“By the time we met, things were settling into place for me. You saw the After shot. But it took a while to get to that point. I grew up in a more backwoods town than you did and was an all-star offensive lineman on the football team. I had a girlfriend who I cared about, who everyone thought I’d marry after graduation. So getting a boner in the group showers because the quarterback had a nice ass was not on my high school bucket list. Add in all the other stuff—the sadistic fantasies, thoughts of bondage, you name it—and I thought I was about as fucked up as they come. I didn’t tell anyone how I was feeling. Not in high school and not afterward. Not even the guys in my band had a clue. Well, until the guitarist caught me in the tour bus screwing one of the roadies.”
Keats frowned. He’d known Colby had left a promising music career to go into teaching, but he’d never thought to wonder why. At seventeen, he’d been too concerned about his own crap. “Is that why you left the music scene?”
“Yes and no. I left because I was on a path to nowhere good. The other band members distanced themselves from me after they found out—like I was going to rape them in their sleep or something. They would’ve kicked me out if my voice hadn’t been what it was. Plus, I wrote most of the music. But the isolation had me drinking more and partying harder than I should. Then my dad died, my little brother got himself tossed in jail, and my mom needed me home to help out. Without another income, she was going to lose what little we had.”
Keats leaned back on the couch, running his hands over his face. “Jesus. So you just walked away from your dream?”
“I should’ve never been out on the road chasing it anyway. My family had next to nothing, and my brother was a handful. If I had stuck around and helped out sooner, maybe my dad wouldn’t have had so much stress on him. And maybe my brother wouldn’t be sitting in prison right now for armed robbery because I would’ve kicked his ass had I known what he was getting into. It was a one-in-a-million shot that I’d actually make money doing the music thing anyway.”
Keats watched Colby’s face for signs of regret, but all he saw was his regret over his family stuff, not walking away from the career. That he couldn’t understand. From what he knew, Colby had been closer to achieving that dream than he was letting on. He couldn’t imagine giving up the chance to play music for a living. “I’m not sure I could’ve been trusted to be so self-sacrificing. Didn’t you have a record deal?”
He gave a dismissive flick of his hand. “Yeah, with a small indie label out of Nashville. But I made the right choice for me. As much as I love music, I wasn’t happy in that lifestyle. I like performing and writing my songs, but all the shit that went along with it wasn’t my scene. My heart wasn’t in it. At the time I didn’t realize that, but when I got the job at Hickory Point, that was the first time I felt like I was where I was supposed to be. Teaching, mentoring, counseling—that’s what does it for me.”
“Whether it’s teaching someone how to survive high school or how to snap a whip?”
Dimples peeked out from behind the beard. “Yeah, I guess so. Though I won’t lie. The training I do at The Ranch has been more personal necessity than a career.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just because I’m comfortable with my tastes and preferences doesn’t mean it’s easy. I can’t exactly go about my social life like a typical guy would. So The Ranch is where I find my friends, my lovers, a place where I know I won’t be looked at like an outsider.”
That sank in, and the nausea welled up in Keats again. An outsider. What he hated being most. He scraped his hand through his hair. “God, I don’t know if I could—”
“What are you more freaked-out about?” Colby asked gently. “The possibility that you’re bi or that you could be submissive?”
A headache was pounding behind Keats’s eyes. “All of it. One sounds as bad as the other. I can’t help but think that maybe all those assholes, including my father, were right about me after all.”
“What are you talking about?”
He shook his head, the past as vivid as a movie screen beneath his eyelids. “All those names they called me. Maybe I’m everything they said . . . fag, pussy, cocksu—”
“Shut your mouth with that shit, Keats,” Colby said, cutting him off.
Keats opened his eyes, finding Colby leaning forward, a scowl on his face.
“Your father was a small-minded prick with a God complex.” He stood and jabbed a finger his way. “And if I ever hear you use one of his words to describe yourself again, I will personally beat that notion out of you.”
Keats stilled, Colby’s palpable anger doing something to him.
“Are you going to call me those names?” Colby asked, holding out his arms, creating an impressive wingspan. “Because they’d apply to me, too. You think if I got on my knees right now and sucked you off, it’d make me less of a man?”
Keats swallowed hard, the image almost too intense to wrap his mind around. Though, even with his head whirling, his body registered the fantasy, blood rushing south. “No, but you don’t do that.”
Colby scoffed. “You think because I top I don’t give head?”
Keats’s neck heated. He hated being the one in the dark. He pushed up from the couch and moved past Colby, ready to escape to his room. “Look, I guess I don’t know how it all works. If I did, I wouldn’t have asked to go to that damn resort.”
He headed toward the hallway to put his back to Colby as quickly as possible. His cock was rebelling despite his mental protests for it to behave, and the last thing he needed was to embarrass himself even more.