“This Friday. They need to do the Hickory Point interviews first. I’ll call you with a time,” she said, grabbing her purse from the counter.
“I’ll be there whenever they need me.”
He walked Rowan to the door and exchanged good-byes, keeping his nothing-bothers-me face in place. But when he shut the door, he leaned back and tapped his head against it. “Fuck me.”
“Everything all right?” Keats asked, coming into the living room. He’d thrown on a T-shirt and a pair of gym shorts.
“Not so much.”
He leaned against the back of the couch. “What’s wrong?”
“You know how I told you that kid’s parents hired a lawyer?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, turns out he’s a nosy one. He’s digging into my background and talking to people from Hickory Point.”
“What?”
Colby laced his hands behind his neck and sighed. “They’re going to look into your disappearance, Keats. And they’re going to talk to your father. He lives in Burleson now, so the lawyer is driving down there early this week to see him.”
Keats paled.
“Does he know?” Colby asked. “Did you ever go back to tell him you were okay?”
“No. He would’ve killed me.” He stared down at his hands. “I couldn’t go back.”
“How did you manage to get a license? Or identification to work?”
Keats looked like he might get sick. “When I turned eighteen, I went to the local police station to tell them who I was. I was tired of only being able to take jobs that paid under the table. I told them I didn’t want my family to be notified because my dad was abusive. They said they couldn’t make any promises, but nothing ever came of it, so I guess they just quietly closed the case.”
Christ. Colby rubbed a hand over his face. “Okay.”
“Is this going to mess things up for you? Like, are they going to hold what happened with me against you?”
Colby pushed away from the door. “I didn’t do anything wrong back then, so no, it shouldn’t be held against me.”
“But if they talk to my dad, who knows what kind of lies he’ll say about you? He could make you look really bad.”
“I’ll figure it out. I’m a big believer that the truth usually prevails. It’ll work out.” He headed back toward the kitchen, needing more coffee for this kind of morning.
Keats followed. “I could tell them who I am. My side of the story.”
Colby pressed his palms against the counter, keeping his back to Keats. “Then I have to explain to my boss why the student I had no inappropriate relationship with was in my kitchen in his underwear.”
Keats groaned. “What we’re doing now has nothing to do with back then.”
“You know people wouldn’t see it that way. Best to lay low. I’ll handle it.”
But Colby had a bad feeling that this wasn’t going to go well. Keats’s father had been a self-serving, cruel bastard from the get-go, and Colby had no doubt the guy had only gotten worse with age. Given the chance to screw with some “fag” teacher’s life, that guy would take it.
But there was no way he was going to ask Keats to face that man. He could see that buried little-boy fear flash over Keats’s face at the thought that his father was less than an hour’s drive away. He wouldn’t put him through that.
Colby walked over to Keats, who still looked to be freaking out a little at the news, and put a hand on the back of his neck, giving it a squeeze. “Come on, let’s start today over and leave this be for now. We have a naked woman sprawled in our bed who would probably appreciate a creative wake-up call. You game?”
The wrinkle was still parked between Keats’s brows, but he gave a nod. “I’m always game.”
THIRTY-TWO