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“Everything okay?” she asked.
His laid-back expression had tightened into concern. He looked up, as if he’d forgotten for a moment that she was there. “Yeah, sorry, I think so. It’s just a message from my boss. I’m going to have to get going. Something’s come up.”
“Oh, right, sure,” she said, surprised at the disappointment she felt. It’d been a long time since she’d shared coffee with anyone. And sharing it with Colby had been more pleasant than she cared to admit.
He handed his cup back to her. “Hey, when I get home tonight, how about I help finish the cleanup and then we go grab a burger or something? I’d love to hear about your book.”
The offer was so tempting, but he might as well have asked her if she wanted to accompany him to Paris for the night. Each was equally impossible unless she wanted to load up with her anxiety pills. Then she’d be no company at all anyway. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”
He tilted his head slightly, his expression more curious than anything. “Can’t or don’t want to?”
She looked away.
“Hey”—he touched her elbow gently—“either way, it’s fine. I’ve noticed you don’t go out much.”
She pressed her lips together and forced her gaze back to his, then nodded. “Leaving the house is … difficult for me.”
His eyes softened, and she imagined he probably made a very good counselor to the kids at his high school. Despite his seemingly rough edges and overwhelming size, there was something in that expression that held understanding and sympathy without judgment. He gave a little smile. “Well, maybe I’ll bring the burgers to you, then.”
She couldn’t help returning the smile, despite knowing how bad an idea this was. She wasn’t prepared or equipped to pursue anything with anyone—especially someone like Colby. But her mouth was working on its own volition. “Maybe I’ll let you.”
When she shut the door, she leaned against it and smiled. Maybe she would have some progress to report to Leesha after all.
Being called into the principal’s office first thing in the morning was never a good thing. Not in Colby’s school days and not now. So when his impromptu coffee date with Georgia had been interrupted by a text from Principal Anders, requesting that Colby come to her office before the first bell, an old knot of dread had settled in his chest. He’d wanted to call her immediately, insist on knowing what it was, so his mind wouldn’t have to go down all the possible paths. But this was one of the few relationships in his life where he wasn’t in the driver’s seat. Principal Anders liked to do things her way. And her way was face-to-face meetings. He smirked to himself as he headed into the bathroom for a quick shower. She’d probably make an excellent domme.
But the amusing thought died quickly as he hurried through his routine and the possibilities of what she could want to see him about drifted through his mind. On the way to the school, he told himself it was probably just a request to fill in as a substitute for the day or something. That happened on a pretty regular basis. He wouldn’t relish the duty today—he’d had a string of late nights over the weekend, starting with the Halloween party Friday night and then putting a new submissive training class at The Ranch through their paces on Saturday evening—but he’d do it. It was always easier when someone familiar to the kids was in charge of the class. The students were pros at steamrolling the inexperienced and unsuspecting substitutes the district sometimes sent them. The Graham Gauntlet. That was what the teachers called it behind the closed doors of the teachers’ lounge.
But when Colby pulled into the half-empty parking lot and two Dallas PD squad cars were glinting in the early-morning sun, Colby knew his initial qualms had been well founded. Not that it was completely out of the ordinary to see cops at the school. Any high school had issues. An alternative school for kids who’d gotten booted from the main system had more. But there were no students in the building yet. School wouldn’t start for another hour. So that meant something had happened over the weekend. Either someone had gotten arrested or someone—
No, he wouldn’t go down that road yet. But the same sick feeling he’d had six years ago filtered through him, making his few sips of coffee burn in his stomach. Though it had been a different city and a different school, that day had been all too similar. Early-morning call. Cops. And questions for Colby. Only then, there had been an urgency to everything, a crackling frenzy. A feeling that something could still be done to help. Nothing had. In the end, a student had disappeared in the night—a vulnerable seventeen-year-old kid who’d sat silent in every form of therapy but who had opened up to Mr. Wilkes, his music teacher, and had shared things Colby hadn’t been prepared to handle. He’d tried to help, but he’d fucked it up.
The student had eventually been labeled a runaway, but most of the staff knew that wasn’t likely. There’d been a note. A missing gun. A good-bye to the world.
So the cops had closed the book, stopped the search. And Colby had been left with the eat-you-from-the-inside guilt that he could’ve done more. That it was his fault. He’d resigned his position, knowing that the school would’ve encouraged him to do so even if he hadn’t volunteered. There’d been whispers of lines being crossed. After that, he’d moved to Dallas and had gone back to school to get his master’s in counseling, vowing that next time he’d know how to handle a kid who needed real help.
Now another ominous morning. Another call. And more cop cars.
He sent out a silent prayer to the universe as he climbed out of his truck and headed inside. This will be just another ordinary day. Maybe if he said it, it would make it true.
But it wasn’t.
Principal Rowan Anders was wearing her solemn face as she invited Colby into her office, her usual everything-in-place appearance loose at the edges, like she’d gotten ready in an even bigger hurry than Colby had. The school psychologist, Ed Guthrie—or Dr. Guthrie, as he so often reminded his students and colleagues—was already there, peering over at Colby from one of the chairs as Colby took a seat.
“What’s going on?” Colby finally asked, done with thick silence.
Rowan tucked an errant blond hair back into the clip that was precariously holding it up and sighed. “It’s Travis.”
The name and her tone had his stomach tumbling. “What’s wrong?”
She pressed her hands to the top of her desk. “Around eleven last night, he took a handful of his mother’s sleeping pills and cut his wrists with his dad’s hunting knife.”
No. Colby’s chest seized at the information, shock and heartbreak colliding. “Is he, did he …”
Principal Anders took a breath and kept talking. “He’s still alive. His father woke up with indigestion later that night and went to get antacids out of the downstairs bathroom. He found Travis lying in the bathtub, unconscious and bleeding. Thankfully, the cuts hadn’t been deep enough to kill him quickly, so the ambulance got there in time. He’s had his stomach pumped and he’s lost a good bit of blood, but they think he’s going to be okay—physically at least.”
“Christ.” Colby breathed a deep, bone-shaking sigh of relief at that outcome and rubbed a hand over his face.
Rowan’s shoulders lifted and dipped with another long exhale, and that was when Colby felt the shift in the room. This wasn’t just a meeting to inform him about one of the students. He could see the businesswoman mask slide over her features. “Colby, I understand that you were the last of the staff to talk to Travis on Friday.”
He blinked, caught off guard for a second. “Yes, we had a short session before the last bell.”
“Can you tell me what happened in your meeting with Travis?” she asked as she straightened a few papers on her desk without looking at them.
Colby rubbed a hand along the back of his neck, still trying to get his heartbeat to settle after worrying he’d lost a student. On Colby’s left, Dr. Guthrie gave him a sidelong glance.
Colby ignored the stench of judgment he could sense wafting off the other man and focused on his boss. “Travis was supposed to have a session with Dr. Guthrie but since Ed was out that afternoon, I offered to talk with him instead. I knew Travis had been having trouble with a few of the other kids, and we discussed that. He was down and frustrated, but nothing that sent up any red flags.”
“Did he inform you that he’d gone off his meds?” Ed asked, his voice cool.
Fuck. “No. But I didn’t ask.”
“Why not?” Principal Anders asked.
Ed’s eyebrows quirked up, and he leaned forward in a way that said, Yes, Mr. Wilkes, please share with us how completely incompetent you are.
Colby resisted the urge to throat-punch the guy. The jerk had always seen himself as far superior and had been against Colby’s more down-to-earth approach with the kids from the start. “The session was informal since we only had a few minutes and I didn’t have his file. Plus, Travis and I haven’t talked in an official capacity before, and I needed to build some trust and rapport. If I had jumped right into questions about medication, he would’ve shut down.”
Ed sniffed and Principal Anders gave an unreadable nod. “Did you notice any danger signs, anything that gave you pause?”
Colby thought back to Friday. The kid had looked tired, a little beat down by the rough week, but nothing out of character from what he’d seen of the kid before. The only thing out of the ordinary had been that Grim Reaper costume. Looking back, maybe that had been a clue. But there’d been at least three Reapers roaming the halls that day. It wasn’t an uncommon costume. “Nothing that made me overly concerned. He told me about his altercation with Dalton earlier in the day. He talked about how he liked to create music on his computer. We discussed how things like music can be a nice escape from stress sometimes.”
“What did he say to that?” the principal asked.
“He agreed. He said”—Colby replayed the conversation in his mind, that hollow-stomach feeling returning—“he said he craved the escape.”
Ed grunted. “This is why I should never take an afternoon off. How did you not see the signs, Wilkes? Did you ask him if he had a plan for an escape?”
Colby’s hands curled around the arms of the chair, but he forced himself to keep his voice even. “It wasn’t said like that.”
Principal Anders frowned. “Colby, I’m sure you’re well aware that if a threat or plan for suicide is shared, we are legally bound to break confidentiality and report it.”
Colby counted to three in his head before responding. “Yes, of course. I’ve already done it twice this year when students have admitted thoughts of self-harm. That was not the case on Friday.”
“Travis told his parents this morning that he talked to you, that he told you he wanted it all to end,” she continued.
Colby frowned. “The bullying. He said he wanted the bullying to end.”
God, had he missed something? It’d been late on Friday. He’d had a busy week with a number of small successes with his students. But he’d also been tired and a little distracted, knowing he was hosting the Halloween party that night. And Travis had rushed off. Maybe he hadn’t listened closely enough. Maybe he had missed the signs. Maybe he should’ve run after him when he’d bolted.
Principal Anders smoothed the papers in front of her, her mouth pinched. “Colby, I’m sure you did what you could. You do a good job here, and I know the kids connect well with you. That’s why I’ve been trying to get you bumped up to full time. But the school district is going to get heat for this. Travis’s parents are well-to-do and were already annoyed that their son was in an alternative school after things didn’t work out at his private school. The cops said the words lawyer and negligence were already being thrown around at the hospital. You know how sensitive these things are for the school district.”
Colby could feel it, the anvil hovering above his head.
“So, until an investigation has been conducted, I’m going to have to put you on leave.”
Bam. Flattened. “Rowan, you can’t think that I’d—”
She lifted a hand, cutting him off. “If lawyers get involved, they’ll dig. They’ll pull all of your background, your work history.”
Cold moved through him.
“The incident with that student at your previous school”—she glanced down at her notes—“Adam Keats, is sure to come up. I know this is a different situation, but from the outside, it could look bad. Like a pattern.”
He shook his head, too gutted to respond. Even thinking about Keats again was too much to handle. But that wasn’t the only problem with someone poking into his background. Colby had a side job that would make every school board member’s head explode. He’d be fired faster than he could spell BDSM.
“Dr. Guthrie will take over your caseload for now,” Rowan continued, all business now. “We’ll bring in extra help if needed. But we have to show that we are taking immediate action and looking into the matter. And you should know, the school district may decide that our students should only be seen by a psychologist instead of splitting the caseload between you and Dr. Guthrie. You know that’s not my opinion. I think you add a different perspective and approach. And frankly, the kids here need all the resources they can get. But I might not have a say if Travis’s father really kicks up dust.”
Colby caught the barest hint of a smile in his periphery. That fucker Guthrie was probably preening with glee on the inside. He’d never wanted Colby here. He’d wanted a promotion and a raise, not a counselor added to the mix. So from the very beginning, Guthrie had made it clear what he thought of “a washed-up musician counseling young, vulnerable minds.” The ire had only grown when it’d become obvious that the kids gravitated more toward Colby’s no-nonsense approach than Dr. Guthrie’s cool, clinical tactics.
Now all of Colby’s students would get moved to Guthrie’s caseload—temporarily in the best-case scenario, permanently if Colby’s position was eliminated altogether. The thought made him want to throw things. The faces of the students he counseled each week flipped through his head like a slide show on fast-forward. Kids who had come to trust him, kids who had made hard-fought progress, kids who didn’t need another change in their already unstable lives. Kids who were a lot like him when he was that age.
He wasn’t under the impression that he was the only one who could help them. But knowing that he could be the one was what got him up every morning, what kept old demons at bay.
But he hadn’t helped Travis on Friday. Just like he hadn’t helped Adam Keats. Maybe he’d gotten too confident that he knew what he was doing.
“I understand,” he said, the fight draining out of him.
Principal Anders gave another terse nod, as if putting a period on the end of her declaration. “Thank you, Colby. Hopefully, this won’t go too far or for too long. His parents are understandably upset and panicked. They’re going to want to find blame everywhere else. We’re the easiest targets.”
No, he was the easiest target. And maybe it wasn’t unfounded. He should’ve asked Travis about his medication. He should’ve grabbed his file to see if there were any hot points to check in on. Maybe instead of trying to put him at ease by getting him to talk about music, he should’ve asked him different questions. “I’ll get my files and go over them with Dr. Guthrie so he can be up to date on my students.”
Guthrie slapped his thighs and stood. “No need. I’ve already had them moved to my office. Your students will be shifted onto my calendar starting today.”
Well, wasn’t he the eager beaver. Apparently, Rowan had called him first and had everything taken care of before Colby walked in. It was like being fired only without the pink slip. Everyone knew it was going to happen except you.
After Guthrie strolled out, Colby stood and headed for the door.
“Colby?”
He looked back to Rowan. She’d stood as well and her cool principal mask softened into one more human. “For what it’s worth, I know that if you had suspected he was in real trouble, you would’ve reported it.”
He nodded.
But he heard what she didn’t say. Maybe you should’ve suspected.
They were words he’d heard before.
FOUR (#ulink_637062cc-d2ca-50bd-bbd3-fc92b975afb2)
“You playing tonight, Wilkes?”
Colby looked over to the left at the man who’d leaned against the bar and posed the question. Jenner Bodine smiled back at him, toothpick clenched in his teeth. Colby took another sip from his whiskey. “Nope. Jus’ drinking. You?”
Had his words slurred? He couldn’t tell anymore.
“Yeah, I’m onstage next. Filling in for an act that had to cancel.” He glanced out at the empty seats in the bar. “I hate playing on Mondays. Only the real dedicated drunks show up on a Monday.”
Colby raised his glass in salute.
Jenner laughed. “Wow, the hard stuff, huh? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with anything but beer.”
Yeah, and Colby’s brain was feeling the effects. He could handle his liquor, but he’d been here since early afternoon and things were getting a little fuzzy around the edges now. Good. If there was ever a time to get shit-faced, it was the day one of your students almost fucking died—and you realized it might have been partly your fault. All he kept thinking about was how if Travis’s father hadn’t chosen Thai food for dinner that night, Travis would’ve been dead this morning. A sixteen-year-old kid. Dead. Two days after a session with Colby.
God. He rubbed a hand over his face. Was he that fucking blind? That useless? He’d been too wrapped up in his own crap and missed danger signs with his little brother all those years ago. Then he’d screwed things up with Adam Keats, and the kid had disappeared. Now this. Maybe he should just stick to his guitar and his job at The Ranch after all. Everything else he touched seemed to go to shit.
Colby tapped the bar and motioned for Lenora, the bartender, to pour him another. She grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniel’s but frowned at him before she poured. “Sugar, I know you’re a big man who can take his liquor, and I’m guessing you had a real bad day, but you’re going to be sick as hell if you keep going.”
Jenner chuckled and gave Colby’s shoulder a pat. “Looks like you’re cut off, my friend. Now you’ll have to sober up while you listen to my set.”
Colby grunted but didn’t protest for Lenora to pour. Even through his liquor-soaked thoughts, he recognized that she wasn’t giving him a choice in the matter. She was a world-class flirt and would give any customer the sweet-as-MoonPies Southern girl routine, but she ran this bar with a nonnegotiable set of rules and would kick anyone out who gave her flak about it.
“A Coke then,” he said, the words coming out slower than he intended.
“Now we’re talking.” She patted his hand and poured him a soda, then pushed a bowl of nuts toward him. “And eat something.”
Jenner said good-bye and headed toward the side door that led backstage. Colby sighed and grabbed a handful of nuts, figuring he might as well stay to listen to Jenner play. The guy was a little more pop than country in Colby’s opinion. Colby preferred playing stuff with an old-school flavor. But Jenner had a good voice and a knack for writing good lyrics. And what else did Colby have to do tonight? It wasn’t like he had to get to bed early to be up for school tomorrow.
The thought was more than a little depressing. He had no idea what he was going to do with himself for the weeks that stretched out before him. He kept his life busy for a reason. If he wasn’t working at school, he was at The Ranch giving training sessions or here at the bar with his guitar playing a gig. The thought of sitting at home and doing … he didn’t even know what he’d do, made him want to crawl out of his skin. He pulled the straw from the glass and took a swig of his soda. He’d go crazy stuck in that house with nothing to do.
Stuck in the house. Something about the thought niggled him. He tried to pinpoint whatever it was, then gave up and pushed it aside.
It didn’t hit him in that moment. It didn’t even hit him for the first few songs of Jenner’s performance. But when the alcohol started to filter out of his system and his mind began to clear, the thought circled back to him. Stuck in the house …
Shit.
He’d told Georgia this morning that he would bring burgers by. She’d barely accepted the invitation as it was, but now it was past ten and he hadn’t even stopped by to tell her something had come up. Goddammit. He’d finally gotten his neighbor to agree to a semi-date with him, and he’d fucking blown it.
Way to go, Wilkes. He pushed away from the bar, relieved that the world tilted only slightly and that he was steady on his feet. “Hey, Lenora.”
She spun his way. “Yeah, hon.”
“I’m going to leave my truck in the parking lot and take a cab. I’ll come by and get it in the morning, so don’t tow me.”
“Sure thing,” she said with a smile. “Get some rest.”
He stepped out of the bar, the brisk air sobering him even more. The street was mostly deserted. No cabs in sight. He should’ve known. This part of Fort Worth was honky-tonk party row on the weekend, but on a Monday night, it was a ghost town. He stuck his hands in his pockets and took a left down the street. He knew there was a Hilton a few blocks over, and that’d be his best shot at grabbing a cab.
The wind had picked up and was blowing along the sides of the buildings with a punch of cold. Thunder rumbled in the distance and promised a chilling rain. But the residual effects of the alcohol kept him warm enough for now. A few notes of music drifted through the air as people opened the doors to some of the bars and clubs. But as he neared the end of the second block, more than a snippet of a song hit his ears. Lonely notes of a familiar melody seemed to echo from far away and stopped him dead in his stride.
