Only Keep You (Only Colorado Book 4) Read online

  Only Keep You

  Only Colorado Book #4

  JD Chambers

  Copyright © 2018 by JD Chambers

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Beta Reading: Leslie Copeland

  Proofreading/Editing: Courtney Bassett

  Cover Arts: Garret Leigh, Black Jazz Design

  Created with Vellum

  Dedication

  For Leslie – who asked for it

  For all the puppies – who inspired it

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Dave

  2. Arthur

  3. Dave

  4. Arthur

  5. Dave

  6. Arthur

  7. Dave

  8. Arthur

  9. Dave

  10. Arthur

  11. Dave

  12. Arthur

  13. Dave

  14. Arthur

  15. Dave

  16. Arthur

  17. Dave

  18. Dave

  19. Arthur

  20. Dave

  21. Arthur

  22. Dave

  23. Arthur

  24. Dave

  25. Arthur

  26. Dave

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Also by JD Chambers

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Eight Years Earlier - Dave

  Exiting my cherry-red Audi, I tuck my keys in the tight front pockets of my tailored slacks. The car was my sixteenth birthday present, but I think my parents only got it for me to use as leverage at times like these. I wish I’d had time to change out of my sucky school uniform, but Dad insisted that I head straight to his office for work after school. No exceptions.

  If either of my parents had any inclination to actually take part in my life, I wouldn’t have my keys right now. After all, my dad demanded my punishment. You’d think he’d follow through and bring me to work himself. But it’s easier to leave me with my car and then freak out if I’m even a second late walking through the doors.

  Two days ago, the day started out like any regular Saturday in the Taylor household – Mom shopping, Dad holed up in his home office, and me looking at porn and giving my right hand a good workout.

  Only this time the porn was gay porn, because I was curious to see if I find both kinds interesting. For the record, I do. Then my dad barged in, waving his phone, screaming about internet nannies and homosexuals and no-son-of-mines. The duck-and-cover that happened in a matter of milliseconds would have been impressive, if it weren’t for the laptop still up and running, and the guy getting his hole dicked moaning in the background.

  My teenagehood has officially become a movie cliché.

  It also didn’t help that I still had a hangover from my friend Sawyer’s party the night before. I was too blitzed to remember much, except for live chickens that scratched the fuck out of my arm when I helped Sawyer carry them to his neighbor’s back yard. Now that I think about it, I’m not so sure they actually belonged to his neighbor. Either way, it will be weeks before I get to hang out with Sawyer again, since I’m grounded.

  My father, in his infinite wisdom, decided that forcing me to stay glued to his side by working on his re-election campaign would nip any burgeoning curiosities in the bud. Obviously, the only reason I’m bi-curious is because I’m bored. Nothing a little campaigning on family values won’t stomp out of me.

  When I make it past the elevator and through the heavy wooden double doors that lead to his office suite, I expect to be greeted by his assistant, Kimberly, but the front desk sits empty. Not wanting to get yelled at by my dad, I continue on past the break room and copier room. There’s a small library that smells like musty old books, even though I know for a fact you can get all of the same information through a website subscription. Dad is nothing if not old school.

  At the very farthest door from the lobby, a gold, embossed name plate highlights the door like a flashing neon sign advertising “Douchebag Works Here.” Only instead it reads, Judge Steven S. Taylor.

  I hear the noises at the exact moment my hand has already turned the doorknob, which is not enough warning to keep my eyes from the sight of Kimberly’s boobs spilling out of her lacy red bra as she bounces in my dad’s lap. I will forever be haunted by my dad’s sex face.

  I slam the door behind me and stalk back to my car. I have no idea what kind of chaos I set off back at his office, and I have no interest in waiting to find out. I’m home before I even remember driving there, and storm past my very confused mother, straight to my room.

  “Dave, I thought you were supposed to be working with your father today?” she asks through my locked door.

  “Change of plans.”

  She doesn’t try again after that, thankfully, but about twenty minutes later a rougher rattling of my doorknob lets me know my father is home.

  “Open the door, David. We need to talk.”

  “About what? The massive hypocrisy of your ‘family values’ campaign or the hypocrisy of me being punished for masturbating while you’ve been dicking your secretary?”

  “Open the door, now,” Dad says in a growl that demands action.

  I still have to live here, and that tone of voice usually means I’m about to lose one of the few objects I hold dear, so I give in. He pushes through the narrow opening and immediately shuts the door behind him.

  “You will tell no one about what you saw today, do you understand me?”

  I roll my eyes, and a hand clamps down on my wrist and tightens until the skin burns. My eyes involuntarily fill with tears.

  “Do you understand me?”

  “No,” I say, mostly because I lack impulse control, but also because I’m right. I’m tired of my dad making me feel like I’m some stupid teenager who doesn’t understand right and wrong, when clearly, I understand the difference better than he does. “I think Mom would be very interested to know what I saw.”

  “Your mother and I have an arrangement,” he says, looking pained. “But it would kill her if she found out about your extracurricular interests. That, and I’m sure you would have a very sad senior year if you were grounded for the remainder of it.”

  “You’re blackmailing me?”

  “You can’t blackmail your own son. But you sure as fuck can discipline him. Keep your mouth shut. Deliver the speeches that I have written for you at campaign events. Do that, and your grounding is over. Your senior year will continue on like normal.”

  Dad leaves as quickly as he arrived, and I re-lock the door behind him.

  “Dave’s not feeling well,” I hear my dad inform my mom. The volume of his voice tells me they’re at the end of the hall and not by my door. She must have been waiting there, and as much as I threatened it, I hope she didn’t hear our argument. I don’t buy for a second that they have an arrangement, and I don’t want to be the one to cause her any pain. “He won’t be joining us for dinner.”

  I release a shaky breath and slump against my door. Are all adults this fucking hypocritical, or is it only my family?

  1

  Dave

  “I think we’re better off as friends,” Lydia says, empty cans and bottles rustling at her feet when she twists toward me in the passenger side of my car. I parked in front of her apartment, ready to walk her to her front door at the end of our date, but she stopped me with a soft hand on top of the one I still have resting on the stick shift.

  “Y
ou’re a really sweet guy. I just don’t feel that spark with you. You know?”

  I nod dumbly, even though I don’t know. I’ve never felt a spark with anyone. I’d like to believe they exist, that they aren’t just some creation of fairytales and romance novels. At this point, I’m starting to think that if I don’t feel something for someone soon, the notion of sparks will go the way of the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus.

  “Of course,” I say finally, when Lydia starts to look worried that I haven’t responded to her breakup speech.

  It’s not that I didn’t see this coming, the picture forming more clearly over our four dates this past month. Lydia is the kind of sweet and funny girl that I ought to like, and she seemed really into me on our first date. Her hand constantly found some part of my body to touch, which my ego appreciated. Her texts between dates one and two started to get more suggestive, and she invited me in for coffee at the end of date two. The make-out session was good, if a little sloppy.

  But by the third date, things started to go south. Lydia stopped trying to flirt and went for the direct route. Under the guise of a homemade dinner at her apartment, she answered the door in a lace teddy and directed me immediately to her bedroom. I think I might have been okay if she had continued being direct and commanding once in the bedroom. Instead, as if a switch flipped from active to passive, she spread out on her bed, waiting for me to make my move. The dinner afterward was awkward as fuck.

  Whenever we take sex out of the equation and talk like friends, I really enjoy Lydia’s company, so I tried one more time. This time, I hoped that going the traditional date route of dinner and a movie would give us more to talk about and put less emphasis on the physical. We even stopped for ice cream after. Obviously, traditional does not give Lydia the sparks she’s looking for.

  Lydia leans across the center console and places a kiss to my cheek, the scent of baby powder and roses growing stronger as she moves closer. “Good luck, Dave. I hope you find what you need.”

  I’m still puzzling over those words at work the next day. It seems like such an odd way of phrasing that oh-so-common breakup sentiment. I might expect a “find what you want” or “find what you’re looking for,” but “find what you need” infers that there is something specific out there that I’m missing. That I’m somehow incomplete.

  “What’s up, man?” Craig slaps a hand to my shoulder, startling me out of the zone my thoughts had me in. “Why the long face?”

  Craig and I work at a video game store called Game Over. People always scrunch up their noses when they learn I work retail at my age, but I love it. Every person that comes in is like a new puzzle to solve, a new chance to make someone’s life just a little bit better. Is it difficult? Absolutely. But I actually like people, and I like being sociable.

  “Lydia broke up with me.” Craig’s smile turns to a grimace, but before he can offer any words of condolence, I continue. “She said some things that have me thinking. That’s all. I’m okay.”

  “Well, screw her if she can’t appreciate what a catch you are,” Craig says, his hand returning to my shoulder with a squeeze. He pulls out the other stool from underneath the counter and sits next to me.

  “No, it isn’t that. She just …”

  I pause to consider how much I want to share with Craig. It isn’t that he’ll gossip about me or that he hasn’t similarly shared his own relationship drama with me. Hell, Craig is quite possibly the king of the over-share. Granted, I did keep bugging him until he finally admitted that he got a Prince Albert piercing a couple of weeks ago. But still. He didn’t have to tell me.

  “She said that she hoped I found what I needed. Like I’m missing something.”

  “Maybe what you’re missing is dick. Come, Dave,” Craig says, waving his hand like he’s performing a Jedi mind trick. “Come to the gay side.”

  “I’ve got plenty of dick in my pants, thank you very much.”

  This is where work friendships get tricky. I’m bisexual, even though I’ve never acted on it. With others, anyway. But I’m afraid if I let Craig know, I’ll become his next “gay project” like Kieran, Craig’s friend who recently came out to him. That’s the last thing I want. Someday, I’d love for a guy to approach me because he found me so attractive or intriguing that he couldn’t stop himself, not because my friends sic me on him.

  Fuck, maybe I am a romantic after all. Damn it, Lydia. I blame you and your sparks.

  Three college-aged guys enter the store right at my last slightly-too-loud sentence, and Craig cracks up as I turn beet red. They sign up for our spring break tournament next week, and I try not to notice their smirks at my embarrassment. I want to hide in the back, but Craig beats me to it, going to get their t-shirts while I help them with the paperwork.

  The Game Over spring break tournament is a weeklong event with different themes each day, and with the registration fee, the entrants get a t-shirt, participation in the tournament, and free game play for the rest of the day in the game room after they are out of the tournament. They also get coupons for free coffee and bagels at the shop across the street since we can’t give away or sell food in the store. Not a bad deal, or a bad way to spend a week, if I do say so. Of course, I’m a nerd who loves working at a video game store, much less playing them all the time; of course I’d say so. But given its popularity so far, I don’t think I’m being biased in my assessment.

  The tournament was Craig’s brainchild. He’s actually the store manager, and not just a co-worker. We’ve been working here almost the same amount of time, and I’ll admit I was a little disappointed when Ted, the owner, passed me over for the promotion and chose Craig instead. But now that I’ve seen him in action, I totally get why he picked Craig. Like I said, I’m the social one, but I don’t have any ideas how to improve the business or bring in more customers. I’m just really good at making sure the ones already here leave happy and satisfied. That’s my specialty.

  Craig has an extra shirt in his hands and tosses it to me once we’ve finished with the guys.

  “What’s this?”

  “You haven’t picked up your shirt for the week, have you?”

  “No, but this is not my size,” I say, inspecting the tag and wincing at the medium size before tossing it back to him.

  “It should be. There will be tons of girls here next week for the tournament. Show off that killer bod I know you’ve got under those baggy clothes.”

  I roll my eyes. “This is not an episode of Queer Eye.”

  “But I’d totally be Antoni if it were, right?” Craig laughs and places the shirt around my neck like a scarf. “The blue highlights your – I have no fucking clue what I’m talking about. But at least I know not to put yogurt in guacamole.”

  “Hey. Antoni can put whatever the fuck he wants in my guacamole. As long as he eats it with me. Or off me.”

  “Oh, I see how it is. You’ve worked with me for years, and not a peep, but one adorable guy with massive triceps poking out of a band t-shirt makes terrible guacamole and suddenly you’ve caught the gay. I’m offended.”

  I laugh, partially from relief that he took my Antoni comment as a joke and not to heart, and keep the shirt. “Fine. But if I don’t get at least three phone numbers as a result of this shirt, I’m going to exchange it for a larger size.”

  “Deal,” Craig says, holding out his hand to shake on it.

  When my phone rings later that evening, I set aside the dairy-free (as is proper and correct) guacamole that I’ve craved since the afternoon for some reason, and answer.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  I’ve known this call was coming ever since I got her email three days ago. There’s no point in putting it off.

  “Sweetheart. How are you?”

  “Fine.”

  “You don’t sound fine. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. I–” I can’t believe I’m about to actually tell her, but it’s like my mouth has a mind of its own. “I’ve been dating this girl and she
broke up with me. That’s all.”

  Mom gasps, and for a brief second I think she’s going to be on my side and offer words of sympathy and understanding. Ha. I really should know better.

  “I have the perfect girl for you. Her name is Emily, and she’s working on your father’s retention election campaign. Your father has been talking with the dean, and he thinks he can get you admitted to pre-law at CU. You could go to school part time and work on your father’s campaign with Emily the rest of the time. It would be perfect.”

  For them, maybe. This argument gets recycled in my family every spring. Seven years ago, I graduated from high school and started Colorado State University that fall with the intention of being a good little boy and following the career path that my parents had set out for me. Two years into it, I realized that not only was I not cut out to be a lawyer or judge like my father, but that I had no interest in continuing college at all.

  My parents think it’s a phase, and every spring tell me how they can get me back into a program for the fall. I’ll only be a few years behind. I can still be the man they always meant for me to be. I’m too nice to say it out loud, but my dad is an asshole. Like not just a small asshole, but a gigantic one. I disagree with him on practically everything, from the big stuff that really matters like gay rights, to unimportant things like mustard or mayo on a sandwich. (For the record, mayo is the correct answer.)