The Jock (The Team, #1)

by Tal Bauer

He was meant to love the white swan. But he was tricked by the black swan. I could fall in love with you, if I let myself.

It was Paris, and it was summertime, and it was the wrong place and the wrong time. He wasn’t ready for this yet, wasn’t ready for his heart to catapult out of his chest and chase this man, crave him. He wasn’t ready to fall in love. But there was this guy named Justin, and it seemed Wes didn’t have a choice in the matter, because he was already on the way.

In your whole life, there will never be a moment like this again.

He kissed Wes as if he’d wanted to kiss him from the moment they’d met, the moment Wes had walked through the door and seen him in the slanted sunlight. And Wes held him tight, held him like he was precious and perfect and everything Wes had ever wanted. Because he was. In that moment, beneath the lights of the Eiffel Tower, Paris under his skin and inside his veins, Justin was everything he’d waited his whole life for.

“Why?” Justin tipped his head to the side. “Why me?” If he knew the answer to that… Wes exhaled. He rubbed his thumb over Justin’s skin. “I really, really like you. I was coming to Paris to knock out a year of French, but now… You’ve taken everything over. I can’t think about anything except you. Even in class, I’m always sneaking looks at you. I want to hear your voice and see your eyes and watch you smile. I want to listen to you talk all day. French, English—hell, gibberish. I just want to hear your voice. Be around you. And I don’t know why. I mean, I do.” He fumbled. This was more than he ever spoke at once. “You’re… great.” Well said, Wes. He always had a way with words, his mama had said. They ran from him. “I’ve never met anyone like you. I’m surrounded by jocks. Football players. Stuck-up athletic trainers. Groupies. I’ve never met someone so…” Free. He wanted to say free. “Independent. Strong. So themselves.”

Wes kissed the inside of Justin’s thigh, the crest of his hip bone, the underside of his cock. He slid his fingers out and wiped them on a worn T-shirt before he crawled up Justin’s body and kissed his lips. “Justin?” He nuzzled his cheek. Waited until Justin’s eyes flickered open and he kissed Wes back, soft and slow. “Can I make love to you?” Justin’s eyes went wide. He stilled. “Are you sure?” “I want my first time to be with you.” His first time, his first guy. Maybe, a quiet voice in his heart said, his last guy. His only guy. Some of his friends were getting married or were ready to propose. They’d found the one. What if he had, too?

He’d been gone for Justin ever since he’d first laid eyes on him. Every moment they’d spent together, he’d fallen a little deeper, and now here he was. With his first lover. Maybe, hopefully, his last.

I’ve fallen so deeply for you, Justin. But what’s going to happen now?

Every night they made love, and each time was different. Justin rode Wes and held his hands, the lights of Paris dipping into the curves of his naked chest, the planes of his trim, tight muscles. He lay on his stomach and Wes spent a half hour eating him out, exploring his hole with lips and tongue, French-kissing him in a whole new way until Justin was a panting, quivering mess. Wes slid inside him then, kissing his way up his spine and the back of his neck to whisper in his ear, “Mon amour, tu as mon coeur pour toujours.”

“Some days, I don’t believe you’re real, mon cowboy.” “I could say the same about you. I didn’t think anyone

could know me the way you do.”

“I think I could spend the rest of my life with you, and you’d still surprise me.” Justin’s gaze was equal parts searching and adoring, like he was appraising a fine piece of art, a priceless wonder they’d stumbled on in ...

“I know maybe I’m reading into things, and maybe this isn’t more than what it is. Maybe this is just Paris, just a summer fling. And if that’s all it is, I get it. I mean, I’ll accept it. I’m not going to chase you at school. But—”

He’d kissed Justin before he confessed how far he’d fallen, but he couldn’t stop the roar of his orgasm, the blaze—the sudden, searing rush—that followed his realization. Love, desire, craving, the run he’d been making his entire life. Eyes on the ball, eyes on the ball, until suddenly there was Justin, and he couldn’t look away from the shape of his smile or the sound of his voice. Couldn’t look away as he sprinted as hard as he could to catch up with his heart. I love you. He came with a cry, burying his face in Justin’s throat as he shuddered and emptied and squeezed his eyes shut. Justin’s hands tangled in his hair as he cursed, bucking against Wes, and a moment later, warmth spread over Wes’s belly, between them. I love you.

Wes stared at Justin, his lips thin, eyes wide and shining, as if he, too, was trying to fight back tears. His fingers hadn’t released Justin’s, and he was holding on like he wouldn’t let go, wouldn’t let Justin walk away. Don’t let me go. Don’t ever let me go.

He closed his eyes as the plane lifted off. He felt his heart fall free, sink back to earth, stay behind. He’d lost his heart to Wes, and he wouldn’t get it back until they were together again. God, I love you, you big cowboy. I’ll see you again. Soon.

that was it. One moment in time. One study abroad. One summer love. Now he had to return to reality. Obligations. Responsibilities. Ties that bound him to others, to something bigger than the cries of his heart. The hunger of his soul. Justin… I love you. And I’m so, so sorry.

I loved you so much that night.

Every night, every day, all the little ways he’d fallen in love with Wes, again and again and again—

“No, wait, Justin. Please. Stay. I’m trying. I have no idea what to do, but I want to help. If this was a girl situation, I’d do what I did with my friends when we got our hearts broken. Get drunk, be stupid, cry it out. Not be alone. I don’t know what you need, and I don’t know what you want, but if I can help… I want to.”

“I’m not going to tell you that you need to get over something that lasted three weeks, not if it meant as much to you as it did. I saw you happier than you’ve ever been. Never, not once, have you smiled at us like you did at the airport. Or said that many words to us in one afternoon. Not since you were eight years old. Whatever happened… Jesus, Justin, you were happy. And I’m fucking sorry that you’re not now.”

You would love him, Dad. You’d be so proud of me if I brought him home. Maybe it would be weird for a minute, but you’d get over it, because you’d love Wes. He’d be like the son you always wanted. I could have brought him to you, if only.

“I hope you never see him again.” Justin neck cracked, he looked up so fast, staring at his dad with wide eyes. “I hope you never see him again, because I don’t want him to hurt you any more.” Justin’s dad shook his head. “I hope he’s gone forever. I hope he takes his bullshit and gets lost for good, because you deserve better than that. You do. Understand?”

It was hard to be happy for Wes, though, when his own heart was so broken. When they’d had hopes and dreams and had started to make tentative promises to each other. I would have come to every game to cheer you on if you asked me to.

FELT

Tu étais magnifique.

Sobbing

“I love you,” he called after Justin. “I loved you in Paris, and I still love you. You’re everything to me. You’re the first thing I think of when I open my eyes in the morning. You’re in class with me, you’re on the field with me, you’re in the gym with me. I talk to you when I’m alone. When I’m driving in my truck. When I’m jogging or working out. You’re on my mind every minute of the day. And you’re the last thing I see every night. That photo…” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I love you, and I’m not ashamed of that.”

“You’re right. I’m scared.” Six foot five, two hundred sixty-four pounds, and he curled forward like he was five years old and scared of the dark. “Not about me, or who I am.”

“I’m not ashamed that I love you. But I don’t know how to live with all these different pieces of me.”

“But then I met you, and… I didn’t want to wait anymore. I wanted to love you—I want to love you. I do love you. And I want to be with you, every day, but…”

“Listen to me,” Justin said. His voice was, finally, gentle, like Wes remembered from Paris when they spoke to each other at night, their sweat cooling on each other’s skin. “No one chooses what risks I take. No one decides for me what I think is worth it. You had no right to make that decision for me.” “But—” “No buts. If you wanted to end us because you wanted it to be over, fine. But if you ended us because you thought you were saving me…” He shook his head. “That’s my job. Respect me enough to let me weigh the risks and make the choice.”

“Wes, the only person so far who has hurt me because of your football career is you. Why don’t you think about that before you go imagining some phantom attacker waiting for me in middle of the night to avenge your lost heterosexuality, okay?”

“I don’t know how to be all those men at once. It’s like I have to put on different faces every hour, when the only face I want to wear is my own. The guy I was in Paris. The guy I am with you. Wes, who loves Justin.”

“I don’t care what you are. I don’t care if you’re a footballer or a grocery store bagger or you work at McDonalds or, hell, you’re a cowboy.” “You hate cowboys.” Justin almost grinned. “I do. Except for one, apparently. And if you were the biggest cowboy to ever cowboy, I would still care about you. I don’t care what you do. I care about you.”

“It’s okay to admit that you want this, too. I know you a little bit. I know how hard you worked for this. You wanted to be the best, and you basically are. You should be so damn proud of yourself.”

“I’m not. I’m not a good man. I broke your heart. And all I want to be g...

“I want to keep coming to your dances, if that’s okay. But I don’t want to upset you. I don’t know how to do this, Justin. I don’t know how to live with loving you like this. It will fade eventually, right? Because right now it feels like I’ll love you for the rest of my life, and I’ll just have to learn to live with this hole in my chest forever.”

of his palm. Laid Justin’s hand over his heart. “I love you, and I would spend the rest of my life proving it to you. Showing you, every day, how much, how deeply, I love you. If you let me.”

“If I let myself love you, are you going to break my heart again?” “No.” Wes slid his hand through Justin’s hair, then ran his palm down Justin’s back. He held him against his chest until their heartbeats pounded in rhythm as if they were trying to reach each other. “Never again. I swear.”

Justin’s chin quivered. But he reached for Wes, and he laced their fingers together. Brought Wes’s hand to his mouth and kissed his knuckles, a mirror of Wes’s movements only a few minutes before. “I love you, too. Damn it, I love you, too, and I can’t stop.”

“I want to see you every day. I want to spend every free moment I can with you. I want to meet you for lunch between practices and do homework together. I want to take you on dates and drive out to the country like this. Watch the stars and—” “Fuck in the truck bed?” “Make love to you every chance I can. It won’t be easy with my schedule, but I want to be with you. Really with you. I’ll make time, I swear it.”

“My hat still smells like you, you know. I haven’t been able to wear it since Paris because it smells like you.”

Justin blushed and pulled away, tossing the stethoscope into his basket before drifting down the aisle. He looked back over his shoulder at Wes, and the look in his eyes made Wes’s heart do cartwheels.

“Is there any epic love story that isn’t tragic?” “Ours.” Wes smiled. “It’s not gonna be tragic. It’s gonna be epic.”

Around nine, Wes messaged. I was showing off for you. Maybe you were, but you’re excellent all on your own. I’m going to show off for you Saturday, too. Yeah? Yeah. I’m going to win this game for you. <3 I’m going to win every game for you, mon amour.

“Tu es mon plus grand amour.” You are the love of my life.

“I can’t pinpoint when I fell in love with you,” he whispered. His fingers traced Wes’s heart, over his chest and down his side, then up his arm before starting the circuit again. “It was just there one day, inside me. I didn’t want to be without you. And then I couldn’t be without you. That’s when I knew you were the love of my life. You’d become a part of me, and my life was incomplete without you.” His lips brushed over Wes’s jaw, the stubble on his chin. “You’re it for me. Tu es mon plus grand amour.” You are the love of my life.

“If it came down to a choice between football and Justin, it’s no contest. I know what I’ll choose every time.”

“So, what happened? Sometimes you can love someone for years, and then something happens, and you realize you love someone else more. I love my son—you—more than I love the woman she’s become.”

“Yeah. I was trying to give you guys the world, and I didn’t want my life to get in the way of that.”

Colton clung to him, too, whispering promises into his ear. Promises to be there for Wes. To be there for Justin. To never, ever leave him alone again. That he’d never let another piece of shit lay their hands on Wes. That they’d never lose a game again, not when they were together, like the brothers they were. Eventually, he came out of Colton’s hold. With Justin at his side, Colton in front of him, and his team all around, for the first time in his life, all the parts and pieces of the man Wes was came together. He took a deep breath and felt whole. One man. The man he was meant to become. The man he’d always wanted to be.