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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.
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.
“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.”
“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’m not. I’m not a good man. I broke your heart. And all I want to be good at is loving you.”
“Yeah.” Justin scrunched up his face. “Is there any epic love story that isn’t tragic?” “Ours.” Wes smiled. “It’s not gonna be tragic. It’s gonna be epic.”
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.”
“Thank you, Dad. For… standing up for me. Loving me.” “Never thank me for that. You’re my son. I will always love you.”
“Of course I love you unconditionally. I’m sorry you didn’t know that. I’m sorry I wasn’t a better father to you. I’m sorry you didn’t know I supported everything you wanted. I mean, I wasn’t too thrilled about the underage drinking, and some of your friends in high school were a little wild. But all I’ve wanted for you, since the day you were born, was for you to be happy. You have to know: there’s nothing about you I don’t like or that I want to change.”
But Justin… Justin was his life. He was a part of Wes, all the way down inside, so deep he was inside the atoms of his soul. When Wes played this game, he was playing not just for him, and not just for the team. He was playing for, and with, Justin, too.
Wes dropped to one knee in the grass. “I promise you, Justin, that I will love you and cherish you as hard as I play this game. Harder, even.” He grinned. “I want to spend every day for the rest of my life loving you. What do you say? Can I be yours? And will you be mine?” He dropped to his knees in front of Wes and kissed him. “Bien sûr, cowboy,” he said, beaming. “Forever.”
