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It was Paris, and it was summertime.
So careful. But he hadn’t anticipated Justin.
Four days now, he’d been in Paris, and he’d yet to find his dreamy Parisian summer fling.
I’m sorry I bother you. I’m sorry you’re so fucking fragile that my existence threatens your masculinity. I’m sorry I breathe in and out. Don’t worry, others have thought about changing that, too.
Oh, my poor baby boy
Justin eyed Wes as he brushed dust and lint from his cowboy hat. When Justin gazed out the window, watching Paris roll by, he caught Wes’s reflection gazing at him.
They're so adorable I am literally feral
Wes ordered the cheapest thing on the menu, so Justin ordered double appetizers and ate slowly, pushing the rest toward Wes.
Why am I tearing up
“Football… that’s with the baskets, right? Orange ball?” Wes stared. “No, no, don’t tell me. They’re called goals?” “Not quite.” “I’m kidding. I’m Texan, I was born knowing football. And football is obviously played on a diamond. You’re the tight infielder, right?”
It was a storybook life. Until he turned sixteen. Until he stopped faking it, stopped pretending he was going to bring home a sweet girl, stopped acting like he was crushing on the cute blonde in the choir loft.
He took selfies kissing guys, grinding with them against the dirty club walls and in the bathroom stalls, got an outrageous picture of an older man licking his bare chest as he threw his head back in ecstasy. And he sent them all to his parents.
A bit extreme but I'll support it
“Why didn’t you sit her down and look her in the eyes and tell her? She deserved to hear the truth from you like you loved her, not have it thrown in her face like you hated her.”
Okay I kinda lowkey agree
Strong, silent cowboys didn’t actually exist, right? Apparently they did. And they played some football, too. And took French. And had a shy, killer smile that tied Justin’s intestines up into curly little bows.
He’d come half a world away to fall for the same guy he saw every day at home? What Texan came to Paris and fell for a cowboy? There was something Freudian in that. There had to be.
Don’t do it, his mind whispered. You can’t be friends with him. And another part of him whispered back, I’m not sure what I want with this man is friendship. Not anymore.
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. Beneath the twinkling Eiffel Tower, in the dark Champ de Mars, Wes stepped forward and cupped his hand around Justin’s cheek, and then stroked his football-calloused thumb over Justin’s sharp jawline.
“Is this really happening?” Justin whispered. “I hope so.” His voice trembled.
“You’re afraid?” “A little, yeah.” “Of me?” Justin bit his lip so hard Wes saw the red skin turn white around the divots he created. “I never get what I want,” he murmured.
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.
“My first time was kind of crappy. It was a rush. We were sneaking. It wasn’t special. I don’t want that for you.” “You’re special.”
I want to listen to you talk all day. French, English—hell, gibberish. I just want to hear your voice.
I knew what felt right. Grabbing that ball and running. Riding my horse as far as I could, to the end of my world. Now you. You feel like the rightest thing I’ve ever laid my eyes on.”
Instead, he grabbed both of their mattresses and laid them side by side beneath the window, then piled the blankets on top.
Absolutely feral
“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?”
He reached over his head for his duffel, then rooted around until he found the pocket with the condoms. Pulled one out. More spilled and littered the floor. Wes eyed them, mentally claiming each. Mine, mine, mine.
That's actually so cute
“Go slow.” Justin’s fingers squeezed over his biceps. “You’re big. I think you’re the biggest I’ve ever had.” “Keep talking like that, and you won’t have me. I’ll finish before we start.”
Justin smiled. He hooked one ankle around Wes’s waist. Rubbed his hand over Wes’s arm, his shoulder. “Make love to me.”
At the flower stall, he dug out his leftover coins from the week’s budget and spent two euros on a tiny bouquet of wildflowers tied with twine.
Deceased
“No one’s ever given me flowers before.” Again, Wes tickled his cheek with the baby’s breath, then slid the sprig of lavender across Justin’s lips, a kiss of sun-warmed petals. “I’ll have to make a habit of it,” he rumbled.
Had he, somehow, made Justin that happy, so joyous he seemed like he was about to float away? Like Wes had to hold on to his hand to keep him tethered to the earth?
When Justin held his ankles so he could pump out a hundred sit-ups, Wes didn’t count a rep official unless he kissed Justin’s lips at the top.
SO CUTE
Once, Justin lay down beneath Wes when he was doing his push-ups, but Wes only got twenty-seven reps into his set of eighty before he went down and stayed down, wrapping his arms and legs around Justin and kissing him in the dewy dawn.
Seriously. I am dying from the adorableness
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.”
"My love, you have my heart forever."
It took three days to apply for the credit card over his phone and then email customer service to say he was studying abroad and was trying to buy ballet tickets.
Oh. My. God.
He spent more than he ever had in his life, but the thought of Justin’s face when he’d touched his fingers to the playbill, and the desire in his eyes, made it all worthwhile.
“That hardly seems your scene.” “I’ve never been. I have no idea if it’s my scene or not. But I know you like it, and I want to take you. Can you show me what it’s like the way you see it?”
<3
“Some days, I don’t believe you’re real, mon cowboy.”
“I think I could spend the rest of my life with you, and you’d still surprise me.”
“I think there are whole oceans inside of you.” Wes smiled and turned his face to the sun. The heat slid under the brim of his hat, warming him to the core. “You can dive into every one.”
“I’m sorry,” Justin groaned. “I’m being a nerd. I’m talking too much.” “No such thing. I want to hear everything about what you love. And it would be a crappy date if I took you somewhere you hated.”
Brady-Gronkowski
UGH. Don't bring them up
That’s what people see when they look at me: big, scary, dumb hick in a cowboy hat.”
He slid back inside Justin with a sigh, resting his forehead, his cheek against Justin’s. “You feel like coming home.”
“You googled me.” “Figured I should know a little bit about football if my boyfriend is, like, playing.” Justin shrugged, pretending to look annoyed. “Turns out my boyfriend is kind of a big deal. He’s made a few touchdowns or baskets or goals or whatever.”
“Boyfriend, huh?” “Well, if you insist.” Justin bit his lip. Smiled. “I could be persuaded.”
<3
He’d lost his heart to Wes, and he wouldn’t get it back until they were together again.
Too afraid he’d fall asleep and wake up sandwiched between two businessmen who wanted to type on their laptops, and realize everything, all of it, had been a dream.
Awww
But he also loved Justin. He still wasn’t sure how the rest of his life fit in with the truth of that. In Paris, loving Justin had been effortless. Simple. As easy as breathing, like it was something he was born to do. But he’d also been born to carry a football, to carry a team.
NFL scouts will be crawling over your life. They’re going to look at your grades, at your girlfriends, at your social circle. What kind of photos you’ve been tagged in on Facebook. Who you know, and who knows you. Reporters are going to follow you. Dig into your life. Everyone is going to want something from you.
It’s about the team. It’s about all of you coming together and doing something greater than yourselves. Giving your all to each other so that together, together, you can achieve glory. Greatness. So you can all step on that field at the end of the season as champions, and as the best football players in the nation.
And you—you, Wes—can unite this team, make every one of these boys, who are already great ball players, even greater than they are now. This season is yours to win or lose, and because of that, you can bring all these boys with you, all the way to glory.”
