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When Justin came back from Paris, I thought I could take Cynthia there, since Justin had such a great time. We could work on finding our spark again.” He snorted. “The only spark I ended up wanting to find was a lighter to burn the whole marriage down.”
If you loved me, I’d never make you regret it. I’d never give you a reason to wish we hadn’t met. If you loved me, I’d never let you drink to try to forget us.
Wes, is this what it felt like all those years? He watched Nick’s profile: the hard, straight line of his nose, the bow of his lips, the sharpness of his jaw. Watched his throat move as he sipped his wine. Watched his eyes flutter closed. Is this how it feels to want something so fucking badly you ache for it? But you can’t have it, and you can’t reach out, and you can’t even admit that you want what you want? That you’re dying inside with every heartbeat, but you can’t stop this yearning? Is this what it feels like?
I want to be your quarterback. I want a million nights like this. I want you to always smile at me exactly the way you are right now.
Nick crawled over him, straddling his legs and his waist as he chased Colton’s lips. His hands raked through Colton’s hair, fingers grasping Colton’s skull almost hard enough to hurt. His kiss was a tornado: wild, ferocious, unrestrained. It was like a full defensive line bearing down on Colton, and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Could only grab Nick and kiss him back.
This would be awkward when Justin and Wes got back. Why don’t you and my dad talk anymore? Didn’t you guys go to that winery together? Weren’t you playing PlayStation together all the time? Yeah, but then I sucked your dad’s dick and he freaked the fuck out. Shit happens, bro.
Better to have had and lost… That was bullshit. Whoever said that wasn’t looking at three hours trapped in a Porsche with the guy who’d just rejected you. Who looked at what had been maybe the best night of your life and acted like it was the worst night ever for him. “Ready?” Nick barked. Colton nodded. He grabbed his duffel and followed Nick out of the hotel room. There’s always, always an end.
He’d been excited, in a petty way, when Colton kept wanting to spend time with him instead of going out to pick up girls. Colton was a young, hot-blooded man. It made perfect sense for him to go out. It made far less sense when he stayed in with Nick every night, drinking wine and talking before playing PlayStation or watching Netflix. He’d loved that. Loved every minute of it. Because that’s what you did when you were married. You rebuilt your married life with Colton, you jackass.
Is that what he wanted? Did he want what they had to last? An indefinable forever, the two of them continuing their… what? Friendship—even before last night—was too small a word. Relationship had too many connotations. Partnership was too dry. His life with Colton. Or at least, the potential of a shared life. Because that’s what it was. That’s what they’d done—what he’d done. He’d drawn Colton into his world, built a life and asked Colton to join him.
Before they’d kissed, he could admit that Colton Hall, age twenty-two, was his best friend. After the kiss? Best friend wasn’t enough. Lover was too… well, they were more than just lovers. Colton was more than a hookup. But what were they? And what where they going to become? What were they going to figure out? And what combination of events would lead Colton to be the number one college quarterback in the nation while he went home to Nick Swanscott, age forty-three, every night?
Enjoy yourself. When was the last time you were desired like this? When was the last time someone dreamed about you? Maybe it does have an expiration date, but you can cherish it while it lasts.
It seemed wild, remembering that there was a whole life he’d had—and that Nick had—before they met. Sometimes it felt like his life hadn’t really begun until Nick had thrown him against the front foyer in the jock house, pinning him to the wall with those pissed-off eyes.
Nick’s eyes popped open. “What do you see in me?” “Huh?” “Why on earth do you want me?” Nick’s voice was a whisper. “I can’t figure it out.” “Why wouldn’t I want you? Nick, you’re…” He swallowed. “You’re so freaking amazing it’s unreal. You’re so smart. Look at what you just did.” He nodded behind him, like he was nodding at Lubbock. “You’re an awesome guy. You’re kind to everyone. Always. It’s one of the best things about you.
“You’re genuine,” Nick breathed. “You’re exactly who you are. I look at you, and I can see your entire heart.” He inhaled, sharply. “And what I see, I trust.”
NFL players—future NFL players—didn’t have older guys as lovers.
Why the hell not? Love is love is love.
When Colton left and this thing between them faded and died, no one else was going to know what they’d been. What they became beneath the summer sun and how they burned down the July moon.
Would Justin be confused? Nick didn’t have answers to Why and How and What the fuck. The closest he came was Colton’s gruff, soul-wracked reasoning in the car after that morning in Houston: when you feel like you’re falling for someone, does it matter if they’re a guy or a girl? Or your son’s friend?
Every day, Nick looked at the photos his son sent—Justin happy, Justin in love, Justin having the time of his life—and wanted to turn himself inside out. I thought I was brave. I thought I knew how to pick right and wrong, Justin.
Ultimately, he was going to lose Colton to time, because there was no way Colton would stay with him. Colton wouldn’t trade all his dreams away just because Nick told him that his smile now lived in his heart. Lose Colton. Lose Justin. Lose them both? He had no idea what to do. He was torn between what he should do and what he could do, between the son he loved and a man he thought he could. Torn, too, between time and secrets and trying to figure out what was best for everyone.
“Well, that’s why I’m calling. He was hurt bad, real bad. The kind of injury where every second counts. And thanks to you and your network, my guys were able to get the right emergency care to him as quick as they could. So he’s gonna live. It’s gonna be a long road for him, but he’s gonna live. Thanks to you.” Nick’s eyes blurred and his lungs seized, and the only sound that came out of him was a strangled kind of gasp. “Riley—” “You need to know, Nick, what kind of impact you’re having. I may be shoveling millions into your company for this private mobile network, but when days like today
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He couldn’t take Nick to a restaurant that could compare to Kimbrough’s steak house. He didn’t want to take Nick to a movie and spend two hours not interacting with him. He wanted… something that was them. Something that would make Nick smile. Something that was fun but heartfelt, too. Something that had little bits of things Nick loved, brought to him by Colton.
“We should get home,” he groaned, “before I can’t drive anymore. I can’t turn the wheel if my cock is sticking straight out.” Nick’s seduction ended in a giggle fit.
Nick bit down on the taut skin below Colton’s navel, right next to his purple, aching cock head. He nibbled his way back up Colton’s chest and stopped to suck a kiss bruise into the low, hidden angle where his neck and his shoulder met. Low enough to hide under a T-shirt, but close enough to the collar to be scandalous. It was possessive, like Nick was laying claim to him, something he’d never done before.
He couldn’t, wouldn’t ask Colton to stay, though. He wasn’t arrogant enough to think Colton would pick him over football and a life of fame, and he was too much of a coward to hear Colton say that to his face. Better to let Colton go gracefully, leave him with the good memories, than leave him with the image of Nick asking for something Colton couldn’t give. Even if together they could shake the stars, and even if, when Colton fell asleep in his arms at night, Nick knew that what they’d become had gone far outside the boundaries he’d tried to scribble around his heart.
He’d never seen the emotions in Justin’s eyes that he saw now. Horror. Revulsion. Disgust. Betrayal. Anguish. So much anguish Nick couldn’t breathe. He was drowning in his son’s agony, in his devastation. In the Why and Why and Why that stabbed him through the heart. Your child was never supposed to look at you like that.
Had Nick really said all that? It wasn’t going to last. It was just summer. His heart had popped like a water balloon inside his chest. He could feel parts of himself slipping and sliding, escaping from the shape of the man he’d thought he was becoming. He’d thought he was becoming someone, especially to Nick. Now he was nothing but pieces, the same broken jigsaw puzzle he’d always been, kicked over and scattered by other people. Pieces lost. Pieces broken. Pieces thrown away. Didn’t you know this was how it was going to end? It always ends like this. People leave when you’re yourself.
He’d wanted Nick to know him like no one else ever had, not his mom, not Wes, not anyone. He’d wanted Nick to like him—no, to love him. To love what he saw when Colton showed him his carefully concealed heart, cradled in the palms of his hands.
He’d dreamed of forever, but Nick had been waiting for their end. He was so stupid. He should have seen this coming.
Wes had proven you could come out—be outed—and still be the best. Colton wasn’t the best anymore, not even close, and he wasn’t gay, but given the choice between letting Nick go and holding his hand in the park, Colton knew what he’d pick.
In some universe, there was a future where he didn’t play football and where he woke up in Nick’s arms every day. Maybe he worked in an office. Maybe he drank wine and held Nick’s hand every night. Maybe he had a quiet confidence that what he did, while not drawing millions of viewers on ESPN, made an impact on someone’s life. That man is alive today because of you, Nick. That universe wasn’t this universe. Clearly.
Nick had gone after Justin, leaving Colton behind in the wreckage of them. With the ghosts of his hands on Colton’s skin, his kisses still lingering on Colton’s lips. He was still inside Colton, too. The shape of him. His wet heat. His come. Nick had left the way he’d been planning on leaving Colton at the end of the summer, apparently.
Colton had made the choice early on to defer to Nick about telling Justin and Wes about all the little things. The little things that, in the end, added up to one huge, gigantic thing. Them. Together. How had he been supposed to know that meant he was signing up for Nick to play him and Justin off each other? Hide the truth from them both? Here he was, alone again, left behind by a man he loved.
They’d made love in that bed. He’d slept in Nick’s arms in that bed. He’d carved his own heart out of his chest and laid it on Nick’s pillow for him to keep, if only he wanted to pick it up.
He couldn’t tell Wes he’d fallen in love. After that? After Nick had said that they were just for the summer? That they had a predetermined end point Nick had chosen, like Colton and his heart were packaged food he could pluck off the shelf? He couldn’t tell Wes he’d fallen in love with Justin’s dad.
“It was just something that happened.” He shoved past Wes and headed for the door. “And like Nick said: you guys were never supposed to know.” Because Nick was always going to end things, and Colton was going to be dumped, and he was going to end up alone. Again.
Colton walked out Nick’s front door—this isn’t home anymore—and headed for the elevator. He left the football, the one-handed controller, and his broken heart behind.
Nick started forward. He was going to wrap his son up in his arms and tell him he loved him so much—he’d always love him, forever, no matter how much Justin fought him. He was going to repeat himself until his vocal cords shredded, until his body withered, until his bones turned to dust. He was going to tell Justin every single day that he loved him, until Justin believed him again.
If one more person looked at him like he was a barely tolerable presence, someone to be put up with—it was just summer—he was going to shrivel up and blow away. He already felt desiccated on the inside, like all those places that had bloomed under Nick’s affection had turned to dust, coating the shards of his broken heart.
The old man at the check-in desk looked like he was three hundred years old, like managing the front desk was his second job after his first career as a scarecrow.
Eventually. Someday, maybe, he wouldn’t feel like this. Like he’d spent his whole life waiting for one person to love him, but when he thought he’d found them, they scooped him out and left him hollow and empty like an old fruit rind.
Maybe someday he wouldn’t feel like something irreplaceable had been ripped out of him. Not today, though.
Why did no one ever love him back? Why was it so easy for people to leave him? What was wrong with him that made everyone walk away, go back to their own lives, and leave him behind?
It was just summer. You’re my whole world, Justin. Why wasn’t he anyone’s whole world? He buried his face deeper in the pillow.
He was Colton Hall, and no one loved him. Especially not the man he loved. Nick, if you’d loved me, I wouldn’t need any of them. Not the fans. Not ESPN. Not his name in neon. He wouldn’t need six Super Bowl rings. He’d only want one ring.
Justin had no idea how loved he was. How lucky he was. Nick picked him every single time. Of course he did. Justin was his son.
I’m sorry I kissed you, Nick. I should have kept this to myself. I shouldn’t have wanted more than I deserved, and I shouldn’t have come between you and Justin.
He was always going to think Nick hung the stars in the sky, probably one by one, and probably designed specifically for Justin’s personal joy. There was no stopping how hard he’d fallen for Nick. He’d been falling ever since Nick threw him against that wall, bursting into his life with the incandescent rage of a father who loved his son and would do anything for him.
He had no one and nothing, now. Not the man he loved or his best friend. He didn’t even have his dreams anymore. Not the fragile dream of a life with Nick, or his dream of playing football.
He was Colton Hall, and he had nothing. No one loved him. No future waited for him. He was alone, in a shitty motel, with a broken heart and two lost jobs.
Was what Clarence had said true? Was he just there as window dressing? A way for Coach to feel good about sidelining him, to be able to point at Colton and say, nah, he’s not off the team, he’s helping. Like a water boy or a mascot.
