Page 101 of The Jock
He kissed Wes’s hand. “I love you, too, cowboy.”
* * *
He hada final in the morning, and Wes and the team had practice, and it was a mad rush in the house bathrooms. He brushed his teeth in the hall and then spat and rinsed while Orlando showered. Blenders were whirring downstairs, and toasters were popping every minute, firing out Pop-Tarts by the boxful. Wes made him his own fruit smoothie and offered him a Pop-Tart. Justin took the smoothie and let Wes keep the Pop-Tart. They kissed on the porch as the team hurried past. “C’mon! We’re gonna be late!” Colton called from the street.
“Go kick ass, cowboy.”
Wes kissed him again and then jogged after his teammates.
Justin finished his last final on Wednesday and then went to the stadium to watch practice. Wes and Colton were conferring on the sideline with Coach Young, who was nodding along with whatever they were saying. After a break, the team ran drills again, and both Wes and the offensive coordinator came in to make adjustments. Later, Wes had his own one-on-one with the offensive coordinator and Coach Young, then made his own adjustments as he ran route after route with Colton throwing him the ball.
The team showered and changed, and Wes and Colton came out from the locker room first. They got into Justin’s car, and then Justin suggested a stop at the grocery store, where they ended up buying so much food they filled the trunk and every available inch inside. Wes and Colton had to get in the car and have Justin pile groceries on top of them. He couldn’t even see out his windows on the drive home.
The three of them cooked burgers for everyone, making smash patties on electric griddles in the kitchen. Each of the guys ate three, some of them four, and Justin understood why they bought bread by the truckload. Justin, Wes, and Colton ate together at the kitchen island, drinking beer and demolishing a bag of chips as Wes and Colton reviewed tape from practice on their phones. Justin sat on Wes’s lap so he could watch, and Wes pointed out what they were looking for on each video so he could follow along.
Later, Wes and Colton ended up in Colton’s bedroom playing Madden, and Justin cheered Wes on. For the first time in the history of ever, Wes beat Colton, and he whooped and hollered and jumped up and down. Colton wallowed in his defeat, and Justin pulled Wes in for a kiss as the rest of the team showed up at Colton’s door to see what the hell was going on.
They made love late at night, when everyone drifted off to bed. Wes lit a candle he’d bought and set it on his desk, and he stripped Justin slowly before laying him on his bed. He took his time, worshipping Justin’s body with his lips and his tongue, kissing the swell of his thigh and the inside of his knee, the curve of his calf and the bottom of his foot. He worked his way back up Justin’s legs and took his cock into his mouth. He blew Justin, sucking every inch as deep as he could, all the way down his throat. Justin smothered his moans in Wes’s pillow, and he had to fight back his shout when Wes moved down to rim him and finger him open.
Wes shuddered when he pushed inside, and he kissed Justin’s leg, resting atop Wes’s shoulder, and then rocked his hips. His cock slid deeper, all the way inside Justin, where only Wes could reach. Justin curled his toes and gripped Wes’s arms.
The candlelight flickered across Wes’s body, the golden glow dipping in and out of the curves of his muscles and the planes of his stomach. Justin’s hands roamed over his skin, over the scars left behind after the scabs had fallen off. He loved this man so much. Loved all the ways Wes came together, all the parts and pieces that made Wes himself. Loved how much he loved Justin, and loved football, and loved his friends. Loved his dedication, the way he gave every bit of himself to who and what he loved. It still left Justin breathless sometimes, how the love of his life had simply waltzed into his life in the middle of Paris. He’d gone around the world to find adventure, and he’d found a football-playing cowboy who stole his heart and ran away with it.
Well, Wes could keep it. He could keep it for the rest of his life.
Wes pulled out and guided Justin on top of him. Justin tipped his head back and groaned as he sank down on Wes. Wes filled him up so perfectly, every single time. His skin tingled, and he took Wes’s hands in his as he started to ride, to grind up and down on Wes’s cock until Wes was panting and gritting his teeth, and his fingers were squeezing Justin’s, and his arms were shaking and his thighs were trembling. “Justin,” he breathed. “I’m close.”
Justin grabbed his own cock, rock hard against his belly, and stroked. He loved coming with Wes, loved feeling Wes erupt inside him as his own orgasm made his body clench. He leaned forward, kissing Wes, and Wes grabbed his ass in both hands as he pistoned his hips, driving his cock in and out. Wes gasped against Justin’s lips, and Justin felt it, felt the heat and the fullness inside him. He went right over the edge with Wes, cursing as he spilled over Wes’s abdomen. His ass milked Wes so hard a groan punched out of Wes, loud in the silent house.
Justin held his hand over Wes’s mouth as they both went still. Justin giggled silently, twisting as he tried to hold his laughter inside. They waited, frozen, listening.
Someone, somewhere in the house, let out a long, low wolf whistle.
Justin buried his face in Wes’s neck and laughed.
* * *
Friday’s practicedidn’t start until the afternoon, and everyone slept in. Except for Justin.
He slipped downstairs and started making pancakes and eggs and bacon, and he fired up all six coffee makers. The smells drifted upstairs, and he heard the guys start to rise and shuffle downstairs. It was different, seeing all these guys he watched on the field and saw on ESPN now with their bed head and boxers and sleepy faces. He smiled as they made their way through the kitchen, grabbing coffee and plates of breakfast and grunting their thanks. Art kissed him on the cheek and said, “Bless you,” and Josh, with his mouth stuffed full of pancake, tried to tell Wes he’d picked a good boyfriend. It came out a carb-stuffed warble and ended with a yawn.
The first few hours of practice was a closed team meeting, so Justin spent the afternoon with his dad, shopping for furniture and decor for his new place before stopping for drinks downtown. They walked to the stadium for the end of practice and watched the team scrimmage, offense against defense. Both were on fire, and each managed to hold the other in place. They all took a knee after, and Coach Young told them to go home and get some rest and prepare for the game tomorrow.
Justin saw Colton smack Wes on the arm when Coach Young said to rest. He felt his cheeks flush, and then flush harder when his dad picked up on what was going on and cleared his throat. His dad looked away, smothering his own embarrassed grin.
Saturday morning broke brisk and beautiful, with a clear blue sky overhead and a light wind. Perfect football weather, crisp enough that little clouds of breath puffed in front of everyone in the stadium. Justin and Nick watched from their seats at the fifty-yard line, dead center in the front row on the Texas sideline. Nick had bought resale tickets online, and he wouldn’t tell Justin how much he spent. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I want to watch my son’s boyfriend with my son beside me. There isn’t a price to put on that.”
They clapped and cheered when the team ran on the field, leaping to their feet and screaming along with the crowd. There were no boos this week. Coverage on ESPN leading up to the game had been nothing but positive: reports that Wes Van de Hoek was back on the team, that the team was back in sync, that they were united again.
There was nothing about Wes’s attack, though. Wes had asked to keep that out of the papers, and the hospital and the team administration agreed to respect his wish for privacy. The police were still searching for the guys who’d attacked him, combing hospital admissions across the state for anyone coming in with fight-related injuries after that night. “It will be enough to win,” Wes had told Justin, late at night, holding each other in bed. “To shove their faces in it. To prove that they tried to put me down, but they couldn’t. That we came back as a team, and we won together.”
“They need to go to prison,” Justin had said, tracing his thumb over the bruise beneath Wes’s jaw.
Wes had kissed him, and that was the last they said about it that night.
Now the whole state seemed to be waiting to see what would happen. Was this going to be a win, or another collapse? Could a team shatter and reform, return to the heights of glory that they had touched together? Justin could feel the expectancy inside the stadium.
“What are they wearing?” Nick asked as they watched the team flood the center of the field. “What’s on everyone’s wrists?”
