Page 102 of The Jock
Justin’s heart stopped, and he grabbed his dad’s arm. “Dad, they’re wearing rainbow sweatbands.” Every one of Wes’s teammates had a rainbow sweatband on his wrist, big and bold and bright against the white of their uniforms.
Wes broke off from the team and headed for the stands. He ran right to Justin and Nick and held up his hand, reaching for Justin. Justin reached back. Wes brought Justin’s hands to his lips and kissed his fingers. “I love you,mon coeur,” Wes shouted over the roar of the stadium. He pounded his chest and pointed right at Justin as he backed away, running to his team as they huddled up.
The entire thing had been captured by fifteen television cameras and played over and over on the jumbotron. Wes kissing Justin’s fingers, Justin gazing at him, his love for Wes obvious from a single glance. How had they ever hid anything, if that’s how he looked at Wes? Heart emojis surrounded the image on the big screen, and the kiss cam logo appeared in the corner.
Wes and the team were jumping up and down on the sideline and psyching themselves up. Wes got in the center of the huddle, facing his teammates, his friends, and shouted, “Are we gonna do this? Are we gonna win? Are we gonna show the world who we are?” Each time, the team roared back, “Yes!”
He and Colton walked out for the coin toss. Vanderbilt’s head captain shook Wes’s hand, then Colton’s, and smiled at them both. Texas won the coin toss and chose to start with the ball, and after the kickoff, Wes, Colton, and the rest of the guys took the field.
On the opening play, Colton fired a missile to Wes running a crossing route, and Wes one-two stepped, spun, and broke away from the linebacker and the safety. He had nothing in front of him but open field, and he sprinted down the sideline as the Vanderbilt defense tried to catch him. He ran the ball all the way into the end zone as the stadium went wild. Horns blared, and the marching band roared out the school’s fight song. The student section bellowed, chanting Wes’s name as bucket drums and cymbals clashed with the stadium’s touchdown music. In the end zone, Wes spread his arms wide and stared at the sky, then turned and pointed down the field to Colton and the rest of his team, cheering for him at the line of scrimmage.
On the sideline, the team all clapped Wes on the back—except for Colton, who body-slammed him in a ferocious bear hug. A television camera got up in their faces, trying to capture the moment for ESPN, and Colton turned right into the lens, shouting, “Texas is back, baby!”
By late in the second quarter, it was over. Texas had put thirty-one points on the board, and Vanderbilt had three. Wes was pulled from the game just before the half. He was given a headset and a clipboard and he glued himself to Coach Young’s side. When the teams came back after halftime, Colton was next to Wes, both of them watching the game and their own team, taking notes on plays and where they could make adjustments going forward. By the end of the third, the rest of the first string was out, resting and letting the second and third strings get in good play time. Vanderbilt toughed it out and put a touchdown on the board, and the game ended 38–10.
Wes and Colton shook the Vanderbilt captains’ hands after the game as the rest of the team and the stadium exploded into celebration. Wes ran back to Justin and Nick, hauled himself up onto the railing, and kissed Justin right on the lips. “We’re going to the national championship!”
Justin cradled his face and beamed as every camera in the stadium turned to them. “You going to win that one for me, too?”
“Bien sûr, mon coeur.” And then Wes kissed him again.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Wes flexedhis fingers inside his gloves. The locker room was quiet, only the sounds of athletic tape and the snapping of pads filling the air. Every breath Wes took was choked with tension, with the collective anxieties and nerves his teammates had carried within them all the way to this moment.
Colton slid onto the bench beside him. He leaned his shoulder against Wes’s and held out his fist. Wes bumped it, then leaned back against his friend. They said nothing.
Coach Young came out of the office set aside for him in the Kansas City locker room. “All right, everyone, gather around,” he called to the team. “Bring it in, bring it in.” He waited as the players shuffled forward.
“This is it,” he said, once everyone was near. He never minced his words. “This is your moment. This is what you worked all season for. The national championship title is yours, if you go out there and do what exactly what you have every single week you won: Believe in each other. Trust each other. Love each other.”
The team nodded. Eyes flicked to each other, then over to Wes.
“I know you’re nervous,” Coach said. “I can feel it. But you need to let that go right now. The team that is about to walk out of here and face off against Mississippi isn’t the same team that took the field against them over Thanksgiving. You were broken that day. Well, that’s changed. You are whole again. And you are more than a team. You are a family.”
Hell yeahs and scattered claps rose.
“You boys are the best team in the entire nation. Mississippi took something from you on Thanksgiving, and it’s time to go get that back. So you’re going to run out there, and you’re going to win. Not for me. Not for the university. Not for the NFL scouts watching you. Not for the glory. You’re going to go out there and win this game foryou.” He pointed to individual players, naming them. Finally, he got to Wes. “You’re going to win this game today because this is what you were all born to do together.”
Coach let the silence grow and let his conviction, his faith in them, fill the room and seep into each player, push out all those unspoken nerves and anxieties, the fears and the hesitations. Wes closed his eyes and felt Colton’s hand on his back. Felt Art slap the back of his head. He grinned.
“All right!” Coach clapped his hands. “Get your helmets and get ready. Let’s go play football!”
They roared, and they grabbed their helmets and lined up in the tunnel. Wes and Colton were right up front, and they started jumping together, staying loose. Their teammates behind them joined in, a few more at a time, until everyone was jumping. Colton turned to the team and started chanting something Wes couldn’t quite make out over the roar of the stadium outside, but the rest of the team picked it up. Suddenly, ESPN and the other broadcast cameras surrounded them, capturing the shot. Wes turned to face the team, and what they were chanting hit him square in the chest.
They were chanting his name.
He grabbed Colton and shoved their helmets together. ESPN was right there, watching. “I love you, brother,” Wes grunted.
Colton grabbed his helmet. “I fucking love you, too. Let’s go win this.”
The team roared out of the tunnel, fireworks shooting off around them as they tore out to the fifty. Wes spun, trying to orient himself. It was so different in the stadium now, with the fireworks going and the lights dim, only the neon lights and the flash of fifty thousand flashes lighting up the field. But… there. He turned to the Texas sideline and looked up at the VIP box where all the families of the starting-line players were seated. He put his fingers to his face mask and blew a kiss up to the box. “I love you, Justin,” he shouted, right as the ESPN camera swung around him for a close-up.
He imagined Justin blowing him a kiss back. Closed his eyes and breathed in. This moment was theirs. It was the team’s, yes, but it was also his and Justin’s. He was the only out NCAA Division I-A player now, and he was leading his team as they played in the national championship. A hundred news organizations wanted to interview him. Nick was acting as his manager-slash-bulldog for now, and he’d said time and again that he wouldn’t make any public statements until after this game. No one needed to know anything about him other than what he left on the field with his team. Everything else was a distraction.
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.
He and Colton stayed loose on the sideline while Mississippi came onto the field, and a choir sang the national anthem as a flyby buzzed overhead. Colton took his hand in a warrior grasp and brought Wes to his chest, then said in his ear, “No fucking around this time. If they don’t acknowledge you, I’m starting shit.”
