Page 27 of The Jock
“I need to sleep for a week.”
“I don’t even want to go to the party. I just wanna crawl into bed and cry.”
Deep voices burrowed under Justin’s skin, coming from behind him. He picked apart the language, the cadence, the vocabulary. Jocks. Of course. And what sport was playing now? Who would be complaining about preseason training?
Football players.
He didn’t want to look, but he had to. He turned, tossing a casual glance over his shoulder and peeking over the rim of his sunglasses at the trio of footballers—huge, hulking men with solid biceps, cut triceps, traps like triangles growing from their necks—dressed in sleeveless shirts and athletic shorts, each carrying a water bottle and a duffel bag. One was white, a country boy like Wes, his ball cap flipped backward and his pale shoulders burned red. One was Hispanic, almost as large as Wes was, but heftier. More fluff, less definition. And the third man was Black. Tall, lithe, and strong, all hard muscles cut like diamonds.
Wes’s teammates. Maybe even his friends.
Justin cut across the street, ducking between two parked trucks—one absolutely disgusting, more rust than actual vehicle—and juggling his room key between his fingers. He glared, watching the three men amble up the sidewalk in the shade. Why were they here? Where were they going? Why the fuck couldn’t he be free of reminders? He jogged up his house’s front steps, then stepped back to hold the door for one of his new housemates heading out, buried in a text conversation on her phone.
The footballers turned up the front stoop of the house directly across the street, the hunter green one with the gingerbread trim. They trudged up the stairs and threw themselves across the wide front porch, flopping into shredded wicker chairs and plastic pool loungers. They dumped their duffels and sucked at their water bottles, leaning back like they were there to stay.
Oh no. Oh fuck. No, no way.
He did not move to the other side of campus only to live across the goddamn street from football players. No fucking way.
Justin bulldozed his way inside and up the stairs, practically flattening a housemate’s family as he raced to his room. His was on the third floor, a ten-by-ten square with a window that overlooked the west-side fire escape. These homes were technically apartment buildings now, and they had to have emergency exits on each floor. They were rickety add-ons, and most everyone used them as window porches. Justin had a tiny iron platform outside his window, and if he wiggled out to it, he could spy on the house across the street.
Not that he wanted to. At all.
He dumped his backpack on his unmade bed and climbed out the window. Other students were hanging out on their fire escapes, too, sitting cross-legged and drinking beer. One had hung string lights around the railing, even put a potted plant in the corner. Hopefully there’d never be a fire.
Justin grabbed the railing and peered down the block. There was the stadium, rising above all the thick, leafy trees. There was the street, crowded with cars and families dropping off their kids and their toasters and their papasan chairs. And there were the footballers, lounging on the front porch of the house across the street. One rose from his sprawl, and Justin watched him disappear through the screen door and come out with three beer bottles.
Fuck. They did live there.
Groaning, Justin shook the railing of the fire escape like he wished he could shake one of the players. Now he’d have to listen to football bullshit all semester. They would definitely be throwing parties, and there’d be groupies on the block. They’d probably have their football bullshit strewn on the street and in the yard, pads and helmets and balls and whatever crap.
He couldn’t ever get away from this. Not from the stadium, and not from the game, and not from Wes.
If not for how restrictive his major was, he’d transfer. Transferring from nursing program to nursing program was next to impossible. He’d have to repeat a year just to satisfy the program’s residency requirement. Pushing back his degree by a full year was out of the question. No, he could buck up and deal. Wes didn’t define his life. Wes wasn’t going to run him off, chase him away from his school or his future plans. Wes, and whatever game he’d played with Justin’s heart, wasn’t going to ruinanything.
A man turned at the corner. Started walking up the block.
From the distance, he was just a dark shape. Someone large—gigantic, really. Defined muscles bursting out of a shirt with the sleeves cut off. He wore a backward ball cap and athletic shorts, carried a duffel over his shoulder and three binders in his arms. He stared at the ground as he walked, his shoulders slumped forward like he had the weight of the world bowing his back. Something about him…
Justin threw himself back from the fire escape until his ass hit the opposite rail.
Wes.
He lookedterrible.
He walked like a zombie, shuffling like it hurt to lift his legs. He hadn’t shaved in Justin didn’t know how long. Too long. He’d gone from sexy stubble to wild, unkempt overgrowth. He didn’t give off that warm, comfortable, approachable vibe anymore. He was pure strength, raw power, bulging muscles cutting hard edges into his arms, his legs, the glimpse of his abs and obliques Justin saw through his shirt’s baggy armholes.
The closer he came, the worse he looked. His eyes were sunken and hollow, black holes in his gaunt face. He looked exhausted. Beyond tired. Like death, not just a nap, was what he needed.
The footballers on the porch called out to him, waving and raising their beer bottles. He nodded to them, then trudged up the same porch steps. One of the players kicked a patio chair toward him, offering him a seat.
Wes shook his head and disappeared inside the house.
Oh no. No no no.
Every one of Justin’s bold, strong thoughts fled. It was easy to be strong when he was alone, when he was imagining how, the next time he saw Wes, he’d give him a piece of his mind. How he’d read him the riot act and then leave him broken and miserable as Wes remembered how wonderful Paris had been. How he’d cut Wes with his words, leave him shattered like Wes had shattered him, leave him clinging to the floor and sobbing like he’d left Justin. He’d rehearsed his lines in the shower ten thousand times. He’d imagined himself radiant and gorgeous, maybe with a new man on his arm, looking Wes up and down and saying, “Who?”
Justin sank to his heels, clinging to the railing as he watched the house across the street. Wes’s house. Fuck. Fuck.
