Page 4 of The Jock
Justin’s eyes darted to him and then away. “I might.” His voice had dropped a few dozen degrees, hovering just over frigid. “Problem?”
“Nope.” Wes buried his face in his pillow again, blanking his mind as he exhaled. He didn’t need those thoughts, those images. Justin, lit by club lights, the twinkle of a disco ball and the flashing strobes. Justin, leaning against a bar top, laughing with a beautiful woman, making her smile and touch his arm, like Justin had touched Wes’s arm earlier. He could still feel Justin’s cool skin, those four fingertips, delicate as a ladybug landing on him.
Justin made a lot of noise getting ready to leave. He stomped into and out of the bathroom, washed his hands, dropped coins on his nightstand. Went to the window and then back to his bed. There was quiet for a moment, save for the digitalwhooshof messages passing back and forth on Justin’s cell phone.
“’Kay, I’m out,” Justin announced. “Have a good nap.”
“Thanks,” Wes grunted into his pillow. “Have a good time tonight.”
Justin’s footsteps hesitated by the door, but a moment later, it opened and closed, and the key slid into the lock.
Wes rolled to his side and stared at Justin’s empty bed, at the rumpled sheets and the discarded plaid button-down. He’d changed. What was he wearing? Wes’s eyes traveled over Justin’s bulging duffel, half shoved under the bed, and skittered to a halt, frozen on a corner pocket. Condoms spilled onto the floor, as if Justin had grabbed a few in a hurry on his way out. Wes blanked his mind. No, no thoughts about that.
He bunched his pillow into a knot, like he was wrestling with the stuffing rather than trying to sleep on it, and curled up, half on his belly and half on his side. Car horns and bike bells and the warm breeze drifted into the room, and minutes later, he was asleep.
When his eyes popped open, it was dark, save for the lights of the city, Victorian streetlamps and globe lights strung between the buildings casting a golden glow that rose into the room. The night was quiet, the shops closed, the traffic tucked away save for an occasional siren in the distance.
Wes groaned, flipping to his back on the squeaky mattress before scrubbing his face. He peeked over at Justin’s bed.
There was a body-shaped lump beneath the sheets, and a tumble of hair caught the light, like spun gold was spread out on Justin’s pillow. Justin faced Wes with his eyes closed, his shoulders rising and falling steadily, gentle snores whispering out of him.
Wes’s gaze caught on something a little closer. A bottle of water and a wrapped baguette sandwich rested on Wes’s nightstand. He sat up and grabbed it, peeled back the paper wrapping, and sniffed. Ajambon beurre, ham and salted butter. His stomach roared, a violent growl that he thought might wake Justin. But Justin didn’t stir. “Thank you,” he whispered to the quiet bedroom.
He rose and crept to the window, sitting on the sill and propping his bare foot on the ledge. Leaning back, he took his first bite of the sandwich, and he closed his eyes and groaned,thunking his head against the frame. God, how could something so simple be so damn delicious? He needed another five of these. He tried to eat slowly and savor it, but he was done too soon, licking his fingers clean of crumbs and butter before downing the bottle of water in one long gulp.
And then he watched, listening to Paris come alive in the early morning. Smelled the city, the sour-sweet smell of humanity and nature colliding, of concrete and exhaust and baked rubber, and trees sucking down carbon dioxide, and bakeries just beginning their day. The first glimpses of dawn were painting the sky, turning the indigo overhead to layered shades of bluebonnet and chicory and dayflower.
When dawn had turned the sky to a watercolorist’s palette, Wes rose and returned to his bed, pulling out his duffel and grabbing his running shoes and shorts from the side pocket. He might be in Paris, but that didn’t mean he was free from his obligations. He should have run yesterday, but he hadn’t, so he’d have to add that mileage to today.
He changed right there, then grabbed his phone, dropped a pin on the hotel, and pulled up a five-mile run route from his jogging app. He didn’t need to know where to go, as long as his phone kept feeding him directions. He popped his earbuds in, grabbed his metal key, and tiptoed out, trying not to wake Justin.
Chapter Two
As the lockturned in the door, Justin’s eyes opened. He stared at the empty space where Wes had just changed.
Just his damn luck. He came to Paris to escape: escape his life, and Texas, and, especially, Texans. Guys elsewhere, guys he met online who were in California or New York or Chicago, they all said he was lucky, he was surrounded by those sexy cowboys.
Yeah, sure, if you wanted your sexy with a side of snide, under-the-breath dismissal. Real cowboys, in his experience, were not the kind of men he wanted to hang around with, no matter how sexy they might be.
So, of course, he went five thousand miles and crossed an ocean to live in a cosmopolitan, progressive European city for three weeks… and ended up rooming with an honest-to-God Texan cowboy. Boots, buckle, hat and all.
Just his luck, he’d figured, when Wes walked in. Just his damn luck. He’d felt his dreams collapse as Wes had settled in, boots thumping on the old hardwood floors. Three weeks had seemed like freedom only moments before. How quickly it became a cage. When would the sneers start? The jeers? When would his roommate become aggressive? Act paranoid, like Justin was panting after his shadow? Justin wanted to tell his former roommates from freshman and sophomore year,Don’t think that highly of yourself. He’d rather fuck a cowboy—and he never intended to do that—than either of them.
Justin grabbed his hair and groaned.
Could Wes be any more of a cowboy? He’d fit right in at Universal Studios, or Hollywood, or, hell, if he wore nothing but chaps, he could make ten grand a night at the gay clubs in Dallas. He’d look right at home driving the herd down Main in Fort Worth, too, tipping his hat to women in sundresses and giving them that shy little grin. God, did women hurl their thongs at Wes every day? What about men? How many men saw him and wanted to hit their knees, run their fingers up the those tight, denim-covered thighs?
Justin fumed, glaring at the ceiling. His cock was rock hard, flat against his belly. Why did Wes have to change right there?
Well, why wouldn’t he, if he thought Justin was sleeping? That would change soon, of course. Maybe Wes would tack up a sheet to separate the halves of their room, like his second freshman roommate had.
He wasn’t going to jack off to his roommate. His straight cowboy roommate.
But it wasn’t like he was getting any other action, either. Four days now, he’d been in Paris, and he’d yet to find his dreamy Parisian summer fling.
His sultry, pouty look that worked wonders in Texas didn't seem to translate in Paris. He wasn’t used to the men here, how they flirted, what they said. Sure, he could whip out the apps, but… His mom said he would end up dead in a ditch someday if he wasn’t careful, and he didn’t want to prove her right. Meeting a stranger on a hookup app in a foreign country seemed like the kind of reckless that turned boys like him into missing-persons posters. He wasn’t pretty enough to get worldwide attention if someone abducted or offed him.
Why did Wes have to be his roommate? Why couldn’t they put him with a nerd, one of the IT majors who smelled like Doritos and Mountain Dew? Or a hipster who was cool enough to scope out guys with him at the Louvre and Tuileries, as long as Justin was cool enough to play the part of the gay bestie when he wanted to pick up chicks?
