Page 40 of The Jock
Justin closed his eyes as he sank to his ass, slumping against his car door.
Chapter Thirteen
Friday nights,Wes worked a double shift at Daisy Lane, stocking and helping with the trash, the extra crush of dishes, and any other hands-on work in the kitchen and the back of the house. Usually he was hauling empty bottles all night long, or peeling more potatoes for the homemade fries, or taking trash out to the dumpster again and again and again. It was repetitive, but it was work, and he liked being busy. More than that, he liked the anonymity of it. Other than the cooks and Miguel, he didn’t speak to anyone, and everyone ignored him. For one night a week, he wasn’t the mythical Wes Van de Hoek. He was just a dude hauling trash.
Daisy Lane picked up around eight and was a madhouse until midnight, then had a late-night surge around two a.m. Wes was on his feet from seven p.m. on, hauling, helping, throwing, peeling, refilling, but just after ten that night, Miguel passed him a beer and told him to take a break and not come back until he was done. Wes grinned and headed out to the alley, sipping the cold, crisp brew.
The back deck of the restaurant had been added on in stages, first one level, and then another, and then another, daisy-chaining outward and winding through the trees that made the neighborhood so quiet and peaceful. From the alley, Wes could hear the hum and buzz of conversations from the decks above his head. He sat on the steps and leaned back, balancing on his elbows as the conversations played around him.
He heard Justin’s laugh first. His loud, wonderful laugh, the one that had run down Wes’s spine and fired up every one of his nerves in Paris. The laugh they’d been shushed for at the Museum of Modern Art. The laugh he heard in his dreams almost every night. Heknewthat laugh.
Wes popped up. He could pick out Justin’s voice—every fifth word, it seemed. What was Justin doing here?
Wes abandoned his half-finished beer and threaded his way through the kitchen, pushed into the dining room, and slipped out to the back deck. He hovered at the railing outside, near the bussers’ dish dump, and scanned the tables.
The place was packed. A hundred conversations hit him, rolling like thunder from tables of six, ten, even twelve. Quieter conversations came from tables of two, people on dates. Couples held hands across the small tables. Two girls fed each other bites of cheesecake. He kept searching, peering at every table—
Justin, though, had already seen him. When Wes spotted him, he was staring at Wes, his jaw hanging open, his face pale, a crimson flush staining his sweeping cheekbones. He was at a table for two, a lit candle flickering between him and another man. Very romantic. Wes’s teeth ground together.
Justin’s date turned, trying to spot what had spooked Justin, and Wes laid eyes on the man sitting where he so desperately wanted to be: the dancer from the night before, the one who had been so damn intimate with Justin, as if they were having sex with their clothes on in front of everyone.
Of course Justin would be dating him. Of course. He was the kind of cool, sophisticated guy who could attract a man like Justin, who could captivate him, keep him happy.
Wes’s fists opened and closed as he stared at Justin and his partner. His pulverized heart buckled like he’d taken a full-force tackle, like all three linebackers had pancaked him at once. Like he was a smear left over after the impact. His vision blurred, and he turned away, pushing through the crowd and the tables, trying to escape from the deck, from this moment, from his own life. He couldn’t navigate the narrow spaces, though, and he bumped elbows and spilled wine, jostled cups of coffee and bounced silverware as he tried to thread his way through.I’m sorry, I’m sorry, he kept choking out.I’m sorry.
I’m so sorry. Forget you know me.
“Wes!”
He couldn’t face Justin. Not tonight. Not when Justin was on a date and the last of Wes’s heart was turning to dust. He needed to get away,now. Needed to get somewhere he could let out the scream building inside him, where he could claw out his own failure, where he could cry, just cry, and whisper Justin’s name as he clung to the memories of Paris.
Wes made it through the restaurant and the kitchen and back out to the alley before he exhaled. He ended up braced against the side wall, elbows to the brick, fingers laced behind his neck, forehead down. He sucked in breath after breath. Squeezed his eyes closed.
The back door of the restaurant slammed open and bounced off the alley’s wall. “Wes!” A voice hissed. “Damn it, Wes.”
He turned, and there was Justin, glaring at him from the steps.
He was lit by the dull puddle of white light around the restaurant’s back door. He was in his skinny jeans and a long-sleeve university shirt. The sleeves were pushed up, showing off his forearms, and his jeans hugged every line of his quads and hamstrings. He had on boots like he’d worn in Paris, artfully untied at the top. His hair was pushed back, puffed up and held in place.
He was so damn beautiful it hurt.
“What are you doing here?” Wes tried to clear his throat. He sounded like he’d been strangled.
“That’s my line,” Justin snapped. “That’s what I should be asking you: why areyouhere? Are you following me?”
“What? No.” Wes shook his head. “I work here. I unload and I stock. Fridays I help out during the rush. This is my job.”
Justin blinked. Some of his vibrating fury faded.
“Are you on a date?”
“So what if I am? What do you care?”
Wes picked at the mortar between the bricks. His lips twisted, and he fought against the burning behind his eyelids. “Is he good to you?”
“That’syour question?” Justin shook his head, gazing upward. “That’s what you ask me? You see me on a date, and that’s the first thing you think of?”
“It is a date.”
