Page 74 of The Jock
It wasn’t fair to Wes to make him feel like he had to choose: football or himself.
What would the world say if Wes walked away from it all, turned his back on the NFL and millions of dollars? Moved in with Justin and started playing gay house?
Justin shoved those thoughts away, focusing on his clinical rotations. Hospital shifts. Trauma nursing. He shadowed the charge nurse and prepped an IV, then took another patient’s blood pressure and updated their chart.
Wes had to decide for himself what he wanted from his life. Whatever that decision was, Justin would be there at his side. That was Justin’s choice.
For now, they were going day by day. They’d built up weeks together. Months. They were over two-thirds of the way through the season. This was the tenth game, with the highest stakes. Wes and the team were definitely heading for a bowl game, but would they be playing for the national championship? That was the question on everyone’s lips, and the Mississippi game would be a big factor in deciding that.
The regular season was ending in two weeks. After January, the bowl championships would be over.
And then Wes could breathe a little easier.
He’d take Wes somewhere in spring. They could drive to the coast, disappear on a beach where no one knew them. Though, after this season, how likely was it that no one would recognize Wes Van de Hoek? Where could they go where he wouldn’t be seen and known right away? He wasn’t exactly inconspicuous, and, thanks to ESPN’s wall-to-wall coverage all season long, he was a household name.
Maybe they’d go off the grid. Wes would like that. Camping, or out to some cabin hideaway. Just them and nature. Gravel roads. Long, dark nights. No electricity. Maybe they could go horseback riding, or Wes could teach him how to fish. Show him all those country things Justin only ever saw on TV.
He racked up his clinical rotations while Wes practiced with the team. Without classes, the team was back to two-a-days. Justin and Wes texted all day long, before practice and at lunch and through the afternoon.
And, after practice, Wes slipped across the street to Justin’s house. Only one other student had stayed there over the break, an IT major who worked nights at the university lab and slept all day. They could hear him snoring behind his bedroom door on the first floor. He was easy to avoid.
For three days, it was like they were living together again. Justin cooked dinner in the house’s shared kitchen. He made Wes chicken and pasta, hamburger sliders, and seared steak and rice. Wes steamed vegetables and shook up protein shakes, gulping them down alongside hard-boiled eggs and spoonfuls of peanut butter. After, they drank wine in Justin’s bedroom, Justin’s laptop balanced on their legs as they held hands and watched Netflix. And when Wes had digested his five-course dinner, they made slow, sweet love, whiling away half the night in each other’s arms.
It was, for three days, perfect.
Colton texted twice on the first day, asking where Wes had gone after practice and if he was coming back to the house. Wes said something vague, that he was staying somewhere else, and Colton told him not to exhaust himself with his girl, that he needed to be ready for the game on Friday.
Tuesday, Wes texted Justin and told him all about the bullshit the guys gave him in the locker room. That they’d bought boxes and boxes of condoms and stuffed his locker full of them, taken some out and blown them up like balloon penises and taped them all around his locker door. They bought horny goat weed and the knock-off Extenze pills that seedy gas stations sold. A couple packs of Monster Energy. “Don’t wear yourself out, man!” Orlando crowed, flicking him a packet of male enhancement powder. “In fact, I want a sexually frustrated tight end on Saturday! Someone who is gonna pound the shit out of Mississippi’s defense!”
“Oh! Maybe that’s the secret!” Art wagged his finger at the rest of the line. “Maybe Wes is so damn good this year because he’s been getting good pussy on the regular.”
“Maybe we should all look for good girls, then. Damn. Your girl got friends, Wes?” Orlando hung off the locker next to Wes, batting his eyelashes. “I wanna be just like you, Captain. Show me them magic pills you swallow.”
The team howled, and Wes let them run wild as he went nuclear fuchsia, blushing so deep he felt it scald his bones. They teased him mercilessly as he suited up, strapped on his pads, and laced up his cleats. He left them snorting in the locker room as he jogged out to the field to run off his nerves.
Thursday, they had a half day of practice, perfecting their plays and running drill after drill after drill. At lunch, everyone came together for the team Thanksgiving. Wes sent Justin a picture of the buffet spread: twelve massive turkeys, five hams, platters and platters of stuffing and green beans and mashed potatoes. Sweet potato casserole by the pallet. A full pumpkin pie for each player.
Wes made two to-go containers and brought a second dinner home for Justin. They ate on the back porch out of the Styrofoam, feeding each other bites off of plastic forks as they shared a bottle of cheap wine in Solo cups.
Wes relayed the speech Coach Young had given to the team, repeating the sections that had gotten stuck on a loop in his mind. Trust and fidelity. The bond they shared. The strength of their love for each other, and how that strength drove their game. How their trust in each other made them unstoppable. The absolute faith they had in their brothers. And in their captain.
Everyone had shouted and stomped their feet and chanted for Wes to give a speech after that, but all he managed to choke out was a thanks to everyone for trusting him to guide them that season, and that it wasn’t him who made the team, despite all the crap on ESPN. It was all of them together. He was nothing without all of them. And he loved them all like brothers.
“That was a good speech,” Justin said, rubbing Wes’s big, broad back. He could feel the tension coiling through Wes’s muscles. “The team is very lucky to have you. Most college stars are in it for themselves.”
Wes shook his head. “Aren’t I in it for myself? I don’t want what everyone else wants. I don’t want the fame or the glory. All I wanted was a college education. Hell, I should have joined the military for that.”
“Then we wouldn’t have met.” He nudged Wes’s hip with his own, playful with a half bottle of wine inside him. He rested his head on Wes’s shoulder. “I don’t think you’re in anything for yourself. You’re staying in the closet for the team. Everything you’ve done, all year long, has been for someone other than you. For me, for them, for the fans. You even brought me Thanksgiving lunch today. You couldn’t be selfish if you tried.”
Wes tried to smile, and he laid his head against Justin’s. Laced their hands together. Downed the rest of his wine. Justin snapped a selfie of them, tipsy and smiling at the camera, heads together, hands interlaced. “I should send that to my dad.”
“Do it. I’m fine with it.”
“No, I want him to meet you. I want to see his face when he sees that I’m dating you.”
“I can’t wait to meet him.” Wes kissed Justin’s temple and wrapped his arms around him. “Want to head inside?”
“Oui, cowboy. Take me to bed.” He held out his hand, and Wes helped him to his feet. They walked inside arm in arm. Justin’s housemate was still snoring.
