Page 11 of The Quarterback
The boys, too, had experiences he’d never share. He’d never know what it was like to be on the cusp of professional sports or to be so wholly dedicated to a single pursuit. There were days when he was in awe of the three young men, of their choices and their worldviews and their goals. And then there were days when he wondered how they’d managed to live as long as they had.
But he liked Wes and Colton, a lot, and he was happy with the odd friendship they’d built. He’d somehow drifted from the friends he’d made over the years, and when he moved to Austin after leaving Cynthia, he’d realized everyone he’d left behind was somehow connected to her and their old life. Their friends were mostly her friends, people she knew from church and had introduced him to.
His first real friends in he couldn’t remember how long were his son, his son’s boyfriend, and their best friend, and that sounded like a midlife crisis in the making.
So he didn’t think about it. He’d moved to be close to Justin, and, well, this was what that looked like. It worked, and he was happy, and Justin was happy. That was all that mattered.
Their odd friendship, and the way Colton meant something he couldn’t define, brought him back to the jock house, day after day after day, to see Colton. He wouldn’t be forgetting the lost-little-boy look Colton had given him after the doctor had left his hospital room. Or how he’d crumpled toward Nick, collapsing in on himself.
The first day, he dropped by during his lunch hour, using the key Justin had loaned him to deliver lunch and see whether Colton needed anything. It took him less than three minutes to realize Colton was alone, in mountains of pain, and staring at his busted arm in the old, empty house from morning until practice ended and Wes broke the sound barrier to race home.
Lunch turned into the rest of the afternoon spent in Colton’s bedroom. They talked for hours, about everything and nothing. Colton’s classes and his outrageous ergonomics projects, his time playing high school football. Colton asked about Nick’s job, and that led to them talking about the internship Nick had created for Colton, due to start in only two weeks. “I can rearrange the schedule if you want.”
“No. I need to get out of here. I need something to look forward to,” Colton said. And that little-boy look was back, Colton’s eyes big and wide and scared. Nick saw Colton’s isolation in his bedroom for what it could become if Colton wasn’t careful: depression and anger and frustration that metastasized, turned inward, became destructive.
“Two weeks it is.”
Colton’s phone buzzed with dozens of texts while Nick was there, but Colton rarely looked at it. “You don’t have anyone else visiting you? No girlfriend to come and wait on your every whim?”
Colton laughed and looked away. “Haven’t had a girl in a while.” He picked at blanket fuzz and shrugged. “And my friends are all on the team. ’Cept Justin and you.”
Translation: when he was injured and confined to bed rest, there was no one else in his life.
“They’re sneaking their phones onto the field to text. Patrick already got caught and had to do wind sprints. Justin texted this morning, but he’s been on shift since.”
“What’s your number? I don’t think I have it.” What was weirder: that he, a grown man, didn’t have the phone number of a twenty-two-year-old friend of his son, or that he now would? Colton recited his digits, and Nick plugged them in, then sent the requiredThis is Nick Swanscotttext so Colton would have his. Now he could bother Colton with texts he’d ignore, too. Or maybe he was only ignoring everyone because Nick was there and he was being polite. Did he want Nick to go?
When he asked if Colton wanted him to head out, those big, scared eyes reappeared, the look there and gone again so fast Nick wondered if he’d imagined it. “If you have to go, yeah, of course, do what you gotta do. I’ll be fine,” Colton said. “But you don’t have to leave if you don’t want to.”
So he stayed. He stayed, in fact, until Wes got home, followed by the rest of the team. He stayed until Justin got home late, bringing Colton a milkshake and Wes a sandwich, looking surprised to see his dad perched on Colton’s couch next to Wes.
He showed up the next day, too, texting Colton to ask what he wanted for lunch before he left the office. Being an executive VP had its benefits, one of which was making his own hours, followed closely by the power of effective delegation. He could manage his team through email, handle whatever came in via his phone or tablet, and catch up on whatever he needed to that evening… if he left the jock house at a reasonable hour.
Colton was freshly showered and brighter-eyed when he showed up. He said he’d taped a garbage bag over his sling and managed a slow, one-handed shower. He was moving, too, walking around, and seemed a little more upbeat than the disconsolate wreck he’d been since the hospital. He sat next to Nick on the couch and scarfed down his burger, his fries, and then half of Nick’s fries as he asked Nick more questions about his internship and Nick’s job.
He was, Nick realized, nervous about it. “Sales is easy,” he said. “Like I said, it’s personality based. All you need to do is know what you’re selling and be able to present that to someone. We don’t do cold sales, so every time we’re presenting, it’s to someone who is at least interested in what we offer. That’s over half the sales battle right there. The other half is relying on two things equally: your product—which includes the guys who develop it—and yourself. Your knowledge of everything.”
“Do I need to study the product?”
“You don’t need to be an expert, no. I’ll teach you the basics, and the rest you’ll pick up quickly. You’re smart, Colton. You’ll get everything you need in no time.”
Colton snorted and stole more of his fries. “What does your company sell? You’re in software and cell phones, right?”
“Telecom, yes. We sell private mobile networks to enterprises and corporations. If, say, Amazon wants to have their own Amazon Mobile, we could do that for them.” He rambled on, describing how they built and leased mobile networks, sometimes dropping new cell towers or leasing satellite bandwidth, other times leasing network access from the larger carriers and reselling it.
“That sounds pretty cool.” Colton smiled. “And technical. You kind of nerded out there for a minute.”
Nick laughed. “I’ve been doing this a long time. I was in development before I went into sales. I know the tech better than most sales guys.”
“So you do better than most other sales guys, too, huh?”
“I do very well for the company.”
Colton grinned. “Justin didn’t get your modesty. Atall.”
“I may not have been modest at his age, either, but that was so long ago I don’t remember. Besides, he doesn’t have much to be modest about.” He winked.
Colton’s eyes flashed, something crawling across them before he said, “Hashtag proud dad moment.”
