Page 16 of The Quarterback
He went to his own bedroom and changed, pulling on workout shorts and an old T-shirt—laughing to himself as he did—and then grabbed a beer and headed to his office. He spent an hour answering emails, another hour pulling together sales decks and tech specs for Colton.
His phone buzzed a little before eleven. He expected it to be another email, maybe a reply from one of his more enthusiastic team members. But no, it was a text from Colton.Thanks for coming over today. And yesterday. It’s really helped. I hope it hasn’t been too painful for you.
He smiled.Not painful at all. I had a lot of fun.
It means a lot.
Do you know what you want for lunch tomorrow? I’ll take your order now, if you do.
Do you like sushi?
I do. Know a good spot?
Colton gave him the address for a sushi place and sent an order for six sushi rolls, an eye-popping amount for one person.I’ll give you money for everything tomorrow. The sushi, and the last two days.
No need. My treat.Nick was sending a monthly allowance to Justin, despite Justin’s initial protests, but he was happy to splurge on Colton, too. The least he could do was feed Colton, and if spending time with him truly meant that much to Colton, well. Nick meant it when he said he’d be there every day as long as Colton needed company. Colton wasn’t his son, but he was… special. A friend, yes, but he wouldn’t take off work to spend his afternoons with just any friend, buying them mountains of food and losing at video games for their entertainment.
He wasn’t hanging out with Colton for Justin’s sake, either. No, he liked Colton all on his own, and he and Colton had a unique friendship independent of Justin and Wes. Maybe that had happened out of necessity, two third wheels who became a pair. But Colton was the closest friend Nick had made in years, maybe since Nick was in college.
Colton was a potent mix of earnestness and vulnerability, a man still collecting experiences that were shaping him into the person he would become. Nick remembered that age more and more as he spent time with the boys. When potential felt like it was being shot straight into his veins, and his dreams, like Wes’s, were as broad as the sun. The woman he’d thought he’d spend the rest of his life with, a baby on the way, the first steps of his career. Everything he’d ever wanted.
Maybe hewasverging on a midlife crisis. Maybe he was looking back, reaching for a youth he’d long since passed. What did a divorce and a friend who was twenty-two mean? A restart, new dreams to imagine, a new life to be on the edge of? Or the beginning of a crash, a face-first plummet into realizing no, he was old.
Thanks, Colton texted again.I’ll see you tomorrow.
Later, Nick couldn’t fall asleep, and he grabbed his phone and opened Amazon, searching for something he couldn’t get out of his mind.
* * *
“You cleaned.”
Colton’s cheeks flushed. “That obvious, huh?”
Nick passed the sushi over. Colton’s bedroom had been picked up, the dishes moved downstairs, his desk straightened, the strewn clothes tucked out of sight. It even looked like a vacuum had wandered over the carpet a few times. “It’s a big change.”
Colton’s flush deepened. He cradled his sushi one-handed and lowered himself slowly to the couch. “If I’m going to have company, it should look decent. My mom taught me that much. So, did you bring the stuff for the internship?”
“I did.” He dug out a few binders from his laptop bag and passed over a USB stick. “Do you have a laptop?”
They spent the next few hours going through everything, Colton listening attentively as Nick went through first a dry run of his sales presentation, then the design docs and the technical specifications for their mobile networks.
Colton, for all his goofiness, had a mind like a steel trap. He had to, to be so successful as a quarterback. He had to know every play in the team’s playbook backward, forward, and inside out, how everyone would move and where they would go, and probably five hundred defensive setups as well. He knew how to pick offensive plays to go against the defense he was facing that week, what routes would beat what coverage, what kind of offensive line he’d need to move the ball down the field and into the hands of Wes or Dante or Orlando. Colton applied that detail-oriented precision to absorbing everything Nick was teaching him. He had a multitude of questions, and he focused so intently on what Nick was saying it almost made Nick squirm. He wasn’t sure anyone had ever paid such close attention to his sales pitch.
After three hours, they took a break and switched to PlayStation, Colton piling the binders and his laptop on his bed to go back to later. The rest of the afternoon was lost toHaloand backseat gaming, and when Wes showed up after practice, he’d taken the time to shower and grab a snack.
Apparently he felt Colton was in good hands.
Nick offered to drive Colton to his one-week postsurgery checkup a few days later. He tried to drive slowly, but the Porsche’s suspension wasn’t made to coddle broken bones or torn ligaments. Colton gritted his teeth through every pebble in the road. “Next time, I can drive your truck,” Nick offered.
“Hopefully I can drive myself soon,” Colton said as he hauled himself out of the low-slung 911.
There was that, too. Nick wouldn’t be waiting on Colton hand and foot for much longer, he supposed.
The doctor was pleasantly surprised at Colton’s progress and was effusive in his praise. “You really did rest, didn’t you?”
“You told me to,” Colton groused. “I do listen.”
“You wouldn’t have made it as far as you have if you weren’t coachable.” The doctor poked and prodded, changed the bandages, checked his stitches. “How’s the pain?”
