Page 29 of The Quarterback
* * *
Two weeks into the internship,Nick appeared at Colton’s desk. He leaned his ass against the desk edge and folded his arms.
Colton was putting together a slide deck for one of the account executives, a summary of one client’s quarterly activity and where it could grow with Nick and his team. He popped his earbuds out and smiled. “Hey.”
“How would you feel about traveling?” Nick asked. “Want to come down to Houston with me?”
“Sure!” It was either go with Nick or hang out in his empty condo—or, worse, move back to the empty jock house. It was a no-brainer. And besides, he’d love to head out of town. “Are we going to see your big client?”
Nick nodded. “I want to sit down with Riley Kimbrough and go over our next level of expansion. Kimbrough is the CEO of the biggest and most active drilling operation in Texas. He’s got rigs running all over the state and up into Oklahoma and even Louisiana. He wants his own mobile network for his rigs. He wants to maintain closer contact with all his sites, even the most remote, and says this will go a long way to improving safety. We’ve been rolling out the deployment in phases: Houston headquarters, then the Houston-area sites. Now we’re set to bring the first of ten drill rigs in the Permian Basin online this month. There are a lot of moving parts. I know there are going to be hiccups. We’ve planned for everything we can imagine, but I want to stay on top of it all and be as close as I can with Kimbrough.”
“How can I help?”
Nick gave him a few tasks: get the slide deck on their timeline and phases of operations from the account executive who was putting it together and check it over, pull all the data on the cell tower installations they’d managed at the phase three drill sites, and grab a few test phones and pack them and his laptop. After that, Colton needed to review the client as thoroughly as he could. They’d talk more about Riley Kimbrough on the drive down.
“Will do. When do you want to leave?”
“Tomorrow morning. I drive down.” Nick grinned. “Cheaper than flying, and much more fun. It’s a good drive in the Porsche.”
“I bet.”
“Your mom lives in the Houston area, doesn’t she? Do you want to stop in and see her?”
Cold fingers wrapped around Colton’s stomach and squeezed. He forced the smile to stay on his face. “Nah, she’s super busy. She wouldn’t have time. Besides, depending on where we’re going, it could be really out of the way.”
“Family is never out of the way.”
“Sugar Land isn’t fun to get to from any part of Houston. Seriously, she needs, like, three weeks’ notice before I make any kind of plan to see her.”
“Will she be upset if she finds out you were down there and didn’t at least say hi?”
“No. Like, no way. Not at all.”
Was that a flash of hurt going across Nick’s face? His frown was out in full force, vertical line creasing his forehead. “Well,” he said, pushing back off Colton’s desk. “I’ll have Lizbeth make the hotel arrangements. Is your suit clean?”
One of the tasks Colton had taken upon himself when he became Nick’s roommate was their dry cleaning. He carted Nick’s and his work clothes down to the dry cleaners attached to the condo and then collected it all the next day. Nick had finally stopped bugging him about the cost.
“Yeah, they both are. Not sure which I should wear.”
Nick’s eyebrows rose. “You wantmeto help you pick?”
“I’ve decided you’re decent at business fashion.” Colton swiveled left and right in his chair as he bounced a pen on the edge of the desk. He could feel the shit-eating grin stretching across his cheeks.
Nick barked out a laugh. He swatted at Colton’s knee as he walked past. “You’ve got some studying to do. Knock on my door if you have any questions this afternoon.”
* * *
They ate barbecuedbaked potatoes and homemade coleslaw on the patio that evening, their phones out on the table for when Justin and Wes would text. There wasn’t cell signal at the ranch aside from a few specific places, so they couldn’t text until the evening, most of the time. Occasionally he and Nick got a few morning texts, but Justin and Wes seemed to be hitting the ground running every day, too busy to stop for things like texting home.
Colton was sure Nick had a private side chat going with Justin, maybe even one with Justin and Wes that just excluded him. He didn’t dare think he was privy to all of Nick’s life or what he said or did with Justin. But…
But Nick hadn’t said anything about Colton moving in with him in their group chat. And that was the kind of thing that Justin would absolutely tease him over. He’d expected jokes about roommates and straight guys staying up late and playing video games together, and how Colton was messing up the vibe of Justin’s bedroom with his caveman ways. He’d expected all that and more, and he was ready with jokes of his own. He’d taken pictures with his football in the center of a pile of Justin’s dance shoes, and he’d purposely left his whiskers in the sink to get a photo of what looked like a Bigfoot massacre. He’d been ready, as soon as someone else went first.
But apparently, Justin didn’t know Colton was living in his bedroom.
Justin also didn’t know that, essentially, every single time he and Wes texted, Colton and Nick were sitting practically side by side.
Was that a problem?
