Page 4 of The Quarterback
“What about your degree?” Nick asked. “What about graduating?”
Silence. Colton shrugged. “I didn’t really think much about graduating when I first got here. Ergonomics is easier than general studies, you know? But what do I do with an ergonomics degree?”
“It’s less about what you majored in than showing that you made a commitment and followed through with it,” Nick said. “That you had the discipline to complete your education. I hire people all the time with degrees that have nothing to do with my industry.”
“If I stay, I’d need to graduate at the end of next year,” Colton said carefully. “Which means I need to find an internship. Part of my program is supposed to be a practical business internship. Maybe because real-world experience is the only way to make that degree worth anything.” He tried to laugh. “But I don’t know where to even begin with that. How would I work an internship around my athletics schedule?”
“Find an internship that’s understanding,” Nick said.
Colton snorted. “The line at the student center for internship applications is, like, seven miles deep. I looked last week. There’s a waiting list. If I sign up and something comes up, I can’t afford to be picky about it. But I also can’t sacrifice my football schedule.”
“Can you bring your own internship to the school? What if you worked something out directly with a company?”
“Yeah, you can. I don’t know anyone who could do that, though. And I’m not allowed to ask Coach or the athletic department to hook me up, or to intern with them. I already tried that.”
“You know me. My company always has interns over the summer. I can easily set you up as my intern in the Austin office. I can show you what sales is like.”
Colton’s eyes bulged. “Seriously?”
“Why not? You’d be great at sales. All sales is is personality.”
“And you have no shortage of that.” Justin smirked.
Colton was quiet. He chewed on his lower lip, staring at his hands. “But what if it’s now or never?”
Wes set down his champagne flute and looked Colton in the eyes. “It’s not. It’s never now or never. Things always change.”
“Yeah, I could be worse off looking at the draft next year.” Colton blew out a huge sigh.
“Or a bunch of things could happen,” Wes said. “Things you can’t even imagine right now. Hell, you could be outed by a national news network on the morning of the biggest game of the year.” Wes didn’t blink. He wasn’t talking about Colton anymore. Colton wasn’t gay. “I thought I lost everything that day.”
Colton’s jaw clenched. Justin’s fingers laced through Wes’s. Nick saw a look pass between them, something with weight. He’d spent all that day frantically trying to reach Justin after seeing his son’s picture on the internet, arm in arm with Wes Van de Hoek. He’d heard what Justin and Wes had gone through, and he’d watched the game and Texas’s collapse on live TV. He’d screamed down to Austin in his Porsche when Justin had called him sobbing, saying Wes was beaten and bloody and barely breathing. But he hadn’t lived those horrible twelve hours himself.
Colton stared out over the city, his gaze lost in the tangled warren of campus as distant car horns honked and the hum of the highway rose up to meet them. Nick watched his shoulders shake ever so slightly. It wasn’t a simple decision. This could be a defining choice for Colton’s entire football career. Go to the NFL early and take the chance on being drafted to a rebuilding team. If that went badly, he could buckle and break and be out of the league before he truly had a chance to become the quarterback he could be.
Or play another year in college, graduate, and then draft with the rest of his class. Maybe he’d still be drafted to a rebuilding team, where an entire franchise would lean on him. But he’d be another year wiser, another year older, another year more experienced.
Sometimes a year changed a man in ways that couldn’t be measured in hours and days and weeks. Sometimes a year became the cornerstone of a life.
Risk, reward. Stay, go. Things known now versus the uncertain future. There was his degree, too, and graduation—but Nick didn’t think Colton had placed that much stock in a college degree. Unlike Wes, football was his life. Nick knew that, even before he’d met Colton. He’d known, watching Colton mature into the Texas quarterback role through the seasons, and that knowledge had been front and center in his mind when he threw Colton against the wall in the jock house. It was there again, for a whole different reason, when he watched Colton come apart in Wes’s hospital room and then watched him devote himself to taking care of his friend.
“I don’t want to leave yet,” Colton breathed. His head tilted, and he squinted at Nick. “You can really hook me up with an internship?”
“Absolutely. Say the word, and I’ll have my assistant start setting it up tomorrow.”
Colton smiled. He closed his eyes. Breathed deep. “Okay. Let’s do it. I want another year.” He reached for Wes, taking his hand in a warrior’s grip. Wes beamed, and Colton did, too. “One more national championship?”
“Absolutely.” Wes smiled.
“Thanks, Dad,” Justin said, gratitude pouring from him.
“Of course. I’ll help you guys in any way I can, always.” He raised his champagne flute again. “To one more year.”
Chapter Two
Fresh-cut grass.Blue sky. Light breeze. Colton’s practice jersey tickled his ribs, the mesh falling just below the edge of his pads. Spring in Texas started dewy and wet in the mornings, but by the time they were deep into practice, he was sweating his balls off in the baking heat.
He spun the football in his hands as he rolled his neck, stretching the muscles between his shoulder blades. Coach had called a water break, but Colton wanted to get back to practice. Spring football was the best football of the year. The weather was perfect, the playbook was open, and everyone was upbeat about experimenting with plays and routes and runs, building on the successes from last season while working on blind spots.
