Page 38 of The Quarterback
If Coach had been beside him holding out a football and telling him it was that moment, then or never, to get back on the field and play again, he would have pushed the ball away. “’Course I want to. That’s not something you face alone.”
Nick’s smile grew both sadder and softer. “I was, until you walked in.”
The moment stretched, Colton caught between everything he wanted to say and everything he knew not to. He ended up not breathing, holding Nick’s stare, counting the sparkles of silver along Nick’s right temple.
Until Nick pushed back from his desk and rose. “Let’s get out of here. I can’t focus on anything. We’ll pack and hit the road. Have you ever been to Dallas?”
“Not for anything other than football.” High school games, then the Red River Showdown at the State Fair every year. Coach had never let them explore, though, and the only things he knew of Dallas were what he could see with his nose pressed against the bus window. Reunion Tower. The Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge.
“We’ll stay at the Adolphus. It’s old-school Dallas. The site used to be City Hall.”
“Sounds fancy.”
“It’s classy.” Nick came around his desk and held the door open behind Colton. “It’s also got a good bar. And I already need a drink.”
Nick opened up his Porsche on the highway as soon as they passed the county line, pushing the engine over ninety, then one hundred miles an hour. His fingers massaged the steering wheel as his jaw clenched hard. The engine growled, roaring as he kept gunning it faster. Finally, he eased off the gas. “Put something on,” he said, nodding to the radio. “Get me out of my head.” He tried to smile, but Colton saw through it. Nick was barely hanging on.
He pulled up a mix on Spotify that he used to love throwing footballs to, something upbeat and peppy that got his heart pounding and his muscles firing. Other guys liked hip-hop, and Wes liked that horrific western twang, but Colton liked his pep. He remembered hurling footballs over the crossbeam to Blur and Kesha and Usher.
Nick laughed as each song came on. Some were classics. Some were fresh tracks, songs Nick had never heard before, and he asked Colton what they were and who they were by.
“What do you listen to?” Colton asked. “What’s on your Spotify mix?”
“A whole bunch of things. A lot of acoustic blues if I’m trying to think or relax. If I’m working out, I go for more upbeat stuff, like this. I recognize about half of these. They were coming on the radio when I was graduating college. I’m more a child of the nineties, though.”
Colton grinned. “I can pull up a nineties playlist—”
“No, no, keep this. I want to hear your music. I don’t want to be in the past right now.”
Colton didn’t say anything after that, but he skipped any song that was older than 2002, curating the soundtrack of their drive to keep Nick’s mind facing forward.
They pulled up to the Adolphus after crawling through the brutal edge of Dallas’s rush hour. Nick was edging into frustration, frown line deep in his forehead, forearms tense and trembling. He grabbed his and Colton’s overnight bags and checked them into a suite, dumped their duffels at the end of their beds, washed his hands and his face, and then grabbed his wallet and the room key. “Ready?”
Colton was here for Nick. He was ready whenever Nick was. So far, he’d followed Nick like Nick was a mother duck and he was the baby chick waddling after him with a bum wing. He nodded. “Lead the way.”
Nick took him straight to the City Hall Bar attached to the lobby. He ordered a beer for Colton, a huge plate of nachos for them to share, and a double Balcones Brimstone whisky, neat.
Ah. One of those nights. Well, Nick had said before the drive that he needed a drink. Colton nursed his beer as Nick downed his first whisky and ordered another before making a sizable dent in the nachos.
What did it feel like to close the chapter on a relationship you’d thought was forever? Colton felt like he was dying every morning he woke up and the pretend happiness he had with Nick disappeared. What would it feel like if that were real, and he had actual memories to say goodbye to? If years of his life turned to dust he had to shelve away, tinged forever with the bitterness of goodbye and failure and pain?
He tried to distract Nick, tried to talk about sports and work and even Kimbrough, but every conversation he started died after Nick failed to hold up his end. Nick would say something and then trail off. Stare past Colton or into his drink. Gaze into the middle distance as his eyes unfocused, went glassy.
“I’m angry,” Nick finally choked out. He nodded. Knocked back the last of his second Balcones. Ordered a third. “That’s what I feel. More than anything else.”
Colton spun his beer bottle. It was half-full. They weren’t driving anywhere, but he still needed to be there for Nick. And he didn’t really trust himself not to let his secret slip if he let alcohol sneak up on him.
“And then I feel betrayed. And I keep going back and forth between anger and betrayal. Like I’m a damn yo-yo. Why did she…” He shook his head. “In some ways, I wish I’d never met her. I’m so mad about how it ended that I wish nothing had ever happened between us. That I’d never loved her at all. But then we wouldn’t have had Justin, and there’s nothing in the world I would trade or change if it meant Justin wasn’t exactly how he is, right now. How dare she not feel the same?”
The waiter brought Nick’s third whisky. Nick clutched the glass like it was a life preserver and he was lost at sea.
“And the worst part is… I feel so betrayed by her that I don’t know if I can ever trust another woman. How can I open myself up to someone again if she can go from the woman I adored to a woman I despise? I don’t understand how that happened. And I don’t know how to even begin to fall in love again.” He gnawed on his lip. Ran his fingertip around the rim of his glass.
“I kind of get that.” Colton cleared his throat when his voice caught. He spun his beer, around and around and around, and wouldn’t look at Nick. “I’ve never been betrayed like that or had a serious relationship like a marriage, so I don’t know exactly how you feel. But I know how hard it can be to open up to someone.” His throat closed. Clenched. He wasn’t even talking about Nick, though that applied, too. “I’ve never been good with women. At all. And I don’t think I’ve ever really been close to a woman.” He shrugged. “I don’t understand them. They’re like black boxes to me. I don’t understand how they think or feel. I’m always guessing about what to say or do, and I feel like I always get it wrong. And when I do something right, I don’t know why or what I did. The first two years I was at school, girls liked me because I was on the team. And I kinda loved that.” He grinned. Looked up at Nick. Nick was staring at the table. “But I didn’t feel like any of those girls knew me—or even wanted to know me. And I didn’t feel like I knew them, either. Sometimes I felt more alone when I was with a girl than when I wasn’t.”
Nick was quiet. His jaw worked left and right, and his finger kept circling the rim of his glass. Had he even heard Colton? Had he even been listening?
“I know how that feels,” Nick finally said. “Like you’re alone, even though the person you’re supposed to be closest to is right there.”
