Page 75 of The Quarterback
Nick was gone. The eerie stillness of his condo was like the hum of a bell after it had been rung, sound waves soaked in anger trying to drown him. Wes wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing, frozen in the middle of the kitchen like he didn’t know what to do.
Nick had gone after Justin, leaving Colton behind in the wreckage of them. With the ghosts of his hands on Colton’s skin, his kisses still lingering on Colton’s lips. He was still inside Colton, too. The shape of him. His wet heat. His come.
Nick had left the way he’d been planning on leaving Colton at the end of the summer, apparently.
Was he surprised, though? Justin was always going to come before Colton. Nick was Justin’s dad, and that didn’t change just because it was an inconvenient, uncomfortable fact. Colton had made the choice early on to defer to Nick about telling Justin and Wes about all the little things. The little things that, in the end, added up to one huge, gigantic thing. Them. Together. How had he been supposed to know that meant he was signing up for Nick to play him and Justin off each other? Hide the truth from them both?
Here he was, alone again, left behind by a man he loved.
Wes’s voice finally broke the cyclone of his thoughts. “Colton?”
He shook his head. Stared at the ground.
Turning, he plodded back into Nick’s bedroom—not their bedroom, not anymore—and dug around in the back of Nick’s closet for the duffel he’d moved all his things over in however many weeks ago. He shoved his clothes, still on the hangers, into the bag, then grabbed his toiletries from Nick’s bathroom counter.
“How long have you been living here?” Wes’s voice followed him into the bedroom.
His phone was on the nightstand, along with his charger. He averted his eyes as he slipped across the bedroom and unplugged the cord.
They’d made love in that bed. He’d slept in Nick’s arms in that bed. He’d carved his own heart out of his chest and laid it on Nick’s pillow for him to keep, if only he wanted to pick it up. His eyes blurred, and he blinked as his feet caught on the trailing edge of the sheet, tossed free sometime during the night.
God, it still smelled like sex in there. He could see spots where lube had stained the sheets. Other spots where he had spilled his come, or where Nick’s come had slipped out of him.
“Colton?” Wes again, hovering in the bedroom doorway. He wouldn’t look at Colton, wouldn’t look at the sex-destroyed bed. “Whathappened?”
He shrugged. Forced himself to move. He grabbed his duffel and shoved his charger and phone inside, then skirted past Wes and went to the living room. “What Nick said. Just… stuff. It didn’t mean—”
He couldn’t even say it.
PlayStation unplugged. Controllers unplugged. He left the one-handed controller Nick had bought him on the couch. Grabbed his games and put them on top of the PlayStation in his duffel.
His football lay on one of the sofa cushions, tossed there and forgotten after Colton had decided kissing Nick was far more interesting than tossing the football to himself one night. How many times had they tossed that ball back and forth? If he picked it up, would he be able to feel Nick’s touch? Feel his caress, like Nick’s hands were ranging over his body and his curves instead of the ball’s?
He left it where it was.
“You’re not gay, Colton,” Wes breathed.
“No. I’m not. It was just something that happened.” He repeated Nick’s words, the shape and sound of them slicing him apart from the inside out.
He couldn’t tell Wes he’d fallen in love. Afterthat? After Nick had said that they were just for the summer? That they had a predetermined end point Nick had chosen, like Colton and his heart were packaged food he could pluck off the shelf?
He couldn’t tell Wes he’d fallen in love with Justin’s dad.
“I was just a one-night stand that never went home.” He zipped up his duffel. Slung it over his shoulder. Kind of pathetic, really. He could leave with only one bag. Like he’d never really been there all. “What can I say? Two single guys alone over the summer… Nothing to do but each other.” He shrugged.
“That doesn’t make sense. That’s not you.”
“Well, maybe you don’t know me all that well anymore. How could you? All you’ve cared about for the past year is Justin.”
“Colton.” Wes’s voice was hard, sharp. Almost like Justin’s. “That’s not true.”
“It was just something that happened.” He shoved past Wes and headed for the door. “And like Nick said: you guys were never supposed to know.”
Because Nick was always going to end things, and Colton was going to be dumped, and he was going to end up alone. Again. Maybe not today, according to Nick’s timetable, but he’d have been alone before Wes and Justin got home.
He’d only had days left with Nick, and he hadn’t evenknown.
Colton walked out Nick’s front door—this isn’t home anymore—and headed for the elevator.
