Page 91 of The Quarterback
“Be there ASAP.”
Wes hung up without saying goodbye. They were at the front porch steps, which might as well have been the Rocky Mountains for all the strength Colton had left. He looked at them and wanted to cry.
Each one took a full minute. They went up a step, leaned on each other, and then took the next, until they fell against the front door like collapsing elephants. After another minute, Wes pushed it open, and they made the trudge across the foyer to the stairs, where they began their slow climb again.
They both fell at the landing, Wes to his knees and Colton to his chest. Wes grabbed him by his waistband and forced him to his knees, then crawled with Colton into Colton’s dusty, abandoned bedroom.
He hadn’t been inside that room since he’d moved out with—
Wes hauled them both into the attached bathroom. It wasn’t large. It had been carved out of the master bedroom sometime after indoor plumbing became the norm, and it had a single pedestal sink, a toilet, and a combined bathtub and shower. Colton heard Wes turn on the water in the tub as he lay facedown on the bathmat.
“Strip,” Wes said. He peeled off his T-shirt, distended from sweat, and then kicked off his shoes, his socks, his shorts, and his jockstrap, leaving himself buck-ass naked. Colton couldn’t move right, and he fumbled with his shoes, his socks. Wes helped him like he was a child, stripping him until he was naked, too.
They climbed into the bathtub on shaking legs, helping each other sit at opposite ends. Their long legs tangled in the middle, their knees hairy mountains rising over the water, as they sank back with their eyes closed.
That’s how Justin found them, five minutes later.
Colton had been naked in front of so many guys, over so many years, that he shouldn’t have been embarrassed. He didn’t care that he was naked and in the bathtub with Wes, but this was Justin. The son of the man he’d slept with. Shame made him shiver, made him drag his legs up until he curled into the fetal position and turned his forehead against the tiled wall.
“What happened?” Justin whispered.
“Team workout. Clarence gave up,” Wes said. “Colton didn’t.”
Justin tore into the four bags of ice he held. “It’s going to get cold,” he warned, right before he tipped the bags into the tub.
Wes groaned. Colton jerked. His fingers clawed at the grout.
Horrifyingly, he began to cry. Burning tears streamed down his cheeks, soft whimpers first, then bitten-off moans, followed by choked sobs. His spine curled as he trembled, as he tried to escape from Justin’s searching gaze and Wes’s warm, solid presence. He wanted to escape from his life.
Everything came out, suddenly, like he was hemorrhaging. He dragged in huge gulps of oxygen as he scratched at the walls until his fingernails tore. Wes grabbed his wrists, hauling him around until he had to face the two of them again.
Colton dropped his eyes, focusing on the ice cubes that bobbed and melted around their steaming bodies. His tears made ripples in the bath water, rings that raced for their bellies and knees. “I’m sorry,” he forced out. “Justin, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
He heard Justin’s slow, deep sigh, the only sound other than the cracking of ice and the sloshing of the water. “How did my dad come between us?”
“It hasn’t really been ‘us’ for a while. You guys… you’ve been in your own world. It’s like watching you through glass, or like you were in a movie: the Wes and Justin love story. There hasn’t been room around you for anything, or anyone, else.”
Justin hissed. Wes’s hands squeezed around Colton’s wrists.
“It’s hard to be on the outside of that. It got… lonely.”
“So you turned to my dad?”
“I mean, that wasn’t—” He shuddered. His shoulders fell even farther. Guilt pushed his face closer to the water’s surface. “It didn’t start like that. I wasn’t trying to— I didn’t even imagine—” He shook his head. Watched an almost-melted ice cube bob toward Wes’s knee. “Nick was wonderful. Wonderful to me, especially when I was hurt, but before that, too.”
Silence. His chest heaved.
“I didn’t mean to fall in love with him.” He closed his eyes as his voice cracked.
A hand grasped his chin and lifted. It wasn’t Wes. Wes still had an iron grip on his wrists. “Colton,” Justin said, “Look at me.”
He swallowed but opened his eyes. He didn’t want to. Justin had Nick’s jawline and cheekbones. Colton had never noticed before, but it was all he saw now. He saw Nick’s shadow in Justin’s face, but the wrong eyes were looking at him. He wanted to scream.
Confusion tore through Justin. “You love my dad?”
“I do. It wasn’t— It wasn’t just sex for me. I fell in love with him. God, I fell sofuckinghard. I wanted everything. I wanted a future with him.” He laughed, high and tight, before another rush of tears raced from his eyes toward Justin’s fingers, still wrapped around his jaw. “I was so stupid.”
“I thought you guys said it was a fling. Something that just happened over the summer…” Justin shook his head.
