The Quarterback by Tal Bauer

Chapter Eleven

Colton hada lifetime’s worth of practice hiding everything important away from other people, so it was easy to hide this, too.

At least, from the world. And from Nick.

But he couldn’t hide anything from himself. He was so aware of Nick, suddenly. Nick filled his life, enveloping Colton’s days and nights completely. Nick lived in Colton’s dreams as they spun a make-believe relationship behind Colton’s eyelids. When he slept, Nick took his hand and pulled him close, or wrapped his arms around him, or threw his arm around Colton’s shoulders while they sat together on the couch. Colton laid his head in Nick’s lap as Nick played Red Dead, and he held Nick’s hand while they drove up and down every road in Texas. He threw touchdown passes for Nick and turned to the stands. Found Nick cheering for him after every one. He lay down in Nick’s bed and brushed kisses over Nick’s eyebrows and his cheekbones and his chin. He threaded their hands together and gazed into Nick’s eyes, and he never, ever wanted to close his eyes in his dreams, because when he did—

He woke in Justin’s bed, in a world where he didn’t know what Nick’s hands felt like or what his kisses tasted like, and where he was alone. Not alone physically, because he was still staying at Nick’s condo and working with him every day. But he was alone where it really mattered. Alone in his heart, where he ached for Nick.

He berated himself daily. Hourly, sometimes, when he caught himself peeking into Nick’s open office to watch him working at his desk. Stupid. You’re so stupid. How’d you fall for him?Stop wanting a man.

That was like trying to hold his hands up to the sky and push falling raindrops back into soaked thunderheads.

One night, alone in Justin’s room, he shoved earbuds into his ears and watched hours of gay porn. He was mildly interested, in the way that anything sexual is interesting to most twenty-two-year-old men. But he didn’t crave the men he saw, didn’t drool over their muscles or their bodies or the long, hard cocks that were on prominent display. He learned a bit, though. Saw the mechanics of a few things he’d wondered about. Found a few new things to dream of.

When he fell asleep, tired and frustrated and annoyed at himself and the answers he couldn’t find, his dreams were consumed by Nick. Nick, buck naked on the same set as the porn he’d just watched. Nick, stroking his hard cock with both hands, his head tipped over the side of the bed as he grinned at Colton. Nick, spreading his legs and reaching down, between his ass cheeks—

The dream shifted, and Colton was flat on his back, Nick above him, hands braced on either side of Colton’s head. His hips were moving, his cock pressing against Colton’s, hard length against hard length. He groaned, ran his hands up Nick’s arms, squeezed Nick’s shoulders—

He was on his knees on the bed, between Nick’s spread legs. He had both hands on Nick’s thighs—why did he never have his sling on in his dreams?—and his mouth wrapped around Nick’s cock. He was sucking, bobbing his head up and down Nick’s hot length, his cheeks hollowing as he hummed. Nick tasted like the summer sun. He sucked harder, swirling his tongue around the head—

He woke coming in his boxers, face pushed into Justin’s pillow as he gasped, as he whispered Nick’s name and grabbed his cock. He didn’t know if he was trying to stop his orgasm or keep it going.

He punched the mattress and groaned, then took a cold shower at three a.m. He slipped his sheets into the laundry before they left for work in the morning.

It wasn’t his only wet dream. He gave up trying to hide his laundry after the fourth.

Eventually, he gave in and jacked off every night before bed. It didn’t stop the dreams—nothing stopped the dreams—but it cut the middle-of-the-night wake-up calls in half. He closed his eyes and bit his lip as hard as he could so he wouldn’t say Nick’s name out loud, wouldn’t moan or whisper or beg for Nick as he imagined the man above him, touching him. Stroking him. Lining up their hips, their cocks. Thrusting against him as he kissed Colton.

Sometimes he cried. Cried boiling, frustrated tears, furious at himself for falling for someone impossible. Not impossible like falling for a movie star, or the girlfriend of one of his buddies, or a chick so far out of his league it wasn’t funny. He’d fallen for his friend’s dad. His friend’s straight dad.

The best guy he’d ever known.

He cried, too, when his dreams woke him and it hurt so fucking much because everything he’d been feeling in his dream world was wonderful, so fucking perfect that he couldn’t breathe, and he was happy—

Until he opened his eyes and he was alone in Justin’s bed.

He was aware of Nick every moment of every day. From the way he ate his breakfast yogurt and drank his coffee—black, always—to the way he tied his tie, pursing his lips and tipping his chin up as he worked the silk at his neck in brisk, efficient tugs.

Nick’s eyes crinkled whenever he smiled. When he wasn’t smiling, little lines trailed out from the corners of his eyes, the first hints of starbursts reaching across the plane of his skin. Single strands of silver flecked through his hair, more at his temples and above the back of his neck. Sometimes Colton tried to count them. Then he remembered to look away, told himself not to stare. Don’t be a freak.

Nick didn’t wear cologne. Maybe the last person who bought him cologne was his ex, and that hadn’t been on the list of things he’d packed for the move down from Dallas. He smelled like Irish Spring soap in the mornings, clean and fresh and crisp.

When Nick was lost in thought, he’d stare out the windows in his office, leaning half back in his chair with one foot crossed over the other. He’d grip his armrest in one hand and tap the end of a pen against his lips with the other. Colton had counted the pen taps one day. One hundred and seventeen.

Nick paced when he talked on the phone, back and forth in front of his floor-to-ceiling windows. He always said good morning to Lizbeth, always checked his phone for messages from Justin and Wes, and always smiled when Colton walked into his office.

Which was why Colton stilled one morning when he knocked on Nick’s office door and stepped inside, only for Nick to look up with a dark frown.

He froze as Nick’s hands clenched around his mouse and the edge of his keyboard. He knows.

How? Colton had never said a word, hadn’t changed a single thing about how they interacted. He’d obsessed about his behavior, in fact, watching himself like he was watching game tape, perfecting each movement, playacting at being normal and not head over heels for Nick. His lips moved, but he didn’t know what to say.

“Colton,” Nick sighed. He closed his eyes for a long moment. Relaxed his hands and laid them flat on the desktop. “I, uh. I’m going to be taking the afternoon off. And all day tomorrow. I’ll be going out of town.”

Apologize. Offer to leave. Tell him you’ll pack up and move out. “Okay.”

“I got an email from my attorney,” Nick said. His voice was whisper-thin. Brittle. Fragile. “She was able to move up the hearing for my divorce to tomorrow.”

Oh. Colton’s lungs collapsed. He almost doubled over. “Are you driving up?”

Nick nodded. “I’m going to head home and get some clothes. I’ll leave in a bit.” He stared at his fingers. Rubbed his lips together. Frowned at something only he could see.

“I’ll come with you,” Colton blurted out. Immediately, half of him wanted to crawl away and die. What right did he have, offering to go to Dallas with Nick on one of the most important days of his life? But who else would be there for Nick if not Colton? Justin wasn’t around.

And Nick had thrown himself fully into Colton’s life, without apology. He’d changed Colton, had made Colton fall for him. He should expect Colton would throw himself into Nick’s life with at least the same level of care. He set his jaw and squared his shoulders.

Nick’s eyes rose to Colton’s, overflowing with watery gratitude. “I’d love that, if you’re sure you want to.”

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.”

Like right now. Colton’s fingernails scratched down his beer bottle, tearing the soaked label.

“I’ve felt that way for a while. I ignored it, though. I distracted myself with…” Nick sighed. Sat back. “Work. My car. Watching football. When Justin came back from Paris, I thought I could take Cynthia there, since Justin had such a great time. We could work on finding our spark again.” He snorted. “The only spark I ended up wanting to find was a lighter to burn the whole marriage down.”

“I understand Wes and Justin.” Colton flinched so hard after he spoke that his shoulder twanged, a lightning rod of agony knifing down his back. He forced himself to still, to not show the pain. Of course, that was the moment Nick chose to look at him, the first time in hours. He frowned.

“I get why someone would fall in love with a guy, or with their best friend.” Colton shrugged. He was trying to force his shoulder to stop seizing. “Because maybe they get each other, the way sometimes only other guys can?” Finally, his shoulder partially unclenched.

Nick blinked. He didn’t smile.

Colton’s cheeks burned. He felt raw, exposed. Like he’d just sliced himself open and held out his heart for Nick to look at, and all Nick had done was stare at him. But that wasn’t fair to Nick. He didn’t know how Colton felt. And he was deep in his booze, deep in his memories, deep in his pain. I wish I could make you feel better.

“I need to go to bed,” Nick finally grunted. His third drink was only half-finished. “I’m turning into an asshole, and I don’t want that.”

“You’re never an asshole.”

“I’m bitter, and I don’t want to be. I want to sleep this off and get tomorrow over with. And then flush her, and everything about what we were, from my mind. I only want to think about the future. I don’t want to think about her ever again.”

Colton nodded and stood with Nick. Nick wavered, slightly, and then steadied himself. He tossed a hundred on the table for a tip and headed out.

They walked back to the room, Nick uncharacteristically quiet and glum. Colton padded beside him, trying to roll his neck and stretch his back without upsetting his shoulder or his arm. Or letting Nick catch on that he was hurting.

“We need to do your stretches,” Nick said, pushing open their hotel room door. “Let me get some water and we can sit down. I don’t want to accidentally hurt you.”

Colton brushed his teeth and stripped to his boxers, gingerly, as Nick took his time in the other bathroom. He couldn’t hear anything, so he didn’t know if Nick was throwing up or crying silently. He waited on the couch in the sitting room and fiddled with his phone. He’d started a playlist for Nick on the drive, like a lovesick fool, adding songs Nick seemed to like from his own football playlist and others that were similar. Upbeat and happy, like maybe Nick needed to hear.

When Nick finally came out, wearing boxers and an undershirt, his eyes were red, but his face was dry. He sat beside Colton on the couch and held out his hand, palm up. Colton faced him and laid his hand on top of Nick’s. Nick’s hand was shaking.

Colton made it halfway through the first lift before his shoulder cramped. He couldn’t hide it this time, and he doubled over, gritting his teeth as he groaned.

Nick flew back, his eyes wide. “What did I do? Did I hurt you?”

“No. It wasn’t you. My shoulder is spasming. I clenched up in the bar.” He tried to reach behind him, tried to rub out his seizing back muscle. He couldn’t reach where the pain began. He squeezed his eyes closed and buried his face in the floral fabric of the couch. “Oh my God…”

Cool hands landed on his shoulder and slid down his spine, all the way to where his back was trembling. “Here?”

Colton whimpered. Nick worked his back slowly, fingers digging into the trembling muscles until they released. Colton was left with an ache that felt like he’d been punched, but at least he could breathe again. He melted, pushing his cheek into the fabric next to Nick’s boxer-clad thigh. Colton could see each hair on Nick’s leg, trace the lines left behind on his skin from the jeans he’d worn that evening. They were so close Colton could have kissed him if he’d puckered his lips and leaned forward.

“Better?” Nick’s voice was thick, dark like the whisky he’d been drinking.

Colton nodded.

Nick’s massage tapered off, his hands lifting from Colton’s back like rainwater or sweat evaporating off him at practice. “I’m sorry,” Nick said. “I know you said I didn’t do anything, but… if you were tense down at the bar, I’m sure that was because of me.”

“I get it. Tonight is a shitty night for you.”

“It’s better with you here.”

He rolled his cheek against the sofa and looked up at Nick. Nick’s words would fuel a dozen more nights of dreams, more fantasies in their make-believe love story. God, he was so fucked.

Double fucked, actually, because he’d popped a boner when Nick’s hands landed on him, and if he sat up, his secret was going to be out. He stared up at Nick, not moving, as Nick looked at him.

“Want to go to bed?”

Oh, that didn’t help. Not at all. Colton took a deep breath. Held it. “Yeah. I’m just going to stretch for a few minutes out here. Go on without me. I’ll be in in a minute.”

“You sure?” Nick looked like he was willing to stay, to help Colton stretch his muscles. Every single one except the one Colton desperately wanted him to put his hands on, stretch it and stroke it until he shivered and shook and came apart.

“Yeah, totally. I’ll be fine.”

Nick did stay for a few minutes, until he saw Colton rolling his shoulder, clenching and releasing his muscles, and slowly unfurling each finger on his right hand one by one. Colton tried to make his stretching as boring as fucking possible so Nick would leave, and, finally, he did.

Colton sagged off the edge of the couch and onto the carpet once Nick walked away. His dick was only half-hard, at last. He stared at the ceiling and remembered the feel of Nick’s hands on him, those long fingers brushing over his skin, up and down his spine.

He groaned as his dick perked up again, more than happy to relive the memories of Nick’s touch.

Maybe he should sleep out here on the couch. How was he going to share a bedroom with Nick when he dreamed about the guy every night? What if he said Nick’s name in his sleep? Did he do that? He didn’t know. What if he came in his sleep? He did do that. What if he humped a pillow or the mattress until the bed squeaked and Nick woke up, and Colton came all over himself as Nick tried to shake him awake, and then he gasped Nick’s name?

Maybe it was a horrible idea to come up here with Nick.

He put his Terminator sling back on and trudged into the bedroom. Nick was already asleep, snoring hard, flat on his back. Maybe the whisky would keep him out no matter what Colton said or did. Colton set a bottle of water beside Nick’s phone on the nightstand before he slipped into his own bed and rolled onto his side. Facing Nick.

If you loved me, I’d never make you regret it. I’d never give you a reason to wish we hadn’t met. If you loved me, I’d never let you drink to try to forget us.

But Nick wouldn’t fall in love with him. And because of that, he wouldn’t ever have the chance to regret him, either.

Colton would be the one living with the regrets.