The Quarterback by Tal Bauer

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.

The team had been conditioning together for weeks, following an indulgent month off after winning the national championship in January. They’d done hours of drills that morning, the whole team starting belly-down on the yard lines, then rolling to their backs at the sound of a whistle. Then moving again into a front-leaning rest, waiting, waiting. When the whistle blew for the third time, they leaped to their feet and sprinted ten yards, stutter-stepped, and then dropped into five push-ups before putting their chests to the grass and waiting to begin again.

God, he loved it.

His legs were burning, lactic acid thrumming through every muscle. Even his hands were aching in that good, solid pulse of a healthy workout. In a few minutes they’d start their scrimmage, which was the real highlight of spring football. Once a week, they had a friendly offense vs. defense scrimmage, with thudding instead of tackling—until the final practice, when it was a full game, orange vs. white. Thousands came out to watch.

Colton tossed the ball to himself as he jogged backward, letting the soreness in his quads and hamstrings open up, work itself out. Yeah, he’d made the right call staying for his senior year. The NFL draft had taken place without him, and if he’d thought the professional sports world would care or make note of his absence, he was wrong. As soon as he’d made it clear he wasn’t going to declare for the draft, EPSN stopped talking about him, focusing instead on all the draftees in front of their faces. It had been a bucket of water to his face when he went from daily headlines to nothing overnight. The NFL was a business, not a passion, and you were a commodity, only as valuable as what you brought to the league. When teams thought he was a chance for their rebuilding season, he’d been hot shit. Otherwise, he was nothing.

He’d spent long nights staring at his ceiling, tossing the ball over his face and catching the lazy spiral before it hit him between the eyes. His whole life, he’d wanted to play professional football, had wanted to wear that NFL jersey.

But what he’d dreamed about when he was seven, eight, nine years old was the camaraderie, the team spirit, the football family. He’d wanted the joyous locker rooms, the long days and nights of practice, of working out in the gym. Training together and being men together, leaning their lives into one another so that they became something bigger, more incredible than they were on their own. Super Bowl champions sounded like a good place to start, to his nine-year-old mind.

National college champs wasn’t too bad, either.

Had he already found the camaraderie he’d hungered for? He’d never been on a team so close-knit. With Wes as captain and him as starting quarterback, they’d been on fire. Their successes had bonded them all.

Was it the success, though? Or was it Thanksgiving? When they had collapsed, broken apart beneath the crushing weight of a predatory news article published to destroy them on the morning of their biggest game of the year. When someone outside the team had taken Wes’s secret and splashed it across every website, sports blog, newspaper, and radio show nationwide.

That reporter had used Wes’s love for Justin like cheap bullets fired at the rest of the team.

And they’d crumbled, destroyed by what felt like betrayal—but it hadn’t been, not at all. They’d thought Wes had used them for his own glory, had kept his secret about Justin and his sexuality so he could take everything he could from their team on his path to stardom. They were so, so wrong. Wes had given up everything in his life for the team time and again, but Justin was the only thing he couldn’t give up. The secret to why Wes had leveled the fuck up last season wasn’t protein powder or special supplements or a new training regimen. He was in love, head over heels, and he played his heart out for Justin each week. He gave everything he had to the gridiron and to the man he loved in equal measure.

It was realizing that, recognizing that, more than anything else, that had brought the team back together. Shock and agony gave way to heartbreak, then emptiness, sorrow, and regret. Why had filled their shared house after, a thousand variations on Why didn’t you tell us and Why didn’t I see it and Why does this hurt so much and Why why why.

Why had that hack journalist ripped Wes’s heart out? Why had he tried to destroy their team? Why had they let him? Why didn’t they listen to Wes? And why was Wes gone?

They got their answers in time, even if they wished they didn’t.

It was an excruciating lesson to learn, and it was something that couldn’t ever be taught by a coach or a PowerPoint slide or a book. They’d all had to look inside themselves and realize their own failings, their own judgments. They didn’t collapse because of the article, or because of Wes’s secret, or because of the game. They collapsed because of themselves. A hundred crumblings, a hundred scared boys who had pretended to be men, who didn’t know how to stand up next to Wes and be the men he needed in that moment.

They grew up fast, though. Anguish and loss had a way of separating the children from the men. Reflection, too, and the solitude of staring at one’s own actions.

They almost hadn’t had the chance to tell Wes they were sorry.

Colton said it a dozen different ways, trying to be for Wes what Wes had been for the team. Be there, give everything of himself. Dedicate every minute of his life to Wes and his recovery. Get to know Justin, the love of Wes’s life, because Justin clearly wasn’t going anywhere. And if he’d been nervous about befriending Justin, uncertain whether there was a place for Colton in Wes’s new life next to the man he’d given his heart to, well, Justin had helped put that fear to rest. Colton liked Justin a lot, more than he thought he would. Justin was sharper than Wes was, harder edges and more bite. He shoveled the shit he’d been dished daily, flinging it right back at the world without blinking. He had a confidence that, even to a Division I jock, was a gut check. He was absolutely certain about who he was and where he fit in the world, and that was rare for people their age. Colton could see why Wes, one of the most solid men he knew, had fallen so hard for Justin.

There were days when it felt like Justin and Wes were men, and Colton and some of the rest of the guys on the team were still boys, despite them all being the same age. They lived in the same house and did the same things, watching TV and playing Madden and eating Pop-Tarts and cereal and goofing off on the foosball table, but still. He sometimes felt a gulf opening between Wes and Justin and everyone else. Wes and Justin and him, even, though they were the closest of everyone.

Was it them falling in love? Was it their commitment to each other? Was there something about building a life with another person that made you change, broadened and deepened your perspectives in life, made you aware of the larger, fuller picture of the world?

What would his own life be like if he weren’t thinking about whether the NFL draft was the right choice for him alone? What if he were making a decision for we instead of me?

Yeah, that would pull a guy from being a boy to being a man. The way he’d devoted himself to Wes and his recovery, making all his choices for Wes and their brotherhood and for the team, had changed him, made him grow quickly.

But he still felt like he was behind Wes and Justin. That they had taken steps into a new world he was on the outside of.

He tossed the ball again, spiraling it up into the air and catching it in front of his face mask.

Was choosing another year at Texas hiding? Was he Peter Panning his life? All he wanted was professional football, right? He’d made it; he had the NFL invite. He had his chance.

There was something more he wanted, but he wasn’t quite sure what it was yet. He couldn’t name it, couldn’t put words to it, but it felt like something that moved inside him when he was in the locker room, or when the team was practicing, or when everyone was smiling after a great practice. The buzz he got in his veins when he and Wes and Justin and even Nick all went out on Thursday nights. It was the way the world seemed perfect when he wasn’t alone. When he felt like he was part of something wonderful.

Leave Wes? Now, when he’d finally really met him? And Justin?

No, there was more here. He was sure of it. More to find, more to become. He had the bones and the heart of a man but the trepidations of a boy. He didn’t want to go. Not yet. He wanted the team, and he wanted more of the soul-deep connection he and Wes had forged and wrapped their team in.

Not yet. He wasn’t ready to let go yet.

One more year.

Wes jogged up and leaped, snatching the ball midair. Colton cursed and took off after Wes, who darted away, laughing over his shoulder. Anton and Patrick and Josh were suddenly there, surrounding Colton, and Wes and the guys played keep-away, tossing the ball over and around him as he leaped and jumped and tried to dive for the ball. “I’m not a damn receiver!” he shouted.

“Thank God for that,” Anton rumbled. He hooked the ball to Patrick, who sent it on a fake back to Wes.

Wes’s gaze caught on something in the bleachers, over Colton’s head. He grinned, fake pumped once, and then spun the ball straight to Colton’s arms before breaking off and jogging to the stands.

“Ahh, Justin’s here,” Josh said.

“You can always tell when he shows up,” Patrick said, laughing.

Colton pretended to hurl the football at Anton, aiming for his belly. Anton buckled, his voice high and sharp in a fake scream, before he jogged away with Josh and Patrick. Colton followed Wes, trotting to the bell of the bleachers, where the lowest part of the stands met the field. Justin had come down to lean over the railing and beam at Wes, who gazed up at him like Justin was the sun in Wes’s personal sky. Wes laid his hand over Justin’s, his grass-stained glove engulfing Justin’s slender fingers.

Colton hung back, rubbing his cleats on the lawn. Sometimes he didn’t know whether he was welcome when Justin and Wes got like this. When the rest of the world fell away and it was like the whole stadium could be roaring their names, and still, Wes and Justin would be gazing into each other’s eyes, grinning those lovesick grins.

Wes was his best friend, and Justin had quickly become one of his closest buddies, too, but three was still an odd number.

“Hey, Colton.”

He looked over, and there was Nick, a few feet down from Justin and Wes.

Nick was laughing under his breath. “Only have eyes for each other, huh?”

“Sometimes.” Colton shrugged. Smiled at Nick and passed him the ball. “You guys here for the scrimmage, or just coming by to say hi?”

“Here for the scrimmage.” Nick palmed the football, running his hand over the laces. “I’m heading out of town tomorrow. I wanted to see you guys before I left.”

“Beers tonight?” Colton caught Nick’s pass in the center of his chest. Nick could throw a football better than some of the guys on the team. He sent the ball back to Nick as Wes stood on his tiptoes and kissed Justin over the railing.

Beers tonighthad become their shorthand for the four of them going out: Justin and Wes and Nick and Colton. Wes only went out with Justin, which made sense, and Justin only wanted to go out if they were meeting up with his dad. He never said why, but he didn’t have to. Colton understood that bone-deep yearning for a father, the poignant prickling of pain when you wanted and hoped and tried so hard, but all you heard was silence.

His dad had walked away when Colton was five years old. Colton used to imagine that, thanks to his name being all over ESPN, his dad would show up out of the blue one day, appear in the stands at a game, as proud and happy as Nick or Wes’s dad was, a little boy’s fairy tale come true. But he never had, and Colton had decided the man was probably dead. It was easier to imagine that than to accept that his father didn’t care about him at all.

Nick did care, and he was there for Justin, even though Justin still had that hunger that clung to him, a need for his father’s acceptance and love and presence in his life. That kind of hunger wasn’t satiated quickly. Justin seized his dad with both hands, folding him into his life in ways big and small. Nick came with Justin to watch practice, and came out with them for beers, and showed up once at a block party to drop off ice and more drinks, sticking around for ten minutes before he left. Justin and Wes went to his place for dinner at least twice a week and sometimes spent the night in the bedroom Nick had given them. When they all went out, they usually ended up on Nick’s balcony after, as if they didn’t want the night to end. Colton had woken up on Nick’s couch to find Justin and Wes cooking in the kitchen and Nick handing him a cup of black coffee more than a handful of times.

Maybe they made a weird foursome of friends. Wes and Justin, Colton the third wheel, Nick the dad. If Nick had been boring or a douche, it wouldn’t have worked. But he was surprisingly easy to be with. Like Justin, but without the hard edges. Solid, with a different kind of life experience grounding him. Justin was a survivor, while Nick was accomplished, similar personalities shaped by different lives. Why wouldn’t Colton like Nick if he liked Justin, he’d said once when Orlando asked him why Justin’s dad hung out with them so often. “He’s cool. It works, man.”

“I’m free. I’m heading out of town in the morning, so I can’t stay out late,” Nick said, catching Colton’s pass. “What about the rest of the guys? You want to hang out with them instead?”

“I can ask if anyone else wants to come with us. But I think most of them are studying. Finals are coming up. Or they’re hanging with their girls before summer break.”

“You don’t need to study?” Nick’s eyebrows arched.

“I’m an ergonomics major.” Colton grinned. “I turned in my final project a few weeks ago.”

“And what life-saving invention did you come up with this time?”

“A footrest for when you’re playing video games and you’re sitting on the couch for hours. You know how that makes your back sore? Not only does this solve that, it’s also got a built-in battery pack, so you can charge your controller without having to get up.”

Nick shook his head as Coach blew the whistle, calling everyone back from break. Wes and Justin broke apart, Wes jogging backward as he said something to Justin in French, who winked and replied in kind. Nick and Colton shared a grin and a tiny eye roll, and then Colton ran after Wes, grappling him from behind and forcing him to turn around. Wes pummeled his back, but finally he spun toward practice. He took one last look at Justin, though.

Colton looked back, too, and saw Justin watching them both, waving to Wes as Nick settled into the bleachers.

Coach had them stretch again and then divide into teams, offense versus defense, for the final half hour. Colton traded playful jabs with his backup, a redshirt quarterback finishing up his freshman year, as he lined up to take the first snap. It wasn’t a serious scrimmage, and his backup hung with the offensive coordinator, watching Colton’s moves, to learn from and to critique. The defensive coordinator was on the field on the defensive side, watching and bellowing out corrections in between plays.

Pads thudded against each other, that plastic-on-plastic crunch and grind. No one went down, though. Linemen dug their hands into each other’s pads and pushed each other around, smack-talking and grunting as Orlando and Wes ran their routes. Colton called pass plays and runs, handed the ball to Orlando and then threw it to Wes on the next play. He went deep to Dante on a touchdown attempt, but a good block by the corner knocked the ball down.

Anton, the defensive captain, had been working his guys with new plays, new matchups against Colton’s offense. He had a roster of rookies he was training, true spring-semester freshmen who were coming in early to try to get up to speed. With so much new blood, he was throwing out defensive sets Colton hadn’t seen before, forcing him to read new matchups and call audibles on the line.

God, he loved this, loved the game. Loved those microseconds where he took in the defense, the pattern of linebackers and linemen and safeties, and slotted through the thousands of plays he’d faced over the years, trying to remember the perfect way to cut through the defense. If the defense lined up with two deep safeties down the center, he sent up the sideline. If they were showing heavy on the strong side, Wes’s side, he automatically looked to the weak side, analyzing the matchups and running through his best receiver options on a read rotation.

These were the moments he loved, the quarter seconds of analysis, of making those calls that were half gut instinct and half hard-fought experience, his muscle memory and his training kicking in at exactly the same time to create the perfect play. The smell of grass clinging to his skin and sweat soaking his jersey, the way his mind worked like it was on fire.

“Delta 81!” Colton called, squatting into position behind Art, the center. He scanned Anton’s defense again. Anton was showing blitz, but Colton was trying something brand new, balls-to-the-wall wild. If it worked, it would be legendary. If it didn’t, everyone would laugh. But it would be a hell of a fun play. He held out his hands. Lifted his foot. “Delta 81! Hike!”

Movement, play action. Cleats on grass, heavy pants, grunts of exertion. He faked a handoff to Orlando, who sprinted to the left, following the blocks of the offensive line. Colton spun right, holding tight to the ball. Had he sold it? He had. Anton and another linebacker were hauling ass for Orlando, while the safeties were man on man with the deep receivers. Wes was slanting, running across the field. He glanced back to Colton.

Colton was all alone, dizzyingly so, in a way the quarterback never was. One of Anton’s linebackers realized Colton still had the ball, and he shouted, then pulled to the right, roaring toward Colton.

He had milliseconds.

Colton planted his foot, dropped his weight back, and readied his pass. The linebacker bore down on him. Wes was still hauling ass, wide fucking open. It was a touchdown play, for sure. He’d done it. The play was going to be massive, epic. He heard cries from the stands, surprise and cheers and shouts. He heard his offensive linemen laughing as the line fell apart on the far side of the field. He heard Anton bellowing for the safeties, trying to chase down Wes and Colton both. It was a scramble now, the defensive play destroyed. Strategy had devolved to tag, to keep-away.

Colton hurled the ball toward Wes and watched it sail, arcing high, parabolic against the sky. The wind rushing over him was sweet, and the sun was warm on the exposed skin of his abs and his back. Wes pumped his legs, held out his arms—

The thud that hit Colton was harder than it should be. The freshman linebacker had dropped his shoulder and plowed into him, knocking him back. He jerked, pinwheeling his feet as he tried to stay up. He hadn’t expected to be hit, not with a real tackle. This was bear-hug ball, laughing ball. But, fuck. That had knocked the wind out of him and sent him backward too fast. He was going down.

Unbalanced, Colton twisted, reaching out with both arms to break his fall as he headed for the grass.

Pain. Something wrenched loose in his shoulder when he hit the ground. Something that used to be whole ripped, and his whole arm went limp like boiled spaghetti. His fingers and hand went numb, and he watched his arm spin the wrong way around as he bounced and skidded over the grass. Liquid fire raced down his right side, sliding between his ribs and into his lungs.

A whistle blew somewhere, long and warbling like a train, going on and on and on as the world went thin.

He tried to wiggle his fingers and watched his hand stay still. I can’t throw without my fingers. He heaved himself over, rolling onto his right shoulder, but that was a mistake. As soon as his weight landed on his right side, the fire that had been bubbling inside his shoulder roared through his body, wrapping him in pure agony. He screamed, curled into a ball, and reached for his unmoving right arm.

Not like this.This wasn’t what another year was supposed to be like. Please, not like this. He grasped his shoulder and buried his face mask in the grass as he screamed.

Feet ran for him, cleats and the tennis shoes of the coaching staff and the athletic trainers. “Get the fuck off the field!” he heard Wes roar. “You’re off the fucking team!”

Hands on him, rolling him to his back. His right arm stayed on the grass. Like it wasn’t attached to him. “Colton—” Wes was beside him, kneeling down.

Not like this not like this not like this not like this—

Wes ripped off his helmet and threw it to the side. He grabbed Colton’s face mask and turned him, forced their eyes to meet. “Colton,” Wes said again. His eyes darted beyond Colton. There were hands on his arms, reaching beneath his pads. Grabbing his shoulder, his right bicep. “Stay with me—”

Someone bumped his shoulder. Colton roared, screaming so deep and loud he felt his body lift from the field. He bellowed and grabbed Wes with his left hand, fingers gripping the collar of his jersey, the edge of his pads. Pain, so much Goddamn pain, more than he’d ever felt in his life, so fucking awful he couldn’t breathe. He tried to gasp, tried to grab Wes, tried to drag him close. Panic rose inside him, ripping right up his center, like a linebacker coming up the hole about to deliver the sack. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t feel anything but this fucking pain, and every dream he’d ever had, from when he was six years old up until ten minutes ago, when all he wanted was one more damn year with his brothers and his best friend, flashed before him and vanished.

Not like this not like this not like this—

“Colton,” Wes whispered, his face suddenly close, pressed right up against Colton’s face mask. “Breathe, breathe—”