The Quarterback by Tal Bauer
Epilogue
Tuxedos and tablecloths,again.
This time silver candelabras, some as tall as six feet, stood sentinel over the banquet hall and the dance floor. Cream silk bunting cascaded from the three-story ceiling between the massive arched windows. Moonlight tangled with the candlelight and the glittering chandeliers as couples swayed to the sounds of the band.
He and Justin had done it, with a little help from Wes and Nick. They’d pulled off what Justin called “the wedding of a lifetime” and what ESPN said was “the NFL’s most important wedding.”
They’d chosen oakwood, cream, and buttercup yellow. Justin had embraced Texas charm, filling the ceremony and the reception with yellow roses. Yellow roses laid on top of old oak branches were the centerpieces, with scattered tea lights casting a golden glow on everyone’s faces. Justin and Wes wore boutonnieres of yellow roses with baby’s breath, along with, inexplicably to Colton, sprigs of lavender. Justin had also dotted lavender bunches throughout the reception hall, and the arch they married beneath was woven with white and yellow roses and hints of lavender.
As the best men, Nick and Colton had worn yellow roses, too. Their cummerbunds were yellow. Justin and Wes’s were white. Nick danced the parent-child dance with Justin before Wes stepped in and took Justin into his arms for their first dance together as husband and husband.
There were actually two weddings planned. In two months, Justin and Wes were going to have their smaller, second wedding, with family and close friends, at the ranch in West Texas. It was going to be a weeklong affair, their loved ones coming out to celebrate the start of the rest of their lives. Celebrate, too, by then, Wes’s new NFL team.
Justin wanted a wedding before the draft, and neither he nor Wes wanted to invite all the bigwigs to the intimate reception they wanted at the ranch. Instead, they threw a big bash in the city and invited everyone. Everyone, even people Justin and Wes didn’t know and didn’t care to know, like the university president and the marketing director and the head of the athletic department. The head of ESPN and the NFL commissioner, too. The first wedding of a gay NFL player had to be perfectly attended.
Two years ago, if Colton had a gun to his head and was asked which of them—him or Wes—was going to enter the NFL, he would have figured things would work out exactly the opposite of the way they had.
Wes had made it clear he was entering the NFL draft as the Texas season wound down. He and Justin told Nick and Colton first. Apparently, the summer at the ranch had rekindled Wes’s love for West Texas and his family’s land, and Justin—surprising everyone—had fallen hard for the ranch life, too. They’d made a plan while sitting on top of a mesa: a few years in the NFL to save up, and then they were going to buy the ranch and put all the money into it that it needed. They’d build another house out there, near Graham’s—Wes’s childhood home—and they’d be ranchers and, in Justin’s case, a part-time emergency nurse, too. They had their lives planned out, years charted all the way to the future. Joyful certainty in their choices radiated from them both.
Colton was delighted for them. As for him and Nick? They’d said forever and said I love you, but they still had to navigate the day by day. His heart had been going a thousand miles an hour the first time he touched Nick in public like a boyfriend would.
They didn’t so much come out as they just… didn’t stay in. It didn’t feel right to Colton to make a statement and come out as something he didn’t know whether he was. He didn’t know if he was gay or if he was bi, because there wasn’t anyone else he loved or wanted or craved. He was Nick-sexual, he joked.
The truth was, he’d fallen in love, and it didn’t matter to him that Nick was a man.
Their former Thursday night beer sessions turned into twice-weekly double dates, and if Colton thought it was going to be awkward to be on a date with Nick in front of his son… it actually wasn’t at all. He had to give Justin the credit for that. Colton had been nervous, and so had Nick, but Justin acted like it was nothing at all when Nick laid his arm across the back of Colton’s chair or when Colton took Nick’s hand on top of the table after dinner.
People picked up on their relationship in waves. When he boxed up all his things and moved out of the jock house completely, his friends wanted to know why and where he was going, and he told them he was moving in with Nick.
“You mean Justin’s dad?” Art had asked. “You, like, renting a room from him?”
“No. Not moving in like that.”
Art’s eyes had gone as wide as the sun, and his jaw dropped as he stared at Colton for a full minute. “I… I didn’t know you were…”
“Neither did I.” He’d shrugged as he finished packing a box and sealed the lid. “Kind of a surprise to me when it happened.”
“I bet it was a surprise to Justin, too. You guys cool?”
“Yeah, we are now. It took a minute. But we’re good.”
“Good.” Art had walked into Colton’s room—Wes and Justin’s room, as soon as he got his stuff out—and held out his fist for a bump. “Get it, sugar baby. Found yourself a daddy, ye-ah.”
He’d laughed, and Justin had appeared at the bedroom door just in time to hear what Art said. “Never, ever, say that again,” he’d said, gripping his chest like he was trying to hold back from puking. “My dad. Is not. A daddy.”
“I mean…” Art threw his hands up. “He’s, by definition, a daddy. And I’m just saying, Colton apparently likes a li’l salt to his lovin’—”
“Oh, God. I need air.” Justin had fled as Colton fell sideways in helpless giggles, and Art took off after Justin to keep teasing him. He’d roped Orlando in on the way, hooking his arm through Orlando’s elbow and dragging him backward to Wes and Justin’s old bedroom. Colton heard Orlando’s “No fucking way” and Justin’s indignant squawk, and then the chorus to “Father Figure” shook the walls.
After that, everyone in the house knew.
The team found out after practice in September, when Colton said hello to Nick with a kiss, right there on the sideline, after working with Clarence on passing drills. His friends had wolf whistled while the rest of the team stared. Two players, looking at Colton instead of their route, plowed into each other. Everyone was happy for him, though. So happy, in fact, they gave him the nickname Sugar, for sugar baby. Thanks a lot, Art.
The media picked it up slowly. Headlines filtered across the smaller blogs first. “Former Quarterback Colton Hall Seen in Intimate Embrace with Older Man.”
“Father of Wes Van de Hoek’s Boyfriend Seduces Former Texas Quarterback.”
“Was Wes Van de Hoek Covering for the Real Gay Texan Football Player?”
Beyond blogs, a few message boards, and the comments sections of articles, no one in the sports industry seemed to care. Colton had made it clear, early in the season, that he wasn’t aggressively recuperating and wasn’t planning on entering the draft or trying to join the NFL as a free agent. His football career was done, and he was hanging up his pads. And since he wasn’t headed for stardom… no one cared what he did with his life. No one wanted to videotape him and Nick after practice, like the university kept hounding Wes and Justin for. ESPN wouldn’t want to send a videographer to record his wedding.
Which was just fine with him.
He spun Nick and then was spun in turn, and they came together as the song rose to the end, the singer holding on to the last note as the drummer went to town on the cymbals and bass drum. Everyone cheered as Nick’s arm wound around his waist.
“Nick!”
They turned together and saw Kimbrough guiding a statuesque woman in a silver gown across the dance floor toward them. Kimbrough was in a navy suit and had put on his best fog-gray Stetson, to match his bride, he’d said. His wife was classic Texas, demure and commanding in equal measures, and she had Kimbrough wrapped around her diamond-studded fingers. She smiled at both Nick and Colton as she and Kimbrough approached.
“Hell of a party, Nick.” Kimbrough pumped Nick’s hand. “Gorgeous wedding. Marrying your son off is always a great day.” He winked at his wife. “Your daughter’s wedding day, on the other hand…”
“Hush.” His wife swatted his arm. She grinned, though, at some memory from the decades of life they’d shared.
I can’t wait to have those kinds of memories with Nick.
“So, you two gonna have a child of your own?” Kimbrough smiled. “You gonna saddle up and start a family together?”
Colton’s jaw dropped. Nick’s eyes bulged. “Uh…” Nick sounded like he’d been hit in the stomach.
“You’re young, Nick!” Kimbrough slapped Nick on the shoulder. “You’ve got plenty of time to have a kid or two with Colton.”
“Or two!”
“I’m sure Justin would love siblings.” Kimbrough winked. “Colton, you ready to come work for me?”
He’d kept in close touch with Kimbrough over the past eight months, since they’d met in Waco. Kimbrough had reached out first, asking how he was holding up and congratulating him on Texas’s win that week. He’d talked about how much stronger Clarence Hobbs looked, saying that he could see Colton’s influence at work already.
Colton told him Clarence had turned a corner and was eager to learn everything he could, as if he was a sponge that could soak up Colton’s years of experience. He showed up early to practice, even before Colton, and spent hours perfecting his form. His five-step, his seven-step. His timing. His release. His accuracy, too, until he could laser a ball from one end of the field to the other and hit the bull’s-eye of a target. And after their next win, he’d marched out onto the field and had nothing but praise to heap on his teammates, singling out members of the offense and defense for their exceptional plays.
Nothing happened overnight, and Clarence didn’t magically become Colton by week three. He still wobbled in games and still needed more time reacting to defensive setups so he wouldn’t succumb to panic when the game became a struggle. But Texas won most of their games, and though they didn’t defend the national title, they won their bowl game and were ranked in the top five in the league. Each of the seniors who wanted to have standout seasons before the NFL draft did.
Colton played his last game the final week of the season. He’d finally recuperated, through the combination of a slow and steady physical therapy regimen and his daily coaching of Clarence, to the point where both he and Coach felt he could hold his own for a whole game. When he was announced as the starter, the whole team cheered, whooping and hollering and shouting in the team meeting room for a solid five minutes, until Coach told them to shut up or they were all running ten miles. Even Clarence was happy for him. He’d thrown his arm around Colton’s neck and gave him a messy kiss on the cheek. “You deserve this. You deserve a hell of a lot more, too, but you especially deserve this.”
He’d led his team onto Texas’s field in front of a hundred thousand fans screaming his name. He and Wes stopped on the fifty-yard line, and he’d waved and waved and waved to the crowd until tears rolled down his cheeks.
It was like magic, taking the field again. The fresh-cut grass, the sun-warmed leather football. The squeak of pads and the crunch of cleats. His teammates surrounding him, every one supporting each other for every play, every time. His blood was pumping, his muscles thrumming. This was what he’d loved for so many years.
Late in the second quarter, he connected with Wes on a slant pass that led to a breakaway, and Wes sprinted thirty-six yards to the end zone. The fans went wild, and he ran down the field after Wes to leap into his arms. It was their moment, and he soaked up every molecule he could: The feel of Wes and him together in the end zone. The rest of his team cheering for him, slapping him on his back and his helmet, all the big guys hoisting him into the air. The roar of the crowd and the smile on Coach’s face. The feeling in his chest.
And when he and Wes jogged to the sideline, he saw Nick and Justin together in the stands, beaming down at them. In his moment, his perfect moment, he’d turned to the stands and found the man he loved.
Their love and their future unfurled between them, forever and happiness and all his dreams with Nick.
It was his and Wes’s final game together, and that ended up being their final touchdown, too. Four years together, teammates and best friends and brothers, from meeting as freshmen at that introductory team meeting to putting in hours on the field, before and after practice, over holidays and summer break and in the blinding rain or the roaring wind. Through heartache and desperation and injury, loneliness and anguish and finding each other again. Through everything, together.
He and Orlando connected in the third, and then Dante caught a pass and ran the ball in backward for the third Texas touchdown. They won the game, and when the confetti fell, Colton stood in the center of the field and let it rain over him.
Until Nick came across the field and took Colton’s hand, and the confetti poured down on them both. The whole team was there, with all their loved ones, and he and Nick were just two people in a sea of humanity. “I love you,” Colton had whispered, in the middle of the stadium, in the middle of the field.
“I love you, too,” Nick had whispered back.
After the bowl game, life slowed down. He and Kimbrough talked more. Kimbrough invited him and Nick to his New Year’s party at his estate outside Houston. Nothing with Kimbrough was ever small or modest, and the party ended up being the most glamorous night he’d ever experienced, something close to what he imagined the Oscars in Hollywood to be like. He and Nick went together, and it was their second public outing as a couple, after Nick’s company party.
As spring rolled around, Coach called him to his office and made him an offer: a graduate assistantship, a full-time position on the coaching staff as the assistant quarterback coach, and a slot in one of the coveted human dimensions graduate programs that began in the fall.
Nick had been thrilled for him, almost as thrilled as Kimbrough was when he told him over the phone. He’d thought maybe Kimbrough would be irritated, since he asked Colton every time they talked when he was coming to work for him, but he’d realized that was all part of Kimbrough’s affection: a deluge from a fire hose of bombastic care and gentle teasing, always at full volume.
He shook his head as he held Kimbrough’s gaze. “I haven’t decided on the coaching position yet,” he said. “I’m still thinking about it.”
He had choices, options, futures in front of him. He’d never thought he’d have different paths to choose from, but here he was, planning his future in conjunction with Nick. Planning a life for we, not me.
“Well, what the hell do you have to think about? You only turned that Hobbs guy around from a sore loser and pissant to one of the best quarterbacks in the league. Give him two years, and he might be as good as you. Especially if you get to continue coaching him.”
Continuing to coach Clarence did have some appeal. He had to laugh, thinking that. How things changed.
What a difference a year made.
“You know you’ll always be able to call me.” Kimbrough held out his hand to Colton, then to Nick. “Both of you. It’s an honor to call you guys friends.”
Colton had no idea what to say to that, but Kimbrough saved him from his awkward fumbling for words. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen.” He tipped his hat and guided his wife back to the dance floor as a slow song started.
Nick held out his hand. “Dance with me?”
They glided to the middle of the floor, past Kimbrough and his wife. They were already gazing into each other’s eyes, looking like they were the newlyweds of the night and not working on their fourth decade together.
Speaking of newlyweds. Colton craned his neck and spotted Justin and Wes, dancing together near the band at the front of the dance floor. Their eyes were closed, their faces so close their lips were brushing in an endless kiss. Justin smiled, and Wes did too, their bodies moving in perfect sync.
Nick threaded their fingers together and kissed the back of his hand. He pulled Colton close, as close as Wes and Justin were dancing, and pressed his lips against Colton’s ring finger. “That could be us one day,” Nick said softly.
Colton’s heart thundered. Nick still stole his breath, still made his world spin in a thousand different directions. Still made him pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. “You want to get married again?”
“To you? Yes, I do.”
He went still, his skin burning, as he stared at Nick. “Are you asking me—”
“I’m not pulling a Wes.” Nick smiled, and he kissed Colton’s ring finger again. “This is a heads-up, though. I want to marry you, Colton, and I’m going to really ask you, soon, if that’s what you want.”
“I…”
“Say you want to marry me, too?”
The lights were flickering, all the hundreds of candles Justin and he had lit before the ceremony twinkling off the candelabras and Nick’s eyes. Nick’s thumb stroked the small of his back. “Of course I want to marry you. I dreamed about marrying you. I dreamed about growing old with you—”
“I’m already old.”
“You’re not.” He kissed Nick’s nose. “Like Kimbrough said, you’re young enough to have a few more kids.”
Nick peered at him. “Is that something you want? You’d be a great father.”
He’d never imagined it before. Kids seemed like a distraction when he was focused on making it to the NFL. And there was a part of him that had rejected the idea long ago. What did he know about being a parent? His dad had left, and his mom had checked out, and he was raised by a series of coaches and teachers, a carousel of men who were constantly turning over, constantly replaced. He didn’t know the first thing about being a stable parent.
Except… now he did.
What would it be like? Him and Nick, with a child of their own? Someone they could play toddler football with. Lie on the ground and build Lego creations with, scatter colored blocks like glitter over the carpet. Teach how to hit a T-ball and camp in the backyard. Make Halloween costumes together and go out trick-or-treating as a family. Maybe they would want to dance like their uncle did. Tutus and ballet slippers. Cleats and soccer balls and baseball gloves. First days of school, first lost teeth. First camping trip, first school play. First date, first car. First day of college. A whole life, a whole person they could create.
“I might,” he whispered. “I never did before. But with you… I might want to.” He gripped Nick, dug his fingers into Nick’s spine. “What about you? Is that something you want?”
“I could fall in love with the idea of having a child with you.” Nick kissed him, soft and slow. “I could fall in love with that idea easily,” he said against Colton’s lips. He kissed him again, and then again. Tightened his arms and held Colton to him. “Marry me?”
“I thought you said you weren’t asking yet.” The dance floor, the gilded banquet hall, the hundreds of guests, faded. There was just him and Nick and the tapping of the cymbal. The cascade of the saxophone. The low, tumbling tones of the singer, crooning about a forever love.
“I changed my mind. I don’t want to wait to hear you say you’ll marry me or that we’re going to have a life together,” Nick said. “Marry me, Colton. Like this, or on a beach, or we could run away to Vegas, just the two of us. Or we can fly anywhere you want. I want to be with you for the rest of my life. Marry me. Please?”
There was nothing he wanted more than to solidify their love, set it in stone and certify it for forever. “Of course I’ll marry you.” He cupped Nick’s face and leaned in, kissing him softly. “I don’t care where,” he breathed against Nick’s lips. “Or how. I want the rest of my life with you, too.”
“Vegas it is, then.” Nick winked. “Tonight.”
He barked out a laugh as the world started to fade back in. Wes and Justin, still locked in their embrace. Kimbrough and his wife, still making doe-eyed faces at each other. The rest of the dance floor packed with couples, some he recognized, others he didn’t.
“No, we’ll plan it together,” Nick said. “Something that’s us.”
“What about a winery?”
Nick smiled, as big and beautiful as he’d smiled the day Colton had surprised him by pulling into that Texas Hill Country winery. “That’s perfect.”
Colton bit his lip. “So you’re my fiancé now?”
“And you’re my fiancé.” Nick’s arms tightened around him. He kissed Colton, on the lips and the nose and then the lips again.
“I’m gonna be Justin’s stepdad,” Colton blurted out. “And Wes’s stepfather-in-law.”
Nick tipped his head back and roared. Heads turned their way. Colton’s eyes traveled over the arch of Nick’s neck, the lines of his jaw. The sparkles at his temple, catching the candlelight in the perfect way. He grinned at his lover—fiancé—as Justin and Wes made their way across the dance floor when the song ended and the band announced they were taking a short break.
“What’s so hilarious?” Justin asked. He sank into Wes’s side, their arms wrapped around each other’s waists. “I want in on the fun.”
Nick glanced at Colton. His cheeks were flushed, eyes twinkling, lips turned up in a huge grin. “Nick just asked me to marry him.”
Justin shot a triumphant look at Wes. “I told you it was going to happen tonight.”
“You were right.”
“Always am.” Justin winked.
Wes kissed Justin’s temple and smiled. He pulled Colton into a bear hug, holding on as long as they had in the end zone when they’d scored their final touchdown together. “Congratulations,” he said in Colton’s ear. “I’m happy you’re finally happy.”
Colton held on tight to Wes. His best friend. His brother. “I am.”
A waiter passed by with a tray of champagne, zeroing in on the new husbands and making sure they were never wanting. They each took one, and Justin led a toast. “To my dad, and to the love of his life, Colton: I’ve never seen my dad happier, and I’ve never seen a couple so in love. Other than us, of course.”
Nick beamed, and Colton’s chest went tight. He took Nick’s hand as he sipped his champagne, trying to say “Thank you” in all the ways he held Justin’s gaze. I love him so much.
It was like Justin could read his mind, read the shape of his thoughts. He tugged Colton into their own hug and lay his lips against Colton’s cheek. “Take care of him, okay?”
“I will. I always will.”
“And he’ll always take care of you. You’re his forever, Colton. Everyone can see it.”
They pulled back, and then Justin and Nick hugged and whispered in each other’s ears as they held on tight, bear hugging like they never would let go. Wes’s hand landed on Colton’s back, and he turned to Wes, smiling—
And it hit him: this is the family I always wanted.
Unconditional love. Acceptance. Arms that wrapped around him and held him tight. Two brothers, one who built him up and another who challenged him, who stayed up and waited for him to come home with his dad and then made coffee for them both in the morning. Who never said I love you with words but who had dug down inside himself and recreated his whole world so Nick and Colton could build a love story together.
Two brothers who made him a better man, and the man he loved so much he couldn’t breathe some days. He’d never imagined himself this happy. Even when he dreamed about the NFL, something had been missing. He’d thought he wanted a team, and for a while, that worked. But what he really wanted—what he really needed—was a family.
The love of his life. The one man he’d been waiting for his whole life. The man who rewrote his life in all the shades of happiness that existed. The man he loved, and who loved him, forever.
* * *
