The Quarterback by Tal Bauer

Chapter Six

Nick stayeduntil Justin got home later that evening. He scooted over for Wes and let him play Halo while he checked email. Wes hunched forward and grunted through most of the game, while Colton kept up his backseat—side seat—gaming, a running stream of commentary, invective, exuberant instructions, and exclamations. Colton met Nick’s gaze behind Wes’s back, rolling his eyes when Wes walked into a trap, grinning when he made the same mistake Nick had made that Colton warned them both about a half dozen times.

When Justin’s voice floated upstairs, through the rattle and clang of the rest of the team settling in, Nick popped to his feet and hovered at Colton’s bedroom door to wait for his son. Justin appeared in scrubs, fresh from his hospital shift, carrying two Starbucks Frappuccinos and a bag of Chinese takeout.

Nick reached for the bag and a Starbucks as Justin’s eyes went wide. “Hey, Dad. Didn’t know you were here.”

“I came to see Colton after lunch. I stayed so I could see you.”

Justin beamed. “Well, that frap is for Colton—”

Nick turned to Colton in time to see him smooth out his expression and unscrew a tension that hadn’t been there before he and Justin said hello. Colton thanked Justin for the Frappuccino as soon as Nick passed it over, but he wouldn’t meet Nick’s gaze. Which, after an entire afternoon of looking at each other every minute, stood out. Nick frowned.

“—and the Chinese is for everyone, but I didn’t know you were coming, so there might not be enough,” Justin finished.

Nick pulled open the paper bag. For three boys, Justin had brought nine containers of food. For anyone else, that would be overkill, but Wes and Colton could probably polish off four cartons each on their own. And he hadn’t seen Wes eat anything since he’d run home after practice. Maybe that was why he’d been reduced to grunting.

Justin plucked a box of lo mein and a set of chopsticks from the bag and passed them to Wes. Wes dropped the PS4 controller and grabbed the food, then tugged Justin in to give him a kiss. “Thanks, mon amour. I’m starving.”

Justin cupped his cheek. “There’s tons more.” Then he backed off as Wes tore open the top and dove in. Justin pulled another box and chopsticks out and passed them to Colton. Colton looked left and right before setting the takeout on the arm of the couch as a makeshift table, since he couldn’t hold it and eat at the same time. “Crispy beef,” Justin said. “And there’s orange chicken, sesame beef, smoked tea duck—”

“Dibs on the duck,” Wes grunted around a mouthful of lo mein.

“Man…” Colton kneed Wes in the thigh.

“Dad, do you want some? I can pick you out a plate before these animals devour everything.”

“No, thanks. I’ll head home. I’ve got some stuff I’ve got to catch up on from today.”

Colton froze, chopsticks poised over his lap, and shot Nick a guilty look.

“I’ve got to put together the specs and info for you, too.”

His smile reappeared. “Thanks. I’m looking forward to diving in.”

Nick squeezed Justin’s shoulder as he passed. “And Justin? Colton needs your help. He needs a wardrobe upgrade for his internship.”

Justin’s grin turned wolfish as he peered around Wes, eyeballing Colton. “Really?” Somehow, he made the word five full seconds long, with as much incredulity as he could stuff inside the elongated syllables.

“No, no, no!” Colton sputtered, his mouth full of crispy beef. “I’m going to show you on my own! You’ll see. I’m going to impress you.” He waved his chopsticks at Justin. “I’m not gonna cheat.”

“Cheat?” Justin’s eyebrows shot straight up.

“Use an expert, like Nick did.” Colton stabbed another piece of beef and shoved it in his mouth. “I knew about plaid shorts.” He winked at Justin.

“Dad, not those again,” Justin groaned. “We talked about those.”

He held up his hands. “I learned my lesson. I’m not shopping without you. Hey,” he said. “What about Wes? How come he escapes the fashion critique?”

Wes turned huge, round eyes to him, chopsticks frozen in his mouth, cheeks bulging. The container of lo mein was almost empty.

“Dad, Wes has perfect fashion sense. He’s a cowboy, and he’s got authentic ranch style.”

“Jeans and a T-shirt?”

“And boots and a hat.” Justin wrapped one arm around Wes’s waist and leaned into his lover.

Nick laughed. He wasn’t going to come between Justin and Wes, not even in a joke. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.” He held out his hand toward Justin. Justin reached back, and they squeezed each other’s fingers for a moment. It was their version of a hug, something more than just words that spoke louder than a simple goodbye. It hadn’t felt like enough to walk away and say “See you later” when they’d first started hanging out again, but Justin wasn’t comfortable with a hug, either, so he started a simple, brief hand squeeze, and that had quickly become one of their things.

Justin gave him another squeeze before letting go, and for a second, it was like they were back in time and Justin was five and they were playing the good night game. “I love you,” he used to tell Justin. “I love you more,” Justin would say back, and he’d protest, saying no, he loved Justin more. And on and on, repeating until Justin descended into giggles and Nick bent over to kiss his son’s forehead and give his blankets an extra tuck. Was that really sixteen years ago?

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” He pulled away, nodded to Wes, waved to Colton. Wes smiled as he pawed through the bag for another container of food, and Colton returned the wave.

“Night, Nick!” Colton called after him.

He trundled through the house, waving to the guys clustered in the living room. One called out to him, “Yo, Justin’s dad!” and three others threw backward waves over the couch.

It was a short drive across town to his condo. He parked in his spot in the garage and then made his way up the elevator, spinning his keys as his thoughts yo-yoed between work and Colton and the internship and the afternoon he’d spent lounging in Colton’s ratty bedroom. Colton had the house’s master suite, which was larger than the others and had an attached bathroom, but Colton was still a college kid. There were still clothes on the floor, free weights piled in a corner, textbooks mixed with messy papers on his desk. Dirty dishes on almost every surface. The funky smell of college athlete mixed with spray deodorant.

A far cry from the ordered, modern neatness of his place. He stopped in the entranceway, gazing over the open-floor-plan condo he and Justin had picked. Mottled gray concrete walls, stainless steel in the kitchen. His oversized bedroom and bathroom were on one side of the living room, Justin and Wes’s guest bedroom and his office on the other. He could see all of the city, and their campus, lit up outside the floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors along the back wall.

A far cry from his old life, too. Cynthia had liked the country clutter look, pieces from antique shops and Americana knickknacks. She’d been in charge of the décor for twenty years, and he’d never thought much about it. The house was pleasant, and it was home. He had his recliner and his remote control, and really, the backyard was where he chose to relax. His pool, his patio, his outdoor grill. Memories of playing with Justin in the water, teaching Justin how to swim, how to cannonball.

Now he had sleek leather furniture, minimal décor, modern end tables. The one nod to personalization was the digital picture frame he’d set on the kitchen island, where Justin emailed photos of him and Wes, and sometimes the rest of the team—and Colton—to play on a loop.

There was an appeal to the lived-in warmth of Colton’s bedroom.

He went to his own bedroom and changed, pulling on workout shorts and an old T-shirt—laughing to himself as he did—and then grabbed a beer and headed to his office. He spent an hour answering emails, another hour pulling together sales decks and tech specs for Colton.

His phone buzzed a little before eleven. He expected it to be another email, maybe a reply from one of his more enthusiastic team members. But no, it was a text from Colton. Thanks for coming over today. And yesterday. It’s really helped. I hope it hasn’t been too painful for you.

He smiled. Not painful at all. I had a lot of fun.

It means a lot.

Do you know what you want for lunch tomorrow? I’ll take your order now, if you do.

Do you like sushi?

I do. Know a good spot?

Colton gave him the address for a sushi place and sent an order for six sushi rolls, an eye-popping amount for one person. I’ll give you money for everything tomorrow. The sushi, and the last two days.

No need. My treat.Nick was sending a monthly allowance to Justin, despite Justin’s initial protests, but he was happy to splurge on Colton, too. The least he could do was feed Colton, and if spending time with him truly meant that much to Colton, well. Nick meant it when he said he’d be there every day as long as Colton needed company. Colton wasn’t his son, but he was… special. A friend, yes, but he wouldn’t take off work to spend his afternoons with just any friend, buying them mountains of food and losing at video games for their entertainment.

He wasn’t hanging out with Colton for Justin’s sake, either. No, he liked Colton all on his own, and he and Colton had a unique friendship independent of Justin and Wes. Maybe that had happened out of necessity, two third wheels who became a pair. But Colton was the closest friend Nick had made in years, maybe since Nick was in college.

Colton was a potent mix of earnestness and vulnerability, a man still collecting experiences that were shaping him into the person he would become. Nick remembered that age more and more as he spent time with the boys. When potential felt like it was being shot straight into his veins, and his dreams, like Wes’s, were as broad as the sun. The woman he’d thought he’d spend the rest of his life with, a baby on the way, the first steps of his career. Everything he’d ever wanted.

Maybe he was verging on a midlife crisis. Maybe he was looking back, reaching for a youth he’d long since passed. What did a divorce and a friend who was twenty-two mean? A restart, new dreams to imagine, a new life to be on the edge of? Or the beginning of a crash, a face-first plummet into realizing no, he was old.

Thanks, Colton texted again. I’ll see you tomorrow.

Later, Nick couldn’t fall asleep, and he grabbed his phone and opened Amazon, searching for something he couldn’t get out of his mind.

* * *

“You cleaned.”

Colton’s cheeks flushed. “That obvious, huh?”

Nick passed the sushi over. Colton’s bedroom had been picked up, the dishes moved downstairs, his desk straightened, the strewn clothes tucked out of sight. It even looked like a vacuum had wandered over the carpet a few times. “It’s a big change.”

Colton’s flush deepened. He cradled his sushi one-handed and lowered himself slowly to the couch. “If I’m going to have company, it should look decent. My mom taught me that much. So, did you bring the stuff for the internship?”

“I did.” He dug out a few binders from his laptop bag and passed over a USB stick. “Do you have a laptop?”

They spent the next few hours going through everything, Colton listening attentively as Nick went through first a dry run of his sales presentation, then the design docs and the technical specifications for their mobile networks.

Colton, for all his goofiness, had a mind like a steel trap. He had to, to be so successful as a quarterback. He had to know every play in the team’s playbook backward, forward, and inside out, how everyone would move and where they would go, and probably five hundred defensive setups as well. He knew how to pick offensive plays to go against the defense he was facing that week, what routes would beat what coverage, what kind of offensive line he’d need to move the ball down the field and into the hands of Wes or Dante or Orlando. Colton applied that detail-oriented precision to absorbing everything Nick was teaching him. He had a multitude of questions, and he focused so intently on what Nick was saying it almost made Nick squirm. He wasn’t sure anyone had ever paid such close attention to his sales pitch.

After three hours, they took a break and switched to PlayStation, Colton piling the binders and his laptop on his bed to go back to later. The rest of the afternoon was lost to Halo and backseat gaming, and when Wes showed up after practice, he’d taken the time to shower and grab a snack.

Apparently he felt Colton was in good hands.

Nick offered to drive Colton to his one-week postsurgery checkup a few days later. He tried to drive slowly, but the Porsche’s suspension wasn’t made to coddle broken bones or torn ligaments. Colton gritted his teeth through every pebble in the road. “Next time, I can drive your truck,” Nick offered.

“Hopefully I can drive myself soon,” Colton said as he hauled himself out of the low-slung 911.

There was that, too. Nick wouldn’t be waiting on Colton hand and foot for much longer, he supposed.

The doctor was pleasantly surprised at Colton’s progress and was effusive in his praise. “You really did rest, didn’t you?”

“You told me to,” Colton groused. “I do listen.”

“You wouldn’t have made it as far as you have if you weren’t coachable.” The doctor poked and prodded, changed the bandages, checked his stitches. “How’s the pain?”

Colton shrugged. “I only take the pills to help me sleep. I try to stay distracted during the day.”

“You must have one hell of a distraction. This is not a painless injury.”

Colton squirmed. “Can I go back to practice next week? Just be on the field, or go to the team meetings? I’m not gonna do anything to hurt my shoulder. It’s the last week of practice before the summer break. I don’t want to miss it.”

The doctor stared long and hard at Colton. “You know what’s at stake if you horse around.”

“I do.”

“I’ll allow you to attend, but as an observer only. I’m going to make sure Coach Young and the rest of the staff know you’re on restricted status. If you do anything that risks your shoulder, they’ll send you home. Understand?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

The doctor turned his attention to Nick. “Can you keep an eye on him? He’s been doing great this past week. Do I have you to thank for that?”

Nick’s eyebrows rose. “I don’t see Colton every day, so I can’t really keep that close of a watch on him—”

“Oh.” The doctor frowned. “I thought…”

“And Colton is doing well because he’s taking charge of his own healing. He’s doing great all on his own. He doesn’t need a minder,” Nick finished.

Colton smiled as he stared down at the tile floor.

“Well, then, come back in another week, and we should be able to take the sling off part time. We’ll get you started on simple stretching moves, and we’ll keep controlling the pain, too, all right?” The doctor squeezed Colton’s left shoulder. Colton grimaced.

For the drive home, Nick fished out a blanket he had in the trunk and rolled it up, then helped Colton slide it between his chest and his sling to try to cushion the impact from his car’s high-strung suspension. It seemed to help a bit. At least, Colton didn’t clench his teeth as hard as they headed down the highway.

“No more Halo matches next week,” Nick said.

“You could come over after practice. I’ve got a ton of other games you can try, too. You and Wes could play Madden against each other. And I’ve got Destiny, and Red Dead, and Tetris—”

“Tetris! Now you’re talking.”

Colton grinned. “See, you gotta come back. You need to show me what you’ve got in Tetris.” He frowned. “Unless you’ve got other plans. Have I been cramping your social life?”

“No, you haven’t. I don’t really have a social life right now. I’m not seeing anyone.”

“You could. I’ve seen girls look at you when we go out.”

“I’m not interested in dating at the moment. The divorce isn’t final yet. And I know I don’t have to wait, but…” He shrugged. “It’s a goalpost for me, I guess. And that’s not what I came down here for.”

“Hashtag dad life.”

“It’s chauffeur life this week.” He grinned as Colton groaned. “And lunch delivery life.”

“Speaking of lunch, do you want to stop somewhere? I’m starving.”

“Sure,” he said. “What do you want?”

Colton gave him directions to a burger joint. “My treat this time, okay?”

Once he’d parked, he fished out the gift he’d bought for Colton from behind his seat. It was still in the Amazon box, the flaps refolded so Colton could open it one-handed.

“No fucking way,” Colton breathed when he looked inside. “Are you kidding me? How did you find this?” He lifted out the one-handed PlayStation controller. The joysticks and buttons were rearranged, and the controller was made to balance on a knee or the opposite forearm or even a wheelchair mount. Colton would have to learn a new way to hold it, but when he did, he’d be able to do everything with his left hand.

“There are lots of one-handed gamers in the world. I knew this had to exist.”

Colton turned the controller over, his lips parted, jaw loose and slack.

“Even when you get your sling off, it might be painful to use your right hand for a while. The doctor said fine motor movements could tire you out and make your shoulder ache. This will help you relax, and when it really hurts, hopefully gaming will take your mind off the pain.”

Colton turned to him, giving him a look of such wonder and stunned happiness that Nick couldn’t hold back his own smile.

“Dude, you know what this means? We can play two-player now.”

Nick laughed. “That’s exactly what I thought when I bought it,” he teased. “I thought, ‘I can’t wait to play more PlayStation.’”

* * *

He stayedwith Colton through the afternoon—gaming, of course. Colton scoured YouTube for instructional videos on the one-handed controller, and he scooted close to Nick to show him each playthrough on his phone. He would have to change his play style, hold the controller differently, but he could do everything he used to do two-handed. Colton insisted they play two-player, head-to-head matches in Halo, and they spent hours wandering in an empty level, Nick taking potshots at Colton that he purposely missed by a country mile as Colton worked the controller in his new left-handed grasp.

Nick hung around until Wes and Justin got back to the house in the early evening, and the four of them ate dinner in Colton’s room again, since most of the team was out doing their own thing as they prepared for the end of the semester.

Justin and Wes surprised them by revealing their summer plans. They’d been cagey about what they were going to do, and after Justin had evaded Nick’s questions twice, he’d let it drop.

Now Justin was practically bursting at the seams. For a moment, Nick thought Justin was going to say he and Wes were eloping, running to Mexico or Vegas to tie the knot. He held his breath.

“We’re spending the summer at Wes’s ranch,” Justin said instead, looping his arm through Wes’s as he beamed. They were both sitting cross-legged on the floor, facing him and Colton on the couch. “I’m going to learn how to be a cowboy. I’ve ordered a hat and everything.”

Wes grinned. “My dad always needs help with the herd, but I wasn’t sure about going home this summer because… Well, I don’t want to spend a day without you.” He directed the last sentence to Justin. “Dad said we could both come, but we didn’t know if we could do it all,” he continued. “Go to the ranch and make sure Justin holds his place in the dance company. More than anything, I didn’t want to be apart from you, so if that meant not going home, I wouldn’t have gone.”

Colton shot Nick a look that somehow captured both the sweetness of the moment and its overwhelming sappiness.

“But my dance company said I could go out of town for the summer as long I keep up my routines,” Justin said. “I can send in videos once a week for evaluation.” He kissed Wes. Wes smiled, and Justin smiled back, their lips still touching. “I get to learn how to be a cowboy, and we won’t have to be apart.”

“When do you leave?” Nick asked.

“We head out next weekend. I can’t wait.”

“Clearly,” Nick said. “You seem a little excited.” If Justin had a tail, it would be going a mile a minute. Wes was still staring at him, smiling like Justin was a work of art. He’d even stopped eating to gaze at him. That was love.

A pang went off in Nick’s chest, like his heart was a gong being struck in the center. It was a tangled mix of joy and sorrow, bittersweet happiness. “I’m going to miss you. I’ve gotten used to seeing you every day. Both of you.”

“We’ll keep in touch, Dad.” Justin turned his attention back to Nick. “We’ll send you pictures every day.”

Colton chimed in. “Me, too. I wanna see Justin the great cowboy.” He and Wes shared a long, not-at-all-smothered smirk. “I wanna watch this summer adventure.”

“Are you going to be okay?” Wes asked, turning his attention to Colton. “It’s only going to be you here in the house over the summer.”

“You’ve got that internship with Dad, too. Are you ready?”

Jesus, Wes and Justin were practically finishing each other’s thoughts. Nick hid his smile as he leaned back on the couch.

“I’ll be fine,” Colton said. “I’m looking forward to the internship starting. I can’t wait for something to do.”

“Not like you have classes or anything.” Wes winked.

Colton rolled his eyes. “The internship is for class.”

“Did you get your new clothes?” Nick asked.

Colton pursed his lips. “Oh yeah. This weekend,” he said. “It’s on the to-do list.”

“You guys will need to tell us about the internship and how you’re doing, too. You tell us about how you’ve tamed Colton to work with civilized people in an office, Dad, and we’ll tell you all about how I’m the best ranch hand Wes has ever had out there.”

Wes kissed him on the cheek. “You’re already my favorite ranch hand.”

This time, Nick’s and Colton’s sidelong looks met in the middle, both of them struggling not to laugh. Colton broke the stare first, leaning forward to grab his beer. He held it up over the table in a toast. “To summer,” he said. “To cowboys and internships.”

“And healing shoulders.” Nick raised his bottle, and the four of them toasted. He sat back, pulling from his bottle as Wes started in on what happened at practice and what Colton had missed. Apparently the backup quarterback was buckling, so frazzled he couldn’t find his ass or the ball with both hands and a search warrant. The coach was talking about trying to find a transfer student to come in to play, but there were challenges with that, too. No one had ever thought Colton would get injured, and the coaches hadn’t filled out their depth chart behind Colton—leaving them, now, with a glaring weakness.

The conversation flowed over Nick. He was content to listen and catch Colton’s glances every few minutes, as if he was checking in to see if Nick was still there, still having fun. He’d lived forty-three summers, so many they started to blend together. The early ones with Justin stood out—pool parties and helping him learn to ride a bicycle and eating melting ice cream in the backyard. Sometime after thirty, though, they’d become a smear of sunshine and hot days, the daily grind of work and life bleeding together.

Something felt different now. It was like he was twenty-two again, poised on the edge of something great, all that potential and probability swimming inside him. Like he had the world and opportunity opening up before him. He was happy, too, in a way he’d feared he might never be after he choked out the words “I want a divorce.” He’d thought his life would become smaller, not larger. Not so full that he felt like he was painting his days in bold brushstrokes.

His son was happy and heading off on his great cowboy adventure with the love of his life, and he was going to be spending the summer with Colton, his improbable friend.

Life was good.

He smiled at Colton and sipped his beer.