them and nature. Gravel roads. Long, dark nights. No electricity. Maybe they could go horseback riding, or Wes could teach him how to fish. Show him all those country things Justin only ever saw on TV.
He racked up his clinical rotations while Wes practiced with the team. Without classes, the team was back to two-a-days. Justin and Wes texted all day long, before practice and at lunch and through the afternoon.
And, after practice, Wes slipped across the street to Justin’s house. Only one other student had stayed there over the break, an IT major who worked nights at the university lab and slept all day. They could hear him snoring behind his bedroom door on the first floor. He was easy to avoid.
For three days, it was like they were living together again. Justin cooked dinner in the house’s shared kitchen. He made Wes chicken and pasta, hamburger sliders, and seared steak and rice. Wes steamed vegetables and shook up protein shakes, gulping them down alongside hard-boiled eggs and spoonfuls of peanut butter. After, they drank wine in Justin’s bedroom, Justin’s laptop balanced on their legs as they held hands and watched Netflix. And when Wes had digested his five-course dinner, they made slow, sweet love, whiling away half the night in each other’s arms.
It was, for three days, perfect.
Colton texted twice on the first day, asking where Wes had gone after practice and if he was coming back to the house. Wes said something vague, that he was staying somewhere else, and Colton told him not to exhaust himself with his girl, that he needed to be ready for the game on Friday.
Tuesday, Wes texted Justin and told him all about the bullshit the guys gave him in the locker room. That they’d bought boxes and boxes of condoms and stuffed his locker full of them, taken some out and blown them up like balloon penises and taped them all around his locker door. They bought horny goat weed and the knock-off Extenze pills that seedy gas stations sold. A couple packs of Monster Energy. “Don’t wear yourself out, man!” Orlando crowed, flicking him a packet of male enhancement powder. “In fact, I want a sexually frustrated tight end on Saturday! Someone who is gonna pound the shit out of Mississippi’s defense!”
“Oh! Maybe that’s the secret!” Art wagged his finger at the rest of the line. “Maybe Wes is so damn good this year because he’s been getting good pussy on the regular.”
“Maybe we should all look for good girls, then. Damn. Your girl got friends, Wes?” Orlando hung off the locker next to Wes, batting his eyelashes. “I wanna be just like you, Captain. Show me them magic pills you swallow.”
The team howled, and Wes let them run wild as he went nuclear fuchsia, blushing so deep he felt it scald his bones. They teased him mercilessly as he suited up, strapped on his pads, and laced up his cleats. He left them snorting in the locker room as he jogged out to the field to run off his nerves.
Thursday, they had a half day of practice, perfecting their plays and running drill after drill after drill. At lunch, everyone came together for the team Thanksgiving. Wes sent Justin a picture of the buffet spread: twelve massive turkeys, five hams, platters and platters of stuffing and green beans and mashed potatoes. Sweet potato casserole by the pallet. A full pumpkin pie for each player.
Wes made two to-go containers and brought a second dinner home for Justin. They ate on the back porch out of the Styrofoam, feeding each other bites off of plastic forks as they shared a bottle of cheap wine in Solo cups.
Wes relayed the speech Coach Young had given to the team, repeating the sections that had gotten stuck on a loop in his mind. Trust and fidelity. The bond they shared. The strength of their love for each other, and how that strength drove their game. How their trust in each other made them unstoppable. The absolute faith they had in their brothers. And in their captain.
Everyone had shouted and stomped their feet and chanted for Wes to give a speech after that, but all he managed to choke out was a thanks to everyone for trusting him to guide them that season, and that it wasn’t him who made the team, despite all the crap on ESPN. It was all of them together. He was nothing without all of them. And he loved