“Are any of you the reason why my son is crying over Wes’s unconscious body right now?”
Silence. Feet shifted against the old wooden floors. Orlando turned to Colton, his big eyes asking a question Colton couldn’t answer.
Nick pushed past them. He took the stairs two at a time, stomping up to the landing. Colton drifted after him. “Wes’s bedroom?” Nick growled.
Colton pointed.
Nick grabbed a duffel from under Wes’s bed. It was the bag Colton and Wes had been given their freshman year when they joined the team. The year they met and became best friends. Nick threw Wes’s clothes into Wes’s old duffel, sweeping his laptop and his textbooks and the few odds and ends on his nightstand into the ratty bag.
“What are you doing?”
“Moving Wes out. He obviously can’t stay here anymore.”
The rest of the guys hung behind Colton in the hall. They’d talked about this last night. What the hell were they going to do about Wes in the house? Colton’s mind stuttered and rewound, still stuck on Nick’s earlier shout. He shook his head. “Why is Wes in the hospital?”
“I told you. Someone beat him half to death.”
His friend. His best friend. The guy who had kept pace with him at freshman training camp, even though he could easily have run farther, faster. The guy who caught all his passes, even his shitty ones, and made him look better in front of Coach Young. The guy who told him he was going to be great at the university level, even though he was only a good quarterback from a decent school in Houston and suddenly he was surrounded by players who were just as good as he’d ever been—or better. He and Wes had spent days and nights on that field, practicing routes and passes and plays, running drills, putting in time after practice until they were a clock that ticked the same time. A heart that beat the same beats. Wes worked with him over the summer when he wanted to learn a new offense. Did it again when he wanted to learn one more.
Why hadn’t Wes said anything? Why hadn’t he ever sat down and looked Colton in the eyes and told him, “I’m gay.” He’d had a million opportunities, a million moments he could have said the words.
Why hadn’t he trusted him?
Didn’t Wes know Colton would’ve been there for him? If any motherfucker had ever said a fucking thing to him, Colton would’ve been the first one to beat their face in. The whole campus, the whole world, would have known, Colton Hall was there for Wes Van de Hoek. No one would have said a fucking word to him unless they wanted five hundred pounds of pain raining down like righteous wrath.
So why was Wes in the hospital?
The raw stink of failure unfurled inside him again. They had all been huddled in failure since the game, wallowing in rage. The collapse of their team. The collapse of their brotherhood. His failure as a quarterback.
Someone beat him half to death.
Now, his failure as a friend.
He sagged against Wes’s doorframe and ran his hands through his hair, threaded them behind his neck. How many times had he stood right here, talking to Wes and tossing him a ball as they bitched about Coach and practice and homework? He could still see the shadow of his friend at his desk, smiling at him and wearing that ridiculous cowboy hat. “Is he going to be okay?”
“They don’t know. They don’t know when he’ll wake up.”
He heard his teammates curse behind him. Heard Art stomp down the hall. Heard a door slam and then a fist go through the drywall once, twice, three times. Josh and Patrick turned away and gripped the landing’s banister so hard the wood creaked. Orlando, beside Colton, cursed a blue streak, shifting back and forth like a chipmunk on cocaine.
“Where were you last night?” Nick growled. “In my mind, you all are the best fit as suspects in this. The entire country could see how much you hated Wes yesterday.”
“I don’t hate Wes.” It was reflex, it was automatic. It burst out of him before he’d even thought about the words. He’d felt them, and they fell out without his mind’s permission.
Nick snorted. “You could’ve fooled me.” He zipped Wes’s duffel closed and threw the strap over his shoulder.
“Wes is my best friend.”
“Sure looks that way.” Nick pointed to Colton’s split lip and then shoved past him, his shoulder slamming into Colton’s on