The look on Wes’s face when Colton had insulted Justin, and then after he’d laid Colton out, had stayed with him throughout the game. It was all he saw when he looked at Wes, and later, all he saw when he closed his eyes. Not the linebacker flying at his face, or the scoreboard memorializing their blowout. It was Wes’s face, looking down on Colton like his whole world had shattered, like everything had come undone. Like Colton had broken something he could never fix.
That’s what it had felt like when Colton had read the article about Wes, too. His best friend. The guy he loved more than he loved his own brothers, his own mother.
Nick stomped down the stairs, taking the remnants of Wes with him. If he walked out that door, Wes would be gone forever, erased from the house and the team like he’d never been there.
Other than the hole in Colton’s soul and the empty clutch of his heart, searching for the one it was supposed to beat in time with.
You didn’t work for years to synchronize your existence with someone only to rip them out of your life in a single moment.
Of course, you didn’t lie to that person, either.
Why had Wes lied to him?
How had he missed the truth, though? He’d seen how gone Wes had been this season, how head over heels in love he was. Why didn’t he see that the person Wes loved was right in front of him—literally? Justin, and not Jessica or Jennifer or Julie? Justin.
“Wait,” he called out, chasing Justin’s dad. “Wait!”
Nick hesitated at the base of the stairs. He didn’t turn around.
“Take me to the hospital. Take me to Wes. Please.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
If he closed his eyes, it was almost like they were lying in bed together. Like his cheek was pillowed on Wes’s chest and they were drifting off to sleep in the bed of Wes’s truck, wrapped in the sleeping bag that smelled like campfire smoke. Or they were in Justin’s bedroom, on one of those stolen nights. Or they were in Paris, where he’d fallen in love with his football-playing cowboy.
But when they were together before, Wes’s arms were always around him. Wes always held on to him, cradled him against his big chest. He held Justin like he was precious to him, like he loved him. Because he did.
Now, Wes’s arms lay limp. He wasn’t holding Justin, even though Justin was curled against his side, their bodies fitted so perfectly it was like they were made to be together. And that constant beep drowned out the heartbeat Justin wanted to hear, the steady thump deep in Wes’s chest that always soothed him right to sleep. No matter how much he wished it, this wasn’t another night. And things weren’t okay.
He clung to Wes, his face pressed to Wes’s shoulder. He couldn’t stop crying. It was like all the blood in his body had been replaced with tears, and his broken heart was hemorrhaging out the sorrow in his soul.
“Wes…” His breath hitched. His snot pooled on the thin fabric of Wes’s hospital gown. He squeezed Wes’s arms, digging his fingers into the meat of his biceps. “You have to wake up. You have to come back. Please.”
Wes was power and strength wrapped in a human body. His bones were his convictions, and his muscles were his promises, and his soul was made out of his dreams. He was the strongest man Justin had ever met, in body and mind. This couldn’t be his end. This couldn’t be their end.
“Please,” he whispered. “Please come back to me.”
He’d talked to Wes for hours, all night and all morning, whispering his dreams for the two of them as he stroked Wes’s hair. He reminisced about his favorite moments with Wes, all the way back to when Wes walked into their shared room in Paris and looked at Justin with those big blue cowboy eyes. That first bus ride and how devastatingly polite Wes had been. He’d rocked Justin’s world from that first day.
And Justin had fallen for Wes so fast. There was never a choice between Wes and the Riviera, or the Alps, or Vienna. He’d watched Wes scatter duck feed into the pond, his muscles rippling beneath his faded T-shirt, and he’d gone all in. To hell with common sense. What was the point of being common, anyway? He was going to chase the wild beat of his heart, spend all his