He’d be damned if he was going to be the one who shattered everyone’s dreams because he was different. Different didn’t work on the team.
What happened to teams when guys tried to come out? When it went ten kinds of sideways and everything collapsed? When everything was different, suddenly, and what was out of the closet couldn’t get wrestled back in?
His life wasn’t awful. He had his friends—hell, he had best friends. His teammates. He had his dad. They had each other, after Mama. He had the team, and Coach Young. He had a scholarship and a plan for the future. He wasn’t quite sure his future was filled with the same brightly lit NFL dreams as his teammates’. Maybe, once all his friends were set in their star-studded futures, when they were living in the worlds they drew on their bedroom ceilings every night, he could raise his eyes and take a look at the things he’d stiff-armed away.
Later. In the future. Not now. Not here. Not when he was on the verge of being named the starting tight end, when the rumors were he’d been a serious consideration for the Heisman Trophy last year—and if he had the same kind of season this year, he would be a shoo-in and an obvious first-round draft pick if he tossed his name into the great NFL draft hat.
He’d worked too hard to get here. Too many people were relying on him. Too many dreams were laid across his shoulders. He’d had to bulk up to carry them all, gain forty pounds last year alone. There was no room for his own dreams, his tender hopes. He kept his mouth shut, like he’d learned when he was five.
He breathed out, quick exhales like he was at practice, primed and ready for the snap. Watched water drop into the sink. Heard the splash hit the porcelain. He could do this. He could spend the day with Justin, wandering Paris, exploring and sightseeing—just the two of them in the city of love. He could ignore his crush. Bully it away like he’d always done. Focus.
When he closed his eyes, even to blink, he saw Justin’s face. Heard his voice, the sharp lilt of his words. Felt the force of Justin’s smile smack him in his gut, felt his lungs squeeze as he tried to breathe through the way his skin felt too small and his bones too large. Like he was going to float off the earth every time Justin looked at him with that light in his eyes.
It was probably just the sun. It probably wasn’t what he wanted it to be.
And it didn’t matter if it was. He couldn’t do anything about this.
And… Justin hadn’t given any sign, any hint at all that he was anything other than straight. He was cooler than Wes, that was for sure. More connected to the world, more hip, more into things that were en vogue. Wes still shaved with Brut, something he’d picked up from his dad, who’d gotten it from his dad. He drove a twenty-five-year-old farm truck. He hadn’t ever been to a concert in his life, much less ballet. Culture seemed to roll off him like water on a duck’s back, passing him by without so much as a wave. He listened to the folk and Western music he’d grown up with on the ranch, and there wasn’t a radio station at the university that played anything he was familiar with. Justin’s phone belted out top 40s alongside classical masterpieces, soundtracks to ballets next to R&B legends. Wes felt all elbows and awkwardness in front of Justin, like he was constantly on the verge of tripping over himself, revealing his hick nature, his country.
Even if Justin was into guys, why would he ever be interested in Wes?
He wouldn’t be. He’d want someone fun and bold and hip, someone who knew about dance and pop culture and the world. The world beyond football and ranching. Someone who could talk about something more interesting than what ducks liked to eat. That pocket full of condoms stabbed at the inside of Wes’s eyeballs, rose up like a nightmare to remind him that Justin would tire of him, and soon. He’d be back on the prowl, sliding from Paris bar to Paris bar, or maybe wandering the clubs down on the Riviera or in Monaco, or chatting up a beautiful blond at a winery in the French countryside. Wes wouldn’t have