weekend at the school, and he waited until they were eating lunch on the lawn before he pulled out the tickets he’d printed from the university’s computer lab. He passed the folded sheet of paper, wrinkled from being shoved in the pocket of his Wranglers, to Justin. He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing at all. The tickets would say more than he could.
Justin’s eyes boggled as he stared at the printout and then up at Wes. That searching look was back, excavating the deepest parts of Wes, and he wanted to squirm away, but he stayed, let Justin look. Let him see Wes’s slow, hopeful smile. “I thought you might want to go.”
“Might?” Justin blinked. His hand holding the paper shook. “How did you…”
“I opened a credit card.”
“And you want to go to the ballet?” Justin’s eyebrows crawled up his forehead, reached for the puff of his pompadour. “That hardly seems your scene.”
“I’ve never been. I have no idea if it’s my scene or not. But I know you like it, and I want to take you. Can you show me what it’s like the way you see it?”
For a moment he thought Justin was going to cry, and he panicked, thinking he’d miscalculated, done something horribly wrong. He gnawed on his upper lip, trying to come up with an apology. But Justin leaned over and pressed his lips to Wes’s, kissing him on the university quad like they had no cares in the world. “Some days, I don’t believe you’re real, mon cowboy.”
“I could say the same about you. I didn’t think anyone could know me the way you do.”
“I think I could spend the rest of my life with you, and you’d still surprise me.” Justin’s gaze was equal parts searching and adoring, like he was appraising a fine piece of art, a priceless wonder they’d stumbled on in the museum. “I think there are whole oceans inside of you.”
Wes smiled and turned his face to the sun. The heat slid under the brim of his hat, warming him to the core. “You can dive into every one.”
“Maybe I will.”
The performance was Friday night, and Justin spent the entire day an excited bundle of energy. He picked out his outfit at lunch, then picked through Wes’s selection of T-shirts and his two pairs of Wranglers before telling him to wear the hunter green Ariat and his darker jeans.
“I’m sorry I don’t have anything nicer.”
“You look amazing no matter what you wear,” Justin said, kissing his cheek as he shaved.
They were the most casually dressed couple at the ballet, mingling in the gilded lobby with women wreathed in silk who hung on the arms of men in suits that were too expensive to even look at. Wes spotted opera gloves and pearls like the flappers used to wear in the Roaring Twenties, and even a real peacock feather in an older woman’s hair comb. But no one bothered them, though there were a few raised eyebrows as he led Justin to the orchestra-level seating. Justin clearly knew how good the center-section seats were, and he squeezed Wes’s hand so hard he thought his bones would snap.
Wes lost himself in the ballet, captivated by the dancers’ muscles rippling and clenching, by their deceptively delicate movements that concealed strength and power rivaling those of the running backs and wide receivers he knew. The ballerinas and danseurs had better vertical leaps than he did, and he’d been considered a favorite for the NFL combine had he chosen to go.
The danseur’s skintight leggings that left nothing to the imagination, outlining every shift and curve of his thighs, his ass, and the heft of his bulge, didn’t hurt.
Justin’s previous bare-bones explanation of the story let him follow along for the most part. The prince and the cursed maiden’s love story unfolded through their dance, in breathless touches and the flutter of skin against skin, in how they mirrored one another. He was meant to love the white swan. Wes could see it. He could feel it, even.
The best part, hands down, was how Justin looked as he watched the ballet. The light in his eyes, his smile, the way his lips parted and how he was completely absorbed, swaying gently to the music. The way he held his breath, exhaled, gasped along with the leaps and pirouettes and what Wes learned later was called the White Swan Pas de Deux.
At intermission, nearly everyone rose and filed out, heading to the