go to your room. You don’t need to haul your TV in here.”
“I’m going downstairs to get a beer. You want?”
“Sure.”
Colton grinned again and disappeared, thundering down the stairs like the elephant he was. Wes heard him tell the guys he was going to hang with Wes, that they were going to chill out without the rest of the losers. The guys started heckling him, teasing Colton that all he was doing was going to watch practice tapes with Wes, that they were going to do some kind of woo-woo shit to increase their psychic bond. Or jack off together to SportsCenter. Wes clung to the railing at the second-floor landing, torn between laughing and crying. He missed his friends. He missed the man he used to be, before he knew about the man he could become when he was in love. He missed messing around and talking smack, falling into the corner of the sagging couch and letting the bullshit flow around him as he sucked down a beer. He missed everything about his old life.
But he missed Justin a thousand times more.
Colton reappeared, taking the steps two at a time with six beers clenched in his massive fingers and a bag of chips under one arm. He jerked his head down the hall, to his larger bedroom near the back. Wes had the smallest room—not even a bedroom, technically. It must’ve been a coat closet or a secretary’s office way back when, but it was the right price and he didn’t mind the small space. He didn’t have anything to fill it with anyway.
Colton had a large room with a big king bed, a couch, a desk, and a flat-screen TV, and both an Xbox and a PlayStation. They flopped on the couch as Colton called up the game, and, for a few hours, Wes lost himself in digital football, in trying to beat Colton, the house Madden champ. For a few hours, at least, he could pretend to feel normal.
His cell phone alarm went off at ten p.m., though. He silenced the alarm and ended the game, then stood and stretched. “Gotta get to work.”
Colton chugged his third beer, nodding. “Come back after if you want. I’m just gonna chill.”
The rest of the gang downstairs had settled into watching movies and lounging around. The bass from whatever horror flick they were watching thrummed through the floorboards. Colton never said it, but he didn’t like the slasher flick movie nights. He always found something else to do, found somewhere else to be. While Wes was working, he’d most likely bang around his room, play video games, flop on his bed. Be bored. Maybe pull up tapes to watch, like they’d heckled him about earlier.
Wes held out his fist for a bump. “Thanks.” He wasn’t necessarily feeling better, and maybe he never would, but the hours with Colton had been a distraction from the agony living inside him. And for that, he was grateful.
Colton smiled. “Anytime. Really. And, you know, if you wanna talk about it…”
Wes pulled open Colton’s bedroom door. “Catch you later.”
“Yeah, bro.”
He changed into jeans and the least smelly T-shirt he could find, pulled on his boots, and grabbed his ball cap. He eyed his cowboy hat, sitting on top of his desk, but, like every other day, he left it behind. He caught a couple waves from the mess of his teammates flung across the mismatched couches and love seats and duct-taped recliners in the living room as he headed out the front door.
Wes shoved his hands in his pockets as he slouched down the block. He didn’t have time for a steady job during the season, so he took whatever he could get. For now, that was unloading the late-night delivery truck at Daisy Lane, the quirky little café at the heart of West Campus, where slam poetry nights and third dates mixed with study groups and back-room video game competitions. Dance groups practiced on the front lawn under the oak tree, and every time there was a home game win, Daisy Lane turned into the West Campus block party headquarters. The celebrations spilled from the front and terraced back decks up and down the adjoining blocks and into the winding, tree-lined streets. Daisy Lane was open 24 hours a day and was always packed.
He nodded his hello to Miguel, the head cook, and then got to work hauling boxes and crates off the delivery truck and into the storeroom and the walk-in freezer.