“I’m the team captain, and I have to make sure we’re all focused on the exact same goal: winning. There’s no room in that for me coming out. It’s… unnecessary.” The word tasted like poison. He wanted to spit it out. “I’d be a distraction. I’d hurt us all if I came out.”
And if he hurt the team, he’d be dropped faster than the jobs fled West Texas when the oil prices collapsed. He’d have his scholarship taken from him. He’d lose everything.
Justin wiped his eyes with his fingers, collecting his tears and rubbing them into his palms. He stared at the sky. “You said something like that in Paris.” His voice trembled. “But you also said we could figure out the season together. That we’d have to keep it quiet, but that you would. We would. I thought that was the plan. We’d be discreet. I would have,” he said, his voice thin. “I would have done anything you asked.”
Wes fell into a squat, his hands running through his hair. His vision narrowed, tunneling down to a pinprick as the world went neon. He was going to hurl, and he was going to pass out. He wasn’t breathing right. He got one palm on the ground and heaved in a ragged inhale, fighting back the darkness.
Images flashed like fireworks in his mind. Him and Justin in Paris, walking arm in arm. Him and Justin, kissing beneath the Eiffel Tower. His first-ever kiss with a man. Justin astride him, riding his cock, Wes’s hands running down Justin’s chest as Justin tossed his head back. Justin wearing his hat and nothing else, winking at Wes as he shook his hips.
Justin glaring at Wes, saying I like being anonymous.
Justin surrounded by screaming football fans. Justin chased by a raging mob bellowing and calling him a faggot, a sissy, a cocksucker. Wes tried to get to him, but the mob was roaring at him, too, and keeping them apart.
He saw the mob take Justin down. Saw the punches start to fly, the kicks. Heard the cheers.
Vomit rose, and he couldn’t hold it back this time. He fell forward, both palms flat on the ground. Rancid bile, the remnants of his protein shake and the lunch he’d eaten at the dining hall, painted the asphalt. He coughed, his stomach still seizing.
Gentle hands guided his face up. He followed the touch, opened his eyes, and saw Justin crouching beside him. Justin’s tears were like diamonds on his skin, fallen stars forming waterfalls on his cheekbones.
Wes spat the last of the bile from his mouth, then melted into Justin’s touch. He kneeled on the ground, his cheek buried in Justin’s palm. He breathed in the scent at Justin’s wrist.
“That’s not the only reason why I ended things,” Wes whispered. “I’m terrified—petrified—of something happening to you. Because of me. Because of us.”
“What do you mean?”
“The fans…” He sighed. Brushed his chapped lips against Justin’s pulse, a lightning-fast kiss. “There’s so much love for the game, but there’s also this ugly hatred. When you’re perfect, you’re a god. When you’re not, there are death threats. People say horrible things. Sometimes they do horrible things. We had a quarterback, years ago, who was attacked by a fan because he threw a few bad passes.”
“I remember that. He ended up paralyzed, right?”
Wes nodded. “We get so much attention. I thought I was used to it, before, but now… It’s a whole other level. I can’t go anywhere without being recognized. I don’t have a life that’s my own anymore. I don’t have any privacy. None. And you said yourself, you hate that. You like your anonymity. Your privacy.” He cringed. Curled around his aching stomach. Don’t puke again. Puking isn’t sexy. “If someone hurt you because of me, or if someone attacked you—”He couldn’t say it.
Justin pressed their foreheads together, and it took every bit of Wes’s strength not to break down. He dug his fingernails into the ground. Something came loose inside him, and he grabbed on to Justin, clinging to his elbows.
“Listen to me,” Justin said. His voice was, finally, gentle, like Wes remembered from Paris when they spoke to each other at night, their sweat cooling on each other’s skin. “No one chooses what risks I take. No one decides for me what I think is worth it. You had no right to make that decision for me.”
“But—”
“No buts. If you wanted to end us because you wanted it to be over, fine. But