“I want it to look like I support you,” Justin said, his voice sharp. “Stop deflecting. I’m not asking for an impossible answer. I want to know whether I can acknowledge that I know you when we see each other. What are the boundaries when we’re in public?”
“Of course you can acknowledge that you know me.” Jesus, did Justin think he would keep him hidden away like a dirty little secret? “I want to see you every day. I want to spend every free moment I can with you. I want to meet you for lunch between practices and do homework together. I want to take you on dates and drive out to the country like this. Watch the stars and—”
“Fuck in the truck bed?”
“Make love to you every chance I can. It won’t be easy with my schedule, but I want to be with you. Really with you. I’ll make time, I swear it.”
“People might think we’re friends if we do all that.”
“Good. I hope they do.”
“Oh,” Justin said simply.
“Is… that what you want?”
“Yes.” Justin cradled his face. Smiled. “Yes, but I didn’t know if I’d get what I want.”
“You will. I promise.”
They kissed until Wes couldn’t ignore the forward march of time any longer. “I have to get back,” he said against Justin’s lips. “I have practice.” Justin kissed him again, rolling onto Wes’s lap. His long hair fell in a curtain around Wes, shading his face. Wes twirled the strands in his fingers. Brought the ends to his nose and inhaled. “My hat still smells like you, you know. I haven’t been able to wear it since Paris because it smells like you.”
Justin dropped a chaste kiss on Wes’s lips. “You can be ridiculously romantic, you know that, cowboy?”
“It’s the truth. I’m just saying it like it is.”
Another ten minutes passed before Wes could stop kissing Justin long enough to clamber out of the truck bed, and then another five while they kissed against the passenger door. Justin finally pushed him away, laughing when he came in for yet another tangle of their lips.
There was no way to make it back on time, but Wes didn’t care. He didn’t even speed. He kept the needle just under the limit, holding Justin’s hand as his back twanged and his eyes burned like he’d rubbed sandpaper right over the fronts of both. He was exhausted, worn out all the way to his bones. But he was also so weightless he could fly all the way to campus, spread his wings and soar, take Justin’s hand and skip along the tops of the corn they passed by. Swing from the puffy arm of a dewy cloud.
He pulled onto Opal Street twenty minutes after practice started. “I’m sorry you’re late,” Justin said.
“I’m not.” He parked at Justin’s doorstep and smiled, suddenly shy. “Can I text you after practice?”
“Yes. Please do.”
Wes pressed his lips together. “I’m sorry about Rafael. And interrupting your date.”
Justin shoved open Wes’s rusted truck door. The hinges squealed, and he slid out, landing on the concrete with a spring in his step. He grinned at Wes. “I’m not.”
Wes kept smiling, all huge and goofy, his cheeks flushing as he gripped the steering wheel. He chuckled and shook his head, rubbing his fingers against his temple.
“Go on,” Justin said softly through the open door. “Get out of here, cowboy. Before you spend all morning smiling at me, and then you’re really late for practice.”
“It’d be worth it,” he said, shifting back into drive.
Justin rolled his eyes. “Such a cowboy.” He slammed the truck door and stepped up to the curb.
Wes watched him in the rearview mirror as he drove away, all the way to the end of the block, and even looked over his shoulder when he made the right off Opal and turned toward the stadium. Justin was still outside, watching him. Wes waved, and Justin lifted his fingers and waved back.
He floated into the empty locker room and dressed in under a minute, humming as he strapped on his pads and laced up his cleats. Justin’s smile played on a loop in his mind. He could still taste Justin’s lips. Could still smell his hair and his skin.
Nothing could take this feeling from him. Nothing could take the joy from his heart. Justin, despite all Wes’s mistakes, still loved him. Justin had beaten some sense into Wes’s head, too, straightened out his broken thoughts. Unkinked his spiraling rationalizations.