face. “I want to wear your number when I go to the games. Which one should I get?”
“You want to come to my games?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
“I got the impression you really didn’t like football.”
“I really don’t like cowboys, either.” Justin winked, still riffling through the racks. “You know, I ordered a jersey like this over the summer. I mean, when I got back. Actually, I ordered it on the flight home.” He shrugged. “I left it in Dallas. It arrived after…”
Wes’s heart twanged again, another broken string going sideways. A mom and a daughter were looking at the basketball gear nearby, so he couldn’t take Justin in his arms like he wanted to. Instead, he laid his hand over the hangers, stilling Justin’s search. He stepped close, his face almost next to Justin’s. “I have something better. Something just for you.”
Justin moved away from the jerseys. He walked the aisle one more time, laughed at the university-branded lug nuts, grabbed an insulated tumbler, and bopped the Van de Hoek bobblehead. “You’d think you’d get paid for all this.”
Wes shook his head. Pursed his lips. “We’re not allowed to make money on the sport while we’re in college.”
“But the university makes…” Justin eyed the jerseys and other merch, so much of it plastered with Wes’s face or an image of him leaping for a catch or holding the ball as he faked out a defender. “They’re raking it in, thanks to you.”
“We’re supposed to be grateful for the chance to play. And for the free college.”
Justin snorted.
While Justin got in line to pay, Wes waited, spinning a display of touristy postcards next to a rack of bumper stickers. The stickers were the usual mix of university logos and boasting about a son or a daughter at the school or on this or that sports team. Near the bottom, there were brag stickers about academics, too. And then intramurals. He spotted two with the university logo and the word Dance, one with a man and the other with woman striking a pose. He grabbed the one with the male dancer.
Another sticker caught his eye: I <3 my Texas Nurse, with the heart shaped out of a cardiac rhythm. He grabbed it and got in line behind the mother and daughter.
At the register, he added two bottles of water and a protein bar. Justin waited at the door, eyebrows quirked. Wes passed Justin a bottle of water and smiled, then led him back to the truck.
“Got you something.” He fished the dance sticker out of his bag. “Thought you could put it on your car.”
Justin’s lips parted. He took the sticker and stared.
“What?”
“Nothing.” Justin shook his head. “It’s just… My parents don’t even know I dance.”
“Oh. Well, you don’t have to put it on your car if—”
“No one has ever understood why I like it so much. Or supported me in it…” Justin interrupted him, tracing the male silhouette.
“But you were on the drill team in high school.”
“It’s not like my parents put out a yard sign bragging about that. Or a bumper sticker. They didn’t like it. They wanted me to keep playing baseball.”
“I like when you dance.” Wes chewed the inside of his lip. “I really like when you dance. And I liked it when you taught me about the ballet, too. I liked seeing it from your perspective.”
Justin turned big eyes up to him, so wide it was almost painful to hold his gaze. Wes smiled. Held out his hand over the cracked leather of his bench seat. Justin took it and squeezed hard.
“I got this one for me.” Wes pulled out the Texas nurse sticker. He grinned as Justin rolled his eyes.
“Putting it on your wall by your bed?”
“I was going to put it inside my notebook so I’d see it all day.”
Justin’s cheeks pinked. “That works, too, I guess.”
“Can you pass me my duffel?”
Justin cringed as he pushed Wes’s stinky duffel across the energy-drink-strewn floorboard with his foot. Wes laughed as he dug through the bag.
He’d thought this would be cheesy, something they could laugh at. Justin could pin his practice jersey to his wall like a trophy, or laugh at him and shove it under his bed, or even wear it to bed, if he wanted. But maybe… He pulled out his still-sweat-damp, grass-stained practice jersey, clumped into a tight ball, and held it out to Justin. “This is for you, too.”
Justin plucked it out of his hand with two fingers. He shook it out,