So family was complicated. He didn’t hate his mom, and he didn’t hate his dad, and they didn’t hate him. He wanted to rip his hair out if he was around them for more than a few hours, and there were still times he caught his mom looking at him, something indecipherable and heavy in her long, silent gazes. But he called regularly, sent photos of him smiling and happy and, most importantly, alone, and told them about the tests he’d passed. They sent birthday and Christmas cards, care packages of cookies, fresh socks and underwear. They paid his tuition and told him they loved him, always.
“Family’s okay.” Justin shrugged. “I’m a nursing major.” Not prelaw, like his mother had planned. Or even business. His father was in sales, vice president of something, and he brought home a bonus every year that had Justin’s mother thumbing through the Porsche catalog and planning month-long trips to Italy for the two of them. His dad had sent him a check for five grand for these three weeks in Paris.
He studied Wes. “Football scholarship… You’re a general studies major?” He winked.
It was a joke how the star athletes graduated. Most of them, at least. Some really studied. But the ones who were going to the NFL and who saw college as a speed bump in the path to their destiny? General studies, GPA 2.5. Every class taught by one of the coaching staff. How much English and history was really imparted in those classes, or was it more like the verb tense of a tackle, and the point of view of a blitz? How to diagram a handoff to the running back?
Wes smiled again, batting the beer glass between his hands. “Public health.”
Justin’s eyebrows crawled up his forehead. “I have never met an athlete in public health.”
Wes stared out the bar’s windows overlooking the street, watched crowds of Parisians mingle. They were in an older neighborhood, and cobblestones faded in and out of asphalt. Tires clacked and rumbled as vehicles drove by, winding through the clumps of pedestrians clogging the road.
“I’m surprised we haven’t had any classes together.” He would have noticed Wes. He would have remembered him. “Some of our early health classes could have overlapped.”
“Nous pouvons être en français ensemble.”
Justin laughed. “You’re taking another year of French after this summer? Shouldn’t you have what you need to graduate?”
“Yeah. But I think I’ll take another year. Maybe go all the way.” Wes shifted. “If you want to work overseas with a lot of the medical relief organizations, you have to know French. And if you want to work for the UN, you need to be fluent.”
“You want to work for the UN?” And overseas medical relief?
Wes drained his beer and looked outside again. “Maybe.”
Justin studied him, the hard lines of his features, the bulge of his jaw. The corded muscles along his neck. The way his shoulders tremored, ever so slightly. “Guess you don’t make that many touchdowns,” he finally said. “Not trying to go pro, huh?”
Wes tipped his head back and laughed.
In the morning, Justin rolled over in bed as Wes slid on his running shoes. He wasn’t trying to catch a peek at Wes changing, not really. He wanted Wes to know he was awake, though, so if he wanted to change in the bathroom or under the covers or out in the hallway, he could. The worst part of imploding friendships was always the accusations, the looks of betrayal. As if he’d been a predator all this time, fiending for a flash of hip or bare chest. Straight guys could be so Victorian when it came down to the nuts and bolts. As if any of his roommates had been his type, anyway.
Wes, though…
They weren’t friends, not yet, but there was potential there. Shockingly. He liked the guy. Wes was more than his cowboy hat and his bulging muscles. He had that still waters run so very, very deep vibe, which was so foreign to Justin’s life it was basically just a movie trope. Strong, silent cowboys didn’t actually exist, right? Apparently they did. And they played some football, too. And took French. And had a shy, killer smile that tied Justin’s intestines up into curly little bows.
“Did I wake you?” Wes whispered. He was sitting on the edge of his bed in his running shorts but no shirt. His muscles rippled, his biceps and triceps and trapezius all moving beneath his skin as he hiked up his