by Beth Bolden
“Good to see you again,” Colin said, extending a hand towards Gabe. He was still surprised that was the case. But Jemma was glowing and looked happier than he’d ever seen her.
Gabe could be scary intense and somewhat resembled a linebacker, but Colin had spent the last fifteen years of his life not being intimidated by men built like brick shithouses so it was easy enough to give his hand a firm shake and look him in the eye.
The type Colin seemed to have trouble with had a slimmer, rangier build, dark hair, and an unlimited supply of sarcastic retorts at his disposal.
“Let’s get going,” Jemma said, and led them all inside the facility.
Colin hung back, letting Jemma do the talking. Not surprisingly, Nick went up to the front desk with her, probably to make sure she didn’t actually try to convince anyone that he was her cousin, John Smith.
“You realize you’re about to get every ball in the place thrown at your head, right?” Gabe asked, his deep, rumbling voice threaded with amusement. “Most people never get a chance to hit an NFL quarterback.”
Colin knew. He’d stopped going out for intramurals in college, and tried to stay away from the recreational sports leagues in Miami for this exact reason. Still, he was on edge today, and maybe a physical challenge, even with those gray eyes watching every move he made, might feel really good. Help him work through some of the jitters he couldn’t shake.
“Maybe they’ll all remember the last time I was here, when we played the Rams.”
Gabe laughed. “You threw three touchdown passes. I don’t think that’s going to convince anyone to not throw a ball at your head.”
“Oh, it might,” Colin said with a shadow of Jemma’s evil grin. “’Cause it definitely means I can hit them right back.”
After a lot of hushed conversation at the check-in desk, Jemma and Nick finally returned with their marching orders.
“It’s the local 4x4 tournament,” Jemma said. “They’re not thrilled that you’re a professional athlete, Colin, but there aren’t any rules against it, and this one,” she nudged Nick with her shoulder, “threw a hissy fit. So, you’re in. Just try to remember we’re here to have fun.” She rolled her eyes, which told Colin that last bit wasn’t her contribution but management’s.
When Colin glanced over at Nick in surprise, he shrugged. “We’d only have three without you, and we’d be disqualified.”
“Well I’d better make sure to contribute, then.” Colin might not have cornered the market on sarcastic remarks like Nick, but he could throw down if pushed.
“So how do we play?” Colin asked, as Jemma led them towards a big, open room. To his surprise, everyone seemed to be removing their...shoes?
“We play on a big trampoline,” Gabe explained. “You’ve got to throw and hit the opposing players with the balls without being hit yourself. Last team standing wins. Best out of three moves on to the next round.”
“Sounds simple enough.”
Jemma laughed. “Simple doesn’t always mean easy.”
The first thing Colin had to figure out was how to most efficiently move on the trampoline. He hadn’t been on a trampoline since he was a kid. Nick, Gabe, and even Jemma moved with the confidence of experience, while Colin constantly seemed to misjudge the elasticity of their playing surface.
Still, Colin thought he had enough raw athletic ability and learned skill to compensate for his lack of trampoline experience.
He didn’t.
Before the first match started, Jemma kindly suggested since he was new at this, he might hang back as a second wave, and let Nick and Gabe move for the balls.
“Jemma,” Colin told her seriously, “I won the Heisman trophy. I’m not letting someone else take the lead here.” He didn’t usually bring up the award as a justification for anything, but Nick was smirking in the corner, and he’d already watched him nearly fall over about ten times just during their warm-up. Colin wasn’t used to failing, and he wasn’t going to give up. Especially now. He fully intended to wipe that infuriating smirk right off Nick’s too-handsome face.
“Fine,” Jemma said.
It was a never a good sign when Jemma whipped out the Fine Card. This was no exception.
When the whistle blew, Colin moved as quickly as he could, using the long, certain strides he’d practiced for so many years as a quarterback. And fell right on his ass, only to get drilled, with purpose, on the head by a big, red, bouncy ball.
The other team cheered, and he had to get up off the trampoline, not the easiest task, and hobble off with his dignity in shreds to the sidelines, the first person on their team outed. Even before Jemma, who refused to claim any athletic ability whatsoever.
On the sideline, Colin watched his other three teammates battle for their lives. Gabe, for all his size, was aggressive but surprisingly graceful. He also had excellent aim. As Colin had expected, Jemma wasn’t the best athlete on the court, but she was smart and had the most beautiful pump-fake he’d ever seen, fooling every member of the opposing team at least once as the game progressed.
And Nick? Nick moved like he’d been born on a trampoline. If Gabe was graceful, then Nick was a dancer. A particularly good one. He snaked and jumped and slid around the balls, his body contorting and flexing around every ball thrown his direction.
Not surprisingly, he was the last one standing.
High fives all around and then Nick moved in his direction. “It’s harder than it looks,” he said, not even the tiniest bit winded, despite running around a trampoline for ten high-impact minutes.
“Right,” Colin retorted.
Nick held up his hands. “I was trying to be nice. Would you like advice or would you prefer to salvage your ego in private?”
Colin wasn’t stupid. He hadn’t gotten where he was by not listening to people. “I’d love some advice.”
“Keep it small. Every tiny movement,” Nick said, holding up his fingers only an inch apart, “becomes big.”
Colin chuckled. “Which is why my footwork didn’t work.”
“Forget about being a football player and you might be okay.”
“He can’t,” Jemma piped in. “He actually just…can’t.”
Jemma wasn’t wrong. It was hard to forget about so many ingrained habits and a thousand tiny details that assaulted him every time he stepped onto a field. They defined who he was. Without them, maybe he really was just a great pair of abs.
The next match, he listened and hung back. But like Gabe had predicted, he was a main target, even to the other team’s detriment at points.
At least this round he lasted longer than ten seconds. He even lasted long enough to remind the other team that he’d won a National Championship with his throwing arm. The balls were bigger and squishier to throw than a football, but the same fundamentals applied.
Gabe tried to sacrifice himself to save Jemma, getting outed with a particularly well-thrown ball he couldn’t evade.
That left just Colin and Nick. They exchanged a look, and Colin made a particularly showy move to try to dive for a ball out of range. Nick took advantage of the rest of the balls being aimed at Colin’s head to finish off the rest of the other team.
“I like it,” Nick said, smacking Colin’s hand in a quick high five. “You’re sneaky.”
Nick’s eyes were lit up with excitement for their win. He looked too good – a little flushed, hair mussed, those tan biceps sticking out of his tank. It really was an excellent look, and Colin couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so attracted to someone.
Colin saw a flash of Jemma’s long, dark ponytail out of the corner of his eye and had a sudden, heart-stopping realization who it was exactly that he’d last been so attracted to.
Great.
Colin rolled his eyes. “Everyone forgets that quarterback is pretty much the sneakiest position on the field. I’ve got sneaky in my blood.”
“Not just a pretty cover model, then.” Nick gave him another one of those thoughtful perusals and
the blood Colin had just been bragging about fizzed in his veins.
“I’m going to personally burn your Sports Illustrated,” Colin said without heat. They were definitely flirting; the question was why. Was this just what Nick did? Or did it actually mean something? And what were they going to do together, living in the same house? Flirt until Colin wanted to bang his head against the wall?
“That,” Nick said, taking a long sip of water, “implies that I only have one copy.”
No, they were apparently going to flirt until Colin wanted to bang Nick against a wall.
Colin would have been lying if he’d claimed later he didn’t try to impress Nick at least a little during their next few matches. And that every time he made a good move or threw another dart of a pass to eliminate an opposing player, that Nick’s responsive grin didn’t set him alight a little bit more.
They won the tournament and Colin pacified the dirty looks thrown their direction by promising to treat everyone to beers at the nearby bar – a suggestion that Jemma had whispered in his ear during their last break.
The truth was, he’d done more to hurt their team than help it, but he still felt good. Alive. The way he did after a good workout. Especially if that good workout had a cute boy to make eyes at.
“You’re not subtle, by the way,” Jemma hissed at him as they made their way to their car.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Colin protested.
“You flirt like a sledgehammer.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the obvious approach,” Colin said. In any case, he preferred it, because then there was no question of misinterpreting someone’s signals. And he’d never done enough flirting to be any good anyway.
Jemma shot him a reproachful look as she slid into the driver’s seat.
“Who normally plays with you guys?” he asked, because anything was better than being lectured by Jemma about his flirting technique.
“Gabe’s partner. But he was shot a few months ago, and he’s still recovering,”
“Oh, god,” Colin said. Because what else could you say to that? He didn’t miss the way Jemma’s hands tightened on the wheel, knuckles going white, as they pulled out of the parking lot.
“You must worry about him a lot,” Colin continued.
Jemma nodded.
And then it was her turn to change the subject. “Are you worried about anything?”
Colin nearly laughed over how poorly she executed the subject change. “If you want to ask if I’m nervous about coming out, then yeah, of course, a little. I think it’d be easier if I could just do it. Instead, there’s like six months of preparation and laying groundwork and so many interminable steps in-between.”
“Including Nick.” Jemma’s voice was sly.
“I really wanted it to be you, you know,” Colin pointed out.
“Of course you did. But I would have bungled it. We’re too close. I love you too much. I’d have protected you, not exposed you.”
Colin hated that he was beginning to see Nick was right. But he argued anyway, because he was still having trouble with the idea he’d lost his safety net. “Aren’t I supposed to be protected from exposure?”
Jemma’s glance over was painfully sympathetic. “Sort of the whole point of this article is exposure. So, no. And you’re normally such a closed book. Too closed. Nick will be good for you. He’ll pry you right open.”
“That doesn’t sound very appealing.” Colin made a face.
Jemma pulled into a spot on the street and turned off the car. She turned to face him, her expression serious. “It won’t be. It isn’t. And you should remember how much you like him today in a few months when he’s grilling you. Because you might not like him so much then.”
“He’s asked me to trust him.”
“Is that a question?” Jemma asked quietly.
Colin nodded.
Jemma leaned back in the seat and held his gaze. “He’s a great reporter. One of the best journalists I’ve ever met. I didn’t like him very much at first, but he’s grown on me. And he’s been waiting for your story for a long time.”
“My story?”
“Yeah,” Jemma said, gathering her purse, and opening her door to get out of the car, “he’s always wanted a chance to represent one of his own. Not a lot of you out in the open in the sports world.”
Colin couldn’t get Jemma’s words out of his head. He’d felt alone for so long that it had never occurred to him that he was only one of many in a similar situation. At some point in his life, Nick would have had to make the decision to tell people that he wasn’t straight. Just like Colin had. The thought shouldn’t have been revolutionary, but it shifted his entire perspective enough that it was hard to distrust Nick on principle anymore.
He’d done this, too.
Colin thought back to that moment during the conference call when Nick had laid out his sexuality bluntly. He’d misunderstood and only thought it was a method to soften him up. But it was one man saying to another: I understand.
And he’d tried to tell Colin the day before, too, when they’d met for coffee. Nick had said, “It would have changed my life,” and asked him to trust him nearly in the same breath.
Of course, if he’d actually said these things, had said straightforwardly and clearly, I know what you’re feeling because I’ve felt it, too, Colin might have understood sooner.
He’d been nursing a single beer the whole evening, spending more time in the corner alone than Mark would have been happy with – than even Jemma was happy with. But he glanced up now, and he was looking for only one person.
Nick was standing by Gabe, companionably sharing space and exchanging a few words. He looked relaxed, smiles coming easily, Gabe even getting a laugh out of him once.
Like the rest of the decisions he’d made about coming out, he made this one fast, too. Sliding out of the booth, Colin picked up his empty beer and approached Nick and Gabe.
Gabe didn’t look particularly surprised to see him; Nick, on the other hand, looked astonished.
“I thought you’d grown into the table over there and by the end of the night, we’d have to chip you out with a dull steak knife,” Nick said, and unlike the rest of his remarks, this one didn’t bother Colin because he got it.
While Colin buried his personality behind walls of placid smiles and bland remarks, Nick fought with his smart mouth. And the smarter the remark, the more nervous he actually was.
It was like figuring out a particularly tricky defense; the brilliant flash of evading their clutches for the first time only to throw a long ball to his favorite receiver.
“Can I get you either of you anything?”
Gabe smiled and shook his head. “I’m going to go find Jemma.”
Colin caught the dark look Nick shot Gabe as he turned to go look for his girlfriend, but Gabe merely smirked and kept going.
Tipping his empty bottle towards Nick’s equally empty glass, he asked, “What can I get for you?”
Nick stared at him for a long moment. “Vodka soda,” he finally said.
Colin plucked the glass from his hand, trying to ignore the brush of their fingertips. One single touch and…a spark. As he approached the bar, Colin wasn’t sure whether he was excited or terrified that all it took was one.
By the time he returned to Nick with their drinks, Nick had rearranged his face into his typical, I’m too cool for this expression.
Colin hated that expression. He was pretty sure he knew why it existed now, but that didn’t mean he liked it any more than he had before. In fact, discovering the reason for it made him all the more determined to chase it away.
“Tell me how you got into ultimate dodgeball,” Colin said. Borrowing a page out of Nick’s own book, he didn’t phrase it as a question.
“I got stabbed in the stomach. My physical therapist recommended it as part of my therapy.”
It turned out that understanding some of what made Nick tick didn’t quite prepare Colin for his outra
geously blunt delivery.
“You were stabbed?”
Nick shrugged, like people got stabbed every day – which they did, but not people Colin knew. Not city boys like Nick, who wore skinny pants and probably had a pair of hipster, thick-framed glasses hidden away in his bedside table.
“You’re going to have to explain,” Colin continued. “I’m sorry, but you can’t just say, I was stabbed, and expect me not to ask.”
Nick glanced down, studying the liquid in his glass. He had long, dark eyelashes, and Colin hated how exquisite they were against his olive skin. He didn’t want to be so attracted to Nick because that attraction made things infinitely complicated.
“To be honest, I thought you knew. I thought Jemma told you. It was why she ended up in Rio. I had to go home. I’ve always been…aggressively confident, let’s say, and that finally caught up with me.”
Jemma’s trip to Rio for the Olympics Games. Well that did make sense, because that was when Jemma had severed their will we or won’t we back and forth once and for all, and had sent him an email telling him she needed to take a break from their friendship.
He’d known he’d needed to get over her, but even being three thousand miles away in Miami hadn’t been enough. It had taken Jemma being the bigger person and being painfully honest.
But they hadn’t really been speaking during that time, and so he hadn’t realized that Jemma’s Rio trip had coincided with something happening to Nick.
“I didn’t know, actually,” Colin admitted softly. “She didn’t tell me. We weren’t really on speaking terms for a while.”
“Ah, well, that explains a lot.”
If Nick knew why that had changed; why by the time Colin was in LA to play the Rams in the preseason that things had changed yet again, he didn’t say a word. Didn’t give one hint that he knew that the reason Jemma had felt safer resuming her friendship with Colin was because she’d fallen in love with someone else.
All Colin remembered from that week was every minute of the football game. He could replay every down, perfectly, from memory. He couldn’t remember anything else. Every ounce of what he’d had left after losing Jemma had gone into that game, and then he’d gone home to lick his wounds.