Page 81 of Everything's Better With You
“Just tell me. Please. And keep doing that. Feels good.”
Leslie had been running his fingers lightly over Joe’s back, wishing he could take Joe’s pain away. He was such a strong man, stronger than anyone Leslie had ever known, and to see him in so much pain and yet so trusting of Leslie, was truly humbling.
“So a cowboy rode into town—”
“Thought you were a miner.”
“What?”
“Miner 49ers, right? Dallas is the Cowboys.”
Leslie let his head fall against the pillow. “Right, how could I forget? Anyway, a miner rode into his hometown looking for glory, carrying untold riches in his, uh, bag. His saddlebag. After a day of accolades, flashing cameras—”
“Did they have cameras back then?”
“Joe, this was two thousand eight.”
“No, when the miner rode into town on his horse.”
“Well, it was a Ferrari. They’ve got a horse on them.”
“Whatever happened to your Ferrari?”
Leslie rubbed at his face, his eyelids feeling heavy. He, too, had had a long, painful weekend, but his pain was of the emotional kind. Seeing Carl so frail and weak…it had been difficult for Les and Tim and the other players who’d gathered. They’d gotten drunk at their hotel that night together, talking about the old days, and Leslie had thought about Joe, how he couldn’t wait to get back home to him, how time was so fleeting, and how he was going to convince Joe they shouldn’t wait anymore to be together. Because life made them no promises about how much time they had left, and the team and college community would just have to deal with it, wager or not.
Joe shifted and the towel slid off his hip, leaving him completely naked. At any other time, Leslie would have felt blessed to see Joe’s most famous asset. Now he felt blessed that Joe trusted him enough to be so vulnerable with him.
“Keep up the tickle scratch, Payton. Now, what about the Ferrari?”
“The twins wrecked it.” Joe gasped and Leslie laughed. “It wasn’t their fault. Theyhadtaken it without permission, though, and they were being careful on the backroads, but some guy came flying out of a blind intersection and T-boned them. Thankfully no one was hurt, but the car was toast. They were terrified to tell me, but they handled it way more mature than I thought them capable of being at fifteen years old. Anyway, I never drove the thing anyway. It was a vanity purchase, one Ithought I was supposed to do with stupid money. I took the payout and ended up donating it to the college.”
“You’re such a good man,” Joe said. “I would have made them suffer, though.”
“Oh, their terror was enough punishment. I kept them guessing what it would be. Ended up making them go volunteer at the Veterans Home with me. Giving sponge baths and changing out pee bottles actually turned out to be less of a punishment than I’d thought. It led to their first invention, their first business, and their first million when they sold the patent to a medical supply company.”
“Wow,” Joe said. “Okay, I want to hear more about them another time. Right now get back to our story. So the miner rode into town…”
Leslie sighed. “At the end of a day where the whole town, it seemed, was blowing smoke up the miner’s ass, he waltzed into a bar and was immediately surrounded by coeds wanting his autograph, giving him their phone numbers, but one kid, cocky as hell, stared him down, shook his head, and then went back to his drink and a conversation with the bartender.”
“I wasn’t about to compete with your adoring fans.”
“Of course not. So when I—I mean the miner—could finally break away, he went to the bathroom just so he could walk by the cocky kid and assess the situation. It was then he realized that the cocky kid had been the one who’d played such a mean game of flag football, he’d nearly bested Greenvale’s actual football team. So the miner did his business and then on his way back into the bar, he took the empty seat at the corner of the bar, hoping that he could perhaps talk to the cocky kid.”
“You said, ‘where’d you learn to play football like that?’ And being the asshole I am, I said to you, ‘buy me a drink and maybe I’ll tell you.’”
“I didn’t even know if you were of age. I refused.”
“You did until the bartender assured you I was old enough. He was helpful that way. Anyway, continue your story.”
“The, uh, miner, he eventually caved and bought the cocky kid some fruity disgusting drink and when he handed it to the kid, the bar got super loud because the band started up, so the miner pulled his stool closer—”
“And their knees touched under the bar,” Joe murmured dreamily. “The cocky kid was intrigued by the miner’s attention and thought he’d flirt for a bit, enough to get another drink since he was a broke-ass college student cocky kid and the miner was loaded. But the cocky kid realized the whole ‘nice guy’ image wasn’t an image. It was really true.”
Joe rolled over onto his back and scooted his upper body closer so he could snuggle against Leslie. “Keep going.” His eyes drifted closed and he sighed.
Leslie ran his fingers down the center of his chest. “The miner got so lost talking to the cocky kid that before he knew it, it was closing time. He didn’t want the night to end, though, and the cocky kid also seemed hesitant to leave.”
“Oh, the kid wasn’t hesitant to leave. He wanted to go with the cowboy, I mean, miner. He wanted to have an adventure. But the miner was being all honorable and shit.”
