Chapter 11 #2
Joe woke to the dulcet droning of tired football players trudging down the steps with less gusto than the previous day.
He figured Leslie had tired them out and they weren’t anxious to find out what he had in store for them bright and early.
All Joe had on his agenda was car shopping with Leslie, but he couldn’t sit still and wait around.
He had his morning shake, did his stretches, and then made his way into the common room.
It really was big enough for everything except stunting, so he decided to make himself comfortable.
He took measurements of the walls and ordered mirrors and barres after getting email confirmation from Barry that there was money to pay for that.
Then he set about moving the furniture into the hallway, which he was doing when Matty came out in low-slung holey pajama pants and a T-shirt so ripped on the sides that it was basically a neckline with cotton fringe.
“Hey there, Coach. Need a hand?”
The proud part of Joe wanted to say, “I’ve got this,” despite the fact his back was already killing him, but the saner side prevailed .
“That would be great, thank you. We’re going to be using this space for practices and classes, so I apologize in advance if it gets a bit noisy in here.”
Matty smirked. “That’s where noise-cancelling headphones come in handy, bruh.” He gave Joe a hang loose sign and Joe tried to hide his judgy thoughts.
“Where are you from, Matty?” he asked as they both picked up the ends of a long coffee table built solidly sometime in the 1960s. He fully expected Orange County or Florida.
“Denver,” he said and Joe nodded, hiding his smile. “Originally. But I did live in Guam, Germany, and the Philippines as a kid.”
“Oh, well, that sounds like quite an experience.” Interesting.
They set the table down and Matty stretched out his back, rubbing his six pack. If Joe didn’t know better, he’d think Matty was trying to flirt with him.
“Yeah. Dad was a military contractor. Thankfully, I was already graduated from high school when he moved to Iraq. Mom stayed in Denver.”
They moved a few other big pieces, including the couches, and once the floor was cleared, Joe was pleased with the space.
“This is going to be great,” he said. “Thank you for your help.”
“Absolutely,” Matty said, clapping him on the shoulder.
“Means I can skip lifting today. I’m headed out for my run before the weather gets too hot.
That’s one thing I can’t stand about this place.
The humidity.” He shook his head, gave a little salute, and then headed out the front doors, leaving Joe to stare at the nasty floor.
College kids were not known to be the cleanest, but the amount of gunk that had been hiding under the furniture was unbelievable.
And probably dated back to his time as a student.
An hour later he heard the door open, but he was focused on the second to last patch of truly disgusting wood. He figured it was Matty so he didn’t bother getting up off his hands and knees.
“What the hell are you doing, Twinkle Toes? We’ve got people to do that.”
Joe pushed himself up and sat painfully on his haunches.
“And where are those people? Preparing the school for the kids, right? It’s fine.”
It so wasn’t fine. He hadn’t paid attention to how long he’d been in that position, and when he tried to stand up, his lower back seized up and his knees gave out. So he stayed on his hands and knees hoping Leslie wouldn’t notice he was stuck.
“Joe for real, come on. Let me at least have the Terrible Two come over.”
“It’s fine,” Joe answered through gritted teeth, breathing through a spasm.
He turned his face away from Leslie and counted to ten, hoping the spasms would stop.
When they eventually did, he straightened his legs and kept a downward dog position for a few minutes to stretch out his legs and then slowly rolled up, grateful his back had loosened up.
He put on his biggest showbiz smile and flicked his bangs out of his eyes. “Are you done with practice already?”
Leslie frowned and looked at his watch. “It’s almost noon. I tried texting you, but you didn’t answer. Now I know why.” His eyes softened. “Have you been working this whole time?”
Joe rubbed the sweat from his face with his forearm and laughed a little harder than was called for to be sure he didn’t cry. “Time flies when you’re having the best time of your life.”
“Right. Listen, if you want me to stay and help you, we can get your car tomorrow—”
“No way. Let me just take a quick shower and I’ll be ready. Come on in, I’ll be quick.”
“You sure?”
Joe breezed past him, afraid if he stopped moving he’d stiffen up again, and not in any sort of pleasurable way.
“Yeah, I’m almost done with this floor,” he said as he walked into his apartment, Leslie hot on his heels.
“And I bought some heavy-duty floor wax, so once I get the rest of the fossilized gum off the floor—I really hope that’s all it is.
I’m afraid to think of what else might’ve been under those couches—anyway, I can get a nice coating down on the floor.
” He pulled off his shirt and grabbed his jug of ice water, downing half of it.
He set the metal bottle down hard on the counter and was going to continue telling Leslie his plan, but Leslie’s jaw was nearly resting on the counter.
“See something you like?” He couldn’t resist, but he should have. “Sorry, I’m just going to—”
Leslie reached for him, but let his hand pause in midair. “You know I do. You’re killing me, Joe.”
It was killing Joe, too, the tension, the inability to reach for what he wanted, what was right in front of him. Once they crossed that line—
As if on cue to remind him of exactly where he was, shouts filtered into his apartment from the lobby. Most likely Leslie’s football players.
“I’m sorry,” Joe whispered. “That wasn’t—It’s not fair of me. Let me go shower.”
Leslie swallowed hard and then smiled weakly. “Make sure you come out of that bathroom in more than just a towel?”
Joe nodded, should have said more, but took the easy way out of this awkward interlude. He closed himself in the bathroom and exhaled.
So not fair. Why couldn’t they be naked in Joe’s bed right now?
Oh, right, because for the foreseeable future he’d be living in a student dormitory that likely had thin walls, he had to pretend to be Leslie’s rival, and he needed to be all upstanding and shit.
That meant no more stripteases in front of Leslie, who looked as if he might have popped a vein in his neck fighting the urge to grab shirtless Joe.
It wasn’t fair to play with Leslie’s emotions like that.
Joe knew just how much Leslie cared about him, that he was attracted to him. He didn’t need to rub it in his face.
Quit being a dick.
Joe showered, shaved, ran his fingers through his hair with product and let his curls dry natural.
He dressed in tan cargo shorts and another short-sleeve collared knit shirt, this one black, and put on a pair of Sauconys.
He figured this would count as reasonably covered.
He entered the living space of his apartment as Leslie was ending a phone call.
“Everything okay?” Joe asked. “Did you need to be elsewhere?”
Leslie looked way too proud of himself. “Nope. I just called in the janitorial service for the network studios in Des Moines. They are sending a crew down to redo these floors, paint, hang those mirrors you bought—yeah, Barry told me—and do some maintenance in this building.”
Joe’s chest deflated. “Les, I was going to do it myself.” His voice sounded muffled in his own head so he could only imagine how it sounded to Leslie. “You didn’t have to do all of that. I don’t want you to feel like you have to swoop in and save the day.”
“I just want things here to be good for you,” Leslie said.
“They are good, or they will be. You gotta give them a chance to be.”
“I’m sorry, I thought you would appreciate…I just wanted—”
“You’re making a fuss over me. Do I seem like I need to be fussed over?”
“No, Joe, I just—”
“Would you have done this for anyone else?”
“Joe—”
“Like, would you have Barry’s office floors refinished and walls painted?”
“I want you to be happy here, Joe. I—” Leslie’s face turned beet red and his forehead crease deepened.
“I’m fine, Leslie—”
“I want you to want to stay.”
Leslie’s words hung in the air between them like the crowd shouting at a football game might cut out when their team missed a field goal and lost the game. Even though they’d spoken quietly, their words seemed to echo off the walls of the apartment.
Joe opened and closed his mouth a few times, he shifted his weight, he brought his hand up to gesture, although what the gesture was going to be he had no clue.
Would he have slapped Leslie like Cher in Moonstruck and told him to snap out of it?
Would he have grabbed him by the collar and shaken him? Or kissed him?
“Leslie,” he began, his hand sort of floating in front of him. “I just got here. All right? Give me a second before you start assuming I’m going to leave.”
Leslie exhaled and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”
“What? Coming over this morning? Taking me car shopping? Swooping in like some superhero to save the day? Which part?” Joe made sure the teasing in his voice was loud and clear.
It worked. Leslie gave him a shy smile. “I just…I can’t settle down.
” He barked out a laugh. “I’m like a damn puppy, ready to fetch your slippers or bring you the paper or some shit.
” He brushed his hair back, the baby-fine golden strands looking like silk, and Joe wished he could press his face against it and inhale, wondering if his hair smelled like the sunshine it always reminded him of.
“Les—”
“I want to know it’s going to be okay, that I’m going to have the time with you.”
Joe’s eyes blurred for a minute and he blinked them to clear his vision. This was new for him. Or at least, he hadn’t allowed himself to really think about whether someone would want him to stay. He was always on the move—that was the career he’d chosen, the life he’d chosen.
“I’m here, Leslie. You can settle. As for what kind of time we have together, that remains to be seen. Now, let’s go find me a car so I can sneak away occasionally and visit some smokin-hot upperclassman living off campus.” Joe winked at Leslie.
“Smokin’ hot.” Leslie rolled his eyes.
Joe raised his eyebrows. “God, don’t you know?”
Leslie shrugged and shook his head, kicking at something on the floor as his cheeks burned red. “Stop it.”
“It’s true. Now. Unless you plan on hanging out here at Higdon with me and my new buddy, it’s the only way I’ll see you other than at games, and there we have to be all rivalrous, or rivaly, or however you would say that.”
“Your new buddy?”
“Hmmm? Oh yeah—”
“Hey Joe? Are you done with the—Oh! Hey, Coach Payton. Outstanding to see you.”
Apparently Matty was determined to wear as little as possible in the dorm as he was now in a pair of gray sweat shorts and no shirt with a pair of pink Crocs on his feet.
“If I’m interrupting— ”
“Not at all. Coach Payton is taking me to the car dealership. I need more than pedestrian transportation.”
“Oh, right,” Matty said, pointing to Joe’s feet. “That’s funny. Dude, you should totally get something with all-wheel drive or front wheel, you know, for the weather.”
“I got this,” Leslie said, gesturing for Joe to go ahead of him. “Thank you…”
Matty offered his hand and gave Les a complicated two-handed shake.
“How funny! The football coach and the cheerleading coach going to drive.” He did a little air-steering and then laughed his way out of the apartment.
“You know, because they, like, drive the other team…get it?” But he was already gone before Joe could even begin to question what the hell he was talking about.
“He seems friendly.”
Les said friendly like someone describing a slimy fish complete with a nose wrinkle.
“Yeah. He offered me coffee the first morning.”
Les turned on him. “Now wait a minute, I—”
“Relax, Coach. He doesn’t know my morning preference either.”
Joe grinned as he pushed open the front doors, laughing as Leslie muttered under his breath.
“That’s fine, make fun. Keep it up, though, and I won’t invite you over for my mom’s cooking.”
Les’s smile evaporated as if he realized what he’d just said, and that threw Joe even more than just him saying it.
“I’m sorry,” Leslie offered, reaching for Joe’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean to bring up a painful topic.”
“It’s okay. It’s been a long time. I can talk about her now.”
Unlike Agnes who doted on her boys, Jenna Judd was content to be a dance mom to a point, but whichever man was in her life at the time usually took precedence.
When Joe returned home after college graduation, which she hadn’t attended, he found her living with the latest in a string of con men, and sick.
Within three years, she was gone. Ovarian cancer.
It took Joe a long time to be able to handle any sort of mom stuff.
He’d wanted to move in and take care of her, but she told him to take the first of many traveling jobs, not to stick around where he wasn’t needed.
He was with her at the end, but he’d been bitter.
She’d chosen her latest boyfriend over him as her caretaker, just as she’d done most of his life, when all he’d wanted to do was take care of her.
His best hadn’t been good enough for even his own mother.
When she died, Joe had wanted to call Les with a yearning he didn’t understand at the time.
Later he came to realize that it was because Leslie was the most nurturing person he’d ever met, and the most solid and dependable.
Joe could call him anytime and Leslie would genuinely be interested in what he had to say.
He’d been the perfect un boyfriend then. What if he could be the perfect boyfriend now?