The Quarterback: CH. 4

CHAPTER FOUR: MR ATOMIC BOMB

The sun comes in slow. Too slow. It crawls across the dorm room floor like it doesn’t want to be there, slipping over the edge of Malik’s bed and spilling across the rumpled sheets like proof. Proof that it happened. Proof that it wasn’t just a dream, or a fantasy, or one of those private, post-midnight thoughts we pretend we never had.

There were a lot of those thoughts. They came at inconvenient times — in locker rooms, watching him peel his jersey off like it was part of his skin. In the backseat of cars, when he’d fall asleep on long drives and his head would drift a little too close to my shoulder. Once, sophomore year, during a sleepover in our old apartment — he’d passed out shirtless, sprawled across my bed, and I remember staring at his collarbone in the dark, willing myself not to reach out. I told myself I could live with wanting him, as long as I never said it out loud. As long as I never did anything stupid.

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