Tim took another sip of his soda, then dumped it out on the ground. Not drinking wasn't actually as bad as he thought it might be, but hanging out at this party watching his brother and Tyra—well, there wasn't a drug good enough to make that not painful.

He looked down at his watch. It was only 10 pm. The night was early. Mrs. Street had asked him if he wanted to go out to get something to eat with all of them before they took Jason back to rehab, but the look on Lyla's face told him that wasn't an option.

It was so weird to have Jay there at the game—in some ways it felt like old times, but more than that it was a harsh shot of reality. Jason wasn't coming back to the team. He wasn't going to run out on the field ahead of them again. No, any time he went out there now it would be in that chair.

Going to the lake with Lyla had been good—hell, it'd been amazing, but at the same time there were so many secrets that sometimes it had felt hard to breathe. They all had to not talk about what had really been going on, how they had all betrayed each other.

It was almost laughable, because Lyla was so damned worried about Jason finding out about them and it would crush Jason, but what would Lyla do if she found out about his other love? What would she do if she knew that he and Jason had been together? Would she be relieved? Would it let her off the hook? Would she be crushed to find out that the last two years, in some ways, had all been a lie?

If she asked, he wouldn't be able to tell her of a time when he didn't love Street.

Tim turned, looked at the crowd, dancing and celebrating the win. He knew that it was his night and he should get in there, but all he could think about was Jay and putting the football in his hands. He sighed and then reached into his jeans for his keys. This wasn't his scene anymore.

 

---

"I should go," Lyla said as she leaned in to kiss Jason one more time.

He raised his hand up and ran it down her hair. Now that he had the neck brace off, she was more comfortable around him, tonight even crawling in and lying down on the bed next to him.

What was the truth? He thought he knew what he had seen on the street by Lyla's car, but there was no sign of any guilt from either Lyla or Tim. If anything, things were better. After that six week hiatus, Tim seemed like himself again, like someone had flipped a switch.

But there was also that lingering feeling that something was wrong. Jason could sense it, even if there was no outward sign. But what he truly couldn't figure out is whose betrayal hurt more. Tim's? Or Lyla's?

"You okay, babe?"

Jason looked over at Lyla. She was standing next to the bed now, her purse on her shoulder.

"You seemed to go somewhere? Were you thinking about tonight?"

"Uh, yeah," Jason stammered. Something like that.

"Everyone was really glad you were there," Lyla responded, smiling. "I was so proud of you."

Jason closed his eyes, then opened them and looked back up at her. "It wasn't so bad."

"And pretty soon, you're going to get out of here and go home," she added. "And everything will get back to normal."

"Can you turn out the lights when you go?" Jason asked. "I'm kinda tired."

Lyla leaned in and kissed him one more time. "I'll be back tomorrow. Night, baby."

Jason could hear her heels as she walked down the hall toward the elevator. He knew Francine would be in any minute to get him ready for bed. He was ready to be home as well, to be back in his room and to not have a revolving staff of people coming in and out managing his life.

He wanted to just get back to life - to go to math and history and have lunch in the cafeteria with Tim…

"Six?"

Jason turned and saw Tim standing in the shadows.

"Didn't see you there, Timmy. Come to get your ball back?" Jason asked.

Tim didn’t reply. He stood near the door, looking over at Jason.

“Tim?”

Tim moved slowly over toward the bed. “I waited…waited ‘til I saw her leave,” he said as he drew close to Jason’s bed.

“Yeah,” Jason answered. Before it had just been this thing between them…this thing they never talked about, that didn’t seem to really exist. He had Lyla and Tim was with Tyra. They weren’t jealous of it; it just was what it was.

“Six?” Tim said again. “I—I miss you and I can’t…”

“Can’t what, Tim?”

Tim reached over and took Jason’s hand. His whole body was a stranger to him, but these hands were the worst. They looked like foreign bodies and it bugged him that they looked so strange, so abnormal. But he could feel the calluses on Tim’s hand against the back of his, where the sensation was still pretty normal. Tim raised Jason’s hand to his mouth, bringing Jason’s fingers to his lips and kissing them softly.

“I thought I couldn’t see you this way,” Tim finally said. “Like if I never came here it would be like you left me one day and that was it.”

“I didn’t leave you,” Jason responded, quietly. “You left me.”

Tim lowered Jason’s hand back down, his head dropping so his hair covered his face. He took a deep breath, trying to cover the tears that he wasn’t going to be able to stop.

“That’s what Riggins’ do, Jay. They leave.”

Tim turned and started to step away.

“Don’t.”

Tim stopped and turned his head back to look at Jason, staring straight at him, his face fixed with that look he got on third down and long.

“That’s not you, Timmy. You don’t run out. You don’t run out on me.”

Tim looked over toward the door. The hall was quiet, the lights dim as the staff finished their rounds for the night.

“Does somebody come in here?” Tim asked, gesturing toward the door.

“Uh, yeah—someone will. They have to get me set up for the night,” Jason answered.

“Can I wait until that’s done?” Tim asked.

Jason looked at him, trying to read the expression on Tim’s face. “Yeah, Tim. Go get a coke. Give me about twenty minutes.”

 

---

Tim waited more than a half hour. He wasn’t sure what it meant to get Jay set up for the night, but it seemed like the kind of thing a guy would want some privacy for. He waited until he saw the nurse head back down the hall, before slipping back into Jason’s room.

“Thought you left,” Jason said as Tim closed the door.

Tim crossed the room and stood next to the bed. “No…I just…”

“Relax, Tim,” Jason said as he stretched his left hand out for Tim’s. “It might not seem like it, but I’m still me.”

Tim wasn’t sure quite why he had come back, what he wanted to do…could do.

“You can get into bed with me,” Jason said, answering Tim’s silent question. "Just pull the curtain around the bed."

Tim pulled the curtain, cutting the area around Jason's bed off from the rest of the room, slipped his shoes off, and then paused.

“Slide me toward you,” Jason instructed.

Tim looked at the bed, noticing the tube snaking down toward the near side of the bed. He needed to move Jason but not mess that situation up. He reached up and gently slid his friend toward him.

He had held Jason earlier that week, when they had taken the trip to the lake. It was a new experience. The old Jason would never have let Tim have control like that. It had never been like that between them.

With space created, he moved around to the foot of the bed, pulling off his t-shirt. He dropped the railing and crawled in next to Jason. He traced across Jason’s chest with his hand, remembering how they would sneak moments, at his house and sometimes at Jason’s.

“Can you...can you feel me doin' this?”

“Yeah,” Jason responded as he reached up to guide Tim’s hand to the skin just above his nipple where he could still feel. Therapists, doctors, nurses and aides had been touching him constantly over the past two months, but nothing felt like having Tim’s hands on him again.

Tim turned his head and slowly kissed Jason’s neck. He worked his way up, slowly moving around the edge of Jay’s ear. He kept slowly teasing the cartilage with the tip of his tongue.

Jason worked his hand along Tim’s chest, reaching down to the edge of his jeans.
“Let me touch you,” Jason said, his hand fumbling at the waist of Tim’s pants.

Tim reached down and unbuttoned his fly. He squirmed slightly, pulling the tight jeans off until he was naked next to Jason. Jason tried to maneuver his left hand over to touch Tim’s growing erection.

“Dammit,” Jason swore as he dropped his hand back on the bed. “It’s no good.”

Tim, stopped kissing him, and lay there for a moment. Then he rolled on his side, slid a leg over Jason’s body and sat back up, resting on Jason’s legs. He guided Jason’s hands up to his hips and slid forward.

“Don’t use your hands,” he instructed Jason as he slid forward, the tip of his penis touching the spot he knew Jason could feel on his chest. He rose up slightly on his knees and drew closer to Jason’s mouth.

Jason took Tim into his mouth, first teasing at the end of the shaft, then working his tongue further up and down it.

“See, it’s just like using a straw,” Tim teased as Jason grew more persistent in his maneuvers.

Jason stopped and looked at him. "Now you joke? During sex?"

Tim looked down at him, his face serious. "God, Six—I missed you. I miss you."

"I'm still here," Jason replied. "I know it's different now, but I'm still here."

Tim traced his fingers down Jason's chest. "Is it—is it just like nothing?" he asked as he moved lower.

Jason shivered slightly as Tim's fingers crossed the sensitive area between normal sensation and nothing. He moved his hand up near his shoulder. "Here it feels like it always did." His hand moved lower. "Here there's a band and it feels weird. It's like I can feel you, but it's not the regular feeling. I can tell your hand is there, but not if you're pressing or if it's hot or cold."

He awkwardly took Tim's hand in his and moved it lower to his abdomen. "And here, yeah—I don't feel anything here."

Tim could feel that the muscles were slack against his fingers. He had loved to move his fingers up and down Jay's six pack, feeling the definition as the muscles rippled underneath his touch. Jay was ticklish on the side and Tim could torture him with just a few light touches. As his hands moved over the sensitive spots, Jason didn’t even stir. Used to be ticklish.

Tim rolled back on his side next to Jason, his hands still on Jay's stomach. As he leaned into kiss Jason again, the door opened.

"Shit," Tim whispered.

"Be cool," Jason replied.

"You got a girl back there, QB?" Jason heard his roommate ask.

"Uh, yeah, Herc. Think I could get a little privacy?" Jason asked, trying to keep his voice calm.

"You aren't stepping out on the lovely Lyla, are you?" Herc asked. "You got that tall drink of water over there? Sparky?"

"Herc…" Jason warned.

"Yeah, I got you. So, you need me to clear out of here, QB?"

“Don’t let him come back here,” Tim whispered.

“Shut up,” Jason replied.

“Seriously, dude—what is going on in there?” Herc asked.

“You need to stay here, tonight, buddy?” Jason asked, trying to keep his voice causal.

Herc laughed. “Ah, so you’re havin’ a slumber party over there. I get it. Catch you in the a.m., QB.”

The boys lie silently in Jason’s bed until the door closed again.

“I should go,” Tim said, as he sat up and reached for the t-shirt he had dropped on the chair next to the bed.

“I want you to stay…” Jason started.

“I know,” Tim replied, standing next to the bed, watching Jason. He reached down and carefully slid Jay back into the middle of the bed. It was so hard to look at him that way—Jason had always been his rock, the one he counted on.

“You don’t think…” Tim started, but quickly stopped.

“Think what?”

“You think anyone knows about this, Jay? Do you think Lyla knows? She was really on me about coming here, seeing you. Does she know?”

Jason looked up at Tim. Riggins had that hurt look, the one that Jason had only seen a few times. He had it the night his mom died and again when he showed up in Jason’s room to tell him his dad had gone and left him with Billy.

He had the look the night he came to the hospital before the Arnett-Meade game.

Why did Tim care now? Weren’t they all lying to each other? He had been lying to his girlfriend for two years and now his girlfriend and Riggs were lying to him. It was almost too messed up.

“Don’t worry about it, Timmy. Get some sleep. Coach is going to be expecting big things from you from here on out.”

Tim leaned in and kissed Jason softly on the lips. He whispered “Texas Forever” then turned and headed for the door.

At the door he stopped and looked back at Jason. How did things get so messed up? Before, when it was just him and Jay, it hadn’t been such a big deal. It was their thing. Now there was Lyla and she was right—they had to think of Jason and nothing else. They didn’t have the benefit of making things a bigger mess--it was all just getting too complicated.

The hall was empty, so he headed straight for the elevator. As he waited, he turned and looked out the window. He had parked his truck in the same spot Lyla had used the other night. It was right there.

Street had seen them. He knew. The elevator door opened and before Tim could step in, Herc wheeled his chair off the elevator and into the hall. He paused and looked at Tim.

“Forgot my night shirt,” he said before he pivoted and headed toward the room he shared with Jason.

Shit. Tim paused, wondering if he should go back, then thought better of it and headed for home.

Complicated indeed.