Chapter 2 #2
He still felt wired in that same way, but exhaustion was beginning to pull on him now too. If he went to bed, would he lie there and stare at the ceiling? Trevor wasn’t sure, but they did have practice tomorrow, even if it was later than normal.
He should at least attempt to get some sleep.
“No, I think I’m gonna turn in,” Trevor said.
“Alright,” Lane said with a nod. “See you in the morning?”
Trevor nodded back and realized as he closed the bedroom door behind him, that even if it had kind of sucked, it had still felt good to tell Lane the truth about him. One person down, a bunch more to go.
Lane hadn’t ever gotten less sleep and felt more wired.
He didn’t hold back as he pounded on Nate’s door. Didn’t think he could’ve even if he wanted to.
His heart and his brain had been going a million miles an hour, ever since Trevor had looked over at him, dim light touching his hair with pinkish gold, and confessed that he didn’t think he was straight at all. Wanted Lane’s idea of what he should be doing about it.
Oh, Lane had a lot of ideas, for fucking sure.
None of which he should be vocalizing, but he’d been so tempted, so overwhelmed with the impossible possibilities spinning out in front of him, that he’d not been able to say anything at fucking all.
Embarrassing. But not as embarrassing as how he’d lain in bed later, sleepless and eyes burning, unable to stop himself from thinking that if he’d only lost his goddamn mind and said to Trevor, What if you experiment with me?
He’d only kept the words in through sheer force of will.
Fist pounding on the door again, Lane had a sudden horrible thought that maybe Nate hadn’t gone back to the new townhouse he was sharing with Ramsey between Toronto and Buffalo and maybe he’d driven all the way out here at the ass crack of dawn for no reason whatsoever.
But before Lane could pull his phone out of his pocket and text Nate to confirm that he’d heard Ramsey right, that they’d planned to come back here, the door opened revealing a shirtless Ramsey, hair messed up, eyes sleepy, and gray sweatpants barely hanging on to his hips.
“What the fuck,” he said pleasantly, but there was an accusatory glint in his eyes. And since this was Ramsey, what he chose to do about it would not be clean or easy.
Whatever. Lane was desperate. Desperate enough he’d take whatever secretly evil punishment Ramsey wanted to dole out for waking him up so early.
“I need to talk to Nate,” Lane said, trying to push his way into the doorway, but Ramsey held firm. Surprisingly firm. Reminding Lane that he played hockey for a living and he was deceptively strong and pretty damn good at taking a check—and checking back.
“Why?” Ramsey asked.
“Ugh, why does it matter?” Lane retorted. He considered trying to push Ramsey out of the way again, but two things stopped him: 1) he liked his balls attached to his body and 2) if Ramsey denied him again, there was no way it wouldn’t be embarrassing as fuck.
“It matters,” Ramsey said, voice still uncomfortably even, even as his eyes flashed bright, “because I got like three hours of fucking sleep. It matters because we were supposed to be able to sleep in today. It matters because I went to sleep planning to wake my boyfriend with a blowjob.”
Lane winced. “Sorry?
Ramsey shot him one more look—this one more explicitly promised retribution, at some point and time, probably when Lane would least expect it, too—and then opened the door wider.
“Come on in,” Ramsey said, sighing reluctantly. “Clearly you and the other demon twin did something that you’re freaking out about.”
“What?” Lane gaped at him as Ramsey led him into the kitchen. He punched some buttons on a fancy-looking coffee machine.
Ramsey glanced back at him. “Oh, you thought you were being subtle about that, huh?”
Lane glowered. “Maybe.”
“Maybe for anyone else,” Ramsey said flatly. “Nate’ll be down shortly.”
“Nate’s here,” the man himself said a moment later as he rounded the corner and leaned against the counter. “What’s the emergency, dude?”
Lane opened his mouth and snapped it shut.
It wasn’t really an emergency. But then if it wasn’t, why had he lain awake for hours, replaying what Trevor had said to him, and then his own piss-poor response?
If it wasn’t an emergency, why had he finally given up the idea of sleep and driven here, panicked and euphoric in equal measures?
“Turns out that Trevor’s not straight,” he said. “Nobody else knows, but he told me. I know I should keep it to myself . . . but I’m kinda freaking out.”
Freaking out was an understatement, honestly. Trevor had told him last night, and yet saying it, admitting it out loud not just in his own fucking head, hit him in a whole different way. Lane slumped down onto a barstool, apparently past the point where he wasn’t going to let this fuck him up.
No question, it was fucking him up.
“Well, duh,” Ramsey said, from his spot over by the coffee machine. He finished tamping down something and pushed it with some force into the machine. “I can’t have this conversation without a whole lot of fucking caffeine,” he muttered under his breath.
“Espresso?” Lane asked hopefully.
Ramsey rolled his eyes. “Shows up at fucking dawn on New Year’s Day. Pounding on the fucking door with news that’s only news to him. And then he wants coffee.”
Nate crowded into Ramsey’s space, winding his arms around Ramsey’s waist, kissing his neck. Lane watched it happen, thinking stupidly of how he might’ve started this morning if he’d been able to say something other than uh and um to Trevor.
“Baby, I’m sorry,” Nate murmured, the words just barely audible to Lane. “You gonna make us all coffee? It kinda seems like Lane needs it.”
But no, it didn’t matter if he’d gotten something out of his uncooperative mouth, the idea was still catastrophic. Even if Trevor wanted it, which there was no guarantee he did. He’d probably only told Lane because Lane was gay, not because he wanted Lane.
That would be insane.
“He fucking does,” Ramsey complained. “Showing up at six a.m. and demanding to talk to you.”
“I’ll make it up to you later,” Nate promised. Ramsey shot him an unamused look, but Nate just laughed, clearly not worried about it.
Lane didn’t even know what that kind of trust, that kind of faith, felt like.
He’d never had it. Never even had a boyfriend, because that had never felt fair, not when he was so hung up on Trevor.
He turned away, eyes suddenly burning—with exhaustion, he told himself, but deep down, he knew it was something else.
Nate grabbed the milk from the fridge and, a minute later, coffee was in front of Lane, who took a grateful sip.
“So,” Nate said, slipping onto the barstool next to him, his own coffee cradled in his palms, “what happened? You guys didn’t seem too drunk when you left Vault. Did you go someplace else?”
“We didn’t get drunk and . . .” Lane swallowed hard. “Hook up. We went back to my place. Drank some Gatorade. Worked on some of Trevor’s stupid puzzle, and then he told me he wasn’t straight.”
Nate raised an eyebrow. “You did some of Trevor’s puzzle?”
“Shut up,” Lane muttered.
“So what did you say after that?” Nate asked.
God, this was the worst of it. “Nothing,” he said, staring into his coffee cup. “Absolutely fucking nothing.”
He ignored the bark of Ramsey’s laughter from the other side of the kitchen.
“Babe,” Nate chided, glancing up at his boyfriend, who was rearranging the contents of the refrigerator. “Be nice.”
“He woke us up at fucking dawn,” Ramsey complained. “Completely destroyed my very sexy New Year’s Day wake-up plans. He deserves at least a little shit for that.”
“Wait, what plans?” Nate asked.
Ramsey flicked a look over his shoulder as he lifted a frying pan from a drawer. “Don’t you wish you knew?”
Lane wasn’t even surprised when he felt a sharp elbow in his side. He probably deserved worse. “You owe me,” Nate muttered.
“I know.” Lane downed half his coffee. “But he told me, and it was like my whole brain went offline.”
“All the blood went straight to your dick,” Ramsey chimed in again.
Nate didn’t even bother to argue with that assessment this time, which really said it all.
“Yeah that, but also . . . he wanted advice. God, I’m the worst person to go to for advice.”
“Please tell me you offered if he needed to experiment, you were one hundred and ten percent available,” Nate said.
Lane groaned.
“Unbelievable,” Ramsey muttered.
“Lane,” Nate said, undeniable reprimand in his voice, “did it occur to you that Trevor was telling you because he wanted you to offer?”
It had. But it had also occurred to Lane that he might not be able to touch Trevor and go back from it.
But also, wouldn’t it be better to know what it was like once and for all? Maybe if he finally could touch Trevor the way he’d dreamed about for so long, he’d be able to satisfy the craving and then dismiss it forever.
“I just . . . I fucking blanked, okay? It was not my best moment.”
“Sounds like it,” Nate said in a gentler voice. “How did you leave it?”
“I fucking told him to download Grindr,” Lane said. He couldn’t believe he’d made that suggestion. Had he lost his goddamn mind?
“Oh my God,” Ramsey said.
“Seriously?” Nate asked.
Lane buried his face in his hands again. “I’m so fucking stupid.”
“Nobody is arguing with that,” Ramsey pointed out dryly.
“Babe, you gotta take it easy on him. Have another cappuccino,” Nate chided gently.
“He deserves it,” Ramsey said.
“No, he’s right. I deserve it,” Lane whined. “What was I thinking?”
“You weren’t.” Nate patted him on the knee. “But positively, you can fix this.”
Lane wasn’t sure he wanted to hear this. But what else could he do but listen? He’d already fucked this up, enough.
“Did you at least give him the coming out pep talk?” Nate asked.
And God, he hadn’t even done that. He’d handled this about as shitty as he could, from beginning to end.
“Nope,” Lane admitted morosely.