Chapter 3 #2
“You’re mean,” Trevor whined.
“Yeah, but you like it,” Lane teased.
And fuck, Trevor wanted to deny it. Wanted to say no, that was bullshit. But the way arousal was buzzing under his skin now made it difficult to pretend.
“Whatever,” Trevor retorted.
Maybe he knew, but that didn’t mean Lane needed to know.
Still, Trevor couldn’t help but think of what Lane hadn’t said at the end of practice.
“And hey,” Trevor said, shoving an elbow into Lane’s side as they headed towards their lockers, “don’t pull that shit on me again.”
“What shit?” Lane asked absently.
“Taking it easy on me during practice because of . . . um. Well, you know.”
Lane grinned. “What am I supposed to know?”
“You know,” Trevor complained.
“I literally came in here and told you that we’re doing extra reps before practice tomorrow.”
“That was Aidan,” Trevor pointed out.
Lane stripped off his shoulder pads and then the rest of his protective gear.
Trevor had just seen him shirtless, damp from the shower, and he’d looked then.
But now he glanced over and felt his face burning, just at the thought that he could touch all of that.
Lane had told him that he could. That he wanted him to.
He looked away, hoping that his dick would get back on the same page and remember that they were at work, currently.
“Still,” Trevor said pointedly. “You took it easy on me.”
“Oh, what, you want me to be hard on you now?” Lane said with a smirk that should have annoyed, but instead made Trevor want to cup the back of his neck and drag him down to Trevor’s level. Press their mouths together until he finally shut up.
“I want you to be normal about it,” Trevor hissed.
“I’m totally normal,” Lane said, which was a fucking lie. He held his arms up like he was innocent. Which was hilarious, because Lane had never been innocent a day in his life.
Which is why he’d be perfect to experiment with, Trevor’s dick reminded him unhelpfully.
Trevor shoved that thought aside. He was going to have no choice but to finish stripping down and head to the shower in a minute, and if his cock didn’t get on the same page, things were going to get uncomfortable real quick.
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Trevor retorted.
“Brat.” But Lane’s gaze was warm and so was his tone. Like he enjoyed that.
Though maybe what he really enjoyed was riling Trevor up, because Trevor’s reaction riled him up, right back.
“I mean it,” Trevor insisted, trying to drag them back to a locker-room-sanctioned kind of conversation.
“Alright, alright, I’ll continue to be a complete dick to you. Promise.” Lane shot him a knowing smirk. “Especially now that I know you like it.”
Trevor rolled his eyes, but it was hard to deny.
“Come on,” Aidan called over, “let’s get cleaned up. I have a bunch of film we need to watch after lunch.”
“Our glorious leader calls,” Lane joked. “I guess we’d better listen.”
Trevor didn’t want to, but he knew he didn’t have a lot of choices. When Aidan Flynn told you to do something, you did it.
“You’d think if he’s not playing this week, Aidan would like . . . take a chill pill or something,” Lane grumbled as they walked out to his SUV.
“You know him better than me. Have you ever seen him do that?” Trevor sighed, because he was tired too.
The film session Aidan and Coach Zane had put together had been three hours.
“No,” Lane admitted. He unlocked the car and they climbed in. “What do you want to do for dinner?”
It was the first time they’d been alone since this morning. Since driving in, which hadn’t been awkward, not exactly, though it had been quiet.
Mostly because Trevor had been turning over and over in his head what Lane had offered, and the visceral way he’d reacted to it.
Trevor scrubbed a hand over his face. Lane had been trying very hard since he’d come here this summer to take care of them, even though he was absolutely not great in the kitchen.
Even though Trevor couldn’t help but appreciate the thought, some days he did not want to struggle through eating whatever horrible recipe Lane had found on TikTok.
“Something easy. Takeout? You want Thai?”
“Deal,” Lane said. “You want to order and we’ll pick it up on the way home?”
It was not the first or last time they’d done this.
In fact, they did it probably more than they should have.
But the Thai place around the corner from Lane’s building was good, and they’d come up with a decent standard that fit fairly well into the plan the nutritionist had sent out at the beginning of the preseason.
So, everything would be normal.
Thai takeout.
They’d probably put some video games on, after. Maybe Trevor could even convince Lane to puzzle with him again.
Everything totally routine, exactly like they’d normally have done on a Thursday evening.
Except that on a normal Thursday evening, Lane hadn’t offered to have sex with him, and Trevor hadn’t been incredibly tempted to say yes.
Trevor punched in the order, still feeling like he was doing a fairly good job of at least pretending that this was just like so many other evenings after a long day of practice and meetings.
But after they picked up the food and they got upstairs, Lane went to the couch—where they normally ate, not exactly pressed together, but not far away either—and Trevor hesitated.
He hadn’t meant to. He’d meant to act normal. But when the moment came, he froze, thinking about how their knees had knocked together at breakfast this morning. The shaft of sensation that had rolled through him at just that simple touch.
That was not normal for them, and definitely not normal for Trevor.
Generally it took a lot more for Trevor to work his way up to attraction. A whole series of inward trust-building exercises he had to work through, before he could even think about wanting to kiss a girl.
But he wanted to kiss Lane right fucking now.
It shouldn’t have been a problem, because Lane had made it clear that wouldn’t exactly be a hardship. But then why was Trevor still stuck behind the couch?
Lane glanced at him, over his shoulder. “What are you doing?” he asked, confusion wrinkling his forehead.
“Nothing,” Trevor said, but it didn’t sound convincing even to his own ears.
“Are you . . .” Lane turned around this time. “Are you avoiding me?”
“No, that would be stupid.”
“Exactly. It would be fucking stupid. Especially after you lectured me about treating you differently.”
Trevor winced, and Lane patted the couch next to him. “Get your ass over here.”
He could say no. He could tell Lane to fuck off. Of course, historically he’d never been good at that. Probably because he didn’t want Lane to fuck off.
Instead, he skirted around the couch and sat down, at least six inches further away than he usually did, practically gluing himself to the far end of the couch.
It was obvious; it made how much Trevor wanted to do the opposite so freaking obvious, but the alternative was doing the opposite.
And that was terrifying, only because he hadn’t realized how much he wanted to, until he knew it was an option.
Lane sighed. Scrubbed a hand across his face. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Over the years, Trevor had seen a lot of different versions of Lane.
Tired and frustrated. Snippy. Happy. Silly, even, a handful of times.
They hadn’t spent that much time together before the last four months, but they’d spent enough time together now that Trevor knew the Lane he was seeing right now was different.
He’d never seen him look so defeated, not before now.
And over this? Trevor’s heart stuttered. He could picture Delia right now, and how she’d fix him with that earnest look of hers and say, you better fix this.
“What do you mean?” Trevor asked carefully.
“I shouldn’t have offered, I should have kept my mouth shut, it was a bad idea, and I made you feel uncomfortable—”
It hit Trevor suddenly, viscerally, that Lane actually thought Trevor’s problem was that he didn’t want to, and he didn’t know how to act around him now. How to let him down easy.
Trevor laughed, in the middle of Lane’s sentence.
Lane stopped and shot Trevor a glare. “I’m trying to do the right thing here, you know, so—”
Trevor interrupted him again. Didn’t let himself think about it too hard ahead of time, and he didn’t do it with words.
Just scooted over and pressed his mouth against Lane’s.
It was barely a kiss, just a brush of their lips together, dry and barely anything more than platonic.
But it still sent a shock of sensation rocketing through Trevor. He wanted to do more. If that was the point of experimenting, well, he wasn’t sure he needed more. But if he told Lane that, then he wouldn’t get to do it again.
Lane still hadn’t moved, apparently his turn to freeze.
Trevor pulled back, suddenly wondering if he shouldn’t have done that after all. He’d expected . . . well, he’d expected Lane to react at least a little.
When he’d offered had Lane not meant kissing?
Kissing was kind of a big deal to Trevor.
He couldn’t imagine having sex without it, but maybe that wasn’t the kind of thing Lane was looking for.
Or maybe, in the end, it had just been too weird, even though Lane had been the one to come up with the idea in the first place.
Finally, Lane opened his eyes. He cleared his throat, but his voice was still rough around the edges when he said, “I guess that’s your answer, then?”
Trevor had figured that his answer had been obvious for far longer than that, but it would probably be good to just say it. Clear communication might help this from getting messier than it already was.
“Yeah,” Trevor said.
But still Lane didn’t move, fingers clenched into the fabric of his shorts. For a single stupid moment, Trevor thought maybe Lane was afraid that if he reached for him, he wouldn’t stop. But that was ridiculous. Lane didn’t feel that way about him.