Chapter 4
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Lane looked over, watching as Nate approached him on the sideline.
He wasn’t in uniform either. Lane hated not playing.
It was even worse to not play when Trevor was out there.
It wasn’t even that he was taking his first team spot, or the leading tight end role, or that Lane thought Trevor couldn’t do it.
It was more that he wanted to be out there, too. Right next to him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
But Nate just grinned. “Yeah, you fucking do.”
“I don’t know what you think you know—”
Nate interrupted him. “You literally came to our condo and ranted about how you fucked up. You aren’t going to at least tell you un-fucked it?”
“How do you know I did?”
“How do I know? How about ’cause I know you, and despite all the ways that you try to pretend otherwise, you’re not a total asshole.”
“Wow, thanks,” Lane retorted.
“But more than that, ’cause you looked relaxed as hell when you and Trevor showed up yesterday morning. You and him, notably.”
“Why is that notable?” Lane asked, even though he already knew.
If Nate was going to come over here and act like a smug idiot who thought he knew everything, then Lane was at least going to make him work for it a little bit.
Nate rolled his eyes. “Because you’ve been on a sex moratorium for God knows what reason, and Trevor has never struck me as the kind of guy who hooks up a lot. So yeah, you both show up looking relaxed and glowy? I’m gonna notice.”
“We might’ve worked it out,” Lane hedged.
“Good,” Nate said, patting him on the back. “I hoped you would. See? Not the end of the world.”
Except that kissing Trevor and then touching him, watching the wonder and pleasure in his face, had felt like both the end and the beginning of the world.
Lane had stupidly thought that maybe if he was Trevor’s experiment, then he’d eventually be able to get over this and move on.
But if all the sex they ended up sharing felt like last night, shaking Lane’s world to its foundations, then he wasn’t sure that was going to happen after all.
But he pushed that thought away, hard.
The game was about to start, and he needed to lock in—he’d promised Aidan he’d help keep an eye out not just for Trevor, but for Bryce and Max Jefferson who were starting in their first game, substituting for Mo and Jaden, since they were resting before the playoffs started.
“I gotta—” He gestured towards the field, and Nate nodded, pointing to his own earpiece.
“Got it,” Nate agreed.
Lane dragged his attention back to the field as the replacement captains jogged out for the coin toss. He didn’t need to be agonizing or angsting about this, right now.
The refs flipped the coin, the Thunder elected to defer, and the defense took the field.
It was evident, from the way the Giants’ offense moved the ball, that the Thunder was missing a few key pieces of their defense.
Sterling wasn’t playing. Nate wasn’t playing.
Atkinson was playing, and he made a nice open field tackle, finally stopping the Giants past midfield on third down, forcing them to try for a long field goal.
They made it, but it was still a win, considering how many passes they’d let Jaxon Dart complete. How many runs they’d had right up the middle, slashing right into the heart of the Thunder’s run defense.
Out of the corner of his eye, Lane saw Nate frowning as he leaned over Atkinson, some of the other guys playing today huddled around the tablet that he was holding out, showing them a play. One they’d made? Or one they’d missed?
Regardless, Nate didn’t look very pleased.
Lane hoped that he wouldn’t have to be that kind of hard-ass with the offense.
The Thunder didn’t have to win this game—there’d actually be zero advantage to doing it—but that didn’t mean anyone wanted to lose.
Didn’t mean that they didn’t want the backups to play well.
At any point, someone could go down, injured, and backup would need to come in.
This was a good test and good reps for those guys who hadn’t gotten on the field as much this year.
“Hey, kill it out there, okay?” Lane called out as Trevor jogged past him.
At the last second, he hesitated before smacking Trevor on the lower back, close to the ass, in the same way he’d have done a hundred other times.
The same way he had done a hundred other times.
On the football field, during the last seventeen weeks, they’d found the most equilibrium when they played together.
Lane hated when the Thunder had drafted Trevor. But it felt weird just watching Trevor jog onto the field without him. Turned out that Lane might hate this even more.
Turning his head, Trevor glanced behind him, pinning him with a pointed, hot look. Like he knew Lane’s hand had hovered there for a single second and then dropped to his side without doing a damn thing. He couldn’t, of course, but he knew what Lane would’ve normally done, anyway.
Trevor didn’t call him on it though, and a few minutes later, the new version of the Toronto Thunder offense ran their first play.
Wes looked nervous, and like he was trying very hard not to be nervous as he took the first snap.
That was why it made total sense for them to give Bryce, the backup running back, the ball the first play. Get Wes adjusted to the rhythm of play again.
But then Zane, the offensive coordinator, called a second running play, Lane trying not to make a face as he heard the call come through the headset.
The first one hadn’t been all that successful—they’d only gotten two yards—and this one wasn’t adjusted enough to think the result would be any different.
As expected, it didn’t even get them close to a first down.
When Zane’s next play call came in, Wes glanced over at the sideline, right at Aidan. It was a real conservative play. An outlet pass to Carl—it could get the first down, if everything went right, but it counted on the receiver getting at least a handful of yards after the catch.
If anyone had asked Lane, he’d have sent Trevor to the flat on one of his buttonhook routes, curling right around the first-down marker. If Trevor could get the separation, in the soft part of the zone, and then catch the pass, he’d get the first down.
It was the kind of play that won Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs all those Super Bowls: using Kelce as a middle-of-the-field safety blanket. They did it because it worked, and even though Trevor wasn’t quite Kelce’s or Lane’s size, he could do it, just as well.
But Aidan shook his head at Wes, just the slightest tilt of his head, and Wes tilted his back, acknowledging the call.
Nate came over right before Griff snapped the ball.
“What’s this conservative bullshit?” he asked under his breath.
Lane shrugged. “Wes hasn’t played much this year.
” Maybe a handful of minutes at the end of games they’d won handily and some preseason.
That was it. He was probably a bit rusty in a game they didn’t need to win.
They didn’t need him to be a hero; just to manage the game.
Get some reps in in case he had to take Aidan’s place in any of the playoff games.
“This is still crap,” Nate muttered.
Lane kind of agreed.
Turned out that Wes and Trevor both agreed, because right before Griff snapped the ball, Trevor changed sides, moving off blocking, and the moment the play began, he took off the line, running the kind of route that Lane had envisioned would’ve been an easy first down.
Wes dropped back, gaze skipping right over Bryce, the conservative option, and instead threw the ball at Trevor.
The pass was a little high and a little fast, Wes’ nerves evident in how the ball sailed, but Trevor leaped up and Lane gritted his teeth together as he barely came down with it.
If he hadn’t caught it, if it had slipped off his fingers or through his hands, there was a corner closing the gap right behind him.
It would have been an easy interception. Maybe even a pick six, considering that the Thunder were still on the other side of the field.
But Lane let out the breath when Trevor came down with it. Just over the first-down marker, too.
“That was fucking risky, though,” Nate said. “You gonna—”
“No,” Lane said, cutting him off.
Nate just shrugged and wandered back over to Jordan and the rest of the defensive players on the bench.
There was definitely a part of him that wanted to yell at Trevor about it. Aidan could take Wes apart later, for clearly calling an audible that had Trevor moving to the other side. But Trevor? He’d been the one to actually do it.
Lane stewed about it for the next three or four plays. Arguing on whether he should say something or not.
Zane called more running plays. Another pass, that Carl caught, while Trevor blocked. At least Lane couldn’t find anything in his blocking technique to complain about.
Then they were down to third down again, in field-goal range, but clearly hoping for the touchdown, because Zane actually called in two plays this time: the first one, a fairly conservative pass that would probably get them the first down, and a second, much more aggressive play that would get them the touchdown.
“You okay?”
Lane looked over and realized that Aidan had come over, Mo drifting behind him. “Fine, why?”
Aidan shot him a look. “You hate not playing.”
“Does anyone like not playing?” Lane wondered.
He considered pointing out how many times Aidan had sulked this week about being benched, even as he acknowledged it was the right move.
But if he did, Aidan would only sulk again, and he’d had enough of that.
Even Levi had, at one point, told him to cut it out.
Fondly, and ruffled his hair about it, but he’d still said it.
“Nah,” Mo said. “But I’m not mad about a day off.”
Aidan elbowed him in the side. “You’re not helping,” he complained.
“Come on, I’m the best,” Mo said, smirking about it. “Metaphorically and like, totally literally.”