Chapter 16 #2
It was clear he had, and it wasn’t like Lane could argue with that for himself, either.
His brain was tired, too, but there was something teasing at the edges of his consciousness.
Some kind of certainty that if he looked hard and thoroughly enough, he’d find a way for them to beat the Patriots and he and Trevor would get a chance at that kiss.
Famously, Sam Crawford and Heath Harris had been the first same-sex couple to kiss after winning the Super Bowl.
They weren’t the only ones now—when the Piranhas and Condors had won, they’d had multiple couples making out on that stage, which had been hilarious, because the commissioner hadn’t seemed to know where to look.
Especially when the Piranhas had won their second, because the head coach and the defensive coordinator had even been locked together in a tight embrace.
But it was their turn.
Lane wanted it for him and Trevor. Wanted to give Aidan his second ring, because he couldn’t think of a quarterback who deserved it more.
He picked an early season game that the Patriots had played, and lost, in fact, and was almost halfway through when he felt Trevor drop down onto the couch next to him.
“Was thinking,” Trevor said.
Lane hit the Pause button and then glanced over. “Dangerous,” he teased.
Trevor rolled his eyes, but looked pleased. “I mean it. I was thinking, we should tell people. I want to tell people.”
Was it possible that Trevor thought Lane didn’t want to tell people? He would fucking declare their insanely perfect relationship to the skies. If Trevor gave him the chance, he’d yell about it to anyone who’d listen.
“Okay,” Lane said.
Maybe he’d understated it too much, because Trevor’s smile faded a little.
“Just . . . okay?” Trevor looked straight-up concerned now.
Lane knew he wasn’t always going to be good at this relationship thing, even when it mattered as much as this one did. Most recent evidence of that was last night’s quasi-disaster, though it wasn’t like he was batting a thousand right now, either. He forced himself to regroup and focus.
“I’ve been leaving telling people entirely up to you,” Lane said. “Everyone knows about me, but you’ve never dated a guy before. I didn’t want to overstep or to push you. If you want to tell people, I’m one hundred percent on board.”
Trevor raised an eyebrow. “One hundred?”
“One hundred and ten?”
Trevor laughed then, and Lane had to pat himself on the back. He’d fixed it. He’d pulled them back from the edge. Of what exactly, he didn’t know, but he never wanted Trevor to think he wasn’t totally in this.
Wasn’t totally wild about him, in every possible way.
For a brief second, Lane considered telling Trevor now. It would add that extra dollop of reassurance, but before he could even consider the possibility, Trevor leaned into him, body tucking in close, and let out a happy sigh.
“Alright,” he murmured. “We’ll do it before the walk-through, okay?”
That was two days away. Surely before then, Lane would figure out the right time to tell Trevor that he loved him, that he adored him, that if he had the choice, he was never going to be apart for a single day after this.
But he’d underestimated how the preparation for the game sucked up time in the last two days. They had one semi-free evening, but both he and Trevor had agreed that they should go to dinner with their parents, who they’d barely seen all week.
It was at least good to go out with them, now that they knew the truth, and they didn’t have to hide their relationship any longer.
Tom had even pulled him aside and reassured Lane that he was thrilled about this development, and that he’d suspected for awhile that Lane’s distance had been rooted in his feelings for Trevor.
“I’m just glad Trevor finally saw that, too,” Tom said, patting Lane on the shoulder, an approving tilt to his mouth as he smiled. “You guys are good together.”
Tom’s words had meant a lot but that didn’t mean that Lane could manage to unstick his own.
That meant that the walk-through rolled around, and after, when the team was milling around, congratulating each other on a killer season and getting psyched up for tomorrow’s game, it meant that when Trevor took his hand and, after squeezing it, plucked the microphone out of the podium, Lane still hadn’t told him he loved him.
Lane tried to justify that this was its own kind of confession, but he wasn’t sure that was entirely true.
“Uh-oh, someone gave the demon twins the microphone,” someone—Lane was pretty sure it was Mo—called out.
“Funny story about that,” Trevor said, his eyes lit up as he looked over at Lane. “Maybe not the demon twins anymore.”
“Still the demon twins, no matter how ridiculously sappy you are about each other, Jordan dished back.
“Yeah, we kinda are,” Trevor said, squeezing Lane’s hand firmly.
“We know,” Aidan said dryly, “but we’re happy for you two. Glad you finally got your heads out of your asses.”
“Spoken like someone who’d know how that feels,” Lane retorted, and Aidan just grinned, goofy, because yeah, he would.
“He would,” Levi called out.
Lane had been so good. Had let Trevor set the tone for their big reveal, but he was ready to do his part. More than ready, if he was being honest. He leaned in and kissed Trevor square on the mouth, loving the way Trevor melted into it, into him.
“Still the demon twins,” Trevor mumbled into his lips.
And Lane wasn’t going to argue, because he would take Trevor however he could get him, even when he was driving him insane.
“Fuck,” Lane exclaimed as he flopped down onto the bench.
Trevor knew exactly why he was pissed. Why were they even out here playing in this game, if they couldn’t get it done?
Well, correction. If they couldn’t get a freaking touchdown?
For three and a half quarters, the Thunder and the Patriots had traded field goal after field goal after field goal.
Dawson was earning the fuck out of his salary today, but everyone else?
Trevor wasn’t sure that he’d argue that any of the rest of them were, but then they were doing something—barely something, but still something—to drag the offense past the fifty-yard mark on at least five drives now.
“Hey, we’re scoring,” Trevor told Lane—and himself, too.
Lane made a face. “I just fucking dropped that pass. Would’ve been a first down.”
“You mean that pass that Aidan had to shovel to you before he got fucking smashed by two Patriots linebackers? The pass that was barely in your zone? That pass?”
Lane grumbled under his breath.
“You couldn’t have caught that,” Trevor told him. “Mo couldn’t have caught that. Ja’Marr fucking Chase couldn’t have caught that.”
“Well, maybe he should be out here instead,” Lane complained.
“Hey, shut up. We’re tied. Can’t get in the end zone, but we’re still tied. There’s nothing to complain about.”
But it did feel like there was plenty to complain about. Too many miscues. Too much defensive pressure. Too many penalties. Too many plays that just didn’t freaking pan out.
Every single time the Thunder found themselves on the better side of the fifty-yard line, they’d stall out in one of about a hundred frustrating ways.
Trevor could see Aidan on the far end of the bench, tablet out, talking in his earpiece to Zane, up in the booth.
Trying to figure something out.
Some way to break the weird curse they’d somehow stumbled into.
Because if they didn’t, the Patriots would, and they’d lose this game.
Two field goals ago, Mo had stalked back to the sideline, gesturing wildly. Angry at the slightly off throw Aidan had made? Or at his own inability to reel the ball in.
He was slumped down next to Aidan, now.
“We could try that jet-sweep play again?” Trevor suggested.
Lane shot him a look. “That didn’t work the last two times we tried it. You wanna give it a third go?”
“I want to do something, not just sit here and complain,” Trevor said.
Lane sighed. “I’m—we’re gonna figure something out, okay? We are. Before they do. We’ve always done it.”
Maybe that was part of the problem; they’d always done it. A dream of a fucking season, about to come to a screeching halt in a nightmare of not-quite-good-enoughs.
Trevor looked up at the game clock. They had just under seven minutes, and on the field, the Patriots seemed to have decided that if they could keep the ball and slowly, carefully make their way down the field, and keep the clock running, they could run the time out and kick one final field goal to win.
It was conservative game play. Might end up with them going to the Super Bowl.
Trevor held his breath as they set up for another play, but the Thunder’s defense seemed to get what they were doing and they were suddenly pushing faster, harder.
Nate broke through the line and went for the Patriots’ rookie quarterback, chasing him around the backfield until Jordan finally cornered him before he could throw the ball.
It was the turning point the Thunder desperately needed, and the entire bench erupted when the Patriots’ punter jogged out onto the field with their special teams unit.
They were going to punt without scoring, which gave the Thunder one last chance to score.
Aidan pulled them together in a huddle as the cameras went to a TV timeout.
“We could do what New England was doing,” he said, meeting everyone’s eyes in the huddle, his own intense and focused. “Same thing. Take five yards at a time. Tiny little chunks. Go down the field, being conservative as fuck. Send Daws out for one last field goal.”
“Nah, man,” Mo argued.
Aidan grinned, wildly, suddenly. “Fuck no, we’re not doing that shit. We can play. We can ball out. We haven’t been doing it today, but we can, and I’m tired of pretending we can’t. Let’s get fucking seven. Bury them in the end.”
There were three and a half minutes left on the clock when Griff snapped the ball to Aidan all the way back on the seven-yard line.
They had ninety-three yards to go in three minutes and thirty-six seconds.