Chapter 1 #3
It’s giving all this shit inside of me too much air, he wouldn’t say. It’s making me think I’ve got a chance and that’s the best and the worst thing you could ever do.
“What did that tequila ever do to you?”
Lane glanced over at where Nate had apparently approached while he’d been preoccupied at trying not to stare at where Trevor’s head was just visible over the crowd.
“Uh, nothing,” Lane said. He swallowed the rest of it.
Drunk was no good around Trevor. His tongue might loosen. But a few drinks was good. Especially tonight, with Trevor in that dark suit, tight in all the right places, white shirt making the remnants of his tan glow.
“You seem particularly pent up lately,” Nate observed.
Lane huffed out a breath. His friend had no fucking clue how pent up he was.
He’d returned to Toronto this season with every intention of resuming his normal activities.
His normal social schedule. But it turned out that with Trevor right there, he couldn’t.
He didn’t even want to. Meaningless sex couldn’t hold a candle to sitting on the couch, watching as Trevor did one of his stupid puzzles, little crease between his eyebrows as he tried to fit a piece in where it didn’t belong.
He and his right hand had become very, very well acquainted in the last few months. It was like he was thirteen again, discovering jerking off for the first goddamn time.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” Lane said. Aware that nothing he’d said actually meant anything, and that would probably tip Nate off more than dissuade him from continuing to ask.
“Come the fuck on,” Nate said.
“You don’t get to judge,” Lane whined. “You’re like, all in love and happy and shit. With Ramsey.”
“I know,” Nate said smugly. Lane loved him like a brother—probably the way he should’ve felt about Trevor, if fate hadn’t been a bitch—and he wasn’t going to punch him in the face, because Lane’s problems didn’t mean Nate deserved that.
“Glad there’s no hard feelings,” Nate added when Lane only made a face.
“Hard feelings,” Lane blustered. He’d not actually wanted Ramsey, no matter how hot he was.
“Lane,” Nate said intently, “I know you weren’t really interested, but I want to know why you bothered to pretend.”
He didn’t want to have this conversation. Between Nate being preoccupied getting him and Ramsey settled into their new condo and making time for his boyfriend when he was actually around and Lane doing what he could to avoid it, he’d been pretty lucky so far.
He had a feeling his luck had just run out.
“Who says I was pretending? Maybe I’m eating my heart out with jealousy every fucking night, imagining you and the hockey player fucking.”
Nate just rolled his eyes. “You’re not. But why are you even pretending you are?”
Lane didn’t trust himself to say anything—the right or the wrong thing—so he just stared moodily into his empty glass.
There were only twenty minutes until midnight, only thirty or so minutes before he and Trevor would head back to his condo.
He could have a glass of champagne for the toast, but another tequila was definitely a bad idea.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Nate nudged him firmly in the arm. “Bullshit everyone else, but don’t bullshit me, okay? What is up with you? Ever since you showed up this season, with Trevor in tow, it’s like you’re off.”
A horrible thrill went up his spine at even the idea of being able to tell someone. If he told anyone, it would probably be Nate. He was the safest possible choice, not being related to either Lane or Trevor, but at the same time, Nate was also on the team with them.
He would not put it past Nate, and his new captain responsibilities, to try to fix it. Or even worse, he’d tell Aidan, and that would be a total fucking nightmare.
“You’re imagining things now,” Lane protested.
“Is it Trevor? Is there something up with him? Is he not being supportive? I always thought he seemed like a solid ally—”
It would be the easiest choice for Lane to let Nate believe that the problem lay with Trevor. That he was shitty and homophobic, and that had fucked Lane up. But he couldn’t do it. Not when Trevor had never, not once, given him a moment of hesitation about showing his true self.
Not his true feelings, okay, but that wasn’t on Trevor. That wasn’t his responsibility.
“No,” Lane interrupted firmly. “He is. It’s not about that at all.”
“Okay, but there’s a reason they call you the demon twins. You’re like two peas in a pod and then it’s like a switch flips and you’re bickering and fighting, and God, Lane, I can tell it’s you. You pick fights with him. Why? Is it family shit?”
Lane sighed. “Was it too much to ask that you didn’t pick twenty minutes before the ball drops on New Year’s Eve to interrogate me?”
“You’ve been avoiding me,” Nate said frankly. “Seemed as good a place as any to corner you.”
“Fuck,” Lane muttered.
“So, what gives?” Nate asked, much more gently this time. “You want another drink before you tell me about it?”
“No, no, I can’t—” Broke off before Nate could demand to know why he was keeping himself on such a short leash, especially on New Year’s Eve.
Nate raised an eyebrow.
“I shouldn’t, anyway,” Lane said.
“And that’s ever stopped you before?”
“Fuck you, I’m growing as a person,” Lane said. At least it seemed like he was. Drinking less. Fucking less. Staying in. Working out more. Studying harder. Playing better than he ever had. He kind of hated that he could trace all of that back to Trevor’s appearance in his life.
“Why are you picking fights with your stepbro?” Nate asked.
“Do you know how old I was when they got married?”
Nate shook his head.
“I was eighteen. I’d just graduated from high school.
And before you ask if it’s family shit, no, it’s not.
I like Trevor’s dad. Tom’s great. Loves my mom a lot.
Never overstepped with me. It’s just . .
.” Lane wet his lips. Didn’t know if he could actually get the words out. He’d swallowed them down for so long.
“You like him, like like him,” Nate guessed, eyes widening. “Shit.”
“Always have. Even when he was a new guy who was working out in the gym that I couldn’t help but check out.” Lane stared at his empty glass, magically wishing more tequila into it, over the melting ice cubes. “And before you say anything, he doesn’t know. Nobody knows, and that’s how it’s staying.”
Nate made a noise, somewhere between sympathy and shock. He gripped Lane’s arm, and Lane risked a glance up. Yeah. He hadn’t needed to see that look on Nate’s face when he’d realized he’d guessed right.
“Lane, you graduated high school almost six years ago,” Nate said.
“Yeah.”
“Dude, you’ve been into this guy for six years,” Nate said.
Lane wished he’d kept his fucking mouth shut. “I’m not into him. I’m just attracted to him. That’s all.” Like that wasn’t catastrophic enough, as it was.
Nate elbowed him hard.
“Ouch,” Lane whined. “That hurt. What the fuck was that for?”
“Why haven’t you fucking told him?”
“Uh, I don’t know, because he’s straight and our parents are married?” And because I kept hoping that it would go away and everything would be normal. By the time I realized that wasn’t fucking happening, it was too late.
“You don’t know he’s straight.”
“He’s fucking straight, dude,” Lane said flatly.
“You don’t know that. Have you ever asked him?”
“Of course not! Why would I?” Lane had never hated Nate—had never thought he even could—but he kind of hated him right now.
“You should,” Nate said.
“No way.” That was exactly the opposite of what he should be doing. It would be even worse, somehow, if Trevor said, yeah, I could see being with a guy. And then he’d have to watch him get together not with one of those pretty girls, but a guy. A guy who wasn’t Lane.
“So what, you’re just going to keep doing this? For another six years? Another sixty years?”
“Sure, why not,” Lane said flippantly. In sixty years, he probably wouldn’t be able to get it up anyway, and then maybe it would feel less hellish that Trevor wasn’t into him.
Nate growled in frustration. “You are so stubborn.”
“And you’re not?”