Chapter 4 #2
“We are trying to be supportive of Lane, not pump your ego more,” Aidan pointed out dryly.
“Why do we need to be supportive of me?” Lane wondered, though he was afraid he knew.
“Bro,” Mo said sympathetically. “You were fucking pacing a whole track into the turf. Remember, we don’t need to win this game.”
Mo squawked again and Lane had a feeling Aidan’s elbow had found another soft spot.
“I know that.” Lane huffed out a breath.
They all watched in silence as Griff snapped the ball and it was obvious from the first moment the play unfolded that Wes and Trevor were on the same page—they wanted those seven points, not to settle for three—and Lane’s nails dug into his palms as Trevor ran his route towards the end zone.
But the Giants had a great pass rush, and Wes wasn’t as experienced as Aidan when the blocking broke down, and Lane wanted to yell at Trevor that he needed to keep an eye on his quarterback, to never take his attention off him, even for a moment.
But he did, focused entirely, too entirely, on ditching his coverage instead.
That meant when Wes threw the ball, a second earlier than he’d wanted to, Trevor hadn’t turned yet. A moment later, the ball bounced to the turf, uncaught, and Dawson headed out onto the field with the field-goal unit.
Annoyance was all over Trevor’s face when he came to the sideline. “We freaking had that,” he fumed, when Lane looked over at him. “We freaking had that.”
There were a lot of things Lane wanted to say.
A lot of teaching moments he could impart—the Thunder brass had made it clear that was one of the reasons they’d drafted Trevor.
He still had a lot to learn, and frankly so did Lane, and they’d hoped they would make each other better.
Take the best parts of each of their games and use it to make the team, as a whole, even better still.
“Yeah,” Lane said instead. Fucking useless, he thought at himself furiously.
Lane might’ve been mixed up about Trevor before, but after touching him, after Trevor kissing him, the jumble had reached critical mass.
He wanted to push Trevor so far away, yell nothing but the bluntest truth, while tugging him closer than he’d ever been and murmur in his ear that nothing that had just happened had been his fault.
Trevor shot him a look, crossing his arms over the Thunder logo on his chest. “That all you have to say?”
He couldn’t say what he felt, which was, I never knew what to say to you, and now I really fucking don’t.
Instead, he decided on, “What do you think happened?”
Trevor huffed. “Are you serious?”
“You know football’s the only thing I’m ever serious about,” Lane said.
It was stupid. Very stupid. Leaned into all the worst rumors and gossip and clichés about who he was as a person.
All that shit that he realized he’d hoped Trevor never thought about him.
“You’re the fucking worst,” Trevor spat out.
“Just . . . actually for serious, what do you think happened?” Lane questioned again. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Aidan’s head bent towards Wes’, over one of the tablets. Mo was standing to the side, looking bored.
If Trevor admitted to it, then Lane wouldn’t have to be the one to tell him he’d fucked it up.
“I don’t know. I thought it was going good. I lost my coverage, turned around ready for Wes to throw me the pass, and then the ball fell right in front of me.” Trevor shrugged. Like there was nothing he could’ve done.
And Trevor had gone to Oregon, with its national-awards-winning offensive line. His quarterback had experienced unprecedented protection, which had, no question, boosted his stats and, as a result, Trevor’s also.
He’d never had to make these kinds of adjustments.
Sure, coaches had probably talked about them. But it was one thing to be told and it was another to have to do them, on the fly.
“Wes had to get rid of the ball.”
“What, really?” Trevor’s surprise said it all.
“You should’ve been fucking watching him for that exact situation,” Lane said, finally giving in and just saying it.
It didn’t feel very good, and it felt even worse when Trevor realized what he was saying.
“Wait, that was on me?” Trevor questioned, sounding shocked.
Lane shrugged.
Trevor threw up his arms, looking even more pissed now. “What the hell, man?” he demanded. “I did my job. How can you even come for me like that—”
“Everything alright?” Aidan asked smoothly. Popping up now, because of course he was.
Lane tried to kill him with a mind beam, but it turned out that Aidan was stronger than his admittedly weak psychic powers.
“Lane is full of shit, so yeah, I guess everything’s exactly as it usually is,” Trevor grumbled.
It was unfair, but Lane shouldn’t take it seriously. He’d handled this whole thing poorly first. He couldn’t get his head out of his dick, or his dick out of his head.
“Oh?” Aidan asked, raising an eyebrow. Still living and breathing and here, in spite of Lane desperately trying to communicate that he was not welcome.
In a second, Trevor was going to tell Aidan exactly what Lane had said, and Aidan was going to nod earnestly and say, yeah, that’s pretty much how it went.
It was hard to imagine things getting worse, but that would guarantee it.
“Dude, I told you,” Lane said, nudging him. “You gotta—”
“I know what I’m fucking doing, so stop patronizing me, okay?” Trevor shot him a hot look—not the right kind of hot look, either, and Lane was unpleasantly reminded why the team had nicknamed them the demon twins—and stomped off down the sideline.
“Fuck,” Lane groaned, shoving a hand through his hair.
“I’ll go talk to him,” Aidan said, because of course he did.
Aidan would be his normal Aidan self. Right, because he was Aidan Flynn. And kind of insufferable about it, because he was still Aidan Flynn.
But before Lane could intervene and say, that’s the worst idea you’ve had in awhile, Mo spoke up, unexpectedly. “No. I’ll do it.”
Aidan looked over at him, confusion written across his face. “What? Why?”
Mo sighed. “Aid, you know I love you, but you’re kinda the worst about this shit, okay? He’s a rookie. He’s feeling like he’s just gotten thrown in the deep end, and he doesn’t want someone to draw him a diagram, he wants someone to throw him a fucking rope.”
“I can throw a rope!” Aidan said self-righteously.
“Right, sure,” Mo said, but he was already turning, heading towards where Trevor had gone.
“Can I not?” Aidan asked, looking at Lane next. And Lane hadn’t even fucking said it.
But there was a frown knitting his eyebrows together, and Lane sighed. “You can, but you’re not the best rope thrower on the team. You are the best diagram drawer, though.”
Aidan sighed. “But—”
“No,” Lane said gently. “Let Mo do it. He’ll be better at it than either of us. And he’s—”
Lane broke off before he admitted something he had zero business telling Aidan, even if he was the captain of this team and the leader of the offense.
“He’s what?” Inevitably, Aidan was going to ask, and Lane wished he hadn’t opened his big stupid mouth.
“He’s new to the team. New to Trevor. It’ll . . . uh . . . be better coming from him.”
Aidan stared at him hard. “Why do I get the feeling that was not what you were going to say?”
“Because I’m a shitty liar?”
Two years ago, even Lane’s self-deprecating comment wouldn’t have made Aidan laugh, but Levi had relaxed him, and he laughed now. “You kinda are, actually.”
“Exactly.”
“You wanna tell me about what’s going on between you two?”
It was Lane’s turn to laugh, weakly. “No way.”
“Do I need to lecture you? I lectured Dawson before he got involved with Cameron.”
“And that turned out so well. I don’t think you should be bragging about your lecturing efficacy if that’s your example.”
Aidan huffed, but he sounded amused, still. “You don’t know what the lecture was. Maybe he didn’t do what I warned him not to do.”
“Unlikely,” Lane said.
“Come on,” Aidan said with resignation. “Let’s go over the next set of plays Zane wants to run. I’d like to be able to at least score a touchdown, even if we don’t need to win this game. Do you think Trevor’s gonna be ready to block?”
“Gotta cover the Giants’ pass rush?”
Aidan nodded grimly. “Wes needs another second.”
“Then he’ll be ready,” Lane said, even though all he knew for sure was that he wanted to believe in the best of Trevor.
Trevor felt so stupid.
He’d thought he was doing good. Decent numbers for a rookie—not even the starting tight end, and he was still in the conversation for the Offensive Rookie of the Year award.
But Lane made him feel so fucking stupid, sometimes. Like he was clueless. Like he’d made a misstep and he hadn’t even realized the ground was shaky under his feet.
Grabbing a cup of water to try to cover how his hand was trembling slightly with frustration and something else Trevor didn’t want to look at too closely, he stared out at the field.
The Giants’ offense was moving the ball. Another first down with that new running back who was doing his best to bust right through the Thunder’s best attempts to contain him.
“Hey.”