Chapter 8
Considering how things were going with Trevor—he’d come to Lane’s bed and then not left, spending the last three nights there, which Lane was definitely not going to argue about—Lane supposed it was not surprising that on Saturday night, he’d ended up on what could feel like a double date, if he let himself think about it.
“We should’ve told Nate we were coming,” Levi complained. “He’d have gotten us really great seats. Or even better, we should’ve told Ramsey. He’d have gotten us into the WAG section with Nate.”
Aidan shot his boyfriend a look. “Oh, you wanna sit in the WAG section, huh?”
“I’d be hot in there, don’t you think?” Levi said, batting his eyelashes.
“A real natural,” Aidan retorted, deadpan.
“Think you’ve missed your calling,” Trevor chimed in, grinning.
When Levi had sidled up to him after practice on Friday and casually suggested to Lane that he and Trevor come with him and Aidan to the Buffalo Wolves game on Saturday night, he hadn’t really known what to say.
They had the weekend free, but he’d sort of anticipated not leaving the couch. Convincing Trevor to cook dinner for them again, while they watched the two full days of the first round of playoff games. Capping everything off with more blowjobs in the comfort and relative simplicity of his condo.
He hadn’t even considered driving down to Buffalo and watching Ramsey play hockey. He hadn’t even considered inviting Trevor, but Levi had just assumed they came as one package deal, and Lane really hadn’t let himself contemplate that.
Or how right that felt. Even more right than waking up every day to Trevor’s cute little snores, his horrible bed head, and his even worse morning breath.
“That’s right,” Levi said smugly, “I’m totally WAG material.”
Aidan laughed.
Usually Lane enjoyed Aidan and Levi’s ridiculous coupledom, but tonight, it kept making him think, are we like that? Do I want us to be like that?
Everything was so different these days, but that didn’t mean it was bad. The opposite, in fact.
“What about Trevor?” Levi continued. “Would he be good WAG material?”
“Obviously,” Trevor answered for himself.
But Levi just rolled his eyes. “You can’t say that about yourself, dude.”
Lane tried hard to ignore the way Trevor flushed, clearly embarrassed.
He was the rookie here, in this outing and on the team.
When Lane had told him that Aidan and Levi had invited them to come to this game, he’d been nearly shocked.
“Me, why?” Trevor had said, looking so astonished that Lane had been kind of mad on his behalf.
Why did Trevor not think he was worth the time and attention of the older guys?
Lane wanted to shake him—boost him up—until he did believe it.
He told himself that was why he spoke up. “What if I think he’s totally WAG material?” Lane asked.
Three sets of eyes swiveled in his direction.
Two pairs did not look even the slightest bit surprised by Lane’s declaration. The third pair, wide and stunned and pleased, were all that Lane could see.
“Oh,” Trevor said. “You mean that?”
Levi, on Lane’s other side, elbowed him hard in the kidney. Lane barely noticed. He was too busy staring at Trevor, into those soft warm eyes.
“Yeah, of course.” Lane wanted to make sure he knew it.
Sure, he’d always thought Trevor was gorgeous. Sure, he’d always wanted him, but the desire was like getting blinded by the sun now, because he knew what he tasted like and kissed like and was.
Sure, the game would be fun, but they could be at his place, right now, and he wouldn’t have to hold back on doing what he wanted.
Most importantly, because Trevor had made it clear first that he’d like that, very much, and second, because Lane wanted it so bad that he thought he’d go insane without it.
“And people say we’re bad,” Levi muttered under his breath.
Aidan shushed him, and it suddenly occurred to Lane—with his remaining five brain cells—that Levi’s invitation had not been as casual or as random as he’d tried to act like it was.
Were they being pushed together by Aidan and his boyfriend?
Lane didn’t know whether he should be freaked out or flattered.
“Oh look,” Aidan said as the lights in the arena flashed once and then went dark, “game’s starting.”
Lane didn’t know how he was supposed to focus on hockey when Trevor was pushed up against him, body warm and solid against his.
Especially when Trevor would lean over and ask questions, voice murmuring right into his ear, like Lane actually knew more about hockey than Trevor did.
The Wolves’ first power play came midway through the first, and Lane knew how excited Nate would be when he saw Ramsey skate out with the first group.
That felt like a safe-ish topic to broach to the group, unlike how absolutely perfect Trevor would be as someone’s partner—yours, a voice inside him insisted, but he shut it down—so he said, “Ramsey’s back on the power play.”
“Huh?” Aidan said.
Lane had a feeling that Aidan’s hockey education was coming along even slower than his own was. “Ramsey’s back on the power play,” he repeated. Amused by the cluelessness on both Aidan’s and Levi’s faces. “Don’t you watch Ramsey’s games, sometimes?”
“Sometimes,” Levi claimed, but that didn’t seem true at all.
“We start the games,” Aidan offered, a flush climbing up his cheeks.
Lane was not going to touch that with a ten-foot pole. He also deliberately ignored the pang of envy that he and Trevor had not once gotten so carried away by wanting each other that they’d not finished something they were watching.
Maybe they weren’t the same.
Maybe Trevor didn’t want him as much as Aidan and Levi clearly wanted each other, and that was a fucking depressing thought.
“Anyway,” Lane said, “apparently at the end of last season, Ramsey had been transitioning to the first power play, which is like a pretty big deal, I guess. After he got injured, he wasn’t sure he’d get that spot back.”
“Ah,” Aidan said. He still looked confused.
“How do you know so much?” Levi wanted to know when the power play ended, Ramsey feeding the puck to one of the Wolves’ forwards, them tipping it right into the net, only forty-four seconds into the power play.
Levi asked his question when the crowd and the four of them settled back down into their seats after celebrating the goal.
Lane did not mention that it was because they watched the games all the way through. Instead he said, “Nate’s always talking about it these days.” Which also happened to be true.
“Thought you’d be too busy with other things to talk to Nate about his boyfriend and his hockey these days,” Levi said slyly.
“Busy with what things?” Lane played dumb. He certainly wasn’t going to out Trevor without his explicit permission. But Levi seemed to suspect something, anyway.
Had they been that obvious? Had Lane been that obvious?
“The playoffs, of course,” Levi said innocently.
But Levi, the youngest of the Banks brothers, who were all universally notorious, had probably never been innocent a day in his life.
“Right,” Lane said.
“We’ve been watching a ton of film,” Trevor chimed in.
“Oh yeah?” Aidan looked unsurprisingly interested.
Lane tried not to tense, telling himself that Trevor wasn’t going to say what he was afraid he would. But of course he did.
“Yeah. Tons of stuff on the Piranhas, especially.”
Lane swore Trevor shot Aidan a look full of expectation, like he was anticipating Aidan saying one thing, but the thing was, Lane knew he wasn’t going to.
Crap.
It was clearly too much to hope for that his little side-hobby stayed under wraps.
“Huh, really?” Aidan’s glance over at him was a mixture of surprise and confusion.
Well, if Trevor had wanted to know one way or the other if Aidan knew about Lane’s film study, now he knew.
“Dude, I didn’t know you did that,” Levi said.
“Just a fun thing to do,” Lane said, shrugging.
He should’ve expected that nobody was going to leave it, but the rest of the period passed by without any more comments about Lane and what he was apparently spending his spare time doing.
He told himself it was better that Aidan think he was watching too much film than banging his rookie stepbrother, but it was difficult convincing himself of that particular fact.
It wasn’t that he was ashamed, necessarily, of either thing, more that he was certain nobody would really understand.
When the first period ended and Lane stood, saying he was going to grab another beer, asking if anyone else wanted anything, Aidan stood and said, “I’ll go with you.”
Lane braced himself for the interrogation, but to his surprise, Aidan didn’t say anything until they’d been standing in one of the ridiculously long lines and only after Lane had observed dryly that if they’d used their connections, they wouldn’t be dealing with any of this.
But Aidan didn’t say a word about that. Instead, he turned to Lane and said, “You’re watching film?”
“We all watch film,” Lane said lightly, hoping that Aidan would leave it there, while knowing he probably wouldn’t.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t sound like what Trevor’s talking about,” Aidan said.
And no, it really didn’t.
“Just something I do, once in awhile,” Lane said, shrugging.
They were nearly to the front of the line, and to Lane’s shock, Aidan actually dropped it, asking Lane what he and Trevor wanted, and tapping his credit card there. Which, fair. Aidan made more money than all of them combined, probably.
He could easily afford to buy them all a beer, or ten.
“Wait a second,” the guy said as he set down the four Michelob Ultras onto the counter, “are you Aidan Flynn?”
Lane groaned under his breath as Aidan nodded.
“Shit, shit, man. You’re my favorite QB,” the guy said.
“What? With you guys in New York? Don’t let Josh Allen hear you say that,” Aidan said, but he was already whipping out a Sharpie. Instead of getting back to their seats right before the puck drop in the second period, by the time they headed back towards the ice, it was almost five minutes in.
“You didn’t have to sign that guy’s shirt, too,” Lane complained.