15
Trevor
Coming hometo an empty room shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. I’d grown accustomed to Gabe waiting up for me, even though he complained constantly that he was bored. And yes, I’d told him to find something to do with his time because we couldn’t be one another’s entire world, but I hadn’t fully prepared myself for him to actually follow my suggestion for once. He was spending more time with Seth and his friends from the Alliance, leaving me alone to worry about whether or not we were drifting apart.
A plan I’d been mulling over the past few nights solidified in my mind, and I wanted to get away from campus for the weekend. I wasn’t comfortable with the routine we’d fallen into, and my disappointment that he wasn’t sitting here waiting for me like a 50s housewife bugged me. I worried I was starting to see Gabe as a fixture in my life, a knickknack on a shelf gathering dust when he deserved to be the centerpiece. Our getaway to New York had been the first time we’d truly been able to focus on Gabe and Trevor as a couple, and this weekend I wanted to prove to him that I would still find a way to make more memories like those, even when I was drowning in homework.
Gabe was trying his best to be patient about my obsessive studying during the week, but I often wondered if he’d grow tired. College, for him, was more a necessity he wanted to get through so he could figure out what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He’d never been passionate about learning and sure as hell hadn’t worked his entire life to follow a childhood dream. Sometimes, I wondered if he’d have gone to school at all if it wasn’t something his parents drilled into his head as a requirement for adulthood. Now that I’d committed to focusing on Gabe for the weekend, the words on the page in front of me didn’t make any sense. The harder I stared, the more the letters swam around. Irritated, I slammed the cover closed and shoved the book back in my bag.
Gabe still wasn’t home, and I didn’t want to text him and make him think he needed to rush back from wherever he’d gone, so I grabbed the laptop and kicked back on the bed to figure out where we could go. It was too cold to enjoy the beach, but that also meant we’d be able to find a room cheap. And really, most of the places we’d be able to drive for a quick getaway would be along the water. Myrtle Beach was less than two hours down the coast as opposed to four hours to the Outer Banks, so that was the way we’d go.
My plan hit a snag when every hotel I searched required you to be twenty-one to rent a room. After calling five hotels that didn’t have an age requirement listed on their websites and being told the same thing from all of them, I was about ready to give up.
There was one other possibility, but I wasn’t looking forward to the prying questions that’d come with a place to stay. I flipped the phone over in my hands for a solid minute before sucking in a deep breath and hitting the call button.
“Trevor, is everything okay?” I mentally kicked myself when I realized it was close to eleven. Dad tried to stifle a yawn on the other end of the phone, but I knew he’d already been asleep.
“Sorry, didn’t think about how late it was,” I apologized. “Nothing’s wrong, I swear. If you want, I can call you back tomorrow.”
“I’m already up, might as well chat. Plus, maybe I’ll get up and make your mom something to eat for when she gets home from work. It’s good to surprise the people who mean the most to you.”
It was still bizarre that he not only knew about Gabe and me, but he was so supportive. He’d spent the second half of winter break dropping little hints about how to be a good partner and hang onto the person you loved. That was Dad’s way. Where Mom hovered, trying to protect me from any possible danger, Dad was much more the type to arm me for battle and send me on my way.
“Funny you should say that.” My chuckle sounded forced, but it really was amusing that he’d laid the groundwork for my request without knowing it. “I know you called in a favor for our trip to New York and I don’t want you to think I’m trying to take advantage of you, but I’ve got a problem.”
“So, let’s find a solution. If I can help I will, you know that.”
“Yeah, but I’m starting to feel like I’m relying on you too much, and you’re already doing me a favor by not saying anything to Mom.” I hated that he’d been put in the position where he had to lie to his wife to protect his son.
“It’s not my place to tell,” he pointed out, just as he had every time I’d worried about how Mom would react when she eventually found out he’d known however long before her. “And my stance on that hasn’t changed a bit. If she asks me outright, I won’t lie to her, but I understand why you haven’t said anything sooner. It’s going to be tough on both your Mom and Gwen at first, but eventually they’ll be happy for you.”
“I hope you’re right.” I let out a heavy sigh. Not for the first or hundredth time, I wished our circumstances were different so it wasn’t this huge potential scandal.
“Now, tell me what was so important that you called in the middle of the night.”
“I’m really sorry about that,” I apologized again.
“No more apologies,” Dad scolded. “But hurry up and spit it out so your mother doesn’t come home and worry something’s happened to you at school.”
Good point. Dad was chill, but if mom knew I’d called home so late, she’d likely be in her car headed down I-40 before we could convince her I wasn’t bleeding out in the emergency room.
“I was thinking about doing something for Gabe this weekend.” I picked lint off our blanket, wondering if Dad would think it was foolish of me to take a break so early in the spring semester. “He has a much lighter course load than I do, and I’m starting to worry he’s going to get sick of me being gone all the time. I want to prove to him that I’m not trying to backburner him.”
“I can respect that. Relationships are always work, and the two of you are still trying to get used to being adults out on your own. It can’t be easy for either of you.”
Hearing him explain everything that had been on my mind so succinctly reassured me that maybe I wasn’t blowing things out of proportion.
“Yeah, it’s definitely not as easy as we thought it would be,” I admitted. While I knew college would be harder than high school, I’d allowed myself to think some of the stress would be lifted when Gabe and I weren’t constantly trying to hide how we felt about one another from the world.
“No, I bet it’s not. What can I do to help?”
I hesitated, still worried he’d think I was taking advantage of his generosity. But I’d overheard him tell countless friends and family members to let him know if they needed a place to stay, so surely the same counted for his only son, right? “Well, I was thinking about heading down to Myrtle for the weekend, but none of the hotels will rent me a room because we’re too young.”
“Can’t say I blame them. With as many students as head down there for spring break, it’s probably the only way they can minimize their risk.”
“Yeah, I get why they do it, but it sucks for me,” I whined. “It’s not like we’re going down there to throw a keg party or anything. I just… I want to get away from campus, leave our textbooks and computers at home, and just….”
“Be with him? Hoping for some privacy?”
