This isn’t real though. This is three Jack and Cokes and four Mind Erasers, and he knows that. He thinks of what his sister said about not letting Trevor hurt him, and this probably counts as hurting him—or it will in the morning when reality sets back in.
Still, for tonight, Skyler lets himself lie here and pretend.
But tomorrow…
Tomorrow the pretending needs to stop.
TREVOR
When Trevor wakes up,the harshness of the morning sunlight on his eyes is the first thing he notices. His headache is the second. And the third…
The third thing he notices is that he’s very much not alone in this bed.
Last night is fuzzy in his brain, but he doesn’t need to remember it to know that the person pressing their warm body into his side is Skyler. As if it could ever be anyone else.
But what the hell did he do last night?
Skyler snuggles in closer, most likely still asleep, and Trevor needs to get out of here. He tries to sit up, but the quick movement makes him groan. Skyler’s arm comes around his waist, tugging him back. Not asleep, then.
“It’s okay, relax a minute,” Skyler says, voice soft enough to lull him back to sleep if it weren’t for the mind-crushing hangover and the even more mind-crushing panic.
Trevor lies down again, but remains on his back, refusing to face Skyler. His head is pounding, and his heart is jackrabbiting in his chest. “What did we…”
“Nothing. You were trashed.”
As they lie there quietly beside each other, pieces of the night start to come back to him. He remembers feeling anxious about being out in public with Skyler and about seeing Layla for the first time since he and Skyler split up. Remembers sucking down drinks too fast to counteract the nerves. He remembers hanging on to Skyler a bit too much, and…Oh.
He kissed him. Again.
Fuck.
“I might be sick,” he says, and this time when he slowly raises himself to sit, Skyler lets him.
Skyler sits up too and rubs a hand gently over his lower back. “Why don’t you take a shower and I’ll make you a greasy breakfast. It’ll settle your stomach.”
Right. Skyler knows this because Trevor used to make greasy breakfasts for him all the time after he drank too much. Or order them from room service when a kitchen wasn’t available to them.
Trevor carefully swings his legs over the edge of the bed and stands, already missing Skyler’s touch. “Sure,” he says quietly. “Okay.”
Looking down at himself in only his boxers, he cringes. He’s guessing Skyler took his clothes off for him. He’s embarrassed, but it’s more than that. There’s an undercurrent of something else. Guilt, probably.
He hears Skyler getting out of bed behind him, but he still doesn’t want to look at him. He’s ashamed. Ashamed of the parts he remembers and whatever else he doesn’t.
“Thanks,” he says, because he has to say something more thanSure, okay. “For, uh. Just thanks.”
As Skyler comes around the bed and heads for the door, Trevor can’t avoid seeing him now, unless he wants to continue awkwardly staring at the floor. Although maybe if he does, he’ll get lucky and it will open up and swallow him. Skyler’s fully dressed. Trevor’s not sure if that makes this better or worse.
Skyler pauses with his hand on the doorknob and turns back to look at him. His face is pained. “Trevor, if you only want to be friends, I can do that. But if you want…” He hesitates, tugs on the ends of his hair. “I’d like to be able to give you anything you want, but I won’t let you use me.”
“I’m not—”
“Look,” Skyler continues as if Trevor hadn’t tried to speak. “You know I want you. You must know. But it’smorethan that. So I’m not going to let you use me when you’re hurting, because I have feelings too. And I know you don’t mean to hurt me. I know you’d never do that on purpose, but”—he scrunches his nose—“it hurts.”
Trevor should say something, but he can’t. Because his mind is swimming with awful words likehurtthat he doesn’t know how to make go away.
But Skyler’s not done anyway.
“I think what I’m trying to say is the next time you kiss me, you better mean it.”
