After hugging their parents one last time, they headed back downstairs and they both pulled out scarves and hats, Lane tugging his all the way down, nearly over his eyes, as they walked out into the cold weather.
“We’re going to have to figure out the PATH between their building and ours,” Trevor said, teeth chattering as they finally turned the corner, the entrance only a few hundred yards away.
“I’ll ask Michael,” Lane agreed, referring to the Blue Jays player who owned the condo.
Trevor knew he should tell Lane what he’d told his dad, but it was hard to get started, and he was still working on it when they finally ducked into the blissfully heated entrance.
Lane, of course, noticed, though. They were in the elevator, on the way up to their floor, when he turned to Trevor. “You and Tom both looked pretty serious when we walked in. Is everything okay?”
For a split second, Trevor was tempted to prevaricate. To tell Lane that he’d been trying to convince his dad to hire a contractor to redo the tile work in the guest bathroom. But they were together now, in a relationship. And Trevor knew that wasn’t the kind of thing youdidin a relationship, even if you were afraid. Especially if you were afraid.
“Yeah. It’s good. I was just . . . um . . . talking to him about something. Not us,” Trevor added quickly, when Lane’s brows came together, like he was worried. “About me. That I’m demi.”
“Yeah?” Lane said, and reached down, tugging Trevor’s hand out of his jacket pocket. Squeezing him. “He took it well, yeah?”
“Well, yeah, it’s Dad. He’s chill like that,” Trevor said. Pleased, too, that Lane was also chill about it. Obviously Trevor liked him—he’d said so, pretty blatantly, more than once, and had been the one to bring up that he wanted to make things more official between them besides just fooling around in bed—but the demi admission made it even more obvious.
Trevor wouldn’t want to doanythingwith Lane if he didn’t have real feelings for him.
Lane didn’t ask though, if Trevor had confessed anything else. Trevor told himself that it was because Lane trusted him to keep up his end of their agreement, but it was hard to not worry that maybe Lane didn’t ask because he didn’t want to know.
“I swear I didn’t tell him about us,” Trevor burst out the moment the apartment door closed behind them.
Lane raised an eyebrow as he hung up his jacket. Took Trevor’s and did the same as Trevor toed off his shoes. “I didn’t think you did. You said you didn’t, and we talked about it.”
“I know, but—”
Lane caught him around his waist and dragged Trevor against him, holding him in place with his big, strong arms, so he couldn’t run. Couldn’t freak out. Trevor didn’t know how Lane had figured out that if he was touching Trevor, it was basically physically impossible for Trevor to panic too much about anything.
“ButI trust that you’re not going to just open your mouth and have it all fall out,” Lane said.
“I wasn’t even tempted. I actually . . .” Trevor pulled back and bit his lip. “I actually wonder if he knows.”
“What?” Lane didn’t look like he was freaking out, but surely he was, anyway. Just more subtly than Trevor could catch.
“He kept asking questions about how it was going, living together.”
“We’ve been doing that since this summer,” Lane said, a confused frown on his face.
“I know,” Trevor said. “Which is what I told him.” Well, sort of anyway. He’d only been that chill about it in his imagination. But then Lane had to know that, because Laneknewhim.
“Anything else?” Lane took him by the arm and Trevor went easily, as he tugged him over to the couch.
It felt so easy and right to curl up against Lane’s big warm side.
“I think he was going to ask me something else, before you guys came back to the kitchen,” Trevor admitted. “We’d just finished talking about me being demi, but the moment you showed up, he clammed right up.”
“How would he know?” Lane finally asked.
And Trevor could only shrug. He didn’t know how his dadwouldknow. They’d barely ever been around together in front of their parents—mostly because of Lane and his avoidance tactics—but as observant as Tom generally was, Trevor could definitely imagine him putting it all together, eventually.
“Well, it’s a moot point,” Lane said. “We’re eventually telling them anyway.”
Trevor was sort of tempted to ask if this meant that Lane was okay telling them sooner rather than later, but he’d been the one to push them into relationship territory. He’d been the one who wanted to tell their parents. He knew Lane liked him a lot—obviously, considering their history and the sheer time length of the crush Lane had on him—but there was a part of Trevor who wanted Lane to come tohimfor once.
To show Trevor, satisfying that bone-deep need inside him, that he wanted him. That he needed him, too.
So he didn’t ask. Instead, he let himself sink more completely into Lane’s comforting embrace. Enjoy the quiet simplicity of just sitting together like this, not needing to do anything, not needing to even say anything.
