But Lane was looking at him, not with fake confidence, but pure fucking approval in his blue eyes. Like he’d bet on Trevor every single time, without even blinking.
“You got this,” Lane repeated, and Trevor believed it.
Griff snapped the ball when there was a minute and twenty-one seconds left on the clock.
Aidan dropped back as Trevor and Lane pushed off, running their double route.
Out of the corner of Trevor’s eye, Lane’s route was a thing of fucking beauty. He picked up one defender, then another. Thena third, clearing out the mid zone, right where Trevor was going to go.
He swung around, gaze tracking Aidan’s movements.
He went to one side and then the other, pump faking once and then twice.
Then pulling back, he threw, and Trevor followed the ball.
Aidan had led him a little deeper, and he sprinted down, plucking the ball, the leather digging into his gloved fingers.
It was a perfect pass.
He didn’t need to go to the ground for it, and since Aidan had led him so well, Trevor didn’t even need to turn up field. He was already running past the twenty-yard line, then the ten. The deep safety and the corner were about to converge on him. Trevor couldn’t see it, but he could sense it.
But then at the last second, an arm that didn’t belong to him shot out and he realized that Lane was a half step behind him, breathing hard.
Lane was bigger and stronger but he’d never been as fast as Trevor.
But he was today. Right fucking now, he was.
Fast enough he’d nearly caught up with Trevor and managed to take out the one guy who could’ve caught him and stopped him before he took the ball into the end zone and got the Thunder their much-needed touchdown.
Ten seconds later, Trevor crossed the goal line and let out a primal screech. He’d done it—butno, that wasn’t right.
Lane was lifting him up in his arms, like he weighed nothing, chest rising and falling, his heart in his eyes, and it had beenthem, doing it.
“Fuck, fuck, I fucking love you,” Lane yelled at him, and Trevor’s jaw dropped.
Lane’s eyes widened, like he hadn’t even realized what he’d said.
Trevor was about to demand if hemeantit, because he fucking better, but then they were being swarmed by the rest of the offense, everyone pulling both of them into embraces.
“Shit, shit, that was so fucking good,” Levi yelled into his ear.
“Fucking beauty,” Mo agreed.
By the time they returned to the sideline, Trevor’s breathing still hadn’t returned to quite normal.
Dawson was in the middle of lining up to kick the ball off to the Patriots for their final, forty-one-second possession when Trevor cornered Lane over by the Gatorade station.
Was Lane hiding from him? Maybe.
Maybe he hadn’t meant it, but he’dlookedlike he meant it.
“Did you mean it?” Trevor demanded.
Lane looked up at him in surprise.
“Um,” he said.
“Tell me you meant it, because I sure—”
