The first five picks went by without fanfare, about as expected. Nobody had predicted that Trevor would go in the top ten, but there was always an outside chance that one of those teams would have decided they really needed a tight end, and Trevor was miles away the best one in this year’s draft.
Picks six through ten were a little more nerve-racking.
After the tenth pick, the air in the room grew tighter, closer. Even low-level conversation dropped off, every single person in the room straining to hear the sound of the phone on the coffee table in front of Trevor ringing.
Lane dug his fingertips into the meat of his thigh, trying to keep his expression neutral. After pick fourteen, he glanced over at Trevor, who still seemed calm and smiling.
Lane himself had been picked at sixteen.
The Bills were coming up, at eighteen.
The Thunder weren’t until twenty.
The longer Trevor slid in the draft, the more likely it was that he would end up somewhere near Lane.
But the phone didn’t ring, and it didn’t ring, and itdidn’tfucking ring.
Next to him, Lane could feel his mom tensing up every time a new team went on the clock.
Pick eighteen and the Bills came and went with no phone call.
But Lane couldn’t breathe easy, not yet. Buffalo would have been difficult, but it would be nothing compared to the nightmare that would be Trevor coming to Toronto.
He still didn’t think the Thunder would draft Trevor—they hadhim, didn’t they, and Lane was coming off the best year of his NFL career so far, and they’d already opened up negotiations for a contract extension with his agent—but the thought theycouldmade him breathless with horror and longing.
It would be hell, having Trevor in Toronto. He’d never be able to get away from him. He’d drown in the desire that he’d never been able to extinguish.
Pick nineteen, and Lane’s heart was trapped in his throat.
The phone remained stubbornly silent.
But then,oh God, the Thunder went on the clock.
“Wouldn’t that be amazing?” Delia murmured to him, smile returning to her face. “My two boys, back together again.”
Lane wanted to argue that they’d never been together, not in the way she meant, and definitely not in the wayhewanted, but that would only make everything worse. He just needed to get through the next five minutes, and then it would be pick twenty-one, and he could breathe easy.
But that wasn’t how it went.
Four minutes in—Lane knew because he was tracking the time on his phone, next to him on the couch—the phone rang and the whole room erupted.
Trevor picked up the phone and then he looked over at Lane. For a second, their eyes met, and Lane could only think,no no no, yes yes yes.
Then he answered the phone and the moment broke. His mom threw her arms around Lane and he hugged her tight, panic splitting him in two like a lance.
It shouldn’t have happened.
He hadn’t wanted it to happen.
But it had happened anyway.
Trevor Thompson was the newest member of the Toronto Thunder.
Chapter 1
“Soreally,youhaveto tell me how it is, playing with your bro,” the girl asked, tucking a strand of long brown hair behind her ear.
It was New Year’s Eve and they were at Vault, at Ramsey’s invite.
