And Lane didn’t want that for Trevor. Not trusting, sweet, good-natured Trevor. He deserved better; he deservedthe best.
“Probably not,” Lane admitted.
“I didn’t think so,” Nate said smugly. “So, after you give him the nice supportive coming out speech—I’m assuming youdoknow it, even if you completely fucking failed to give it to Trevor last night—offer to be the guy he experiments with.”
Lane swallowed hard. “What if he doesn’t want me?”
“Well, first off,” Ramsey said, sauntering over to where they were sitting, propping his elbows on the counter and leaning over it. Even with circles under his eyes and hair a mess, he was unfairly pretty. Unfair, too, that Lane had never really wanted him. “He wouldn’t have told you if he didn’t want you.”
“I’m not—”
“No,” Ramsey interrupted firmly. “He’d have gone to someone else. He toldyoufor a reason. Don’t be stupid about this.”
“Hard for him not to be,” Nate said, like Lane wasn’tright here, “because he’s been stupid about this for the last six years.”
“Ouch.” Lane grimaced. Not even sure he could argue with that assessment. Hefeltstupid. And whenever he remembered how he’d acted last night, he felt even stupider, humiliation swamping him.
He should fix this. Hewantedto fix this. But could he find the balls to actually offer, knowing that there was a possibility Trevor would laugh at it.
“He fucking gift wrapped this up for you. Don’t fuck it up again, okay?” Nate patted him on the shoulder. “You want another coffee for the road?”
“You’re kicking me out?”
Nate nodded intently. “You have a conversation to have, andIhave a New Year’s morning wake-up celebration to redo.”
“Damn straight,” Ramsey echoed.
“What should I say?” Lane asked, panicking a little. He wasn’t ready to go do this. He needed more advice. He needed Nate to hold his hand and walk him through it. Nate, because Ramsey wouldn’t be very nice about it.
Nate shot him a frank look. “Justsayit, Robinson.”
“But—”
“No,” Nate said inexorably. It occurred to Lane that maybe Natewouldn’tbe nicer about it than Ramsey would. He supposed that made a kind of fitting sense. After all, they were each other’s person. Maybe Nate made Ramsey a little nicer and Ramsey made Nate a little more unapologetic.
“Fine,fine. You want me to just . . .” Lane swallowed hard.
“Yes,” Ramsey said.
Lane supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that they kicked him out less than five minutes later, shoving a to-go cup of coffee into his hands and ushering him to his car. Hehadwoken them up really freaking early.
But was it actually early if he hadn’t been to sleep?
Probably better that he hadn’t vocalized that particular question. He was already in big enough trouble with Ramsey.
The drive back was uneventful and went way faster than it should’ve, the forty-five minutes from Nate and Ramsey’s new condo passing practically in a blink of an eye.
He pulled into the parking garage under his tower, parked, and headed upstairs in the elevator. When Lane let himself back into the apartment, it was still quiet. Slipping his shoes off, he headed into the kitchen. No more lights on. Clearly Trevor was still sleeping.
It would be nicer to let Trevor sleep, but once Lane had a plan, he didn’t want to just sit around andwait. If he did that long enough, maybe the certainty he’d found while talking to Nate and Ramsey and on his drive home would slowly dribble out of him, leaving him the same kind of fucking mess he’d been last night.
Well. Maybe what he should do was make breakfast. In the last few months, he’d learned nothing got Trevor up like the smellof bacon cooking, though the sound of the blender mixing his protein shake probably didn’t hurt either.
Lane grabbed food from the fridge—bacon and eggs and the bagels he had shipped from New York that he saved in the freezer for special occasions—but on cue it was only when the bacon was almost done in the oven and his protein shake was finishing up its blend cycle that he heard footsteps, and when Lane lifted his head, there Trevor was, brown eyes sleepy, wearing only a pair of ratty shorts and a threadbare T-shirt.
“Breakfast?” he asked hopefully.
“Yeah, give me a minute to make some eggs,” Lane said, turning back to the stove.
