For a minute Trevor was quiet, but the eggs were almost done being scrambled when Trevor spoke up again. “So what’s the big occasion?”
“Who says it’s a big occasion?” Lane had made breakfast before. Most days in fact, they rotated around each other in the kitchen. Sometimes Lane would make extra of whatever he was cooking, or vice versa. It wasn’tthatunusual. Lane told himself he hadn’t been too obvious. Besides, he wastryingto be obvious. At least this time. He was going to have to sit across from Trevor and say,hey, you wanna experiment? Experiment with me.
“You made your super special bagels,” Trevor pointed out dryly as they popped up from the toaster.
Lane swallowed hard and divided the eggs up between the two plates in front of him.
“New Year’s Day?” Lane offered even though it was dumb to pretend.
Don’t be stupid,Ramsey’s voice echoed in his head. But maybe it was more like,don’tkeepbeing stupid.
“And,” Lane added, before he had no choice but to turn around, fussing with the bacon on the plates, making sure thatTrevor had all the super extra crispy ones, just the way he liked, “you came out last night. That’s a big deal.”
Trevor groaned immediately, but not in the super sexy way Lane wanted to someday pull out of him.
“What?” Lane asked, having no more excuses to keep plating up food. He turned and slid the plate with the extra crispy bacon in front of Trevor.
“I should’ve guessed. You totally blue-screened last night. But then you what, spent all night thinking of what you should have said instead?” Trevor sounded annoyed but also a tiny bit fond about this.
Lane grabbed on to that sliver of affection with both hands and ignored the rest. “Exactly,” he said, knocking his knee against Trevor’s, and for the first time in forever, didn’t immediately force himself to ignore the shiver of sensation that lanced through him at even the incidental touch. “I should have . . . well, I should have said a lot of different things. That’s part of what this is about.”
“And what’s the other part?” Trevor asked. He got up and grabbed the orange juice—the super pulpy shit that Lane wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole—as well as the cream cheese. Lane was being so supportive he wasn’t even going to give him crap about ruining his good bagels by slathering cream cheese all over them.
“We haven’t even made it through thefirstpart yet,” Lane complained.
“Well, get it out, then,” Trevor said, sighing impatiently, which told Lane that he knew what was coming. But that didn’t matter. The words still mattered. They could still make a difference.
Just because you expected someone to tell you that you were loved and accepted no matter what didn’t mean that wasn’t something you actuallyneededto hear.
“Whatever you are, whatever label you want to give yourself, you’ve got a spot here. Here, in this apartment. And on this team. We don’t judge. I definitely don’t judge.”
Trevor raised an eyebrow. “Appreciate it. But you kinda seemed like you were judging last night.”
“That wasn’t . . .” Lane took a deep breath and ate a slice of bacon. It helped, because bacon always helped. “That wasn’t what it looked like.”
“Okay, so tell me what it was.”
Lane missed the days when Trevor had been so sweet and unassuming. Back then it had been pretty easy to get him to drop things. The Trevor who’d come to Toronto was stillessentiallythat kid, but he was stronger too. Tougher. In so many ways Lane was screwed because this older Trevor who took less bullshit was even more attractive than the younger, more pliant version.
“Um, well, you know that advice I gave you?”
Trevor might’ve rolled his eyes, but Lane was currently having an anxiety-related out-of-body experience, so he told himself he’d imagined it.
“Sure,” Trevor said. “The other half of your really great response.”
“Sarcasm is not helpful,” Lane said.
But Trevor just laughed, taking a big bite of bagel and cream cheese. A crumb lingered on the corner of his mouth and Lane wanted to lick it off.
He’d never been so close to actually beingableto do that, and yet so far.
“Just freaking say it,” Trevor said, because clearly he had no idea what was coming. Or what was twisting Lane up—what had twisted him up for what felt like a million fucking years at this point.
“I meant what I said about experimenting, but what I should have said—what Iwantto say—is that you shouldn’t download Grindr. Don’t do that. Guys are not gonna be good to you on there.” Lane swallowed hard. Here was the moment—he was gonna either do this, once and for all, or he was going toneverknow. And when faced with that kind of decision, it was actually easier to say the words than he’d ever expected. “You shouldn’t go on there, if you’re looking to experiment. If that’s what you’re looking for, experiment withme.”
Lane was pretty sure once the words were out there that he hadn’t been nearly as casual as he should’ve been, but fuck it, it had beensix years.
Trevor didn’t react any way he expected.
