Itwassupposedtobe a perfectly normal day. A perfectly normal practice.
But there was no way it could be, not with what Lane had said to him this morning.
Had he been a little disappointed and slightly frustrated with how Lane had reacted last night when he’d confessed that he might not be straight? Sure. But it hadn’t been all that tough to reconcile it. Lane could be a prickly guy; he didn’t always react the way that Trevor expected him to.
Coach Zane blew the whistle and Griff snapped the ball, Aidan dropping back as Trevor pushed off, slanting one way, and then abruptly turning the other, as Jordo shadowed him, not giving him the room to work he wanted—that heneeded.
Jordo—Jordan Atkinson, one of the other rookies on the team, and Carl Hererra—was good, but he was not usuallythisgood. Or maybe Trevor was just distracted. Too distracted.
Out of the corner of Trevor’s eye, Aidan shifted to the left, holding the ball back. He pump faked it once and then again, a sure indication that he was trying to extend the play.
Trevor tried one last-ditch move, a sharp cut, intended to shake Jordan, and it kind of worked. Enough that Aidan must’ve felt comfortable enough attempting the pass, because he drew back and threw, finally. The ball spiraled through the air in a perfect arc, but before Trevor could leap up and snatch it out of the air, Jordan did it first, batting it away.
Goddamn it.
Trevor let out a hard, frustrated breath.
“Dude,” Jordo said, glancing over at him.
Trevor rolled his eyes. He didn’t really want to talk to Jordan, but it was still better than going over to where Aidan was standing with Levi and Griff and Lane. Putting their heads together like Trevor was a problem that needed to be solved.
Trevor’s eyes met Lane’s for a single moment. It wasn’t anything special but something in Trevor’s stomach fluttered. Not unpleasantly.
“You party too hard last night?” Jordan asked, nudging him with an elbow.
“Of course not,” Trevor said. He didn’t want to talk to Jordan about this. He didn’t want to talk about itat all, in fact.
How would he even say it?Sorry, I came out to my stepbrother and then he suggested this morning that we hook up. And instead of telling him that he was insane, I thought,yes please.
“You’re totally fucking off. You’re faster than me. Wilier than me, too,” Jordan said self-deprecatingly, not sounding particularly happy about that fact.
At least he hadn’t said any of his semi-disastrous thoughts to Lane. Not yet anyway.
But you know you’re going to.
He probably was. Trevor almost never felt that melting-organ feeling, like candle wax dripping through his insides. But he’d felt it the moment he’d realized what Lane was suggesting. As insane as it would be to do what Lane suggested, it almost feltmoreinsane not to.
“Yeah, you suck,” Trevor agreed and Jordan made a face, like it hadn’t beenhimto say it in the first place.
Aidan gestured them over, and Trevor had run out of good reasons to not go.
He jogged over, bracing himself for whatever shit Lane was going to give him about not being able to evade Jordan’s coverage. But to Trevor’s surprise, he didn’t say a word.
“You good?” Aidan asked him.
“Yeah. Yeah. I’ll—” Trevor broke off, took a deep breath. Dug down to find the well of focus that had never failed him before. “I’ll be good. I’m good.”
“Good, ’cause we’re gonna rerun this with Wes,” Aidan said. “’Cause he’s probably starting on Sunday. And so will you.”
Trevor had seen that coming, considering it was the last regular season game of the year and that the Thunder’s record and the AFC playoff picture made winning it basically irrelevant.
“Alright,” Trevor said, nodding.
“Come on, let’s do this again,” Aidan said, gesturing over to Wes.
Wes looked nervous, kind of how Trevorfelt. Sure, he’d played in every game this season, but Lane had been on the field, too, or at the very leastdressedand on the sideline. It had never hung entirely on him, before, as the starting tight end.
Normally it might be a challenge he welcomed, but Trevor felt like his ground had shaken beneath him last night and then this morning, and he hadn’t found his balance again.
