They ran it again. And again. Wes was less experienced and therefore less good at delaying a play, at holding the ball longer.He got sacked twice, once which Aidan straight-up told Trevor and the other wide receiver—Bryce McCarthy—was their fault, as they hadn’t gotten open.
“No excuse for a coverage sack,” Aidan said, tone kinder than they probably deserved.
It was not a great practice. But still, on their last run-through, Trevor and Wes finally connected, Wes tossing a great pass just as Trevor got open. He made a move Jordan didn’t expect and cut up field, leaving him in the dust,finally.
Still, one out of ten or so attempts was not exactly stellar, and Trevor fully expected that Lane would kick his ass about it on their way back to the locker room. He had, too, every single other practice they’d ever shared in Toronto.
But not today. Instead, he hung back, talking to Mo and Levi. Trevor shouldn’t have been angsting about it, but he inevitably was.
Maybe he should wait—but no, he wasn’t going to. He wasn’t going to wait on Lane. He was going to do his regular routine. Not that this was probably going to help his situation at all. He’d told Lane he wanted to think about it, to consider the offer, but the blunt truth was he’d only said that because how much he’dwantedto, suddenly and unexpectedly, had freaked him out. Sure, he’d noticed that Lane was attractive. Sure, he liked Lane. He always had. But he hadn’t known it wasthatkind of like.
Hard to escape the abrupt realization that it might be exactly that kind, followed up by the even more radical speculation that it hadalwaysbeen that kind.
“So what gives?” Jordan asked, jogging to catch up with Trevor as he headed into the tunnel.
“Just distracted,” Trevor said.
Jordan shot him a look. “Please. You hook up with someone hot last night? Not get enough sleep?”
Maybe if he had, if Lane had suggested last night they go to bed together and Trevor hadgone, he’d be less preoccupied with what it could be like. What itwouldbe like.
“Nah,” Trevor said.
“Saw you talking to that dark-haired girl,” Jordan said, nudging him as they turned the corner into the locker room.
Trevor stripped out of his jersey and tossed it into the laundry bin. “Yeah,” he said. “But it was only a few minutes.”
“You didn’t like her?”
“Just wasn’t feeling it,” Trevor said. He liked Jordo, he really did, especially since he’d begun to get his head out of his ass, mostly courtesy of Nate, but he didn’t always love how pushy Jordan could get about girls.
“Me either, lately,” Jordan admitted, which was surprising.
Maybe this was another result of Nate’s mentorship. Jordan had certainly been spending less time at strip clubs recently.
“In fact,” Jordan hesitated, glancing around and lowering his voice. “I think . . . I’ve started to wonder if maybe I was using girls as a distraction.”
Trevor couldn’t agree, because he’d never used girls as a distraction, but he was definitely understanding what Jordan was putting down. “You know, if it had been a dark-haired guy . . .” He trailed off.
Jordan smiled, relief softening his features. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Trevor said, flushing a little. “Something I’m still working through, though.”
He hadn’t meant to give Jordo the wrong impression, though, because he was not anticipating the guy leaning even further into Trevor’s space.
But before Trevor could back up or figure out how to gently dissuade him from thinking that maybe they could work on it together, a sharp-edged voice cut through the air.
“Trev,” Lane said, striding into the locker room. He shot Jordan a look that Trevor thought might have been jealousy. But before he could figure out if he was right, it was wiped clean, replaced by a smirk. Jordan seemed to get the message though, because he headed deeper into the room, back to his locker to finish getting changed.
“Hey,” Trevor said weakly, ignoring how his stomach and his knees both went liquid. “What’s up?”
“Tomorrow, we’re gonna get here early,” Lane said firmly. “We gotta work on your routes.” He loomed right over Trevor, making the most of the three inches he had on him, and unlike Jordan, Trevor didn’t want to immediately take a step back. He wanted to step closer.
Close the space between them once and for all.
“If you think I need to.”
“It’s notmewho thinks you need to,” Lane said. It was unfair that even when he was being an asshole—even when he was being atruthfulasshole—Trevor couldn’t forget how he’d looked this morning when he’d said, in that soft, entreating voice,experiment with me.
