“Brat.” But Lane’s gaze was warm and so was his tone. Like heenjoyedthat.
Though maybe what he really enjoyed was riling Trevor up, because Trevor’s reaction riledhimup, right back.
“I mean it,” Trevor insisted, trying to drag them back to a locker-room-sanctioned kind of conversation.
“Alright, alright, I’ll continue to be a complete dick to you. Promise.” Lane shot him a knowing smirk. “Especially now that I know youlikeit.”
Trevor rolled his eyes, but it was hard to deny.
“Come on,” Aidan called over, “let’s get cleaned up. I have a bunch of film we need to watch after lunch.”
“Our glorious leader calls,” Lane joked. “I guess we’d better listen.”
Trevor didn’t want to, but he knew he didn’t have a lot of choices. When Aidan Flynn told you to do something, youdidit.
“You’d think if he’s not playing this week, Aidan would like . . . take a chill pill or something,” Lane grumbled as they walked out to his SUV.
“You know him better than me. Have you ever seen him do that?” Trevor sighed, because he was tired too.
The film session Aidan and Coach Zane had put together had been three hours.
“No,” Lane admitted. He unlocked the car and they climbed in. “What do you want to do for dinner?”
It was the first time they’d been alone since this morning. Since driving in, which hadn’t been awkward, not exactly, though ithadbeen quiet.
Mostly because Trevor had been turning over and over in his head what Lane had offered, and the visceral way he’d reacted to it.
Trevor scrubbed a hand over his face. Lane had been trying very hard since he’d come here this summer to take care of them, even though he was absolutelynotgreat in the kitchen. Even though Trevor couldn’t help but appreciate the thought, some days he didnotwant to struggle through eating whatever horrible recipe Lane had found on TikTok.
“Something easy. Takeout? You want Thai?”
“Deal,” Lane said. “You want to order and we’ll pick it up on the way home?”
It was not the first or last time they’d done this. In fact, they did it probably more than they should have. But the Thai placearound the corner from Lane’s building was good, and they’d come up with a decent standard that fit fairly well into the plan the nutritionist had sent out at the beginning of the preseason.
So, everything would be normal.
Thai takeout.
They’d probably put some video games on, after. Maybe Trevor could even convince Lane to puzzle with him again.
Everything totally routine, exactly like they’d normally have done on a Thursday evening.
Except that on a normal Thursday evening, Lane hadn’t offered to have sex with him, and Trevor hadn’t been incredibly tempted to say yes.
Trevor punched in the order, still feeling like he was doing a fairly good job of at leastpretendingthat this was just like so many other evenings after a long day of practice and meetings.
But after they picked up the food and they got upstairs, Lane went to the couch—where they normally ate, not exactly pressed together, but not far away either—and Trevor hesitated.
He hadn’t meant to. He’d meant to act normal. But when the moment came, he froze, thinking about how their knees had knocked together at breakfast this morning. The shaft of sensation that had rolled through him at just that simple touch.
That wasnotnormal for them, and definitely not normal for Trevor.
Generally it took a lot more for Trevor to work his way up to attraction. A whole series of inward trust-building exercises he had to work through, before he could eventhinkabout wanting to kiss a girl.
But he wanted to kiss Lane right fucking now.
It shouldn’t have been a problem, because Lane had made it clear that wouldn’t exactly be a hardship. But then why was Trevor still stuck behind the couch?
