Lane glanced at him, over his shoulder. “What are you doing?” he asked, confusion wrinkling his forehead.
“Nothing,” Trevor said, but it didn’t sound convincing even to his own ears.
“Are you . . .” Lane turned around this time. “Are youavoidingme?”
“No, that would be stupid.”
“Exactly. It would be fucking stupid. Especially after you lecturedmeabout treating you differently.”
Trevor winced, and Lane patted the couch next to him. “Get your ass over here.”
He could say no. He could tell Lane to fuck off. Of course, historically he’d never been good at that. Probably because he didn’twantLane to fuck off.
Instead, he skirted around the couch and sat down, at least six inches further away than he usually did, practically gluing himself to the far end of the couch. It was obvious; it made how much Trevor wanted to do the opposite so freaking obvious, but the alternative wasdoing the opposite. And that was terrifying, only because he hadn’t realized how much he wanted to, until he knew it was an option.
Lane sighed. Scrubbed a hand across his face. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
Over the years, Trevor had seen a lot of different versions of Lane. Tired and frustrated. Snippy. Happy. Silly, even, a handful of times. They hadn’t spent that much time together before the last four months, but they’d spent enough time together now that Trevor knew the Lane he was seeing right now was different.
He’d never seen him look so defeated, not before now.
And overthis? Trevor’s heart stuttered. He could picture Delia right now, and how she’d fix him with that earnest look of hers and say,you better fix this.
“What do you mean?” Trevor asked carefully.
“I shouldn’t have offered, I should have kept my mouth shut, it was a bad idea, and I made you feel uncomfortable—”
It hit Trevor suddenly,viscerally, that Lane actually thought Trevor’s problem was that he didn’t want to, and he didn’t know how to act around him now. How to let him down easy.
Trevor laughed, in the middle of Lane’s sentence.
Lane stopped and shot Trevor a glare. “I’m trying to do the right thing here, you know, so—”
Trevor interrupted him again. Didn’t let himself think about it too hard ahead of time, and he didn’t do it with words.
Just scooted over and pressed his mouth against Lane’s.
It was barely a kiss, just a brush of their lips together, dry and barely anything more than platonic.
But it still sent a shock of sensation rocketing through Trevor. He wanted to do more. If that was the point of experimenting, well, he wasn’t sure he needed more. But if he told Lane that, then he wouldn’t get to do it again.
Lane still hadn’t moved, apparently his turn to freeze.
Trevor pulled back, suddenly wondering if heshouldn’thave done that after all. He’d expected . . . well, he’d expected Lane to react at least a little.
When he’d offered had Lanenotmeant kissing? Kissing was kind of a big deal to Trevor. He couldn’t imagine having sex without it, but maybe that wasn’t the kind of thingLanewas looking for. Or maybe, in the end, it had just been too weird, even though Lane had been the one to come up with the idea in the first place.
Finally, Lane opened his eyes. He cleared his throat, but his voice was still rough around the edges when he said, “I guess that’s your answer, then?”
Trevor had figured that his answer had been obvious for far longer than that, but it would probably be good to justsayit.Clear communication might help this from getting messier than it already was.
“Yeah,” Trevor said.
But still Lane didn’t move, fingers clenched into the fabric of his shorts. For a single stupid moment, Trevor thought maybe Lane was afraid that if he reached for him, he wouldn’t stop. But that was ridiculous. Lane didn’t feel that way about him.
He’d barely tolerated him for years, and now that they were finally in the same place, at the same time, things were better, they werefriendsnow, but it wasn’t like that.
“Okay.” Lane let out a breath. “Okay.”
