“Come on, I’m the best,” Mo said, smirking about it. “Metaphorically and like,totallyliterally.”
“We are trying to be supportive of Lane, not pump your ego more,” Aidan pointed out dryly.
“Why do we need to be supportive of me?” Lane wondered, though he was afraid he knew.
“Bro,” Mo said sympathetically. “You were fucking pacing a whole track into the turf. Remember, we don’t need to win this game.”
Mo squawked again and Lane had a feeling Aidan’s elbow had found another soft spot.
“I know that.” Lane huffed out a breath.
They all watched in silence as Griff snapped the ball and it was obvious from the first moment the play unfolded that Wes and Trevor were on the same page—they wanted those seven points, not to settle for three—and Lane’s nails dug into his palms as Trevor ran his route towards the end zone.
But the Giants had a great pass rush, and Wes wasn’t as experienced as Aidan when the blocking broke down, and Lane wanted to yell at Trevor that he needed to keep an eye on his quarterback, to never take his attention off him, even for a moment. But he did, focused entirely,tooentirely, on ditching his coverage instead.
That meant when Wes threw the ball, a second earlier than he’d wanted to, Trevor hadn’t turned yet. A moment later, the ball bounced to the turf, uncaught, and Dawson headed out onto the field with the field-goal unit.
Annoyance was all over Trevor’s face when he came to the sideline. “We freaking had that,” he fumed, when Lane looked over at him. “We freakinghadthat.”
There were a lot of things Lane wanted to say. A lot of teaching moments he could impart—the Thunder brass had made it clear that was one of the reasons they’d drafted Trevor. He still had a lot to learn, and frankly so did Lane, and they’d hoped they would make each other better. Take the best parts of each of their games and use it to make the team, as a whole, even better still.
“Yeah,” Lane said instead.Fucking useless, he thought at himself furiously.
Lane might’ve been mixed up about Trevor before, but after touching him, after Trevor kissing him, the jumble had reached critical mass. He wanted to push Trevor so far away, yell nothing but the bluntest truth, while tugging him closer than he’d ever been and murmur in his ear that nothing that had just happened had been his fault.
Trevor shot him a look, crossing his arms over the Thunder logo on his chest. “That all you have to say?”
He couldn’t say what he felt, which was,I never knew what to say to you, and now I really fucking don’t.
Instead, he decided on, “What doyouthink happened?”
Trevor huffed. “Are you serious?”
“You know football’s the only thing I’m ever serious about,” Lane said.
It was stupid. Very stupid. Leaned into all the worst rumors and gossip and clichés about who he was as a person.
All that shit that he realized he’d hoped Trevor never thought about him.
“You’re the fucking worst,” Trevor spat out.
“Just . . . actually for serious, what doyouthink happened?” Lane questioned again. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Aidan’s head bent towards Wes’, over one of the tablets. Mo was standing to the side, looking bored.
If Trevor admitted to it, then Lane wouldn’t have to be the one to tell him he’d fucked it up.
“I don’t know. I thought it was going good. I lost my coverage, turned around ready for Wes to throw me the pass, and then the ball fell right in front of me.” Trevor shrugged. Like there was nothing he could’ve done.
And Trevor had gone to Oregon, with its national-awards-winning offensive line. His quarterback had experienced unprecedented protection, which had, no question, boosted his stats and, as a result, Trevor’s also.
He’d never had to make these kinds of adjustments.
Sure, coaches had probablytalkedabout them. But it was one thing to be told and it was another to have todothem, on the fly.
“Wes had to get rid of the ball.”
“What, really?” Trevor’s surprise said it all.
“You should’ve been fuckingwatchinghim for that exact situation,” Lane said, finally giving in and just saying it.
