“I know, it seems fast.” Trevor shrugged awkwardly. Suddenly, he seemed less like a hot guy and more like a gawky sixteen-year-old. Joke was on Lane, because that didn’t make him like him less, only make him want to talk to him more.
He shoved that thought aside, too.
“Yeah,” Lane agreed. “And I’m sure you worried that my mom is just out for your dad’s money.”
Trevor’s jaw dropped.
“It’s okay,” Lane said as casually as he could, even though this whole conversation was suddenly littered with mines, “I get it. I would’ve thought it too. I thought your dad might be a serial killer trolling for new victims. That’s how I know where you live.”
Trevor huffed out a nervous laugh. “He’s not, you know.”
“I figured that out,” Lane said dryly.
“But yeah. I did think—then I met her. And yeah. She’s not a gold digger.”
“Nope,” Lane agreed.
Trevor’s eyes glowed, such a soft, sweet brown. Lane wanted to eat him up, even though he was off-limits in about a hundred ways.It’s okay,he told his body—more like his uncooperative dick—there’ll be other hot guys. So many hot guys at college. And none of them will be off-limits.
“I really like her, you know. And my dad’s a good guy. I think . . . I think they both deserve to be happy, don’t you?”
He was so softly, sweetly earnest it kinda killed Lane. Before now, he wouldn’t have said that was something he even liked in a guy. But now he wanted to bite his collarbone and see if he tasted like strawberry ice cream.
“Can’t disagree,” Lane said.
“And I guess that means we’ll be . . .” Trevor gestured between them.
Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it,Lane internally begged.
“Brothers,” Trevor finished. Of course he’d said it anyway.
“Right,” Lane said weakly.
“And I’m sure you won’t be around much, anyway,” Trevor continued.
Lane nearly said,yeah, I’m gonna make sure of it, but he didn’t. Besides, it wasn’t Trevor’s fault that Lane found him bitable, lickable, orwhatever, and surely, after a semester incollege, focusing on football and on getting laid, he’d be able to come back to Arizona and not feel like this still.
“Probably not,” Lane agreed.
“You wanna come in? Watch a movie or something?” Trevor asked, and he sounded hopeful, like even though Lane was going to college in a few months, they could still form some kind of relationship.
Lane had to snip that thought right off, before Trevor got any more ideas.
“Nah, I got shit to do”—he didn’t, not at all, but he wasn’t going to tellhimthat—“I better get going.”
Trevor smiled. “Guess I’ll see you around, man,” he said and tapped him on the shoulder.
Lane tipped his head back against the headrest as Trevor walked up to the house.
Despite its size, it looked homey. Flowers in pots, but with a handful of weeds in the beds which made it feelreal. One of those little garden flags with a doctor joke on it. The mailbox was freshly painted, shiny and black. How warm and friendly, but also howlived inthe house looked was what had convinced Lane initially that the guy who lived here wasn’t a serial killer.
Okay, so the doctorwasn’ta serial killer. Nothing wasthatbad. Maybe his mom and the doctor would get married and he and Trevor would become well . . .notbrothers. He was never going to call him that, but still, he had to believe it would be okay. He’d get over it. Get out of here. Go to school. Nothing would feel this fucking awful again, not with some time and distance and maybe a dozen boys who were all cuter than Trevor Thompson.
Five years ago
It was still really fucking weird to sit at the breakfast table and look down and see only shiny polished wood. Not the ugly Formica tabletop that had sat in his and his mom’s tiny kitchen in the double-wide trailer for as long as he could remember.
It was a concrete reminder—anotherone—that while Lane had been away in California for his freshman year, everything had changed.
