Trevor, who’d been scrolling through his phone—he was certifiably the most passenger princess, a fact that Lane had not given him enough shit about—looked up, startled.
“What?”
“Everyone givesusshit,” Lane said, “but Aidan and Levi are likethat.”
“It’s . . . uh . . . it’s different, right?” Trevor didn’t sound particularly convinced, though.
“Well, obviously they’re dating and we’re—” Lane broke off. They weren’t defining this. Well, no, that wasn’t true, was it? They’d already defined it. It was a fucking experiment. An experiment that was slowly driving Lane out of his mind because it had been three days since Trevor had touched him. “We’re bros,” Lane finally finished.
Trevor shot him a dubious look. “Are you freaking joking?You’regonna say it now?”
No, he wasn’t. He didn’t even know why he’d said that.Wrong again.He’d said it because it had somehow seemed better than anything else currently in his stupid brain.
“It . . . just . . . it didn’t mean anything,” Lane said weakly. Suddenly afraid that even with all the tangled shit winding their way around his brain stem and his heart and his dick, that was still the worst thing he could’ve said. God, what had he been thinking, reminding Trevor of thatright now? When his mom and Tom were coming in a few weeks? The ultimate reminder of how fucked up this whole thing had been from the beginning.
Trevor just gave him another look, but didn’t say anything else, not until Lane had parked in the garage and they were back upstairs, pulling their coats off and Lane was heading into the kitchen to try to cobble together some kind of meal.
Difficult at the best of times, but nearly impossible when nine-tenths of his brain was still stuck on how uncertain Trevor had sounded when he’d claimed they weren’t the same as Aidan and Levi.
“Dude, what is your issue? Are you really freaking out about your mom and my dad coming?” Trevor hadn’t taken his normal place, perched on one of the kitchen island barstools so he could heckle Lane at his inability to cook, but instead was leaned up against the counter. Right in his space.
Lane stared into the fridge, at the packet of raw chicken breasts. He had some vegetables in the drawer. He could throw together some kind of stir-fry. Maybe.
“Of course I’m not.” Lane pulled out the chicken. Dug in the crisper drawer for some carrots. A pre-washed bag of broccoli that didn’t look too wilted. Why had he even bought broccoli? He didn’t evenlikebroccoli.But Trevor does,an insidious voice reminded him.
“You’ve been off since then.”
He probably had been. But it was more than that too. It was that ever since he’d walked in and Trevor had been talking to his mom, and she’d told them both that she and Tom were comingto Toronto, Trevor hadn’t touched him once. Accidentally or on purpose.
“Sounds pretty fucking nebulous, man.” Lane knew it was useless to argue, but he’d been fighting this for so long, it felt natural to just keep doing it. To just never stop, even when there was a part of him that argued,hey, maybe it’s time.
Trevor made a frustrated noise as Lane pulled a big sauté pan out of the cupboard.
A second later, a hand tangled in his hair and jerked him around.
Hot,his brain thought, and a second later, as he took in Trevor’s flat line of a mouth,and dangerous.
“Come on,” Trevor said. “I’m not stupid.”
“You freaked out.” The words tumbled out of Lane’s mouth.
But Trevor’s expression didn’t flicker. “Bullshit.”
Lane tried to swallow the words back, but instead, they came out in a sulky whine that he desperately wanted to snatch back. “You haven’t touched me since.”
Trevor’s gaze was steady and drifted down to his mouth. His hand tightened in Lane’s hair. And that wasn’t hot at all.Lie.“I’m touching you right now,” he said.
Hard to not hate how calm Trevor sounded, all while Lane was going out of his goddamn mind. But then, that’d been par for the course for the last six years, hadn’t it?
“You told me I could take whatever I wanted, and I thought that was kind of crap, just the kind of thing guys said to get you into bed—”
“It wasn’t,” Lane interrupted before he could stop himself.
Trevor’s hands tangled even more firmly in Lane’s hair, yanking him down until their eyes were level.
“I’m beginning to see that,” Trevor said, and kissed him.
Even as Trevor pushed Lane against the counter, the kiss morphing from harsh—their mouths scraping together like theywere finally giving themselves permission to take what they wanted—to hot and then sweet, the grip on Lane’s hair never let up.
