They finished up their breakfast and then Trevor took them in his car to the high school gym. It was like peeling back the last year to walk through the doorway, with itsfull hearts can’t loseslogan that they’d borrowed fromFriday Night Lights, painted above.
Trevor tapped it and then Lane did too, like every single player and even every single alumnus did.
He’d thought he’d feel different coming back here, the experience of a full year of football and school and living elsewhere, but instead he felt like the same kid underneath, everything he’d done and experienced just a veneer.
The same kid, with the same problems.
Watching Trevor work out was a particular kind of torture, but at least it was a torture he was used to. A torture he mostly knew how to deal with.
It was the same, but it was different too.
Trevor was a year older. Bigger. Stronger. He hadn’t really bulked up the way that Lane had cautioned against, but there was no question as Lane spotted him that he was lifting a lot more, growing into his strength.
He’d been steeling himself, sealing off thoughts he couldn’t—shouldn’t—have about teammates and friends for years now, and it should have been easier to shut the door on everything he felt, watching Trevor strain and struggle through the last few reps.
It wasn’t.
Lane went over to the water fountain, deliberately trying to give himself a minute of time and space.
To breathe. To try to remind himself of everything he’d ever promised himself when it came to his sexuality and his chosen future career.
Trevor was his former teammate. Hisstraightformer teammate. His straight former teammate whose dad happened to be married to Lane’s mom, now.
There had never been anyone more completely off-limits than Trevor.
Lane bent over the fountain and breathed in and out once. Then again. Maybe the problem was that he’d put this high barbed-wire fence so thoroughly all around Trevor. But what else could he do? Trevor was never going to belessoff-limits.
That wasn’t just wishful thinking, it was fuckingfacts.
Cold, hard facts, he repeated to himself. Over and over again. Maybe if he thought it enough times, it would sink in.
Lane straightened and then, a second later, a hot line of a person pressed against his back, the sound of laughter in his ear and he tensed.
“Hey, bro,” Trevor teased, leaning against him fully.
Before, Lane had only had his imagination to supply him with what Trevor’s incredible body would feel like against his. Now heknew. Wouldn’t ever be able to forget. And it was ruinous.
Lane came back to himself a second too late. A second too late tonotknow. He shoved Trevor off, probably harder than he should. Definitely harder than he deserved.
Trevor also didn’t deserve the way he glanced back over his shoulder and snapped, “Dude, I’m not your fuckingbro.”
Trevor recoiled from the edgy frustration in his voice.
“But—”
“No,” Lane said, too harshly. But he was right on the edge, too much feeling swirling around inside him, too slippery to get a handle on any of it.
Sighing, Trevor just shrugged. “It’s just a word. Maybe an opportunity for both of us. You didn’t have one either, growing up.”
None of this was Trevor’s fault. It wasn’t his fault that apparently the sweat slicking up his skin was irresistible to Lane, full of an undefinable something that made him want to throw self-control away with both hands.
“No, I didn’t. Still don’t.”It’s not his fault, it’s not his fault,Lane reminded himself, but he couldn’t swallow the words back, even though he was already swamped with guilt over saying them.
Which was worse? The shitty conflict—attraction battering like a wave against the foundation of immutable truth—warring inside Lane? Or the way Trevor’s bright face fell as he understood exactly what Lane was saying?
Frankly, a toss-up.
If Lane had expected he’d feel better after establishing that boundary, he was wrong. It was worse, after.
