He gestures to the oven and says, “I thought we were ordering pizza.”
“We are. But I made cookies.” Skyler smiles brightly, then goes to rifle through a cabinet.
“You’re cute.” Trevor flinches as soon as his words slip out, but Skyler’s busy pulling out a square Tupperware container from underneath a stack of other kitchenware, and either doesn’t register him saying it or doesn’t find anything weird about it.
“Do you need to change?” Skyler asks.
“I don’t think so.” He glances down at his T-shirt and fitted black lounge pants. “Do I need to?” Suddenly, he’s self-conscious about the way he looks. Skyler sees him like this all the time, but maybe he should make more of an effort for Layla.
The way Skyler pauses what he’s doing and rakes his eyes over Trevor’s body makes it obvious he doesn’t seeanythingwrong with the way Trevor’s dressed though. Trevor’s face heats under the attention.
Finally, Skyler clears his throat. “You look fine. Why don’t you go down ahead of me? Cookies will be out in a second, but they need a few minutes to cool.” He frowns down at himself. “And I should probably change my shirt.”
Skyler holds up his arm so Trevor can see the hole in the armpit of his Fleetwood Mac tee. He’s owned that shirt since before Trevor met him, and it’s so threadbare that having only one hole is a miracle, but Trevor’s pretty sure that what started as a tiny hole in the seam was ripped into a much larger one by his dog. Now he can see the top of Skyler’s ribs—the top of the door tattoo—and he’d be more apologetic about Stella’s behavior if Skyler hadn’t been the one to get her all riled up by rolling around on the floor with her and grabbing at her paws. And Skyler hasn’t shied away from playing rough with her since that incident either, so he must not be too concerned about it.
It takes a second for Trevor to realize Skyler’s telling him to go to Layla’s apartment by himself. And when he doesn’t make any move to do that, Skyler gives him a curious look.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I just…”
Really want to kiss you right now.
That wasn’t what he was thinking at first. But the way Skyler can tell so easily when he’s not okay, and the way he looks standing there in a ratty T-shirt waiting for his cookies to finish baking…Well.
But Trevor stays rooted to the floor, because being in this limbo is safer.
“You can wait for me if you want?”
“Huh?”
“If you’d rather go down together,” Skyler says.
Oh, right. That’s what they were talking about. Trevor is a bit nervous about hanging out with Layla, considering how he made a fool of himself by getting totally wasted the last time he saw her. But going alone will give him a chance to apologize for that, so maybe he should.
“No, it’s okay, I’ll go. You take your time,” he says. “Can you feed Stella her dinner?”
Skyler nods. “Absolutely.”
Trevor’s struck again with the urge to kiss him. Because he’s there, and he’s so good, and if this were years ago, one of them would have kissed the other goodbye before walking out the door.
But it’s not years ago. It’s now.
And now he doesn’t know what to do.
Skyler’s watching as Trevor stands there awkwardly, and it’s like he knows what Trevor’s thinking, like his indecision is written all over his face.
So before Skyler can say anything else, Trevor says, “See you in a bit,” and rushes back to the elevator.
Like. A. Coward.
As he’s about to knock on Layla’s door, he fights himself to relax. It was his nerves that got the best of him the other night. He can’t mess up again. There are only so many chances this family will give him, no matter how kind and wonderful they are. At some point, surely, they’re going to give up on him if he doesn’t get his shit together.
When he knocks, he hears Layla’s voice shouting out immediately. “Oh my god, did you hear Dad bought a motorcycle? He’s totally—” The dooropens and she cuts herself off, blinking at him. “Going through a midlife crisis,” she finishes. “Hey, Trevor. I thought Sky would be with you.”
“It’s only me,” he says with a guilty shrug. “Sorry to disappoint. He’ll be down in a bit.”
Layla pulls him in for a quick hug. “You’re not a disappointment. I just got off the phone with my mom, and I couldn’t wait to laugh about this ridiculousness with Skyler, that’s all.”
