But reality set back in while they were out having lunch. They’d felt safe because they’d worn long sleeves and hats, and because the population of this town skewed much older than their average fanbase. And yet, as they were about to leave, Trevor nudged Skyler’s knee under the table and cut his eyes briefly toward the other side of the café. Skyler subtly turned his head, and sure enough, three preteen girls were pretending not to stare at them.
Luckily, he and Trevor were smart enough—or maybe it was simply ingrained at this point—not to have done anything that could appear more than friendly. But it was still good they were on their way out of the place and the girls hadn’t gotten up the nerve to approach them.
They made it outside and over to his dad’s car, but before they could get in, a female voice behind them shouted, “Wait!”
Skyler looked at Trevor over the roof of the car, and Trevor shrugged, leaving it up to him. He knew how much Skyler hated to disappoint their fans. Or disappoint anyone, really.
There was no harm in talking to them, right?
So he nodded and then watched as Trevor’s entire presence shifted from simply Trevor into Boys Will Be Boys member Trevor Blue. And that wasn’t to say he was fake—it was just something different in the way he carried himself when he was in the public eye. Skyler suspected he was the only one who could even catch it.
For him, he felt like he was entirely the same person in his private and public persona. If you didn’t count the fact that he had to hide his sexuality and who he was in love with, of course. But everything else was the same.
The girls squealed and surged forward when they turned around, and Trevor held up his hands as he walked over to meet them. “Easy there, ladies. It’s all right.”
“Oh my god!” one of them exclaimed. “We swear we’re not stalkers or anything! We just saw you, and we couldn’t pass up the chance to meet you.”
“We love you both so much!” another added.
“That’s really sweet,” Trevor said. “It’s always nice to meet our fans.”
At that seemingly innocuous comment, two out of the three of them burst into tears. Trevor looked panicked. Not that they weren’t used to this sort of reaction, but he probably didn’t want this turning into a bigger scene.
Skyler reached out to hug the girl closest to him. “It’s okay, hon. It’s okay. We’re just people.”
She sobbed harder for a second, but then made an effort to control herself as he tightened his embrace.
After he and Trevor had hugged each of them and they’d mostly calmed down, the girls asked for a picture. Skyler could sense Trevor’s hesitation, but again Trevor shrugged, leaving it up to him.
Skyler politely asked an older gentleman passing by if he would help them out, and they arranged the picture so that he and Trevor were on opposite ends with the girls between them. No one would be able to see it, but when his and Trevor’s hands accidentally overlapped behind the middle girl’s back, Trevor used his thumb to stroke a few times along Skyler’s wrist, causing him to smile even harder as the picture was taken.
They didn’t think any more about the fan interaction when they went home, but they woke up the next morning to a barrage of texts from Maggie with links to the picture all over social media.
As he and Trevor lay back-to-back in the small bed, each absorbed in their phone, Skyler didn’t get what the big deal was. It’d be different if it were a candid picture of the two of them together, but he didn’t see any of those.
Then Trevor hissed, “Shit,” and Skyler turned so he could look at Trevor’s phone over his shoulder.
One of the girls had written a post describing his and Trevor’s “adorable lunch date,” and it had already been shared thousands of times.
Shit, indeed.
Trevor rolled over, took one look at him, and immediately reached out to smooth the worried wrinkles on his forehead. “It’s okay, baby. We know we didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not like they caught us kissing.”
“I know,” he said. But he couldn’t help thinking that, despite the reassurances, Trevor was also mentally bracing himself for some kind of repercussion. Skyler hated how they’d been conditioned to think this way.
Despite the rough start, they spent the day talking and joking and watching movies with his family. Everyone was in a great mood. So when the doorbell rang later that evening, and Skyler’s mom opened the door, then stood there in silence a few moments before she turned back and said, “Skyler, I think it’s for you,” Skyler wasn’t expecting the worst.
Damn it, he was an idiot.
His mom stepped aside as he went to the door, and there, standing on the porch of his childhood home, looking super out of place with a set of Louis Vuitton luggage beside her feet, was Andrea Arossi, of all freaking people.
“What are you doing here?” He glanced behind her to the waiting car and driver, and let himself hope, for just a second, that she might say she was simplypassing through Ohio on the way to a modeling shoot and had only come to say hello.
“Your management sent me,” she said instead. And okay. Right. Of fucking course they did.
“Absolutely not,” he told her, shaking his head firmly for emphasis. “You’re not staying here.”
He wasn’t supposed to have to deal with her anymore, let alone here. He hadn’t gone out with her in quite a while, and the media had assumed their relationship had naturally fizzled out, which he was more than fine with.
