Trevor has spent the night a few times now, and Skyler loves it. They keep up the pretense that he’s going to sleep in the guest room, but every time, Skyler stays awake until Trevor comes to his room.
Maybe what they’re doing isn’t exactly normal. But it’s them. They’ve never been normal. What they have is so much better than normal.
It isn’t until he gets back home, ready to start preparing dinner, that Skyler checks his phone and sees an evacuation warning has been issued for Malibu. The fire that was supposed to be contained has rapidly shifted and could be coming this way.
Shit.
They’re advising high-risk residents to get out now, and that an evacuation order may be forthcoming within twenty-four hours if they can’t get it back under control. He’s gotten warnings before, and they’ve never turned into an actual order. But it’s always safest for him to stay somewhere else anyway, because even if the fire doesn’t come, the smoke can get bad, and he can’t afford to harm his vocal cords.
He’s not sure if it makes him crazy that he’s less concerned about his house than he is disappointed at how he’ll have to give up his nights with Trevor for a bit.
But then he sees they’re also suggesting precautionary evacuations all the way down to Santa Monica. Which is concerning. It’s been forever since the fires got down that far. Maybe Trevor should evacuate with him. The county is only being safe by suggesting it, but things can change quickly. He doesn’t want to be somewhere else and then Trevor doesn’t have a way to get out if he needs to.
They could always go stay at his place in New York. Almost everything he needs is already in his apartment there, so he won’t have to pack much. He’ll ask Trevor when he gets here, and they can get on a plane tomorrow.
Or that’s what he thinks.
When Trevor and Stella show up, however, and Skyler mentions the warnings, Trevor tries to shrug it off. “It’s only a precaution, it doesn’t mean anything,” he says as Skyler grabs plates from the cabinet. “Santa Monica never gets hit. You should go though.”
“I’m going to stay at my New York apartment,” Skyler tells him. “And you should come with me.”
“I don’t need to.”
Skyler starts loading up their plates, wondering if it was weird for him to ask Trevor to stay with him. If it’s too much. But he can’t back down now that he’s said it. He wants him to come, and he’ll be too worried about him if he doesn't. “I know it’s unlikely, but Santa Monicahashad a fire before. If the wind picks up fast enough, you never know what could happen. If we have an easy way to get out, then we should take it. We can’t wait until it’s too late and it becomes chaos. You live in California, you know this.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Trevor insists. “I can’t lose my house.”
“What do you think you can do? Blow the fire away?”
“Screw you.”
He flinches. “Shit. I’m sorry.” He’s not trying to be rude, but he doesn’t understand why Trevor’s so adamant about not leaving. “You need to be smart about this though.”
“Are you saying I’m dumb?”
“No! I—”
“You know what?” Trevor says. “I think I’m going to head out. I should probably get working on that fire safety preparedness stuff they tell us to do, right?”
“Wait, you don’t—”
“Sorry about dinner. Uh. Have fun in New York.”
What the hell?
He doesn’t move, momentarily stunned as he watches Trevor spin around and rush to pick up Stella’s bowls off the floor. But when Trevor bolts out of the kitchen, Skyler runs to catch up with him, asking him to stay.
“I’ll see you when you get back,” Trevor says, ignoring the request, and then he’s nudging Stella out the door.
Skyler has no idea what just happened. It feels like he’s missing something. He’s not even sure if that was a fight or not. He wants to call Trevor right now and ask to talk about it, but maybe it’s better to wait until tomorrow morning. The warning could be canceled by then anyway.
He’s less sure if he should leave now. But he shouldn’t let whatever Trevor does affect what he does, so he calls his assistant and asks him to arrange transportation for tomorrow afternoon.
He’ll get everything sorted out in the morning.
Skyler’s ringing phone wakeshim up in the morning. Seeing it’s only six a.m., he groans but answers anyway because it’s his mom. “Hey. Is everything okay?”
“Are you evacuating?” she asks, forgoing a greeting.
