Page 13 of Heartbreak Honey

Now

TREVOR INSISTED HE’D BE responsible for dinner this time, so he arrives at Skyler’s place loaded up with two enormous bags of Chinese food. He feels a rush of importance as he pulls up to the security gate and punches in the code Skyler gave him to let himself in. Like he belongs here.

He knows this is weird. That the two of them being friends after everything more they’ve had between them should be impossible. But Skyler makes it seem easy, and his ease helps put Trevor at ease. And it feels so damn good being back in Skyler’s life, getting the privilege of knowing him again. He can’t walk away from this.

When he parks in front of the house, he awkwardly maneuvers himself and the paper bags out of the car and then manages to adjust his grip on one of them so he can knock on the door. It only takes Skyler a moment to pull it open, but he’s got his phone pressed to his ear. He offers Trevor a tiny wave and ushers him inside before holding up a finger to indicate he needs a minute.

As soon as Trevor steps over the threshold, Skyler uses his free arm to take one of the bags from him and heads toward the kitchen while he mutters noises of assent into the phone. Trevor follows him with the remaining bag, allowing himself a few moments to check him out, taking advantage of the fact that Skyler’s back is to him.

His legs look great in his typical black skinny jeans, and he’s wearing a loose-fitting, low-cut pastel yellow tank top. The moment Skyler opened the door, Trevor noticed how it scoops low over his chest, exposing a smattering of small tattoos. He recognizes some of them, but not all. And that stings in a way it probably has no right to. But it sucks, realizing he doesn’t know what all of Skyler’s tattoos mean anymore.

There was a time when he knew about every single one. Heck, he was right there beside Skyler for most of them, ready to take his turn under the needle next for a corresponding one. But that was a long time ago—when most of their tattoos were for each other. And while his fingers now itch to pull off Skyler’s top and map out every new bit of ink against his creamy skin until he has it all memorized, he knows he can’t.

When they get to the kitchen, Skyler carefully sets the first bag on the island and then reaches to take the other from Trevor, setting it down as well. He sounds frustrated when he says into his phone, “Yeah, I know. That’s fine, I’ll put something together.”

It’s only his second time here, but Trevor surprises himself by being comfortable enough to go to a cabinet for a glass and fill it with water from the panel on the front of the fridge. Or maybe he’s just more comfortable doing that than risking looking at Skyler’s chest again. He offers the glass to Skyler, who steps closer to accept it, then he grabs another and pours a water for himself.

“Okay, listen, I’ve got to go,” Skyler finally says. “I know. Bye.” He hangs up and then smiles at Trevor. “Sorry about that. It was my manager.”

“No worries. You need to take care of business.”

Skyler’s nose crinkles in displeasure. “That’s what I’ve been told.”

“What do you mean?” Trevor asks, as they each unroll a bag and start removing cartons and Styrofoam boxes of food, spreading everything out on the countertop.

“He wants me to make a public appearance.”

“Don’t you do that all the time?”

“Exactly. Which is why it’s so ridiculous that I suddenly have to now. I just finished touring, and as much as I love it, you know how totally exhausting that is. I should be able to get a little break for a while, but instead, I’m going to do an acoustic set for this station that records live video performances.”

“That sounds like it could be fun,” Trevor says, trying to appease him and not entirely understanding the problem here, other than that he agrees the man deserves to take some time off to rest.

Skyler gets a couple large plates and hands one to him. “Yeah, I love doing stuff like that, so it’s fine. But there was this article online about me, and my label called my manager to discuss what to do. I hate when people make decisions about me without me even being in the room.”

“I know you do.”

“But this whole thing’s my fault anyway, isn’t it?” Skyler goes on. “I made the decision to come out without telling them, without giving them the chance to put a plan in place.”

“Hey.” Trevor grips his forearm, stopping him in the middle of reaching for an eggroll. “That’s not your career. That’s your life. You’re not obligated to consult anyone on decisions like that.”

Skyler gives him a small smile when he lets go. “Thanks. But something like this isn’t entirely separate from my career, is it? And I’m lucky they weren’t too mad about it. They just wished I’d prepared them so they were ready to use it as momentum.” He smiles again at Trevor’s noise of disgust. “Anyway, this article accused me of hiding after I came out, which might be a tiny bit true. And according to Kieran, that’s not allowed.”

“I think I saw the article,” Trevor admits.

“Do you have a Google alert set for me?” Skyler asks with a smirk.

He rolls his eyes. “No, you ass. But the internet’s pretty much always talking about you, you know. It’s hard to miss.” Truthfully, he has been searching for anything about Skyler since he came out, to make sure the reactions were mostly positive. Which they appear to be. “It was something inane like ‘Skyler’s gay and now what,’ right?”

Skyler bites his lip. “You didn’t read the comments, did you?”

“No, I think we both learned a long time ago never to do that” He might be imagining it, but he’s pretty sure Skyler looks relieved when he says this.

“Right, so that’s the article, and I know I shouldn’t let it bother me,” Skyler says. “I mean, it said a whole lot of nothing, basically. But the part about how I could be this generation’s gay icon…”

“Yeah… ?”

“That’s a lot of pressure, don’t you think?”

Trevor drops a couple crab rangoons onto Skyler’s plate before taking some for himself. “It is. I can understand how hearing that would be overwhelming. But I think… Well, I think you were already a gay icon, whether or not people knew it.”

It’s a tiny bit awkward talking about how famous Skyler’s become, but the shy smile he receives for his words makes Trevor glad he said it.

“It’s weird to think of myself that way though,” Skyler says quietly.

“Oh, stop. You’re a musical icon, and you know it. And you’ve always been gay, so yeah. That’s how it works. You don’t have to worry about doing anything differently now.”

He knows he’s oversimplifying what isn’t exactly an easy situation to navigate, but he can’t stand to see Skyler looking worried or nervous or upset or anything that isn’t radiantly happy. Because he deserves to be happy all the time, and Trevor wishes he could beat the world into submission to make sure that’s the case. It should surprise him how he still feels so protective of Skyler after all this time, but it doesn’t.

Which makes the fact that he’s the one who ended up hurting Skyler the most even worse. If he could physically beat himself up for it, he would. Since he can’t, he’ll just continue to do so mentally.

“Thanks,” Skyler says. Then he laughs, shaking his head at all the takeout containers still full of food after the two of them have totally loaded up their plates. “So did you mistakenly think I’d invited like five other people over?”

“Hush. I wanted you to have options.”

“I appreciate that. And I’ll probably have leftover options for the next week.”

As they grab chopsticks and carry everything into the dining room, they’ve let the serious conversation drop. But shortly after they start eating, Skyler picks it up again.

“Um, about the gay icon thing.” Skyler nabs a Szechaun shrimp with his chopsticks. “It was already on my mind before I read the article. Not exactly being an icon. But how my coming out is going to affect whatever I do next. The plan was to take a little bit of time to myself and then get in the studio and hammer out my next album. But suddenly the pressure is too much, and I don’t know if I can do it.”

Trevor nods in understanding. Skyler’s released three albums so far, each vastly outselling the previous one. The expectations were sky high even before he came out.

“I know I’m getting into my own head about it. But it’s like, are all my songs supposed to sound super gay now? And what does that even mean?”

Trevor starts to laugh, but he turns serious again at Skyler’s tortured expression.

“It’s dumb, I know,” Skyler says.

“I didn’t say that,” he argues.

“But it is. I’m just not sure what people are expecting of me now.”

Trevor twirls some lo mein around his chopsticks. “I think you’re right that you’re getting in your head too much. Or letting other people get in your head.” Trevor’s certainly fallen into that trap himself in the past. But Skyler’s a better person than him, so he tells him, “You should keep making the music you want to make. And people will love it like they always do.”

Skyler gives him a cheeky grin. “Like you love it?”

He grabs a fortune cookie off the table and throws it at him. “Come on. Of course I love your damn music. Don’t let it go to your head, it’s big enough.”

“You don’t really think that, do you?” Skyler asks softly.

He shakes his head.

Skyler smiles, then picks up the cookie from the floor, peels open the wrapper, and cracks it in two so he can pull out the fortune strip. “You will receive everything you’ve ever needed,” he reads.

“In bed,” they both add at the same time.

They laugh, but then their eyes lock and they fall silent as the atmosphere in the room changes. Trevor doesn’t know for certain what Skyler’s thinking about, but he’s suddenly thinking about all the things the two of them have done in bed together, both sweet and filthy, and it’s making it hard to hold Skyler’s eye contact. So he breaks it, letting his eyes fall to his food.

Skyler places one half of the fortune cookie on the edge of Trevor’s plate before munching on the other half. Then he says, “Since I started my solo career, I’ve never had writer’s block like this before. I don’t like it.”

“You just need some inspiration. It’ll come to you when it’s meant to,” Trevor tells him. He knows that’s basically an empty platitude though, and he wishes there was something he could do to help, because he hates to think of Skyler struggling.

“I know, I know,” Skyler says. “We both know writing’s not something you can force. But it always seemed like I had an endless amount of music in me before. Even when I’m busy on tour, I’m constantly jotting down ideas and recording bits of melodies. But now that I actually need to come up with new material, I can’t. Coming out was supposed to make me feel freer, and instead it’s made me feel more stuck. Even meditating isn’t helping.”

“Wait, you meditate?”

That isn’t something Trevor can imagine Skyler James—a constantly moving ball of energy—doing.

“You want to see my meditation room?” Skyler quips.

Trevor laughs, but oh. He’s not joking. “You seriously have a meditation room?”

“It’s for meditation and yoga. I’m really into yoga. I started doing it years ago. It uh, helps me to calm down.” Skyler looks a bit awkward after he says this, peeling the tempura breading off a chicken finger.

And Trevor understands.

Skyler needed a way to keep himself calm after Trevor was no longer there to help. Guilt hits him again at the reminder that he couldn’t be there for him. To be his anchor. But he’s proud of Skyler for learning a way to overcome his fidgeting on his own. If there’s anyone strong enough to overcome anything, it’s Skyler.

“So yeah,” Skyler continues, running a finger over the low neck of his tank top, drawing Trevor’s attention to his skin. “I do yoga every day. I prefer to do it at home, in my own space, but even when I’m on tour or whatever, I bring a mat with me. I like how it combines both movement and being still. And then I fell into meditation too. Sometimes, if I have time, the very first thing I’ll do in the morning is go sit in the room and meditate.”

“For how long?”

“Sometimes five minutes, sometimes an hour. Though I rarely have that much time.”

“You can sit still for that long?” Trevor asks him gently. He’s not trying to be a smartass. He’s genuinely fascinated by this new revelation about the man he used to know everything about.

“I can when I focus.”

“Wow, all right then,” he says, leaning into his curiosity. “Show me this magical room that makes Skyler James still.”

Skyler rolls his eyes, but he scoots back his chair and stands, holding out his hand. When Trevor takes it, he tries hard to ignore how his entire body thrums pleasantly as Skyler leads him away.