Page 3 of Heartbreak Honey

Now

TREVOR’S HEAD IS RINGING. No. His phone is ringing. He opens his eyes and tries to sit up, and okay. His phone and his head are ringing.

He gropes around until he retrieves the phone from where it slipped between the couch cushions and checks the screen. Courtney Beckingham. His publicist, still employed for who knows what reason. He can’t remember the last time he spoke to her.

And he certainly doesn’t want to speak to her now when he’s just woken up with the world’s worst hangover. He ignores the call and tosses his phone back onto the couch before rolling himself pathetically to the floor. Giving into temptation, he closes his eyes again, because the light feels like it’s stabbing him directly in his corneas.

Then a wet tongue licks a fat stripe of slobber up the entire side of his face, and he peeks his eyes open to find Stella hovering above him, her strong tail thwacking against the coffee table.

“Morning,” he croaks.

She gives him another lick, and when he doesn’t make any effort to move, she nudges her nose between his ribs.

“Okay, okay,” he says as she becomes too aggressive to ignore. “I’m fine. Let’s go out.”

He gets himself standing upright (currently no small task), and then stumbles to his bedroom to tug on a pair of sweatpants and change into a T-shirt that doesn’t have a glob of dried tomato sauce stuck to it.

His phone goes off again as he’s crossing the living room, but he leaves it on the couch, letting it ring. Disregarding finding his sunglasses in favor of getting the fuck out of here, he hurries to clip a leash onto Stella so they can walk out the front door.

As soon as he takes his first step outside, he’s blinded—but not by the sun.

Camera flashes go off from every direction.

“Trevor! Trevor, over here!” voices shout.

A mob of reporters are gathered on the sidewalk, right past the edge of his property. They’re armed with notepads, microphones, and video equipment. And they’re all calling his name.

Stella growls and lunges forward, dragging him a couple steps before he pulls back on her leash to rein her in.

“Trevor, your eyes are red! Have you been crying?” one woman calls out.

“Do you have a statement for us?” a guy who looks too young to be a reporter asks.

“What the hell,” Trevor mutters, before regaining control of his faculties and abruptly turning around, leading Stella back inside the house.

What the hell’s going on? A statement about what? Surely this can’t all be because he signed an autograph at the grocery store yesterday, can it?

Even if he doesn’t get recognized that often, much of the public still remembers who he is when they hear his name. But as far as the music industry’s concerned, he’s pretty much over. Nobody important. Just another washed up boybander who’s not as good looking as he was when he was young.

He didn’t do anything crazy to bring this on, so it makes no sense.

His phone’s ringing again, and this time he grabs it and answers without bothering to look at the screen. “Yeah?”

“Hello, Trevor, this is Stephen Dorst with Radio Nine-Oh-Nine. How are you?” Without waiting for an answer, the far too chipper man goes on. “I was wondering if you’d be interested in coming in this morning to do an interview. We—”

Trevor ends the call.

What. The actual. Fuck.

Checking his phone, he sees seven missed calls from Courtney. Shit. He needs to call her back, figure out what’s going on.

Stella is whining pitifully now, so he reluctantly lets her out in the backyard. Then he sits on the couch and braces for some unknown impact as he taps on his publicist’s name in the Recent Calls log.

“Trevor, thank god,” she says right away. “Do you know?”

“If you’re talking about whatever it is that caused a mob of paparazzi to show up outside my house, then no,” he tells her, unable to keep the irritation out of his voice. “I don’t.”

“Skyler gave an interview.”

“Doesn’t he do that all the time?”

“Trevor.” Her tone lets him know that whatever this is, it’s serious. “You need to watch it. I’m sending you the link. And a link to a video of a song from his show last night. You’ll probably want to watch that too. Then call me back, okay?”

“What the heck is going on?”

“Promise you’ll call me back. Don’t keep ignoring me.”

“Yeah, all right, geez,” he grumbles, annoyed again. “I wasn’t ignoring you on purpose. I was asleep for Christ’s sake.”

“Okay, good,” she says. But despite the words, she sounds stressed out in a way he hasn’t heard her sound in a very long time. Possibly ever. Then she takes a deep breath and adds, “It’s going to be okay.”

He wants to ask why the hell it wouldn’t be okay, but she hangs up before he can.

The links come through a few moments later, and he clicks on the interview first. It’s with Midnight Mania, a late-night show that films in L.A. According to the signature tape scrolling across the bottom of the screen, they bumped Scarlett Johansson’s interview to bring Skyler in.

Skyler’s wearing his signature black skinny jeans and a practically see-through white button-up with the top two buttons unbuttoned, paired with a ridiculous fedora. Not even close to his sluttiest outfit, but the sight of him, even in the small rectangle of Trevor’s phone screen, makes Trevor’s mouth water in a way he’s not exactly proud of.

He’s pretty sure the phrase “thirst trap” was invented because of Skyler James.

The host, Bennet Lane, is talking to Skyler about his concert last night, and it all seems normal until he says, “Okay, now we’ve got to talk about that last song you did.”

Skyler nods, a sly smile on his face, like he knew this was coming.

Bennet looks like he’s about to have a field day, leaning over his desk so far he might as well be crawling onto Skyler’s lap. “‘Heartbreak Honey’ is trending on social media, and we’ve all seen the performance by now. You must realize everyone’s asking the same question, so here it is. Skyler James, the world has speculated about your sexuality for years. Are you finally telling us that you are, in fact, gay?”

WHAT?

On the screen, Skyler sits up straighter now, adjusting his freaking fedora and brushing a hand delicately over his long curls. Then he grins. “I am. I mean, shit,”—he chuckles—“I thought it was pretty obvious. I wasn’t trying to hide it. Not for a long time anyway. But if the world needs to hear me say it, then yes. I’m gay.”

Trevor is stunned. He feels a whole lot of things all at once. Proud, he thinks, but also confused, and… yeah. Stunned.

Bennet beams at his audience, then at the camera. “You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen. And let me be the first to offer my condolences to Skyler’s millions of female fans out there. It’s a rough break, ladies.”

Skyler face contorts for a moment before he schools it back into a more pleasant expression, but Trevor doesn’t miss it. The way Skyler wrinkles his nose when he’s unhappy with something is so distinctive that Trevor can still catch it now, after all these years.

Skyler doesn’t do what he does for millions of people to dream about banging him. He does it because he loves the music. Loves performing. Being sexualized is always something he’s had to deal with as a result, but it makes him kind of uncomfortable. Or it used to, anyway.

Trevor supposes he doesn’t really know how Skyler feels anymore. The Skyler James he knew could be an entirely different person from the one he’s watching in this video.

Still, the nose wrinkle.

Skyler daintily crosses one leg over the other and says, “I understand this news may disappoint a portion of my fan base. But I hope they can understand that, even though I’m a celebrity, I’m still a human being. And I can’t control my sexuality any more than anyone else can.”

Bennet hums as if he’s in agreement, but then he says, “Well, you’ve certainly dashed the hopes of your female fans, but I suppose you’ve made a certain amount of your male fans very happy.”

The nose wrinkle again.

“I’ve always wanted to make my fans happy,” Skyler says carefully, “but again, I hope I can make them happy through my music, rather than with the possibility of dating me.”

That makes Trevor smile. Good for him.

Bennet looks too excited again. “And are you dating anyone then?”

Trevor almost falls off the couch from anticipation in the two seconds it takes Skyler to answer.

“No. I’m not.”

It shouldn’t matter to him one fucking bit, but Trevor experiences a whooshing rush of relief anyway.

“There you go, everyone.” Bennet gives the camera a wink, which is just ugh. Then he looks back at Skyler. “All right, one more question on this topic, because if I don’t ask, I’ll be getting thousands of tweets from fans disappointed with me.”

Uh-oh.This can’t be good.

“So all that stuff about you and your bandmate Trevor Blue, back when you guys were in Boys Will Be Boys…”

Trevor sucks in a breath.

Oh no.

No.

No.

“A huge number of fans were convinced you two were together. They even had a name for the two of you. Blue Skies, if I recall correctly. So was that true? Were you and Trevor in a relationship?”

Skyler gives the host a small, shy smile, and says, “I can’t speak for anyone other than myself.” Then he turns away from Bennet and looks directly into the fucking camera, green eyes boring straight into Trevor’s soul. “All I can tell you is that I was in love with him.”

There’s a whole lot of noise from the audience, and then the video cuts off.

And Trevor is left sitting here, holding his phone like it’s a damning piece of evidence he should bury.

That motherfucker.

Now he understands how this involves him. The cameras going off in his face right outside his door make perfect goddamn sense. And now. He’s pissed.

He thinks there’s some other emotion he can’t identify, way down at the bottom of his stomach, trying to come up. But no, fuck. It’s his dinner from last night. Running to the bathroom, he makes it right in time before he starts vomiting.

After, he tears off some toilet paper to wipe his chin. He stays there on his knees on the cold linoleum floor a few minutes in case he’s not done being sick.

Why would Skyler do this? He had to have known it would affect Trevor too.

Back when they were in the band, Skyler wanted to come out. Wanted both of them to say fuck you to their management, the record label, and their contracts, and just do it. But Trevor wouldn’t let him.

Skyler’s obviously decided now that the freedom is worth any potential blowback. And that’s all kinds of kittens and rainbows wonderful for him, isn’t it?

But couldn’t he have come out without dragging Trevor along with him?

Fuck. This is so not good.

As he goes back to the couch to try to figure out what he’s supposed to do now, he remembers Courtney sent him another link. Something about the concert. He sighs, figuring this can’t be any worse than what he just watched, and clicks.

Skyler is onstage—looking unfairly gorgeous in a sparkly purple and silver tank top and pants set—talking to the crowd, telling them to pay attention to something. And then he’s singing “Heartbreak Honey,” and Trevor forgets to be mad for a second because Skyler looks so damn gorgeous, and his voice is smooth and sweet and slipping into all the corners of Trevor’s heart.

Then he realizes what Skyler’s doing. The song Trevor knows as well as any of his own, he’s altering it. Changing the gender-neutral pronouns to masculine ones.

And it’s something in his eyes—some spark, some flame of honesty, of pure, raw emotion—that softens Trevor. He’s always known the song was about him. But the way Skyler’s singing it now, with that look in his eyes… It’s the first time Trevor feels that Skyler is singing it directly to him. For him.

It feels like maybe, just maybe, in some twisted way, this is all for him.

Holy shit.

He’s supposed to call his publicist back. But instead, his fingers scroll through his contacts, flying past C and going all the way down to S.

The moment he taps on Skyler’s name, his heart starts pounding and he almost hangs up. This is ridiculous. They haven’t spoken in five years. They’ve been out of each other’s lives now for as long as they were in them.

Each ring sounds as loud as a trumpet blast in his ear. Skyler’s not going to answer. This probably isn’t even his number anymore. But even if it is, he’s obviously not going to answer.

“Hello?”

“Uh, hello?” Trevor says, startled. “I mean, hi. Skyler?” He doesn’t know why he’s asking that. Of course it’s Skyler. From the one word, he knows it’s him.

“Yeah, it’s me. Trevor?”

“Yeah.”

Skyler makes an undecipherable noise. “What’s… um… How are you?”

“Screw you,” Trevor responds.

“Um. Okay.”

He takes a breath, attempting to curb his anger. “Wait, let’s try this again. Hello.”

“Hello,” Skyler says once more. “Is there something you wanted to say beyond that?”

“Yes,” he says. He’s just not sure what it is.

“Well, I’m waiting,” Skyler tells him, and Trevor’s not sure if it’s impatience in his voice or amusement.

“You’re an asshole.”

“Am I?” Skyler says. “Because I’m not the one who called you only to cuss you out.”

Ugh.Fucking hell. This conversation would be difficult enough without a hangover. Trevor’s emotions are running extremely high and they’re spilling out in all the wrong places. He needs to get himself together.

“Okay, no, you’re not,” he admits grudgingly. Maybe he should apologize, but he’s not going to. “I saw your interview.”

“Oh.”

That’s it? Oh?

“How could you do that to me?”

Skyler sighs. “Trevor. I didn’t mean to do anything to you. I swear I never had any intention of mentioning you at all. But Bennet threw that question at me, and the entire reason I came out was so I could be fully honest about myself. I made sure not to confirm we’d been together, because I know that’s not only my story to tell. But the part about being in lo—” He cuts himself off, and Trevor hangs on to that syllable like it’s the end of a rope and he’s dangling off a cliff. “I guess it was something I couldn’t hold back. I wanted to be honest.”

Honest.

Like it’s that easy.

Trevor clears his throat. “I don’t know what to fucking say to that.”

“That’s okay, I wouldn’t expect you to. It’s a lot to process.”

Skyler’s kind, gentle words nudge something inside him. A giant piece of him that remembers how good they could be to each other. And he realizes he’s kind of a dick for trying to make this whole thing about himself. Skyler did something major, and it took a lot of guts.

Trevor should be asking if he’s okay. So he does.

“I’m hanging in,” Skyler replies casually. “Honestly, I’m kind of trying to avoid seeing all the public reactions for now, taking some time to breathe. So I’m staying away from my phone.”

And yet he still answered Trevor’s call. Which makes Trevor say, “Do you think we could… uh. Do you want to meet up somewhere so we can talk about all this?”

He has no idea if he even wants that, but it might feel good to yell at Skyler in person.

There’s dead silence from the other end of the phone, and Trevor’s about to take it back. But then—“Yeah. Actually, I’d like that.”

Oh.

He would?

That’s a surprise.

“Where do you want to meet?” Skyler asks when Trevor doesn’t say anything.

And then it takes a bit to settle on a safe place where they won’t be spotted.

“A park?” Skyler suggests.

“It’d have to be somewhere not too many people go. Pretty secluded. And you can’t show up with a driver and security detail. Dead giveaway. You need to come alone.”

Skyler laughs. “Are you planning to murder me?”

“Fuck you.”

Skyler sighs again. “Trev, I was kidding.”

It seems to slip out so easily. Trev.

Trevor softens a bit. But Skyler doesn’t get to call him that. Not anymore.

“I know,” he says. “I’m a little on edge with all this, okay? I’ve been trying to stay out of the public eye for a long time now, so this shit is a lot for me all of a sudden.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drag you back into it. I just…” Skyler sighs for the third time, not that Trevor’s counting. “Look, I don’t want to have this conversation over the phone. Pick a time and place, and I’ll be there. I promise.”

Their promises used to mean something to each other. Trevor’s not so sure they do anymore, but still he says, “Okay. I’ll think of something, and I’ll text you.”

After they hang up, he takes the deepest breath he can manage and tries to calm his rapidly beating heart. Talking to Skyler was like running a marathon with no trophy waiting for him at the end as a reward.

Is he really going to do this? See Skyler again? Face to face? He barely made it through a phone conversation without losing his mind.

But it’s Skyler. And Skyler said he’d like to see him.

Holy shit.

It’s like Trevor’s whole damn life has flipped upside down overnight.

His phone dings with a text from Courtney, who he completely forgot about. You haven’t called me back.

Right. It’s her job to handle this stuff for him, determine the best course of action, tell him what to do. But he doesn’t want to do anything right now. Definitely not before he meets with Skyler.

It’s okay, I’m fine, he types.

We still need to discuss this and decide what to do about it.

We will. I just need some time.

The dots appear on his screen. Then go away. Then reappear. And go away again. When her message finally comes, all it says is, Don’t do anything stupid.

Ha fucking ha.

He’s about to do what might possibly be the stupidest thing he’s done in years. But she doesn’t need to know that.