Page 34 of Heartbreak Honey

Now

Trevor’s in the laundry nook, folding clothes as Skyler takes them out of the dryer, when his phone starts blowing up with texts. Skyler takes over folding while he checks it to see that Courtney’s sent him a bunch of links. Remembering the last time this happened, he braces himself for something awful.

It’s not that bad, but it’s concerning. Pictures of both him and Skyler separately in the city, and articles on how fans are speculating about what it means that they’re in the same place at the same time.

There’s a sneaky (and unflattering) picture of him picking up bagels, which he’s done quite a few times. A picture of Skyler at the bodega on the corner buying two pints of pistachio ice cream. But probably the most incriminating photo is the one of Trevor walking Stella, because it suggests he’s here for more than a quick trip.

God, hopefully no one’s gotten a picture of Skyler with Stella. If the shippers saw that, it’d be too much proof for them and they’d never stop digging after. Trevor will have to be the only one to take Stella outside from now on.

With a groan, he slides his phone back into his pocket. “Why can’t they just leave us alone?”

Skyler gives him a questioning look as he passes him a sweater. Trevor folds it, explaining what Courtney sent him. Before Skyler can respond, Trevor’s phone rings.

“Answer it,” Skyler tells him.

“I don’t want to,” he whines like a child as he pulls the phone back out and stares at Courtney’s name on the screen.

Skyler rolls his eyes and taps to accept the call for him before raising Trevor’s arm up, making him hold the phone to his ear.

“Trevor, what do you think you’re doing?” his publicist asks right away.

“Uh…”

“Is it true? Are you in New York with Skyler?”

He cradles the phone with his shoulder so he can keep folding. “I had to get out of L.A. because of the fire.”

“The fire went out weeks ago,” she says.

“You’re not in charge of my whereabouts, you know.”

Courtney sighs like he’s being difficult—which, fair. “No, but I am in charge of your public image, so it’d make my job easier if you kept me in the loop with what you’re doing.”

“I’m staying with Skyler,” he tells her.

“And?”

Skyler nudges him in the side and gestures to the pile of clothes he’s fallen behind on folding. He goes to grab a shirt, but Skyler takes it from him and then shoos him away with a wave of his hand.

He walks with his phone into the bedroom. “And what?”

“Are you back together?”

Well, shit.He’s surprised she asked it so bluntly, that she thinks they have the kind of relationship where it’s okay for her to ask that at all.

Maybe they do. She knows more about his personal life than most people, he supposes.

“We are.”

“That’s great, I’m happy for you,” she says, and despite the brevity of the sentiment, it sounds like she means it. “So do you want to come out publicly?”

Trevor’s heart falls into his ass. “What? Of course not!”

“I’m only checking. Please don’t bite my head off.”

“Sorry. But no. Nothing’s changed on my end with that.”

Nope. He’s still a big fat fucking coward.

Skyler comes in during the conversation with a pile of folded clothes, and Trevor gets distracted watching him bend down to put them away in the dresser, so he’s only half listening when Courtney says she set up an interview for him.

“I know you said no originally, but I figured since you’re already in New York, you might change your mind. It’s certainly not meant for you to come out, only to keep you fresh in people’s minds. And typically, it would be to promote something new, but since no one’s seen your face on TV in years, they’re happy to simply have you there and catch up with you. If you really don’t want to do it, we can cancel. I told them it was tentative.”

“Wait, what? But I don’t even have anything to catch people up on.”

Another loud sigh. “There’s still plenty of interest to talk to you after Skyler’s interview. I think it would be foolish to waste this opportunity. Why don’t you talk it over with Skyler and get back to me.”

“Yeah,” he says to get her off the phone. “Fine.”

“Trevor, I’m serious. My job is to handle the publicity for your career, so it would be nice if you, well, had a career.”

Ouch.

Skyler, who’s come over to sit beside him on the edge of the bed now, raises a concerned eyebrow. Trevor puts a hand on Skyler’s leg, squeezing once to let him know he’s okay, even though he might not be.

“Hey,” Courtney says gently in his ear. “I’m sorry. I understand what you’ve been going through in the last five years. I do. But I need to know if you still want a career in music. Because if you don’t plan on ever singing again and you’re going to ignore every media mention of your name, then you don’t need me, do you? And honestly, I feel bad that you’re paying me when I’m not doing any work. The most I’ve done in years is field these recent calls for you, and this interest will go away if you decide not to do anything about it.”

He finds himself holding his breath during her little speech. Everything she’s saying may be true, but that doesn’t mean he’s particularly comfortable hearing it.

“I think it’s time you make a decision,” she continues. “Don’t let your avoidance decide for you. You need to decide if you want to keep going with music or if you’re done for good. So promise me you’ll talk to Skyler, because I’m sure you care more about his opinion than you do mine.”

“All right,” he manages to say, glancing at Skyler. “I promise I’ll talk to him.”

With that, she lets him go, saying she’ll call back tomorrow. Which sounds like a deadline.

He tosses his phone to the bed and flops onto his back. Skyler’s in his space immediately, lying on his side next to him, smelling like soap and peaches and everything lovely and Skyler. Trevor wants to kiss him. Wants to use Skyler’s lips to make him forget about the world outside of this apartment. But he’s afraid Courtney is right—his time for forgetting and ignoring might be up.

“What are you supposed to talk to me about?” Skyler asks, tracing a finger delicately over Trevor’s collarbone through his thin T-shirt.

Trevor arches into the touch and sighs. He explains that his publicist set up an interview for him with a talk show in the city. Tells him how she thinks Trevor can rebuild his music career if he wants to. And Skyler encourages him to do the interview, says it doesn’t have to mean anything definite but it’s a good idea in case he does decide he wants to do music again.

Sitting up, Trevor angles himself toward Skyler and tucks one foot underneath his thigh. The idea of saying he wants to make music again is terrifying. Yet somewhere in the back of his mind, a nagging voice tells him that the idea of saying he won’t make it anymore is even more terrifying.

He’s comfortable with his semi-regular life, but more and more lately, he’s felt a tiny, persistent itch that maybe only writing and singing his own songs will scratch. The more time he spends around Skyler, watching him play and work on new material, the more he wants to reach for a guitar himself. But it’s not that simple.

“I’m sure not that many people even want to hear me anymore,” he says, avoiding Skyler’s imploring gaze.

Skyler rushes to sit up and takes Trevor’s face in both hands, turning it so their eyes meet. “That is not true.”

Before he can argue, Skyler lets him go and is twisting around, leaning away to grab his phone from the nightstand. He types something in and scrolls for a minute before handing it to him.

“You still check out Boys Will Be Boys forums?” Trevor asks, confused and a bit amused. Or at least, he would be amused if he wasn’t so stressed.

“Click on this one,” Skyler says, pointing.

It’s a thread named we miss trevor, and scrolling through it, he realizes he’s reading a vast number of posts that are all about him. Fans not only saying how he was their favorite member of the band, but also talking about how much they loved his solo album Blue Again. How much they relate to his lyrics, and even how his songs have gotten them through rough times in their lives. There are so many comments from people hoping he’ll make another album someday.

He doesn’t read through the whole thread—he can’t, it’s too long—but by the time he hands Skyler’s phone back to him, he’s a little dizzy from all his mixed emotions. Despite seeing all the kind, lovely things fans have said about him, he’s still distrustful. Like there’s some angle he’s missing, like they couldn’t possibly mean it when they say he was their favorite member of the band. He can’t quite pinpoint the moment when he lost all faith in himself, but here he is.

“Do you see?” Skyler asks, pressing his thumb into Trevor’s thigh. “They want you to come back to music.”

He shakes his head. “They don’t need me. They have you. You were always the better singer.”

“You were always the better songwriter,” Skyler counters.

“You’re a great songwriter too.”

“Nope. We’re not doing this comparison. Look at me.” Skyler takes him by the chin and forces eye contact, not letting him squirm away from it. “You are incredibly talented. And you used to know that. What happened?”

So many things.

He pushes at Skyler’s hand, grateful when Skyler lets go of his face. “It’s not—It’s not about me being talented, okay? The industry hasn’t exactly been good to me, has it?”

Skyler gives him a sympathetic look, but Trevor isn’t finished.

“Do I really want to jump into that again? Invite all the nosy interviewers to dive back into my personal life, all the critics to judge my feelings? Did you know one reviewer called my album whiney and self-indulgent?”

“No, but you can’t let one person’s opinion get to you,” Skyler says.

Trevor shakes his head. “Maybe you don’t understand how hard it would be for me to put myself out there again because you have this amazingly charmed life, with all your success and fame and the respect of like the entire music industry. All I have is tragedy after tragedy.”

“You have me.”

Some of the fight leaves him at the sincerity and devotion in Skyler’s voice. He places his hand over one of Skyler’s. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

Skyler eyes flash with anger as he pulls his hand away, shocking Trevor. “Honestly, I don’t understand what you’re talking about, because my life wasn’t so fucking charmed when I was basically an alcoholic at twenty-two, was it? When the man I loved, the man I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with, told me he wanted out, that he wanted to be with someone else because it would be easier! My life definitely wasn’t charmed then. It completely fell apart.”

“Sky,” he says, but Skyler ignores him.

“Yes, I may have had some luck in putting it back together again. But do you think I didn’t work my ass off for my success? Do you not understand how painfully hard it was to get up every day and even keep existing with my heart ripped clean out of my fucking chest?”

Trevor’s heart jackrabbits. They were supposed to be talking about music, not their relationship. But the one is so tangled up in the other that sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart.

The man I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with.

His brain gets stuck on that part, making him deliriously happy in a way he shouldn’t be allowed when he’s made Skyler this upset. But another part sticks out too. Something that can’t be right. “I never said I wanted out.”

“Pretty sure you did,” Skyler scoffs.

“Pretty sure I didn’t.”

Skyler stands abruptly and strides to the dresser, turning to lean against it and crossing his arms, giving him a hard stare.

Trevor panics. Are they actually fighting here?

He can’t lose Skyler. Not again. Not when he just got him back. Not when everything is so good.

He has to swallow around the bile rising in his throat before he can speak. “Hey, I—I’m sorry.” When Skyler’s face softens, it gives him courage to continue, to be honest. “I know it was my fault, and I’m so sorry for everything I did, everything I said that made you feel like you weren’t what I wanted, because you were. And it doesn’t make up for any of that, but so you know, it was just as hard for me to get up every day and keep existing. Probably harder.”

Skyler takes a step forward so he’s standing in the middle of the room, straddling the battle line. “So how’d you do it? In the early days after we broke up, what got you through?”

Trevor eyes him suspiciously because it’s like Skyler already knows the answer to that.

Damn him.

“Music,” he admits finally. “I got through it by channeling all my pain into writing music. But that was a long time ago.”

Skyler moves closer until he’s standing in front of the bed, looking down at Trevor with so much understanding it almost hurts. “I still think that means something. It means music is something you could never truly give up. It’s a part of you.”

You’re a part of me, Trevor thinks but doesn’t say. Instead, he stands so their chests are only inches apart. With Skyler’s breath ghosting his face, he doesn’t remember what they were fighting about.

When he leans in for a kiss, though, Skyler holds him back. “Not until you say you’ll talk to your publicist. Call your label.”

“My old label,” Trevor reminds him.

“Whatever. Promise me you’ll put it out there that you might be interested in making another album and see what happens. Because I think the world needs to hear your music as much as you need to share it.” Skyler smooths a hand over Trevor’s shoulder and down his back to rest at the bottom of his spine. “I know I’ve always needed it.”

He should say something equally as eloquent to respond to that, but he says the first thing that comes to his mind, which is, “I really fucking love you.”

“Fuck. I love you too.” Skyler drags him in impossibly closer and kisses him.

They keep kissing until Skyler pushes him onto the bed, helping Trevor scoot up toward the head and crawling on top of him. As Trevor flips them over so Skyler’s the one on his back, he realizes he never promised him. But he makes the promise to himself right then. If he can be brave enough to tell Skyler how he feels after everything that’s happened between them, then he can handle the music industry.

And yes, he misses it. The rush of singing to his fans and hearing them sing his own words back at him.

Although not as much as he missed this. Having Skyler spread out underneath him, peeling off layers of clothing until there’s nothing between them. Nipping his way across a collarbone, trailing his lips down ribs, eliciting tiny whimpers and moans as he goes. Trevor takes his time admiring Skyler’s body because it’s a literal work of art.

Then he sucks hard on a bit of skin over Skyler’s pelvic bone, and that’s when Skyler starts jerking his hips up, urging Trevor to hurry. Happy to oblige, he grabs the lube out of the nightstand and gets to work opening Skyler up with his fingers. It turns quick and dirty after that, sloppy kisses and a tangle of limbs, and then Trevor pushing inside in one smooth glide.

When he grips the back of Skyler’s thighs and pushes them up toward his chest so he can go deeper, Skyler bends easily. Then Skyler straightens his legs and rests his calves on Trevor’s shoulders, and he’s so flexible that Trevor’s able to lean down far enough to kiss him like this, practically folding him in half.

Thank you, yoga.

Skyler’s heels dig into Trevor’s back when he gets close, keeping Trevor locked in place, and then Skyler clenches tightly around him as he comes hard, shooting ropes all the way up to his chin. As soon as he catches his breath, he starts encouraging Trevor to come too, filthy nonsense like, “Fill me up, mark me from the inside, make me yours,” spilling from his mouth.

Trevor wonders how this man can even be real and how Trevor could possibly be lucky enough to get to have him this way.

Make me yours.

People say the most honest things when they’re either drunk or just after coming their brains out.

And Skyler James wants to be his.

They’re lying in bed afterward, Skyler tucked underneath Trevor’s arm with his head resting on his chest, when Skyler speaks up quietly. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“What?”

Skyler props himself up enough to look at him. “All the stuff I said… Thinking about us toward the end still hurts, but I didn’t mean to imply any of it was actually your fault. Maybe you didn’t say you wanted out. That could have been my own insecurities talking to me.”

Trevor runs a hand over the back of Skyler’s head, playing softly with his hair as he’s forced to think again of all the ways he should have done better. “It doesn’t matter if I said it or not. Either way, I failed you.”

“You didn’t.”

“I was supposed to take care of you.”

“No,” Skyler says, cradling Trevor’s face in one hand, keeping Trevor’s eyes on him. “No,” he repeats more firmly. “We were supposed to take care of each other.”

Those words ease something inside Trevor’s chest. A bit of the guilt, maybe. Because he finally realizes that everything wasn’t all on him. And instead of focusing on all the things he did wrong, he remembers all the ways in which the two of them were so damn right. The way they fit, made sense together, filled in all the gaps the other was missing without even having to try.

And they did take care of each other, didn’t they? They took such good care of each other.

Up until they didn’t.

Truthfully, neither of them was the one to really end their relationship. Not officially. Neither of them issued the final blow. Things became rockier and rockier until suddenly it was over. They didn’t end it—it just ended.

But as they hold each other in this bed, ten years and three thousand miles away from the first bed they shared, Trevor can tell they’re both silently promising the same thing. That they’ll do it better now. That they’ll love and take care of each other always. No matter what bullshit tries to get between them, they won’t give up.

They have so much more control over their own lives now. They can make it work this time.

Courtney had a field day when Trevor agreed to do the interview. She promised he was making a smart decision, gave him a rundown of the kinds of questions he’d be asked, and also assured him it’d be fine to bring Skyler with him and that the studio was guaranteeing them discretion.

And Trevor definitely needed Skyler’s support for this. Back in the greenroom, fifteen minutes before he was due to be introduced on set, he freaked out so badly he almost left. But Skyler held his hand and wouldn’t let him run. He cradled Trevor’s head to his chest and murmured sweet nonsense until Trevor went pliant in his arms.

If it wasn’t for Skyler, he wouldn’t be sitting under bright lighting right now, in a plush armchair beside a large desk, with Miles Morales behind it grinning at him. And while he’s still not entirely sure he wants to be here, he can’t deny it felt good when he walked out to the sound of the whole studio audience clapping for him. They’re instructed to clap for everyone, so who knows if any of them are really even fans of his, but still.

He’d prefer to talk only about his music, but it’s not like he didn’t know it was coming when Miles brings up Skyler covering his song for the Radio 505 acoustic set. So he smiles to disguise his racing heart and gives his prepared response. “Skyler is obviously an incredible musician, and I’m honored he likes my song enough to want to sing it.”

“I think it’s pretty clear from the way he sang it,” Miles says, leaning in conspiratorially, “that he doesn’t just like it. I’d wager he feels a rather deep connection to it.”

Trevor digs the tip of his pinkie into the side of his thigh. What’s he supposed to say to that? “Maybe he does. As artists, if we choose to sing a song that’s not our own, it’s often because we connect with it.”

When Miles chuckles, it sounds so fake Trevor almost cringes. “Sure, sure. But after hearing Skyler admit he was in love with you, I’ve got to wonder if when he sang “Haunted,” he wasn’t simply singing your song, but singing about you.”

“That might be a bit of a stretch, but I’m not in a position to say I know for sure what he was thinking.”

Miles hums like he’s considering his answer and waiting for him to say more. Trevor’s posture’s gone rigid, so he tries to correct it by leaning back in his seat and slinging one ankle over his knee. Miles isn’t asking him to confirm his feelings for Skyler, but bringing up Skyler’s feelings for him still seems like a trap.

And Skyler’s literally here, watching and waiting for him in the greenroom, and Trevor’s sure Miles knows that. Half the staff here probably know. Miles can’t mention it—he knows what he’s allowed and not allowed to ask—but he’s going to push Trevor to see what he can get out of him.

Trevor’s so sick of these charades. He had enough of them back in the band days.

“Look,” he says, using all his media training to keep his composure. “Everyone knows Skyler and I were close way back then, and because of that, he’ll always hold a place in my heart.” The mildly surprised look on Miles’ face tells him he probably should have used a different phrase, but he pushes through. “But the Boys Will Be Boys chapter of my life has long been closed, so if you don’t mind, I’d rather talk about the future.”

“Yes, please do,” Miles says, waving a hand for him to go on. “We’d all like to hear about what’s coming next for you.”

Okay, good. They’ve gotten back on track.

“Well, I haven’t exactly been writing yet, but I’ve been thinking about writing, which is more than I’ve done in the last few years. This may surprise people—it certainly surprised me—but I’ve realized there’s still some things I’d like to say.” Maybe stupidly sappy things about green eyes leading him to heaven. “So I think I may have another album in me after all.”

Someone in the audience screams, “Yes!” and Trevor’s pretty sure they’re not supposed to do that, but Miles laughs good-naturedly, so he laughs too. Guess some of the audience really are fans.

The rest of the interview goes more smoothly, and by the time he’s meeting Skyler back in the greenroom, getting wrapped up in a hug so fierce Skyler literally lifts him off his feet for a second, Trevor thinks that Skyler (and fine, even Courtney) was right about this being a good thing for him.

He’s spent too long hiding. And he’ll probably never have the same level of success he had with Boys Will Be Boys. He won’t ever reach Skyler’s level of fame. But that’s okay. That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t continue making music if he still loves it.

Doing this means inviting the intrusive media back into his life, but that might be worth it for the chance to do more of what he loves. It’s worth it if it makes the fans happy, and more importantly, if it makes him happy too.

Maybe it’s possible to get back to the place where putting his heart out there through his music feels cathartic, rather than terrifying.