Page 38 of Heartbreak Honey

Before

Skyler had taken care of him. Sat him on the floor of the shower fully clothed and turned the water on cold until Trevor had sputtered and asked what he was doing, and then Skyler told him he’d been unresponsive for five minutes.

Now Skyler was gone, and Trevor didn’t know how long ago he’d left him with his bag mostly packed, telling him to throw in his toiletries, but he was pretty sure he’d been standing here holding his deodorant and staring into the open bag ever since.

He needed to move. He needed to go. Get on a plane and fly home and…

He wasn’t sure what exactly he was supposed to do after that. Or how he was supposed to do it. How he was supposed to do anything when the world had stopped turning.

There were socks in his bag, but they weren’t… He wasn’t supposed to be here. He was supposed to be in L.A., and those were Skyler’s socks, and he needed his toothbrush.

Would there be snow? He didn’t have boots, but maybe he could borrow some. No, wait. It didn’t snow in L.A. until—Oh.

He was falling apart at the seams.

It would take a lot of work to sew him back together. His mom is terrible at sewing.

Was.

He needed to hurry or the bus would leave without him.

No, he was getting on a plane. To L.A. To bury his mom.

He was on the floor clutching his deodorant when a door flew open, slamming into the wall and making him jump. Loud voices. Skyler yelling at someone to fuck off. Skyler never told people to fuck off. That was Trevor’s job.

“What’s going on?” he asked, his voice hoarse from crying. Had he been crying?

“Tell them I’m going with you,” Skyler demanded. He had his duffle bag slung over one shoulder, and he was fully dressed in his leather jacket and a pair of his fancy boots with tiny heels. Christian and Maggie stood behind him.

Trevor blinked a few times, trying to focus. “What?”

“They’re saying I can’t go with you, but they’re out of their fucking minds if they think I’m letting you do this alone.” Skyler turned to glare at Maggie. “I’m going with him.”

“I’m afraid that’s simply not possible,” Maggie said through clenched teeth, as if they’d already been through this more than once. “It’s going to be hard enough reassigning Trevor’s parts to the rest of you for tonight. If you leave too, we’d have to cancel the show and issue refunds.”

“Then do that!” Skyler shouted. When Maggie didn’t respond, he turned back to Trevor and said, softer, “I’m coming with you.”

He shook his head. “You can’t. They won’t let you.”

“Then I’ll quit!”

There was a sharp stabbing pain between Trevor’s eyeballs. He closed his eyes for a few seconds. When he opened them, he told Skyler, “If you quit, it falls apart for everyone. You’re not quitting. I’m not quitting. No one’s quitting.”

Skyler opened his mouth like he was going to argue, but then he shut it again, pressing his lips together tightly.

Trevor was still holding his deodorant. He put it in his bag and zipped the bag up. He couldn’t figure out what else he needed, and he didn’t care.

He heard a frustrated scream and turned around in time to see Skyler shoving two hands into Christian’s chest. But Christian was much bigger than him and his body didn’t budge an inch. Instead, he spun Skyler around and restrained him with one arm across his chest while the other pinned his wrists behind his back. Skyler struggled to get out of the hold, kicking a leg backward at Christian’s shins, arguing as Christian urged him to calm down.

“Stop, please!” Trevor yelled. When everyone turned to look at him, he wished he’d kept his mouth shut.

He needed to get out of here. He needed everyone to shut up because his head was going to explode. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep standing. So he didn’t.

The next thing he knew, he was alone in the backseat of a car being driven to the airport. He couldn’t remember walking out of the hotel. He couldn’t remember saying goodbye to Skyler.

As Trevor stood in his mom’s kitchen, staring at a bowl of rotting fruit and debating if he should throw it out, he wondered how he got here. Time was moving funny. He didn’t know if he’d crossed a time zone because he couldn’t remember where he’d been yesterday.

He had flashes.

The plane. The hospital.

There’d been so many questions. Did his mom have a will? (How the fuck would he know?) Did she want to be buried or cremated? (As if that topic came up every day over dinner conversation.) Did he know which funeral home he’d like the body sent to?

The body.

He couldn’t remember the last thing he’d said to her, and that felt more important than all these questions people expected him to answer.

He grabbed a brown-spotted banana, peeled it, and bit into it, letting the mush rest on his tongue before he remembered to swallow. His mom had a habit of buying fruit with the best intentions and then forgetting to eat it before it went bad.

The doorbell rang. He dropped the banana onto the counter and his feet moved him to the door on autopilot. As he pulled it open, it occurred to him that it could be paparazzi, but he didn’t have the energy to care.

It wasn’t.

Skyler’s mom stood on the front stoop, looking tired and wearing a jacket that was far too warm for L.A. A tiny suitcase stood beside her.

“What—What are you doing here?”

Theresa attempted a smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Sky sent me. He found me a flight out of Ohio at four-thirty this morning.”

“Why?” Trevor asked, flinching when he heard how rude the single syllable sounded. But he was confused. He’d been having trouble keeping up with things.

Theresa’s smile was sad now, gentle. “I considered your mom a friend, you know. She was an incredible woman, and I’d like to pay my respects. But mostly I’m here to take care of you, sweetie.”

That was it. Trevor couldn’t hold himself together anymore. The tears poured out of him so fast it was like a dam bursting, and suddenly he found himself sobbing in her arms. He clutched at the sleeves of her jacket and let himself go as she did the work of keeping him in one piece.

Eventually they moved into the house. Theresa sat him on the couch and draped a blanket over him before telling him she was going to make him some tea. By the time he thought to tell her where his mom had kept the tea bags, she’d already walked away. He heard her opening and closing cabinets as he dug his phone out of his pocket and called Skyler.

It didn’t even ring once before Skyler answered. “Are you okay? Can I do anything? How are you?”

“I’m… here. At my mom’s house. I’m making arrangements.” None of that answered any of Skyler’s questions, but it was all he could manage.

“Okay, what can I do for you?” Skyler asked again. “I know I’m not there, but I can call places.”

“Sky.”

“What?”

“Thank you. For sending your mom. I don’t know what I…” He trailed off, unable to finish that thought.

Skyler was silent a few moments on the other end, and then he said slowly, carefully, “I know no one could ever replace your mom. But I want you to remember that my mom’s your mom too. Always. She’s your mom too.”

Trevor sniffled, trying his best not to start crying again. But when Theresa walked back into the room and passed him a steaming mug of tea, he couldn’t help it.

It was softer this time. The cries didn’t wrack his entire body. Theresa took the mug from him and set it on the coffee table. Then she tucked the blanket around him properly and sat beside him, putting an arm around his back and encouraging him to rest his head on her shoulder.

He was in a warm cocoon, with Theresa against him and Skyler in his ear. He wasn’t alone.

A week. They gave him a week off to mourn his mom’s death, and now Trevor was supposed to magically get over it and get back to performing. He’d missed three shows and Maggie insisted he couldn’t miss anymore.

Honestly, though, maybe it was better to be back here on tour with the band, rather than sitting alone in his mom’s house. Not that he was actually alone. Theresa had stayed with him the whole time. But after the funeral, there wasn’t much left for him to do there.

All the guys had been great, hugging him and telling him they were there if he needed to talk. But he didn’t have anything to say. He was numb. And that was okay. That was how he’d get through this.

“Maggie said you can skip the interview tomorrow morning, but you have to go to sound check.”

He looked up and found Skyler hovering beside the bed. It took his brain an extra moment to make the connection that Skyler was talking to him. “Okay.”

Skyler leaned down, brushing the hair off Trevor’s forehead before pressing a kiss there. “It’s still early. Do you want to hang out with the guys for a bit? Or we could stay here and talk? I could give you a massage. Or you could take a bath or—”

“No.”

“To which one?” Skyler asked, brow wrinkling in concern. He’d been doing that ever since Trevor got back, and it was starting to annoy him.

“All of it,” he said. “I don’t feel like hanging with the guys, and I don’t need to talk. And I don’t want a bath like I’m three. I’m fine.”

Skyler sat on the edge of the bed, forcing Trevor to scoot over to make room for him. “You don’t have to be fine. You can talk to me.”

He knew he could. But he didn’t want to. Talking would lead to thinking, which would lead to feeling, which would lead to crying, which would lead to falling apart. He had a job to do here. He couldn’t fall apart.

And he wanted Skyler to treat him normally so he could forget about the pain. Push it to the back of his mind where he could deal with it someday in the future when he had the time and space.

So he looked at Skyler and said, “Fuck me.”

Skyler’s eyes widened. “What? No.”

“No?”

“Why?” Cue the wrinkled brow. “I mean, are you sure? We don’t have to. I’m not expecting you to be…”

“Be what?” Trevor asked harshly. Okay. Himself. Normal.

Skyler frowned. “I’m only saying it’s all right if you’re not up for that right now.”

He tried not to roll his eyes. He knew how much Skyler cared, but he hated being treated like he was fragile. Especially by him. “I’m the one who told you to fuck me,” he reminded him. “That’s what I want.”

“But—”

“You know what? Forget it. I’m tired, I should go to sleep.” He slid until he was lying down and rolled over, facing away from Skyler, hoping to end the conversation there.

But Skyler clumsily crawled over his body, kneeing him in the side in the process, and lay down beside him. “Wait, no. If you want to, we can—I mean, if you’re tired, that’s fine too. But if you want me to—”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, cutting him off again. And then, to iron out Skyler’s wrinkled brow, he added more nicely, “Please. I want you to.”

“Okay, of course,” Skyler said. “Anything you want. You know I’ll give you anything.”

He knew. He also knew he was sort of manipulating him. Taking advantage of Skyler’s desire to make him happy and using it to get him to do something that clearly went against Skyler’s better judgement.

But Trevor didn’t need good judgment right now. He needed this.

As Skyler began to kiss him, though, Trevor could still sense his caution. Not exactly treating Trevor like he was breakable anymore—more like a bomb ready to detonate with one wrong move.

He didn’t want to be a bomb.

He threw himself into the kissing. They were good at this. He loved this. This was something he could do blindfolded and with his hands tied behind his back—he had, in fact, done it that way on one memorable occasion. So he didn’t need to think about anything. He could be normal.

It wasn’t until Skyler had stripped him naked and worked a couple fingers inside him that Trevor’s brain started firing off warning signals. Danger. Danger. You are not okay.

But he didn’t say anything. He wanted Skyler to keep going. Because he wanted to stop thinking and feel something good, and he knew Skyler could get him there.

While Skyler fucked him, he did stop thinking, but he didn’t feel anything good. He didn’t feel anything at all. Numb. Nothing. Numb. Blank. Blank.

He lay there impassively with Skyler on top of him trying his hardest. If Skyler noticed something was wrong, he didn’t say anything. Kept going steadily. His eyes bore into Trevor’s, but Trevor barely saw him.

Blank.

Blank.

Blank.

“Are you okay?”

He blinked up at Skyler, whose hips had stilled. Skyler’s hand was loosely holding Trevor’s softening dick and Trevor’s stomach was sticky. They’d both come and he hadn’t even noticed.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Thanks.”

Skyler’s brow wrinkle was back, so Trevor craned his neck up to kiss him.

Skyler rolled off him and said, “Let me grab a washcloth to clean you up.”

He nodded and waited there, not moving. Not like there was anywhere for him to go. After Skyler came back and gently wiped him down with the damp cloth, Trevor told him again that he was tired, and this time when he turned onto his side, Skyler got behind him and wrapped Trevor tightly in his arms.

It was nice.

Or it would have been, if only he was capable of feeling anything.