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“Anyway, when I was trying to do it on my own, I started to wonder if I could be enough as a solo artist, or if maybe being in a band was all I was good at.”

“That’s not true,” Skyler tells him, sounding almost offended he’d even suggest it.

“Oh yeah?” he counters. “At my first solo show I panicked and couldn’t start singing the opening song. My backing band restarted it, and when I still didn’t sing, they jumped in to do it for me.” He remembers his humiliation, the feeling of abject failure. “Then I heard the crowd screaming the words. It finally flipped the switch in me, and I was able to join in on the chorus. I got myself together eventually, but yeah, I totally froze at first.”

Skyler’s silent for a few beats, and Trevor feels his face heat, unsure why he admitted all that to the one person who he desperately wants to make believe he’s got it together. Then Skyler says softly, “I know.”

“Oh great. You heard how bad I did?”

Skyler bites his lip before answering. “No. I was there. And you were great.”

Wait.

Trevor’s eyes lock onto Skyler’s. “What?”

“You were great,” Skyler repeats.

“No, you—you were there?” He can’t process this information. “Why? How? How the fuck did you manage to do that without getting recognized?”

Skyler shrugs. “I put my hair up, wore a baseball cap. Dressed like a sports bro and made my bodyguard do the same. Everyone was focused on you, not me.”

Trevor just sits there as Skyler continues to eat his meal like he didn’t change Trevor’s perception of the last five years with one admission. He thinks about all the times he wanted to go to Skyler’s shows but knew he couldn’t, that Skyler wouldn’t want him there anyway. And all this time… Skyler had been at his first show. Skyler had still cared enough to show up for him?

“That’s not fair.”

Skyler looks up from his food. “What’s not?”

“You came to see me, and you didn’t let me know you were there. You were watching me, but I never got to seeyou.”

“I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”

Trevor tightens his grip on his fork, afraid it might slip out of his clammy, shaking hand. “You’re an idiot.”

“Sometimes.” Skyler spears a mushroom, his face doing all sorts of things that Trevor can’t read.

He wants to say something more. Maybe confess how badly heneededSkyler there, tell him what that would have meant to him. But after swallowing the lump in his throat, all Trevor manages to say is, “Yeah.”

SKYLER

Why did he tellTrevor that?

Being desperate enough to go incognito to see Trevor perform was a secret Skyler thought he’d take to his grave. It’s too pathetic. Too heartbroken-ex-who-can’t-let-go. He didn’t tell anyone other than Mike that he was going, because Trevor had made it clear he was done with him even before Skylerreallyfucked up and broke up the whole band.

So… why would Trevor have wanted to see him? To yell at him? To embarrass him, call him an asshole in front of a whole crowd of people?

Or is it possible Trevor was missing him too?

He wants to ask, but he gets the feeling he’s just supposed to know. His Trevor-mind-reading powers are rusty though, and Trevor’s face is impassive.

He can’t let go of the idea that Trevor may have wanted to see him back then simply to see him. Could they have found a way to be friends?

Probably not. Even if Trevor had been graceful enough to offer it, Skyler knows it would have never been enough for him. He couldn’t have gone from Trevor being his whole world to only being his friend.

So then what’s he doing inviting Trevor over now? He thought it’d be easier since so much time has passed. But he’s fooling himself. Because while Trevor was swimming, he snuck upstairs and watched him from a window like a giant freaking creeper. He couldn’t help it.

He’s spent years trying to fuck Trevor out of his system—his manager swooping in with NDAs to keep the men quiet—but it hasn’t worked. All hewants is the man with the blond hair and blue eyes and the kind heart. The man whose tattoos go with his.

The other guys in the band used to laugh and call so much of the stuff he and Trevor did their “sappy soulmate shit.” And he loved it. He loved how they could see exactly what he saw—Trevor Blue was his fucking soulmate.