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“What are you going to have for your first legal drink?” Trevor asked Skyler.

Skyler shrugged. “I don’t think I’ll get one,” he said, quietly enough that Trevor recognized this wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have with the entire table.

“Why not?” he asked, leaning in closer and matching his volume.

“I only drank at a party once, and it wasn’t fun. I acted like an idiot. I don’t like feeling out of control of myself like that.” Skyler put his mouth up to Trevor’s ear to add in a whisper, “I mean, every time I get naked with you, I feel out of control, but in a good way, because I always know you’ve got me.”

He reached for Skyler’s hand under the table and kept his voice down. “I’ve got you now too, you know. If you want to try it, have some fun. I won’t drink anything so I can take care of you.”

“But it’s your first legal drink too,” Skyler argued. “You deserve to have fun too.”

“Okay, I’ll only have one drink though. I promise I’ll stay fully in control of myself so that you can let go and not have to worry about it. I’ve got you.”

“God, you two are ridiculous,” Noah said from across the table, breaking Trevor out of their little bubble.

“Leave them alone,” Jermaine said with enough bite that Noah shrank back in his seat.

Noah glanced to Oli, probably for backup, and getting nothing, he muttered, “I didn’t really mean it.”

“You know, you claim you don’t mean it,” Trevor told him, “but you always say it.”

Skyler put both his hands up in a signal for them to stop. “All right, chill, guys. It’s Christmas. We should all be merry and bright.”

Oli snorted and Noah rolled his eyes. Trevor noticed Jermaine on Skyler’s other side give Skyler’s shoulder a brief rub. And that didn’t make him want to growl like a possessive dog. Nope, not all.

Noah was sort of right. At least about him. Hewasridiculous. Sometimes he couldn’t handle anyone else touching Skyler, even in a friendly way. He knew, logically, that it was fine. But try telling that to his heart and his hormones.

A server approached them, so he tapped Skyler’s thigh. “It’s up to you, but I think you’d enjoy yourself if you had a few drinks with the guys.”

Skyler smiled at him, then turned that smile on the server and asked for a pina colada.

Noah, Oli, and Jermaine all laughed, but Skyler kept grinning, unfazed, while Trevor ordered a beer. After they got their drinks, Christian proposed a toast to everyone in the band and on the crew for all the hard work they’d put into the tour.

The food and drinks kept flowing from there as everyone exchanged stories of the antics people had gotten up to on the road so far. All in all, it wasn’t a miserable way to spend Christmas Eve. They couldn’t be with their actual families, but everyone involved with the tour had become like a second family by now.

It was nice having Christian here tonight instead of Maggie, who surely wouldn’t have let them drink. Christian even joined in on singing “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” with Skyler after Skyler’s second pina colada.

For Skyler’s third drink, he dared to try an eggnog martini. He made a face at the first sip, probably realizing it was stronger than what he’d been drinking. But when Trevor turned back to him after a brief conversation with one of their sound guys, the glass was almost empty, and Skyler wore a goofy expression on his face.

“You doing okay?” he asked.

“Mm-hmm,” Skyler practically purred, leaning in close. “I’m great. This is so much fun.”

“Glad you’re having fun, baby.”

Skyler’s eyes lit up at the pet name as if Trevor hadn’t called him that a million times before. He began trailing his fingers teasingly up Trevor’s thigh. “Do you know you’re wonderful?”

Trevor laughed and grabbed his hand. “I think you’re drunk.”

“He’s definitely drunk,” Jermaine chimed in, leaning around Skyler to talk to Trevor. “But he says shit like that all the time when he’s sober too.”

“Hey!” Skyler protested. “I’m not drunk, and I do not!”

“No?” Jermaine said. “So then I guess it must have been someone else I was talking to the other day who couldn’t stop going on about wanting to drown in the oceans in Trevor’s eyes.”

Skyler’s face scrunched up. “Who said that? Tell them to stop looking at his eyes. They can’t have him, he’s mine!”

Oli busted out laughing, and Trevor bit his lip, fighting not to smile too hard.