“Hey,” he said like he’d only then walked up and noticed Zane. “You come out here to run?”
Zane turned his head and snorted. His blackening eye confronted Trey, managing to convey sarcasm in spite of swelling up. “Don’t be a tool. I knew you were tailing me since you climbed out of your window.”
Trey hadn’t known his cheeks could blaze quite that hot. A second later, a fierce sexual tingle streaked up his spine. If Zane had known he was there, why hadn’t he stopped him?
“I was worried,” he said as steadily as he could. “I heard you and your father fighting. I didn’t want you to do anything crazy.”
Zane let out a ragged laugh. “I guess Horny Hayworth knows a thing or two about crazy.”
The nickname wasn’t Trey’s favorite. He wasn’t as big a slut as that. He just tried not to waste opportunities. But at least Zane wasn’t saying to take a hike. Trey approached the fence, stopping when he was close enough to grab its top rail. “You want to talk?”
“Fuck. What is there to say?”
“Nothing. Anything. Who cares as long as you know you’re not alone?”
This might have been too touchy-feely. Zane dropped his arms and frowned. Still he didn’t tell Trey to f**k off. “Your dad hits you too?”
Trey pulled up his flannel shirt to expose a fading bruise. It crossed his ribs in a purplish stripe. Maybe it wasn’t appropriate to compare right then, but Trey was aware his six-pack wasn’t as ripped as Zane’s.
“Shit,” Zane said. His fingertips touched the fence as if he’d reach through and stroke the mark. “I never hear him yelling at you.”
“He’s quiet. Likes to tell me I’m going to hell in a ‘rational’ tone. Also he doesn’t drink. He avoids leaving bruises where they might show.”
Zane grimaced at the reminder of his black eye. “I’m going to have to stay home from school until this looks better, and I’m already too behind. I’ll lose my football scholarship if I’d don’t graduate. Stupid guidance counselors are starting to give me looks. I know my dad will drag me to some other town if they confront him. This shit is so close to being over. I only have to get through this year.”
Trey wrapped his fingers farther through the fence links. “You could say I did it. My GPA is okay. I’d survive a couple days suspension.”
Zane’s eyes widened. They were close now, not even a foot apart. Trey could smell the sweat on him from his rapid walk. “Won’t your dad go ballistic?”
“He might do that anyway. It’s not like he needs a real reason. If I catch shit for fighting, at least I’d know I was helping out . . . someone.”
They both knew he’d avoided calling Zane a friend. Zane gnawed his full lower lip, stirring a longing to suck it that was painful.
“It’d help,” he admitted. “I’m no dumb jock, but I can’t miss more classes and still keep up.”
“So we’ll do it,” Trey said. “We’ll say you called my Mustang a piece of crap, and I got in a lucky shot.”
“A lucky shot . . .” Zane’s tone was amused.
“Wouldn’t work otherwise. Everybody knows you’d take me in a fight.”
Zane’s gaze measured him up and down.
“Maybe,” he said as Trey tensed with self-consciousness. “Maybe not. You’re a fast damn bugger. I’ve seen you running here before.”
Zane had seen him running? Zane had bothered to notice him among the usual morning crowd?
Trey took a second to close his gaping jaw. Zane wasn’t paying attention to his amazement. He crossed his arms, big guns bulging under the sleeves of his white T-shirt. “You should be on the team.”
“Me? Play football? You’ve gotta be kidding.”
“I’m serious. Tony Ciccone blew out his knee last week. Coach would let you try out if I asked him to.”
Only Zane could say this like it was no big deal. “No offense, but I don’t think I’m the team sports type. More to the point, I’m pretty sure I’m not theirs.”
“I have to pay you back somehow. I don’t like being in people’s debt.”
Zane’s bright blue eyes were stubborn . . . and maybe something else.
“You want me on the team,” Trey blurted without thinking.
The faintest wash of color darkened Zane’s cheekbones. “I wouldn’t mind having someone as fast as you to back me up.”
His gaze held Trey’s a bit too determinedly—as if he were resisting a temptation to scope out other parts of him. Trey knew that trick. He’d used it more than once himself. Being attracted to guys and girls wasn’t always convenient. Recognizing the look in Zane set his blood on fire, his prick stiffening so swiftly it hurt.
“Shit,” Trey breathed at the inescapable conclusion. “You’re bisexual like me.”
Zane didn’t try to deny it, though he did heave a sigh. “Don’t tell,” he said, sounding more resigned than anxious. “My life is complicated enough.”
“Sure,” Trey said, disappointed but understanding why. If his quirks hadn’t tended to out themselves, wouldn’t he have tried to pass for one or the other? Sometimes being bi felt the same as believing in Santa Claus. People assumed he was actually g*y and trying to pretend. “Look, you mind if I join you on that side of the fence? I feel silly talking through it this way.”
Zane scrubbed his short sandy hair, then waved for him to come on. Trey didn’t vault over as picture-perfectly as Zane, but Zane wasn’t watching anyway. He’d moved to a nearby set of bleachers to sit on the bottom bench. Trey dropped beside him, not too close but not too far. Just because Zane was bi didn’t mean he wanted to do him. A trio of dry brown leaves blew across the track’s asphalt, the skittering sound a counterpoint to his not-quite-normal breathing.
He knew it couldn’t be normal with Zane sitting next to him.
“Sometimes I don’t know who I want to kill more,” Zane said. “Him for hitting me, or my mom for cutting out.”
Trey wasn’t sure what to say to this. Everyone in Franklin knew Zane’s mom had run away to Trenton to live with some greasy guy who sold bargain mattresses. Sometimes his commercials played on late night TV.
Fortunately, Zane didn’t require a comment. “What’s the bruise from?” he asked.
“Belt. My dad caught me watching Baywatch. He’s got issues about sex. No,” he added in response to Zane’s raised eyebrows. “Something happened when he was a kid. Now he’s convinced sex is evil. He’d stop the world from having it if he could.”
“Good luck with that.” Zane leaned forward, forearms braced on his knees. His legs looked sexier in those worn gray sweatpants than most men’s did naked. He turned his head to give Trey a sidelong glance. “I never.”
Trey squinted. “You never?”
“You know: with a guy. I knew I wanted both since I was a kid. I didn’t actually realize that was weird until it was too late.”
Trey prayed he wasn’t giving away how much this confession excited him. “You could try it out with me,” he offered as casually as he was able. “See if it’s worth the trouble. Unless you’d rather not.”