Page 74 of Trevor Takes Care

Sky looked smug even while shrugging. He spoke with his mouth full. “I will have to attend certain events, either at that office or different ones around the country, but yeah, I don’t need to be there most of the time.” He swallowed in a way that appeared painful. “It will take a few more weeks for official permission, but, like, I make them money, so they might drag their feet, but I don’t think they’ll say no.”

“And you didn’t mention it because you were still trying to ease me into the idea of you visiting, much less staying.” Trevor wasn’t guessing. He and his grandma traded another look. “I already told him I love him. He’s just a worrier,” he informed her. Sky gasped and then had to go get water to help him deal with the crumbs he must have inhaled.

His grandma flipped down a card that saidBerry Triflein her handwriting. “You can never say ‘I love you’ enough.”

“Hear that, Sky?” Trevor called sunnily to him. “In case you didn’t: I love you.”

“You make things sodifficult,” Sky croaked back at him.

“And you’re going to get G.G. to say this to you too?” His grandma slapped another recipe card on the table:Pineapple Upside Down Cake. “What’s your plan for that?”

“Introduce him to Sky,” Trevor said sincerely, waiting while the room went still and both his grandma and Sky stared at him. G.G. wanted Trevor, but Sky was special, so special that he drew in other special people. “Then be good to him. He might not ever beinlove with me, but he should at least love me. Love us.”

Something—Sky—bumped into Trevor’s back and stayed there, with what felt like Sky’s forehead pressed against him.

“I realize I barely know G.G. but there’s something there,” Trevor told his grandmother softly. “It’s not too much to want that. Is it?”

Sky shook his head.

“Why do I feel like you would do exactly the same even if you didn’t live with me?” Trevor’s grandma remarked, clearly not expecting an answer. “Though you might have spent longer getting to this point.”

“You’re a great person to learn from,” Trevor answered, sincere about that too.

Sky made a strangled noise. “You really told hereverything?”

“Well, noteverything.” Trevor reached back to get one of Sky’s hands and then pulled Sky’s arm around him. “I thought you two talked.”

“Yes, but not….” Sky squeezed him tight. “You probably think G.G. isn’t already gaga over you too.”

“If you two don’t mind, I have things to do, and you have somewhere to be.” A card labeledTiramisu Shortcakewent onto the pile of potential desserts for Trevor to learn. It looked complicated. Maybe Trevor could ask G.G. for help with it, have him over for a nice afternoon to please his grandma, who was currently nervous for him and trying not to be. “Don’t stand that poor boy up.”

“‘Poor boy,’” Sky scoffed but shut up when Trevor’s grandma raised her eyebrows. “Yes, ma’am.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

“My grandma gets a ‘Yes, ma’am’?’” Trevor wondered lightly as they made their way down the sidewalk toward G.G.’s house.

At Trevor’s side, a pastry box held to his chest, Sky ignored the question. He used his free hand to wave across the street. “That’s where Nancy lives, obviously.” He studied the house in apparent fascination. “It’s weird how I saw the house when I visited before but I never thought about it. Now I’ve heard all about it and the people in it, and Iknowit.” He rubbed his mouth then resumed gesturing at their tiny neighborhood. “They don’t know me, though.”

“Sky.” Trevor did his best to cut off the rising tide of anxiety, although he should have known there was going to be an issue when Sky had changed into a shirt that belonged in an office before leaving the house. Trevor had at least had the sense to get Sky to go back and grab his sweatshirt to wear over it; something that worked as armor but was also moreSky. His sneakers were at least more personal, since he’d chosen the pair he’d asked Trevor to draw all over years ago.

Sky glanced to him, visibly tense, if not terrified.

“I can guarantee he’ll be more scared of you,” Trevor assured him.

“I’m not a spider,” Sky said with an eyeroll that Trevor found comforting, before turning his incredible attention to G.G.’s house as they drew closer. “Done nothing with his yard. Which… I would get judgy about, but I wouldn’t do shit with a yard, either.” He carried on despite Trevor trying to interrupt again. “A regular suburban house, if larger than the others on the street. Regular paint colors, even. Not that they suck. They’re fine. Again, I also wouldn’t think to repaint a house.”

“He built the garage himself, according to my grandma.” Trevor reached down to snag Sky’s free hand.

“And, of course, there is the interior you went into ecstasies about,” Sky continued.

Trevor stopped. “You don’t have to do this.” He stared at Sky until Sky stared back. “If you’re really not okay with this I can call it all off. I won’t hurt you for anything, Sky. Not for anything.”

Sky sighed heavily as if put upon, but Trevor didn’t think it was about meeting G.G. Sky lowered his chin then looked up again over his glasses. “I’m not against it. I told you that. This is nerves.”

“G.G. makes you nervous?” Trevor didn’t know why he was asking. He already knew that.

“He soundsamazing!” Sky exclaimed, exasperated. “You think I’m amazing, but I’m really a run-of-the-mill nerd.”

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