Page 48 of Steam

* * *

In early September, Trey wakes up in Reese’s bed, throat raw and head generally foggy. Under the weather. Reese convinces him to sleep in, insisting he can deliver the message to everyone else that Trey will be late. So Trey stays in bed until he hears three hollow impacts coming from another room. It’s enough to wake him up from dozing, and he pads out in search of the sound.

“Owen?”

Owen is breathing hard in the hallway in an undershirt, standing next to an exposed beam and rubbing the knuckles of one hand.

“Trey—shit—I didn’t know anybody was home,” he says, dropping the hand quickly.

“You alright buddy?”

“Yeah…”—and Trey can tell he’s searching for an excuse, masking any emotion from his voice. “Shitty morning, I guess.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

“No, ah, anyway I’m running late,” Owen says, moving to pass Trey on the way back to his room.

“OK,” Trey says, nodding. “Next time would you text me before you start punching walls?”

He means for it to sound concerned—to sound like an offer to his boyfriend for a venting partner—but it must come out wrong because Owen doesn’t respond. They return to their rooms and Trey hears Owen lock the front door behind him a few minutes later.

* * *

It’s a week later.

“I wanna run Smolov again but I keep thinking about last time,” Reese says to Trey, both of them setting up for a recording. Since everyone but Owen and Levi go to the gym together, it’s normal for them to fall into conversations about the different workout routines that they’re running.

Reese is their leader when it comes to gym time. He’s always been the fittest out of the group—had been working out long before the rest of the team even thought about hitting a gym.

“Ugh, Christ,” Cash says, spinning in his chair. “Can you even afford all the food you’ll have to eat for that stupid squat program?”

“You ate an entire chicken empire last time,” Trey says. “If you do it again, you can’t bitch about eating all the time.”

“Listen,” Reese says, cocking his head as he falls into a sassier joke voice. “If you’re gonna benefit from all dat mass, you gotta make sacrifices. Can’t build quads on protein bars.”

“You were eating 24 hours a day,” Cash says, hitching an eyebrow.

“Can’t stop won’t stop eating,” Reese says, snapping.

There’s an abrupt noise as Owen drops his headphones onto the desk. He strides out of the office without a word.

Reese slings a look at Trey as if to say Get a load of our moody boyfriend, huh?—but Trey is already getting up to follow Owen down the hall.

Trey finally catches up to him outside the building, trotting to match Owen’s pace.

“Fuckin’ gym talk,” Trey says, trying to stay neutral, to feel Owen out. “We takin’ a break?”

“Yeah I am,” Owen says.

“Where we headed?”

“I don’t know,” Owen says, pumping his legs, almost speedwalking. “Couple laps around the building, I guess.”

“It’s like 200 degrees out here, Owen,” Trey says. Owen doesn’t react. “You know, they have gyms with air conditionings for this.”

Owen pulls a face at him, eyebrows raised, mouth a straight line.

“OK well,” Trey says, falling back as Owen begins to round the corner of the building. “Don’t forget to hydrate.”

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