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Trevor was not the kind of guy to be cashing in a favor to get Sam to build a shelter for some birds. But here he was, doing it anyway.
Sam frowned. "I just don't get why you want me to do this in the first place. You never seemed like you were really into nature."
"Hey! I like nature," Trevor protested. "Birds are cool. And besides, I'm not doing this for me."
He felt like an idiot the second Sam's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. He really shouldn't have said that. Now it was going to become a whole thing.
"So you're doing this for Pete," she said. It wasn't a question. Man, was he really that obvious?
Trevor crossed his arms. "Yeah. But that doesn't matter. The point is, that hawk out there is cold and needs somewhere warm to stay."
Sam sighed. "I get it. But we've already had problems with one bird of prey here. Maybe if we just leave it alone, it'll find somewhere warm to stay."
"I know you don't actually believe that."
"Okay, fine," Sam conceded. "I'll talk to Jay and we'll figure something out. As long as it's friendly."
"Thank you," he said. Then he left the room in search of Pete.
It didn't take long to find him. Pete was standing worriedly by a window overlooking the back garden, which was covered in snow. Trevor thought he could see the tail feathers of the hawk peeking out from beneath the bench.
"Hey," he said.
Pete barely looked at him. "It's too cold outside. Birds can't survive in this without some kind of shelter."
"Well, you're in luck. Because T-Money just convinced Sam and Jay to make the hawk a place to stay."
"Really?" Pete turned to him, beaming. "Thank you, Trevor."
He tried not to blush at that, but he was pretty sure he was failing. "No problem. I want to see that little guy safe as much as you do."
Pete frowned. "I thought the hawk was a girl."
"No, dude. Look at the coloring. And the size. That's definitely a male. I took a class in ornithology in college."
"Okay, well, I used to teach people how to identify birds."
"Yeah, little girls. That's not exactly professor level knowledge."
They walked away from the window together, bickering. There was a level of comfort to it, like getting under a warm blanket after coming out of the cold. If the warm blanket was actively arguing with him.
Still, Trevor couldn't help but smile, even when Pete insinuated that he hadn't been paying attention in class.
-The next day, Pete dragged him to the backyard to check on the hawk. Trevor stood by the bench, shivering in the cold and looking around for any sign of the bird.
"Did he fly away or something?" he asked.
Pete suddenly pointed at something in the distance. He was smiling despite the cold. "Look over there."
There was a pile of fir branches set up like a fort between some trees. The hawk was perched beneath them, shielded from the falling snow.
For a moment, Trevor felt weirdly proud. Then, before he could say anything, Pete had pulled him into a fierce kiss.
"Thank you for doing this," Pete said when he let him go.
Damn. Maybe Trevor should have committed to saving the birds more often. Maybe Flower had a point about the narwhals if it was going to get him that in return.
He said that aloud and Pete laughed. "I do like a man who cares about the environment."
And looking between the smile on Pete's face and the hawk beneath the branches, Trevor realized that he really didn't regret asking Sam for that favor after all.