Chapter 5 #2
“So you a big seafood fan?” Lincoln asked once they were alone. Or as alone as they were likely to get in a crowded restaurant.
“My family didn’t eat it much growing up, but yes. I like trying new things.” Emmett’s entire face dropped as a cloud of sadness descended over the table.
Something about the instant change at the mention of his family told Lincoln that there was a tragic story in there somewhere. Maybe a story that helped explain his anxiety issues.
He couldn’t make himself ask, though. Not in public. “The fringe benefit of being an adult is eating whatever we want, whenever we want, right?”
Emmett’s lips tried to twitch into a smile. “Right.”
Unsure what else to say, Lincoln scanned the appetizers. “Want to split a basket of clam strips to start?”
“Okay.”
The lack of enthusiasm made Lincoln take off his sunglasses. The room wasn’t super bright, so his eyes didn’t have to adjust much. He waited until Emmett met his gaze. Emmett’s eyes were a very pale bluish color, almost hazel. Emmett stared at him, lips parted.
“Do you want clam strips?” Lincoln asked again. “If you don’t, tell me.”
“I’m sorry, I do.” He tilted his head. “Your eyes are even bluer than I imagined.”
Lincoln’s insides flipped, not only over the comment, but over the fact that Emmett had spent time wondering what color his eyes were. “It’s dark enough in here that the light won’t bother me much.”
“Bright lights give you migraines.”
“They can. Flashing lights are the worst. I’ll never be able to walk through a fun house again, but small sacrifice for being alive, right?”
“Absolutely.” The fierce way Emmett said that made that strange thing deep down inside of Lincoln sit up again.
And really notice him. In this small bubble they’d created around each other, Emmett looked like a man who knew what he wanted and how to keep it safe.
Someone who knew how to stand up for himself.
So different from the scared boy who rabbited around Off Beat every night.
Their server appeared with Emmett’s soda, breaking the spell.
“Anything to start?” she asked.
Lincoln ordered the clam strips, eager for her to go away.
Only when he looked at Emmett again, he was immersed in the menu.
Lincoln read over it until he settled on a burger topped with lobster mac-and-cheese that sounded like an artery-clogging dream.
Side of chips instead of fries. Too much heavy food on a hot day was begging for post-lunch vomiting.
He sipped his water until the server returned to deliver the clam strips and take their orders. Emmett got broiled flounder with steamed veggies.
Guess that’s how he stays so thin.
Not that Lincoln was chunky or anything, despite his unhealthy food choices.
He’d lost weight during his recovery last year, because eating had become a task to overcome, rather than a pleasure of any kind.
It wasn’t until this past spring that his stomach stopped rebelling at everything he ate, and he started putting some weight back on.
He didn’t have his pre-accident muscle tone, but he thought he looked pretty good naked.
Not that anyone else would be judging that for a while.
Their previous conversation had stalled, and Lincoln floundered for something less dramatic than his scrambled brain.
“Do you see your parents often?” Emmett asked.
The conversation went from awkward to downright depressing in one fell swoop. Lincoln tried for a flip answer and came up short. His parents were a subject he had no reasons to beat around the bush on. “No. We haven’t spoken for eight years.”
Emmett’s eyes went wide. “That long?”
His closest friends knew the entire truth, but it wasn’t as though Lincoln told the story to everyone on the street. Emmett had no reason to know him as anyone other than the former guitarist for the now-defunct XYZ. “Yes. They weren’t exactly receptive to my coming out.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. My parents were all about appearances and keeping up with the Joneses.
They wanted me to play classical piano at Juilliard, but I wanted to play guitar in a rock band, so we butted heads over that a lot.
We finally came to a compromise when I agreed to play keyboard in the high school band. ”
“Did you enjoy it?” Emmett leaned forward, as if every tidbit of information about Lincoln’s past was a drop of precious wine.
“Somewhat. The fact that every girl in that band tried her damnedest to flirt with me told me what I needed to know about my sexuality, but it wasn’t until I was sixteen and met Dominic Bounds at a summer music camp that I embraced being gay.
” Lincoln paused in midstream, because he hadn’t said it so plainly in a while.
Emmett’s open, interested expression didn’t waver. “So you came out when you went home?”
“I did.” Despite the passage of time, Lincoln had never forgotten the way his father’s face had twisted in disgust. “My father the lawyer tried to argue every which way that I was wrong, I was confused, I needed to meet the right girl, blah blah. Name your cliché, he probably used it. When I told him nothing was going to change who I was, he started calling me every name in the book.” He flinched.
“I may have lost my temper and called him a homophobic, pandering asshole.”
“No one can fault you for losing your temper in a situation like that.” Emmett’s right hand twitched, as if he wanted to reach across the table and touch Lincoln.
Yes, please.
“So he kicked you out?” Emmett asked.
Lincoln snorted. “Sure. After he pushed me down the stairs.”
“He what?” His cheeks darkened and his eyes narrowed. “He didn’t.”
“Yeah, he did. Broke my collarbone and gifted me my first damned concussion.” Lincoln touched the bone in question, which occasionally ached when the weather changed dramatically.
“My mother dropped off a suitcase of my clothes at the hospital, and that’s the last contact I’ve had with either of them.
I still talk to my sister occasionally, though, so that’s something. ”
“I’m so sorry, Lincoln.” Emmett sat back, his face scrunched. Miserable. “I didn’t mean to bring up such awful memories.”
Something inside of Lincoln rebelled at seeing Emmett so sad, and he clambered for a way to fix it.
“Don’t worry about it. Honestly. They made their choice a long time ago, and my life has been better for it.
Dominic’s parents took me in until I could get back on my feet, and they’ve been my family ever since. They’re amazing people.”
“That’s good.” Emmett picked at the trash from his straw sleeve. “It’s terrible how people treat their own children.”
He couldn’t argue with that. “Sounds like you lucked out in the good parents department, though.”
Emmett’s wistful smile turned sad again. “I did. They were wonderful people.”
Were.
As curious as Lincoln was, one sad story per meal was his limit. “So when you aren’t at Off Beat running glasses, what do you do for fun? Other than putt-putt.”
The sudden conversation switch did the trick. Emmett’s expression cleared. “I listen to music a lot. I read. Some television.”
“Video games?”
“Not really. My parents didn’t want us to stare at the television for hours on end, so we weren’t allowed to have an Xbox or PlayStation. No online games, either. We were encouraged to read and to learn, and to engage with the world.”
Lincoln admired Emmett’s parents all over the place for how they’d raised Emmett and . . . someone else. He’d said “we.” “You have siblings?”
That same cloud of grief fell over Emmett, and Lincoln could have kicked himself. Emmett had moved here last year to live with his aunt and cousin, so something tragic must have happened, and Lincoln kept bringing it up—even though he had no idea what “it” was.
“I had a sister,” Emmett said, his voice so soft Lincoln almost didn’t hear him. “Two years ago this past December, there was a fire in our house. I was the only one who survived.”
Shock and sympathy clawed at Lincoln’s chest, a living, angry thing behind his breastbone that demanded he go over and give Emmett a big hug. The kind of hug that would protect him from the horror of losing his family like that. That would show him Lincoln was there for him, whatever he needed.
Before he could make a decision on that hug, their server appeared with their food.
Lincoln waved her off before she could ask if they needed anything else, and he didn’t care how rude it was.
Emmett needed something, and Lincoln wasn’t sure what to say.
Sure, he’d lost his family too, but because of a choice. Not because of a tragic accident.
“I’m sorry you went through that,” Lincoln said. “I can’t imagine that kind of loss.”
Emmett offered him a watery half smile. “I try not to dwell on it, but the grief never really goes away. The only time I feel free from it is when I sing.”
Lincoln blinked. “You sing?”
“Yes.” Emmett blushed again, but this time it wasn’t from anger. He seemed genuinely flustered by admitting such a thing.
It was totally adorable.
“As in sing in the shower?” Lincoln asked. The scent of his burger with its grilled meat and cheesy topping made his stomach growl. He had a decent enough voice to sing backup, but not solo. “Sing in a choir? What kind of singing?”
Emmett shrugged as he poked his broiled fish with a fork. “All kinds of stuff, I guess. I like ballads the best. Some top forty. Country when I’m in the mood.”
“Are you any good?”
“I guess.” He salted his steamed veggies, then started shoveling food into his mouth.
Lincoln took the hint and attacked his burger.
He’d never had lobster mac-and-cheese before, and if heaven had a flavor, it would be the gooey, golden stuff on top of his burger.
He made love to that sandwich, bite after bite, ignoring the chips for the duration, because goddamn.
Then he used the chips to scoop up a few globs of fallen mac-and-cheese, because none of that was going to waste.