Chapter 7
SEVEN
Complete and utter embarrassment kept Lincoln in bed until noon Saturday, when Roxy forcibly wrangled him up and into the bathroom to shower.
“There are limits to how long I’ll let you wallow,” she said, and then promptly shut the door on him.
Lincoln glanced at his reflection in the mirror.
Smudges under his eyes, a general grayish pallor to his skin.
He looked terrible. The headache was long gone, thanks to Emmett’s gentle care, and that only made him feel worse.
His new friend had nursed him through a long bout of vomiting, wiped him down, gave him a pill, and then went home without even a thank-you from Lincoln.
His only contact with Emmett had been a brief Hope you’re feeling better text that morning. He hadn’t managed to compose a proper reply yet. Hell, he owed Emmett a phone call at the very least.
A long hot shower washed away the last of his post-migraine funk. Roxy had a bowl of hot chicken noodle soup waiting for him when he shuffled into the kitchen in board shorts and a sleeveless tee. He mumbled a thank-you as he slid onto a stool at the counter and proceeded to gulp down the soup.
The silent mothering didn’t bother him until he noticed the way Roxy stood opposite him, fingers twisting together in knots. She was frowning, and that disconcerted him. A lot.
“Okay, what?” he asked.
“I have to tell you something, and you’re going to get really mad at me.”
“Okaaaay.” He put the spoon in the nearly empty bowl and gave her his full attention.
She chewed on her lower lip before launching into word vomit.
“So when I came home yesterday I didn’t know you’d be here, and your friend scared me to death because he was standing in the kitchen, and I thought he broke in because he didn’t say anything, he just kept staring at me like he’d been caught at something, so I kind of pepper-sprayed him in the face. ”
Lincoln blinked hard several times while the words sorted themselves and made sense. “You did what?” Then his confusion shifted into a protective anger that surprised him for its ferocity. He stood, stool scraping. “Christ, Roxy.”
“I’m sorry.” She hugged her arms around her middle. “He scared me, okay? I didn’t think, I reacted, and he’s okay. I made sure he was okay before he went home.”
“You pepper-sprayed him.” Knowing Emmett was okay wasn’t enough. He’d been fucking pepper-sprayed. In the face. That shit hurt.
“I know! Look, he was really great about it afterward. I told him about that party last summer, so he got why I overreacted to a strange man in the house.”
That did a bit to calm some of Lincoln’s temper. From her point of view, she’d been protecting herself from a potential attacker. But she’d sprayed Emmett. His Emmett. All because of Lincoln’s fucking migraine. He hadn’t been there to explain to Roxy who Emmett was.
“Okay, I get that too,” Lincoln said. “And if Emmett forgave you, I guess I can’t hold it over your head.” No matter how much I want to.
No one got to hurt Emmett. Not even Roxy.
Her guarded expression didn’t go away, and his stomach sank. “What else happened?”
She ducked her head and mumbled something.
“Say that again?”
“I kind of called the police and said I had an intruder.”
Lincoln mentally facepalmed. “Are you kidding me?”
“No. After I explained it all, though, the cops were really understanding. No one got in trouble or arrested or anything.”
I owe Emmett so much grade-A groveling right now.
“I’m so sorry, Linc.”
“I know, you’ve said that repeatedly.” Lincoln wasn’t ready to say he forgave her yet. Not now that police had been involved. First, he needed to speak to Emmett and find out from him that he was okay. Roxy wouldn’t lie, but he needed to hear directly from Emmett. “Thanks for the soup.”
He ignored her wounded expression as he left the kitchen for his room. His phone was nearly dead, so he plugged it into the charger while he made the call.
Voice mail.
“Hey, Emmett, it’s Lincoln. I want to apologize about yesterday and maybe make it up to you. Call me, okay? I, um, really had fun until the whole migraine/pepper-spray thing. Anyway, talk to you later. Bye.”
Lame.
It got the message across. Now he had to wait.
He watched more QChord tutorials on YouTube, and he even found an arrangement for “The Sound of Silence” that worked with the instrument.
More and more, he hated that he had to wait three more days for the instrument to arrive.
His fingers itched with the very real need to pluck strings, pull a pick, to simply make music again.
Maybe XYZ would grace the Unbound stage one last time.
His phone rang, and he answered without paying attention to the screen. “Emmett?”
“No, baby, it’s Melody.” She giggled. “Who’s Emmett?”
“Someone I hung out with yesterday. Waiting for him to call me back.”
“Hung out, huh? Any body parts in particular hang out?”
He snorted. “No. It wasn’t that kind of date, Mel.” He didn’t want to talk about Emmett with her right then. Not until he spoke with Emmett about the pepper spray. “What’s up, girl?”
“I’m bored. Let’s go out tonight and not pick up guys. Again.”
“You know, one of these days you should make it a point to try and pick up someone. Attitude is everything.”
“Tell me something I don’t know. So you wanna?”
“Sure, why not? Off Beat?”
She blew a raspberry. “We always go there. There are a bazillion other bars around here. Pick something out of the phone book and text when you want to meet there.”
Off Beat would give him the perfect excuse to check on Emmett, but the club didn’t open for a few hours yet. There was still time for Emmett to call him back. “Sounds like a plan.”
“Excellent. Later, hot stuff.”
Lincoln spent some time scrolling through the local bar scene until he found a place with a live band at ten that he actually wanted to see. He texted Melody the details, and she quickly sent back a GIF of Michael Jackson moonwalking.
If nothing else, Melody always helped him smile.
Roxy made spaghetti for dinner, and they ate in awkward silence. He cleaned up so she could head to her six o’clock work shift. It took a lot of effort not to bang the pots together in frustration over radio silence from Emmett. He didn’t want to pester the guy, but not even a text?
At six thirty, his phone finally pinged with a message.
Emmett: You did nothing wrong, so no forgiveness needed. Roxy and I are cool.
Damn him for texting so close to when Off Beat opened. It gave Emmett the perfect excuse to keep the conversation short.
Really want to see you in person, Em, please?
A few minutes passed before Emmett replied: Tomorrow. Lunch?
Finally. Come over? I can toss a frozen pizza in the oven.
Okay. See you at noon.
Lincoln put his phone down without the sense of victory he’d expected.
Emmett was coming over to see him tomorrow, but instead of joy, a sense of dread slithered under his skin like a shard of glass.
Despite having no real reason to think so, he had a very real fear that Emmett was coming over to say good-bye.
Avoiding contact all day and then sending a few texts made Emmett feel like a jerk and a total loser.
Lincoln deserved better than that. He deserved someone who wasn’t afraid of a simple conversation.
A conversation maybe not so simple, because of his mixed-up feelings about Lincoln.
Feelings he would not allow to surface or be acknowledged in any way, because down that road lay only pain. Pain for him and pain for Lincoln.
He’d learned his lesson once and paid a very steep price.
Lincoln had suffered enough. He wouldn’t risk it.
Emmett put his phone in the safe in Aunt Beatrice’s office, then went about his usual duties at the prep table.
Cutting lime wedges and orange-peel garnishes.
Filling various bins behind the bar with cherries, olives, and cocktail onions.
The glasses were full and ready to go. He mostly avoided curious looks from Sasha, but on his second pass Van blocked him.
“Dude, what happened to you?” Van asked.
Emmett already had a story that he’d run by Aunt Beatrice, so he didn’t have to relive the entire thing whenever someone saw the redness that still colored his forehead and around his eyes. Not as bad as last night, at least. “Allergic reaction.”
“To what?”
“I’m not sure. It might have been this organic sunscreen Aunt Beatrice let me try.”
Van pulled a face. “Does it itch?”
“Not much. The redness should go away by tomorrow.”
“That’s good news.”
Emmett rolled his eyes. “I’ll try not to frighten your customers away.”
That made Van smile—something he didn’t do very often for people who didn’t tip him. “That’s what I like to hear.” He tilted his head. “Weren’t your eyes lighter than that before?”
Emmett’s stomach twisted up tight. He hadn’t managed to replace the colored contacts yet, and Aunt Beatrice had encouraged him to not bother.
A majority of the world’s population had brown eyes.
They wouldn’t automatically make people fear or hate him.
And Van looked so confused that Emmett had pity and told him the truth.
“I used to wear colored contacts. For fun. I decided not to anymore.”
“Oh.” He shrugged. “Whatever floats your boat, I guess.”
The club didn’t get busy until closer to eight, when their first act was set to go on, so Emmett was able to hide in the shadows.
Once business picked up, he had to appear more frequently to run glasses, bus tables, and bring liquor to his bartenders.
All jobs he normally didn’t mind, but his face made him ten times more self-conscious than usual.
Dina took pity on him and did a lot of the table bussing, for which he pledged his eternal gratitude.