Chapter 8 #2
The casual way Van asked that socked Emmett in the gut. “What? We weren’t seeing each other. We’re friends.” Were friends. He wasn’t entirely sure what they were anymore.
“Uh-huh. Look, kid, take it from someone who’s been around the block a few dozen times. Lincoln is into you. He didn’t even have to take his shades off for me to see it plain as day. So the question is, are you into him?”
Instead of denying it flat-out, Emmett grabbed the shot and stared at the amber liquid. Tipped it back and drank it down. The alcohol burned his throat and heated his stomach, and he started coughing. Once he got his wind back, he said, “It’s not that simple.”
“Why not? You’re either attracted to the guy, or you’re not.”
“I can’t be attracted to him.”
“It’s not exactly something you can control, you know.”
He stared at the shiny wood surface of the bar. “Maybe not, but I can control whether or not I act on it.”
Van poured a second round of shots. “It isn’t as if anyone here is going to care. Bea won’t give a fuck if you’re straight, gay, or every color of the rainbow.”
“I know that.” Emmett tossed back the second shot, the liquid burning as harshly as the first time. His limbs already felt nice and warm. Loose, even. “Are you gay?”
His rusty chuckle was an unfamiliar sound. “I prefer to think of myself as sexually open, but if you want a pretty little label, I’m pansexual.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m attracted to people of all sexualities and genders.
I’ve slept with men and women. I’ve had a few threesomes in various combinations.
I dated a trans man for a while, until he got bored with me.
” The affronted way Van admitted to being dumped made Emmett smile.
“Makes it hard to maintain a long-term relationship, though, because a lot of people still can’t accept bisexuality, much less pansexuality. ”
“It sounds confusing,” Emmett said.
Van shrugged and tipped back his second shot. “What can I say? I like sex and I hate labels. So what about you? What do you like?”
“Boys.” The word slipped out without permission, and Emmett nearly smacked his forehead off the bar top.
“There you go. They say the first step toward sobriety is admitting you have a problem.”
“What?”
The third shot went down way too easily.
“You admitted you’re attracted to guys,” Van said. His face was getting kind of soft. Blurry. “We know that Lincoln is, too. What we’ve yet to establish is why you haven’t already tapped that, because you know what? If he batted his eyes in my direction, we’d be in bed naked in a heartbeat.”
Van was attracted to Lincoln in a sexual way.
That deep-down thing he didn’t understand reared up, annoyed at the blatant way Van said he’d have sex with Lincoln.
Someone that Emmett had no real claim over, and yet Lincoln felt like he was Emmett’s.
His to fuss over when he got migraines, and his to tease about how terribly he played mini golf.
“That.” Van pointed at him. “That look on your face? That’s how I know you like him.”
Emmett looked behind him for no real reason, because it wasn’t as if he could see himself back there. “What look?” Had he slurred that?
“Like you wanted to piss a circle around him and stake your claim.”
“I don’t want to piss on him.”
Van laughed again, then pushed the Maker’s Mark bottle away. “Okay, I think you’ve reached your limit for tonight.”
“Van Holt, are you getting my nephew drunk!” Aunt Beatrice’s voice boomed across the empty club. Her fuzzy shape strode toward them.
“He’s giving me advice,” Emmett said. Yes, he had definitely slurred that time.
“Over shots?”
“I figured if I loosened him up, he’d talk more,” Van said. “He’s terrified to come out of the closet, by the way.”
“Van!” Emmett flailed with his hand and knocked over both empty shot glasses. “Crap.”
“I’m well aware, thank you,” Aunt Beatrice said, her voice now calm and soothing, instead of angry.
Emmett blinked at her, positive he shouldn’t be seeing two copies. “You are?”
“I am.” She sat on the stool on his other side, then draped an arm across his shoulders. “Sweetheart, you remember when you first moved here after the fire, and you had those screaming nightmares?”
His stomach soured at the memories. “Yes. I never really remembered them.”
“I know, but sometimes you screamed things I could understand. A few times you apologized for being with someone. Eric?”
He leaned into his aunt’s comforting embrace, old grief and the liquor he’d consumed allowing him to accept her comfort. And to let his silence be his response, instead of denying it. What was the point now? Aunt Beatrice knew. Van knew.
“I know you grew up in a very religious home,” Aunt Beatrice said. “That sort of upbringing can make it difficult to accept something about yourself that you’ve been taught is wrong.”
“It’s more than that.” Far more than knowing he would completely dishonor his devoutly Muslim parents by accepting that he was gay.
It didn’t matter that they were dead. The thought of them knowing, of them being so disappointed with his choice to remain out of heaven, speared him in the heart every time he imagined it.
Except it wasn’t really a choice, was it? Allah created all, and He loved His children. Surely Allah wouldn’t punish Emmett for being who he was born to be.
Emmett’s drunk brain didn’t let any of that out of his mouth, though, and Aunt Beatrice didn’t push. He let her ease him up and out, and then suddenly they were walking home in the hot, humid sea air. It sobered him up enough to realize he hadn’t thanked Van for their talk, or for the shots.
In the dark of his bedroom, he considered calling Lincoln. Thankfully, Aunt Beatrice took his phone and put it on the side table so he didn’t do something embarrassing. She kissed his forehead then left the room.
He should have thanked her, too, for being so cool about his underage drinking in her bar. For being so cool about everything. He fell into bed thinking about how cool his aunt was.
And woke up the next morning with a fuzzy tongue and a headache.
Bits of the previous night’s conversations came back, flooding him with terror.
Van and Aunt Beatrice knew he was gay. Aunt Beatrice had no reason to spread it around, but what about Van?
He had no loyalty to Emmett. Except Van had initiated the conversation.
He’d made Emmett talk, as if he actually cared what Emmett was going through.
Maybe he does care. Maybe he’s even a friend now.
Okay, fine, Emmett was gay. Feeling something and acting on those feelings were very different things. He could control himself. All he had to do was maintain a physical distance from Lincoln. A text-only friendship or something.
If Lincoln still wanted anything to do with him. They hadn’t parted well, and they hadn’t communicated for days. Maybe he’d lucked out and that ship had sailed.
Except the idea of never speaking to Lincoln again chilled him inside.
He didn’t want to lose how he felt when he was with Lincoln—safe, content, at ease.
Things he hadn’t felt in years, first because of his heritage and school bullying, and then because of the fire.
No, with Lincoln he was either all in or all out.
And right now, all out hurt too much to consider.
Someone knocked on his door. Aunt Beatrice entered with a glass of water and a piece of dry toast on a plate, next to two aspirin.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
“Awful. And it was only three shots.”
“Neat shots, though. And when was the last time you’d eaten?”
Good point. He gingerly sat up so he could munch on the toast, getting enough down to take the aspirin with a little water.
“Go take a shower, too,” she said. “It’ll help.”
“Thank you. For last night and for this.”
She ruffled his messy hair. “Thank me by doing whatever it is that will make you happy, Em. You deserve to be happy. Your parents would want that for you.”
Emmett didn’t know what would make him happy, so he didn’t tax his brain right then.
He concentrated on a long, hot shower that helped ease his hammering headache into a dull thud.
When he finally emerged from his room in clean clothes, the house was empty.
His phone had a text from Aunt Beatrice that she was going to run errands for a few hours, along with another wish for him to find what made him happy.
The doorbell rang, its rusty chimes startling Emmett into dropping his phone. Onto carpet, thankfully. He wandered to the front door, curious who was there. UPS, maybe, dropping off a package. Adrian was addicted to some shopping app.
He unlocked and opened the door to hot air and streaming sunlight.
And to Lincoln. “Hey,” he said with a bright smile. He had a flat white box in one hand, and a black case of some sort strapped over his shoulder, and his sudden appearance there made absolutely no sense. “May I come in?”
Say no. Say no. Say no.
Emmett gulped. “Yes.”