Chapter 11
ELEVEN
“Adrian Thomas Westmore,” Aunt Beatrice snapped.
Emmett stared blankly at his cousin, who stood in the kitchen entrance, arms crossed and scowling. He’d never seen Adrian so openly hostile toward anyone, least of all his own mother.
“Come on, Mom,” he said. “You barely know that guy.” Adrian jerked his head at Lincoln. “You’re gonna trust him to be alone in your bar, around your booze?”
“He’ll hardly be alone,” she replied, a sharp edge to her tone. “Emmett will be with him at all times, and perhaps I don’t know Lincoln well, but I know people. And I trust my instincts. I don’t see Lincoln betraying my trust and throwing wild parties midday.”
Adrian didn’t look mollified, only more defiant.
Emmett glanced at Lincoln, who was glaring at Adrian. He hated the idea of Lincoln and Adrian at odds with each other, but until he figured out the source of Adrian’s hostility toward Lincoln, he couldn’t fix it.
“Thank you for the offer to use your club, Beatrice,” Lincoln said. “If Emmett agrees, I’d like to take you up on it.”
Adrian’s glare shifted to Emmett. Part of Emmett instinctively wanted to back down simply to keep the peace.
Adrian reminded him so much of the high school bullies he’d worked hard to avoid, and he didn’t like thinking his cousin might lash out at him.
But this wasn’t about their relationship, tenuous as it was.
This was about Lincoln’s dream of playing for a crowd again.
This was about Lincoln getting his life back.
“I’d love to help.” Emmett turned away from Adrian with more outward confidence than he felt inside, and smiled at his aunt. “This is so generous of you. Thank you.”
“No need.” Aunt Beatrice grinned. “I understand a person’s love of something, and I more than understand the loss of a dream. You deserve this, Lincoln.”
Adrian sputtered and stormed out.
“What is his problem with me?” Lincoln asked.
Aunt Beatrice glanced at the empty doorway. “I have no idea. Adrian’s been volatile lately, and I’m starting to worry. He’s not being secretive, so I don’t think it’s drugs, but . . . I don’t know. We aren’t as close as we used to be.”
“His father isn’t around?”
Emmett flinched.
“No, dear, Adrian’s father died when Adrian was five years old.” She sighed heavily.
“Shit, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right, it was ages ago.” Her clouded expression brightened. “So when do you want to start practicing at the club? If you like, I’ll go in with you the first time, so I can show you both how to use the light board and sound system.”
“You don’t have to go out of your way. I’m sure I can figure it out.” He’d been on or around enough stages in his lifetime. “Is tomorrow too soon to start?”
“Not at all. I’ll make sure to get an extra key made for you boys.”
“Thank you.”
Aunt Beatrice wandered out of the kitchen with her half-eaten slice of pizza.
As hungry as Emmett was, he didn’t reach for a piece of his own.
He watched Lincoln eat, mesmerized by how something as simple as pizza could look sensual in Lincoln’s mouth, while a small portion of his brain still worried over Adrian.
Emmett wanted Lincoln in his life so badly he ached with it, and he didn’t want Adrian’s hostility to come between them.
“I’ll talk to Adrian later,” Emmett said. “I don’t know why he doesn’t seem to like you.”
Lincoln shrugged as he reached for a second slice. “Fuck if I know. I never even met him before today.”
“If it helps, he doesn’t like me much anymore, either. I mean, we’ve never been best friends, or anything, but up until last summer we were, you know, friendly. Then he got super distant, like I offended him or something.” Phantom aches in his left leg made him cringe.
“Whatever’s up his ass is his problem, not yours.”
“I suppose.”
“Forget him. Let’s focus on the positive here. You and me, together every day.”
Emmett laughed. “You’re going to get sick of me.”
“Oh baby, that won’t happen.” Lincoln’s blue eyes glinted with wicked intent. “Trust me on that.”
He shivered. “I do.”
“You wanna play some more after we eat?” He winked. “Music.”
“Definitely.”
They polished off two slices of pizza each and washed them down with iced tea.
Aunt Beatrice settled in as an impromptu audience member while he and Lincoln went through Simon & Garfunkel’s greatest hits, then shifted into Billy Joel.
They played until Emmett’s unpracticed voice started to give out, and then they called it a day.
“Do you want to stay for dinner?” Aunt Beatrice asked while Lincoln packed his QChord away.
“I would but I’m getting really tired.” Lincoln pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Headache?” Emmett asked.
“Small one. I don’t think it will be a migraine, but I should get home and take a pill just in case.”
Disappointment settled heavily in his gut. “Okay.” He hated that their time together was ending. “What time do you want to meet at the club tomorrow?”
“Around noon?”
“Sounds good.”
He reluctantly walked Lincoln to the door. Aunt Beatrice had made herself scarce, so Emmett wasn’t too embarrassed to kiss Lincoln good-bye. A simple kiss that turned hungry and hard, and lasted far longer than he’d intended.
Lincoln nipped at his lower lip. “Good night.”
“Night.”
He stayed there until Lincoln disappeared from view, then shut the door against the evening heat.
Determination settled in his bones. Emmett took the stairs two at a time and planted himself in front of Adrian’s closed bedroom door. He knocked. Hard.
The door flew open. Adrian glared at him. “What?”
Emmett did something brand-new and bullied his way into Adrian’s bedroom. He ignored the slightly stale smell of old beer and feet, and he shut the door behind him.
“The fuck, dude?” Adrian said.
“What is your problem with Lincoln?”
“Get out of my room.”
“Not until you answer me. He said he’s never met you before today, but you acted weird when you first came home, and then you were downright rude in the kitchen. Why?”
Adrian’s anger fractured a tiny bit—enough for a flicker of sadness to creep through. “Leave it alone, okay? I don’t hate the guy. I just don’t think you should be around him.”
“I like him. A lot. He treats me better than anyone I’ve ever met. Why on earth shouldn’t I be around him?”
“I don’t . . .” His cousin floundered. “Look, you’re just coming out, and he’s . . . available. And older. I don’t want you to get hurt if things go south.”
That was the closest thing to supportive that Adrian had been toward him in forever, and it confused the crap out of Emmett. “Why do you care all of the sudden? You’ve basically ignored me since last summer. What’s it to you who I decide to date?”
Adrian stared at him, more of that anger melting away, leaving . . . fatigue? “You really blacked that whole night out, didn’t you? Complete blank.”
Emmett’s gut churned. “What night?” Vague memories of waking up so hungover he couldn’t get out of bed all day snuck back into the far recesses of his brain. “August?”
“Yeah, August.”
“I told you back then I didn’t remember the party. You said nothing bad happened.”
“Nothing bad happened at the party.” Adrian collapsed into his desk chair, like a puppet whose strings were cut. “Fuck, dude. I didn’t want to tell you this. Ever.”
Genuine fear curled around Emmett’s heart and squeezed air out of his lungs. He shoved his hands into his pockets so Adrian wouldn’t see them shaking. “What happened after the party?”
Adrian flinched, genuine sadness creeping over him.
“We both got super wasted there. Wasted enough that we should have just crashed on the floor, but you’d done some coke, too, and it was giving you a fucking Superman complex.
You were totaled, but insisted you could still do anything. I’d never seen you so confident, man.”
You’d done some coke, too.
Emmett’s brain frazzled out at that one. He’d done drugs at this party he didn’t remember. Drugs that had, apparently, made him a little nuts. “What did I do?”
“You insisted you could drive us home, and me being just as fucking wasted as you, let you. Drive us home.”
A connection he refused to acknowledge began to form in the deep recesses of his brain.
A connection to something he’d never consciously put together, and he didn’t want to put it together now.
He wrapped his arms around his middle, his entire body starting to tremble.
His stomach twisted so tight he thought he’d never eat again.
“What did I do?” Emmett didn’t recognize his own voice.
Misery dripped off his cousin now. “You sideswiped a car and it hit a telephone pole.”
The entire world grayed out. He didn’t register movement, only suddenly being on his ass, Adrian crouching in front of him.
That horrible, inevitable connection strengthened.
“No one died,” Adrian said.
“This can’t be real. This isn’t true. Why are you lying about this?”
“I’m not lying. Fuck, Emmett, I wouldn’t make shit like this up. I was trying to protect you.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Yes, you do.” Adrian disappeared then returned a moment later with his phone. He scrolled through until he found what he wanted. Showed the screen to Emmett.
A video.
Emmett shoved it away. “No.”
“Emilio, please.”
The use of his given name fractured his resolve. No, Adrian wasn’t making this up. Something terrible happened that night, and Adrian had proof.
“I recorded parts of the party to show you later, because I’d never seen you like that,” Adrian said.
“Confident and having fun. Letting loose. Forgetting all of your loss for a little while. In the car you started singing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ without any music, and it was so funny I started recording again.”
Emmett kept fumbling the phone, so Adrian held it and pressed play. The video was shaky, but clearly showed Emmett behind the wheel of Adrian’s truck. His own voice burst out, singing familiar lyrics, hitting all the right notes—and a few wrong ones. Adrian’s laughter overtook the song a few times.