Chapter 20
TWENTY
Lincoln’s new favorite thing ever was fucking Emmett—not only because it felt amazing, like every other thing they did together naked, but because Emmett was the most expressive guy who’d ever bottomed for him.
Emmett didn’t censor his pleasure or his needs, which led to them fucking two more times between naps, before they finally dragged themselves out of bed around three in the afternoon.
He’d never put much stock in the ideas of fate or soul mates, but goddamn, he was starting to.
Everything about him and Emmett fit, from their bodies to their personalities, to the teasing way they washed each other in the shower.
Touching and stroking and laughing at accidental elbows to the chest.
Perfect.
There wasn’t much in the fridge, so Emmett volunteered to order a pizza from a good place a block away.
He even volunteered to pick it up. Lincoln started to protest that he’d go along, but his head was starting to ache at the base of his neck.
Not necessarily a migraine in the making.
Probably a lot of it from all of the strenuous activity of the last ten hours or so.
It was enough for him to take a pill and stretch out on the couch with his phone and earbuds.
Before he could call up his music app, though, the phone started to ring.
He stared, surprised as all hell to see his sister’s name on the screen.
He and Mercedes had talked a few times a year before the accident, but she’d called him once a month for the first six months after.
Then the frequency died off after one check-in back in April.
He almost didn’t answer it, not wanting anything to intrude on his happy time with Emmett. “Hey, Mercy.”
“Hey, you.” His sister had moved to Boston two years ago with her boyfriend, now fiancé, and she’d already picked up on some of the nasally tones of up north. “How’s everything at the beach?”
“Sunshine and sand, as usual. How’s Boston?”
“Freakishly hot for this time of year, according to everyone at work. How’s your head?”
“Still attached.”
“Always good news. Listen, I can’t chat long. You never RSVP’d for the wedding.”
Lincoln sorted through that statement until it made sense.
The wedding invitation had come to him at the Bounds house back in March, and he’d promptly forgotten about it.
Not only because of his dizzy spells, but because he hadn’t wanted the family drama.
Mercedes getting married meant his parents, and his parents plus him?
No way. He hadn’t seen them in eight years, and he didn’t want to see them.
“Can’t make it, sis, sorry.”
She blew a raspberry over the phone. “Bullshit. I bet you don’t even remember when it is.”
“You’re right, I don’t. I’m sorry, but I wasn’t at my best when I got the invitation.”
“Well, it’s next Saturday. And I want you there.”
Next Saturday. One week before Unbound. He really didn’t need the drama. “Will our parents be there?”
“Of course. Dad’s giving me away.”
“Then I can’t go. I can’t be near them.”
“It was eight years ago, Linc. Mom asks me how you’re doing. She still loves you.”
“Don’t care.”
Liar.
A tiny part of him did care that his mother asked about him. That she hadn’t completely written him off like his asshole of a father had.
“Then come to the wedding for me,” Mercedes said. “Please? You’re the only brother I have, and I want you there. You’ve never even met Terry.”
“Who’s Terry?” he asked, simply to be an ass.
She huffed. “My fiancé, you jerk, and you know that. Come on, I want to brag about how awesome you are. I mean, you’re going to play at Unbound again.”
His hand jerked. “You know about that?”
“Sure I do. We don’t talk much, but I still follow Fading Daze and your friends. I’m so excited for you.” She did sound genuinely thrilled for him.
He wasn’t sure what to do with that. “I have a boyfriend.”
She squealed. “Really? Tell me about him.”
“His name is Emmett. He works at a bar, he has an amazing singing voice, and for some reason, he loves me.”
“Do you love him?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Bring him to the wedding.”
“Our father will have a coronary, and I don’t want to cause drama on your big day.”
Mercedes made a shushing sound, and he could see her waving a hand in the air. “I’m inviting you both, so Dad will have to grin and bear it. And if he doesn’t, Terry’s two-hundred-pound gay uncle will have words with him.”
“I think I like Terry.”
“You will, once you have a conversation with him. Please, Lincoln? I’ll even spring for the plane tickets.”
“No plane. Not with my head.”
“Right, sorry. Bus, train, rental car, whatever. I’ll pay for it, if it gets you two here next Saturday.”
Lincoln didn’t want to commit to that without talking to Emmett first. “Can I text you back with my final answer?”
“Yes. Please come. You don’t even need to bring me a present. Just be there.”
“I’ll try, Mercy. I promise.”
“Good. Take care, okay?”
“Bye.”
He stared at his phone, mind racing, until Emmett returned with the pizza and a plastic bag. The tantalizing scents of tomato and sausage made his mouth water, but he couldn’t seem to put his phone down.
“What’s wrong?” Emmett dumped the pizza on the coffee table, and the bag on the floor, then sat next to him. “Linc?”
Lincoln explained his call with Mercedes. “Mercy and I were super close when we were kids, and then we drifted apart in high school. We kept in touch after I moved out—”
“Were kicked out, via a flight of stairs.”
“I haven’t seen her in years, but for some reason it’s really important that I be at her wedding.”
“She wants her family there.” Emmett squeezed his hand. “It’s not that strange of an idea to some of us. Wanting our family to be there on special occasions.”
“I know. And it’s not the wedding, exactly, it’s our father. I haven’t seen him since that night, and I don’t want to. I don’t want to see how he’s aged, or to find out he’s happy or sick or sad. I don’t care.”
“Are you sure? If you didn’t care about any of that, then finding it out wouldn’t bother you. He’d be just another stranger at the wedding. Another face to ignore. Are you sure this isn’t about you?”
“Of course it’s about me. It’s about me not wanting to see him.”
Emmett tilted his head, nibbled his lower lip. “Are you sure it isn’t about not wanting him to see you?”
“What does that mean?”
“Maybe you don’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing what’s going on with you. Of seeing you happy and thriving, despite nearly dying last summer. You want to keep the wall of separation intact, because just maybe it makes him wonder.”
Lincoln saw a layer of truth in Emmett’s very clear read on the situation.
He liked knowing his life was completely set apart from his father’s.
But part of him liked the idea of rubbing his father’s face in his successes.
Of his father knowing Lincoln hadn’t been beaten down by the streets, that he was alive, happy, living his life, and in love. With a boy.
“You don’t have to speak to him,” Emmett said. “Show up, support your sister, maybe dance with her at the reception, and then go home. And if you want me to, I’ll go with you.”
Sometimes Lincoln didn’t think he deserved Emmett’s unwavering support. “We’ll go to the wedding on one condition.”
“Name it.”
He pressed his forehead against Emmett’s. “You’ll dance with me at the reception. One song.”
Emmett released a long, shuddering breath. The request was a gamble. Emmett still dealt with social anxiety, and he still hadn’t come out publicly. Maybe Lincoln was asking for too much, too soon.
“Deal,” Emmett said. He poked Lincoln in the ribs. “But if you try to trick me into singing at that wedding, I will cut you.”
He laughed. “Point taken.”
“Glad we understand each other.”
“We do.” Lincoln took a moment to kiss his boyfriend soundly, because he hadn’t done that in at least twenty minutes. “Thank you for doing this for me. The wedding, I mean.”
“You’re welcome. Can we eat now? I’m starving.”
“Definitely.”
The plastic bag had an assortment of sodas. His inability to commit to a favorite was one of Emmett’s more adorable quirks. Lincoln washed two slices of sausage-and-mushroom pizza down with a birch beer, a favorite treat he had trouble finding up north and had always associated with the beach area.
They hung out and watched television and fucked one more time before they both had to get ready for work at Off Beat.
The day was pretty damned close to perfect.
Volunteering to attend Lincoln’s sister’s wedding had seemed like a great idea at the time—back when it was simply an idea, and not a looming threat.
Emmett spent the next week with a heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach that intensified with each passing day.
He hadn’t attended a wedding in years. He’d never been to a Christian ceremony, period.
Lincoln assured him all he had to do was show up, smile, and stay close.
Emmett didn’t want to be an accessory, though.
He wanted to help Lincoln show off who he was and all that he’d achieved.
He really, really didn’t want to have an anxiety attack in the middle of the reception. Some of that fear was alleviated by Aunt Beatrice teaching him how to dance. Nothing fancy. A few basic moves that would stop him from stepping on Lincoln’s feet too often and keep them from being laughed at.
The heavy ball of anxiety got worse every time he remembered he was going to be surrounded by Lincoln’s family, and that Emmett was the one who nearly took him out of their lives.
Never mind that Lincoln didn’t speak to his family, beyond his sister.
The weight of that knowledge made him physically sick to his stomach the day before the wedding, and Lincoln hovered so much that he made the whole thing worse.