Page 21 of Steady Stroke
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 hissunglasses. 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.
