Page 53 of Steady Stroke
Lincoln toed off his flip-flops and slid right under the covers. He pulled Emmett into his arms, tangling their legs, stroking his back. Emmett pressed his face into Lincoln’s neck, hot breath fanning over his clavicle. Emmett’s heart beat so erratically that Lincoln feared for him actually passing out. Except it eased, as did the tension in his shoulders, the longer they existed in silence with the blanket tucked up to their necks.
No one spoke. Lincoln refused to let his brain go nuts with reasons for Emmett’s state. Eventually Emmett would talk to him. He knew it without a doubt. He simply had to be patient.
His patience ended up taking a brief nap, and when Lincoln woke up, he was flat on his back, with Emmett using his chest as a pillow. They were still tangled up close, touching everywhere possible, and even though there was nothingremotely sexual about the moment, Lincoln really loved waking up with Emmett in his arms.
“Thank you.” Emmett’s whisper surprised him.
“You’re welcome. Feeling better?”
“A little.” He lifted his head. His color was better, but he still looked haunted. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”
“You did a little bit. Van said he didn’t think you were actually sick, but you sure looked it to me.” Lincoln ruffled Emmett’s messy hair. “You do look better.”
“I didn’t realize how much I needed you until you were here.”
That confession did funny things to his insides. “Then I’m glad I came. So was it something you ate?”
“Huh? Oh, that. Kind of.” Emmett chewed on his lower lip—a familiar quirk when he was pondering something. “Honestly, I’ve felt awful since last night.”
“What happened last night?”
“I talked to Adrian about you.”
Lincoln’s entire body jerked, because even though Emmett said he would do it, he hadn’t expected the conversation to upset Emmett so much. And that pissed him off. But not at Emmett. Never at Emmett.
At Adrian. “What did Adrian have to say for himself?”
Emmett couldn’t stand the intensity in Lincoln’s expression. The way he focused in on Emmett’s feelings and making sure Emmett was all right, when all of Lincoln’s current issues werehis fault.
He’d spent the entire night tossing and turning, unable to sleep, seeing Adrian’s video over and over in his mind. Seeing Lincoln’s face as the car spun, careering into a telephone pole. Hearing the crunch of metal and shattering of glass, andphantom screams of pain that weren’t Lincoln’s, but his little sister’s. Waking up in a cold sweat, positive he smelled gasoline and smoke.
He’d tried to eat the scrambled eggs Adrian made them both—some kind of solidarity peace offering, or something—but he couldn’t keep them down. They’d set off a long round of vomiting, until Adrian shoved him into bed with a glass of water and a barf basin. Calling Van had been torture. Canceling on Lincoln had hurt worse than any of his burns.
Seeing him in his bedroom doorway had hurt, too, but more than that, Emmett had felt such a sense of joy and relief that he’d clung to Lincoln when he should have turned him away. They were already too emotionally involved as it was, and the moment Lincoln knew what Emmett had done, they would be over. Lincoln would hate him for taking away his musical dreams and sticking him with debilitating migraines and dizzy spells.
Emmett had been drunk. He’d been high. He’d fled the scene of an accident, and he’d made his cousin an accessory to it all.
He completely and totally sucked as a human being.
And yet somehow Lincoln was able to look at him with compassion in his eyes.
Because he doesn’t know what you did.
He had to tell Lincoln the truth. Nothing else would remove the heavy boulder of guilt that was crushing his heart into a bloody pulp. Lincoln deserved to know what Emmett had done. Lincoln deserved the truth.
I don’t want to lose him.
Lincoln was the best thing in his entire life. The best friend he’d ever had since elementary school. The closest thing to a boyfriend he’d ever managed, even though they’d never discussed the label. Someone who listened, accepted, and cameback for more. Despite all of Emmett’s hesitations at the start, Lincoln had continued to pursue him. And for an entire day, they’d been a beautiful thing.
A beautiful, fragile thing that Emmett could destroy with one confession.
Adrian had urged him not to, arguing no good would come of it. Emmett would lose Lincoln. Lincoln could even turn them in to the police, press charges. Ruin both of their lives. Emmett couldn’t stomach the idea of sending Adrian to jail, not even for a night. Adrian had tried to protect him from the truth for a year.
Emmett owed him nothing less than the same.
“Em?” Lincoln said. “What did Adrian tell you?”
“He told me more about a party we went to last summer.” Emmett’s brain spun that confession out, searching for more thanI got strung out on coke and sent you headfirst into a wooden pole.“It was the first time I ever drank, and on top of my antidepressants, I got truly wasted and blacked the whole thing out. At the time, Adrian swore up and down that nothing bad happened.”
