Page 83 of Steady Stroke
Except Emmett had never once given Lincoln a reason not to trust him.
He wasn’t sure if sex was still on the table tonight, or if he’d find Roxy watching TV instead of Emmett. Discovering the former would kill his problem pretty quickly. The latter might want to help him out with it.
Adrian was the last person on earth he expected to find on his sofa, engrossed in something on television, so yeah, the woody died a fast death.
“Dude, what are you doing here?”
Adrian yelped as he twisted around on the couch. “Fuck, man, make some noise or something.”
“Sorry.” Not so much.
“Emmett asked me to hang out here until you woke up, or until Roxy came home. He was worried about your head.”
Lincoln wasn’t sure if that was irritating, or totally adorable. He went with adorable, because Emmett wasn’t the smothering kind, but he did worry. “Oh. Thanks?”
Adrian shrugged, then turned to face the TV. “Don’t mention it.”
“Figured you’d seen enough of me these last few days.” He settled on the other end of the couch.
“Nah. You make Emmett happy. He deserves it after everything he’d been through.”
“And is still going through.”
“Yeah.”
Lincoln wasn’t sure how to tell Adrian that he was pretty sure he was falling in love with Emmett, so he kept that to himself. The guy sometimes seemed uncomfortable around Lincoln, and he couldn’t figure out why. Then again, it could all be in his own imagination. Instead of making thingsawkward, he went for totally off-topic. “So, are you seeing anyone?”
Adrian laughed out loud. “Why, you wanna go out on a date?”
“You’d be so lucky. Just curious, is all.”
“Sex, yes. Date, no.”
Lincoln rolled his eyes. “Player, huh?”
“Not really. It’s hard to date in a resort town. You’ve either already fucked the local girls so you know which ones are crazy, or you end up in an awkward thing with a girl who lives a thousand miles inland, and who’s only here for a week. I tried long-distance once, and it sucked.”
“Works for a friend of mine.”
Kind of. He hadn’t had a chance to talk to Benji at any great length about his relationship with Joshua when he’d been in town, and he regretted that. The two guys were great together, but their schedules clicked even worse than before now that Benji was touring. Plus the open-relationship thing.
“To each his own,” Adrian said.
“Ah-fucking-men, dude.”
“Okay, so if your head isn’t in imminent danger of imploding, I’m going to go.”
“No, I’m good. Thanks.”
“No problem.”
He walked Adrian to the door, because that seemed polite. “I’m going to text him, but when you see Emmett tell him I said thanks for looking out for me.”
“I will. See you, man.”
“Yeah, see you.”
Roxy got home a little after midnight and promptly interrogated him about the hearing. Lincoln kind of hated that Gunn was getting off with assault charges, instead of manslaughter, but he wasn’t a lawyer, and he wasn’t Emmett. Emmett wantedclosure as soon as possible, and he wanted to avoid the spectacle of a trial. Lincoln couldn’t fault him for that.
