Page 24 of Steady Stroke
“Sure.”
They settled the bill and tip, and it wasn’t until the humid heat struck his skin and the midday sunshine turned the world momentarily white that Lincoln realized he’d forgotten hissunglasses at the table. Tiny hammers pounded against the backs of his eyes, and Lincoln stumbled. He shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
Emmett grabbed his forearm. “Oh no. Your sunglasses.”
“Shit. Yeah.”
Lincoln allowed himself to be shuffled to the side. Emmett took his hand and pressed it against something metal. “It’s a railing,” Emmett said. “Hang tight, I’ll get them.”
He didn’t like that Emmett left him, but it was way too necessary, so he stood there like a moron, rubbing his eyes, pissed at himself for being so stupid. And for not bringing a migraine pill with him.
“I’m back,” Emmett said a bit later. Cool plastic pressed into his free hand. “Here.”
Lincoln slipped the sunglasses back on and hazarded a peek. The world was less bright, the sun less painful. But the hammers remained, damage done.
“I’m so sorry, Lincoln, I should have noticed.”
He shook his head, which only made the base of his neck throb. “It isn’t your job to make sure I don’t do stupid shit like that.”
“Still. I feel bad.”
“Please don’t.” He resisted the urge to squeeze Emmett’s hand in reassurance. “This was my own fault. But can we walk back to the car now?”
Emmett’s face fell. “You have a headache.” Not even a question.
He hated seeing Emmett upset, especially over him. “The start of one, and I don’t have any migraine pills on me.”
“Do you want to wait here in the shade? I can go get the car and pick you up.”
As reasonable as Emmett made that sound, in midday summer traffic it could take twenty minutes for himto drive four blocks. No. Walking would get Lincoln sitting down in an air-conditioned car way faster.
“I can walk.”
“Are you sure?”
No.“Definitely. Let’s go.”
Lincoln set off with more confidence in his stride than in his heart. He absolutely hated that his fun day with Emmett was about to end in a painful migraine.
Fuck my life.
SIX
Emmett didhis best to watch Lincoln without being obvious about it, while they navigated the crowded streets back to the mini-golf parking lot. Lincoln was trying so hard to pretend he was okay, and even with the sunglasses hiding his eyes, Emmett saw his pain in the way his lips pressed flat and his jaw flexed. Sweat trickled from his temples in constant streams, and not all from the day’s heat.
He didn’t know how to help other than to make sure as few people jostled Lincoln as possible. His entire focus became getting Lincoln to his car and out of the heat. Out of the sun. Home so he could take a migraine pill and start to feel better. He hated seeing Lincoln in pain on a deep, cellular level that he didn’t entirely understand.
Their conversations during lunch had been light and also deeply intimate. Very few people in his life now knew about the fire. Emmett avoided personal conversations about his family so he didn’t have to relive it. Remember the heat and the smoke and the screams.
The terror that had curled into his gut and lived there, avenomous creature poisoning his soul long after he got the news about his parents and sister.
An unfamiliar part of him had wanted to tell Lincoln everything, though, and that confused him. Everything about Lincoln confused him, from his easygoing exterior charm to the anger lurking just beneath the surface. How he could be at once confident and tentative. Small things that made up the very attractive man Emmett really needed to stop obsessing over.
This friendship is a mistake. It’s only going to hurt us both.
Lincoln was openly gay, and once in a while, Emmett suspected he was flirting. The whole “best thing in my mouth” line had definitely been flirting. Emmett had had to bite back a flirty response, and he’d been so flustered he ended up nearly choking to death. He couldn’t flirt back. He couldn’t be anything more to Lincoln than a friend.
And he would be the best friend he could manage.
