Page 35 of Steady Stroke
“Trying.”
He turned on the correct settings to create a backbeat for the song, then hovered his fingertips over the strumplate. Counted. It was crazy weird not fingering strings with his left hand, but he drew his fingers over the plate at the correct time. The sound wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t quite the note he wanted. But the deeper into the song he played, the easier it was to get it right. Tickling his fingertips over a flat surface would take some getting used to, but he made it to the end of the song without any issues.
“Well, I’m not dizzy.”
Dominic’s war whoop echoed over his phone. “I fucking told you!”
“It was one song.”
“Oh my God, will you try to see the sunny side, please? This is what you wanted, Linc. You couldn’t pluck six chords on your bass before you nearly passed out. This is huge.”
Crazy huge. So huge Lincoln felt immediately nauseated by the possibilities. The chance that his future wasn’t this empty, yawning void of nothingness. That he could keep playing. Maybe not ever in a band, not like he used to dream of, but he hadn’t lost music entirely. His new instrument was a little weird, but it was his.
The QChord had become his new lifeline.
His eyes stung with grateful tears. “Thank you. I mean it, Dom.”
“You’re welcome.” Dominic coughed. “Don’t you dare make me cry.”
“I’ll try. So did you pick a song for Unbound?”
“Benji and I have been tossing ideas back and forth. Now that we know you’re good with the QChord, we can narrow it down.”
“Good.” Lincoln stared at the instrument in his lap, half afraid it would disappear in a puff of smoke and the last ten minutes would turn out to be a dream. “This really happened.”
“Yeah, it did. Look, I know it’s been nothing but one disappointment after another since the car accident, but this is a huge win. It’s your first step toward normal.”
“I know.” Whatever normal was nowadays.
“Cool. Now that the QChord is out of the way, what’s wrong? Roxy says you’re moping more than usual.”
I’ll strangle her.
“Why do you and I have the same trouble with falling for guys in the closet?” Lincoln asked.
“Huh? You’re falling for someone? Dude, how am I just finding out about this?”
“Because it wasn’t really anything until this weekend, and now I don’t know if it’s even a thing anymore.”
Dominic huffed. “Okay, start at the beginning.”
He did, laying out the whole thing from Van’s introduction at Off Beat to the pepper-spray incident, ending with the epic failure that had been his advance on Saturday. “I’ve never felt so immediately connected to someone before. It’s really weird, and sometimes I think he feels it too, but then he pushes me away. It’s insanely confusing.” The other end of the phone stayed silent. “Dom?”
“Sorry, dude, I’m still stuck on Roxy pepper-spraying your date.”
“Will you focus on the Saturday night part, please? I gave Emmett every single opening, but he still backed off. He’s scared, but I don’t know what he’s scared of. I mean, Beatrice wouldn’t give a shit if he’s gay, and his parents are dead, so thatisn’t an issue. I don’t know, maybe this is all in my head, and he’s backing off because he isn’t gay and wants me to back off, too.”
“It’s possible he doesn’t know that he’s gay. Or he could be bi and confused by that.”
“Maybe.”
“You’re the one who walked away on Saturday, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Maybe he hasn’t reached out in the last three days because he thinks that was you being done with him. If he’s as scared as you say, then he’s probably used to hiding to avoid the pain of rejection. He won’t seek it out.”
Well, shit, that makes sense.
