Staccato (Magnum Opus #2) - E.M. Lindsey Page 0,14
to hold on to any feeling in the wake of his raging curiosity and…something. A nameless sensation inside his void that wouldn’t let up.
He sat there at the desk watching Nik collect his bag, watching him laugh and smile with the piano store owner and carry on with a life Adam had been blissfully unaware of until that day. Now he knew Nik—he had a name, and a face, and a cadence of speech. He knew that Nik rocked his head a little from side to side, and wrinkled his nose randomly when he spoke, and he smiled a lot. He knew that his eye teeth were a little bit crooked, and he had a large, flat mole on the left side of his jaw.
It was a lot all at once, and Adam didn’t know what the fuck it meant except that he really did hope Nik took him up on that offer for a slushie the next time he came back. Which now, in hindsight, sounded pathetic. But all the same, it had made Nik smile.
“Yo,” came a voice to Adam’s left, and he glanced over to see Vincent with Evie on his shoulders. He was the epitome of Old Green Man, with his faded Sailor Jerry outlines blown out to shit across his wrinkled, sun-spotted skin. His fingers were starting to bend at the knuckles, but he wasn’t giving up his shop for anything.
He was the strangest old grandpa, but he loved the shit out of Evie, and was the single reason Adam ever won the arguments against the dickhead losers who rented stalls there and hated the sight of a kid sitting in the corner with a fistful of markers. He was looking at Adam curiously then, and his gaze trailed across the lobby to the empty space Nik had just occupied.
“Resident Piano Man,” Vincent said as he let Evie slide down his back. She ran over to the worn, ripped up leather sofa and flopped down to start her Frozen DVD for the hundredth time that day. “You finally meet him?”
Adam hated that he felt his cheeks turn pink, but he wasn’t about to lie, either. “He saved Evie from certain death.”
Vincent rolled his eyes and propped the side of his ass on the corner of the desk. “No one was going to let her disappear, man.”
“Yeah well, if Chloe would stop getting her panties in a twist over that asshole…”
“Sometimes people have to learn shit the hard way,” Vincent reminded him.
Adam sat back and crossed his arms. “She can learn that shit when she hasn’t agreed to watch my niece. Anyone could have grabbed her, Vince. I can’t…she’s…I don’t have a lot of family left, man. And she’s a baby.”
“I know. I sent Chloe home for the week. She fucked up the lines on this little college brat’s ass tattoo, and I knew she needed to take a knee for a while.” Vincent looked sad about it, and Adam knew most of the artists there—new and old, pain in the ass or not—they were like his kids. He was even starting to pull Adam into his orbit, as much as he tried to fight it. “I am sorry. Next time just ask me.”
Adam had meant to, but Vincent had been on a heated call, and he didn’t want to interrupt. He had a nostril piercing, ten minutes from prep to cash in hand, and that was all it took for Evie to wander into the arms of a goddamn stranger.
“Nik is a good dude,” Vincent said after a beat.
“Do you, uh…know him?” Adam asked, looking over at the empty piano again.
“He’s been playing around on that piano as long as I’ve had a shop here.” Vincent stood up and hooked a rolling chair with his foot, popping a squat in front of the welcome counter. He leaned his head back against it, and Adam stared at a scar which wrapped an arc just above his ear from a car accident. It had lines and dots, the thick stitches betraying the injury’s age. “His brother got some ink here, invited me to one of the kid’s concerts.”
Adam laughed. “Dude, he doesn’t look like a kid. I mean, he doesn’t look like an old man, but…”
“He was a kid back then. About your age, twenty-five, twenty-six? He walked up on that stage like he owned the goddamn auditorium, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.”
Adam bit the inside of his cheek, but he’d never been