Staccato (Magnum Opus #2) - E.M. Lindsey Page 0,29

him with a snort. “I do not have all day. His body looks like one of those modern art canvases with paint splatters and abstract images.”

Nik hummed. He had no idea what that was like. He’d experienced tactile art, but he didn’t need to remember sight to know it was an entirely different experience. To him, Adam’s skin would be the same as anyone else’s. Warm, smooth in places, rough and hairy in others. It was an unfair question to ask of his brother who had never been really good with describing things in ways Nik could understand them.

“What color is his hair?” Nik asked after a beat.

Van blew out a puff of air, irritated. “You gave me a long lecture about the meaninglessness of color last month. Now you want to know about his hair?”

“You’re the one giving me shit about him being a punk toddler or whatever. Indulge me.”

“It’s purple,” Van said.

“Liar.” It might have been purple for all he knew, but he remembered Adam saying he had stopped dying his hair. “Is he attractive?”

“I don’t know. He’s not really my type. People stare at him when they walk by—and not just because he looks like he could star on some TLC reality show. You two would make a bizarre couple.”

Nik’s grin widened. “We’re just friends.”

Van was silent for a long moment before he asked, “Why not more?”

He couldn’t help but be surprised by his brother’s question, mostly because Van had never cared what Nik did with his love-life. Neither of them were particularly open with each other, and it was a topic neither one of them had ever discussed. The only reason he knew Van was single was because his brother never left the damn house for anything but shopping and the hospice.

“I don’t need to have sex with everyone I like. He’s a good friend, and why ruin it for an orgasm?”

“I’d do a lot of dark, depraved things for a good orgasm,” Van told him. The stool squeaked again, and his heavy feet hit the tile floor. “I have work to finish. Do you want to order in?”

Nik shook his head. “I’ll cook something. I need the distraction anyway.”

Van muttered something under his breath that Nik didn’t catch, probably an insult about his cooking, but he didn’t ask his brother to repeat it. Instead, he sipped his rich, bitter tea and listened to Van open the door to the basement and disappear down the stairs.

He was about to turn toward the fridge and find something to throw together when his phone buzzed, and he pressed the screen to listen to the message.

Adam: Any chance you want to get together tonight?

Nik: I was just about to eat dinner, but after that I’m free. What did you have in mind?

Adam: I’m wandering around the skate park, and I wouldn’t mind the company.

Nik smiled to himself, then decided food could easily wait. Though he’d just insisted he and Adam were nothing more than friends, the words tasted like lies on the back of his tongue. And the eagerness he felt as he typed out a response, promising to be right there, only confirmed it.

Nik didn’t have time for a relationship—or space for it. But god, he was starting to want.

“Is texting annoying when you have to listen to the Siri voice for all of them?” Adam’s question was innocuous, and uncommon, surprisingly enough. Neither of them had said much when Nik showed up, and they’d walked with their elbows brushing occasionally. Adam had been nervous at first, but the park was one of the places Nik felt most comfortable.

He’d spent more nights than he wanted to think about sitting on a metal bench listening to the crack and grind of Jay’s skateboard wheels on cement, but it was a lot like listening to white noise. It let parts of his brain shut down, and he’d even composed a few songs like that.

In that moment, he and Adam were just walking along the jogging path that was always empty this time of night. He wasn’t sure if it was cloudy, but moisture hung heavy in the air, and he liked the way it filled his lungs as he breathed it in.

“I never really thought about it,” Nik confessed after a beat. His cane veered off the path, into the grass, then caught against the springy asphalt of the jogging circle before righting itself. “I mean, between voice-over and braille, I prefer braille. But I think that’s because the voice-over