Staccato (Magnum Opus #2) - E.M. Lindsey Page 0,30
feels…”
“Exhibitionist?” Adam offered, the grin in his tone making his voice rich.
Nik laughed. “Something like that. I use earbuds, but more than once they’ve been pulled out of my phone mid-email.”
“Everyone gets to be party to your sexting?” Adam said with a laugh, elbowing him.
Nik wrinkled his nose. “You seem to think I’m a lot more popular with men than I really am.”
Adam huffed and led the way around the curve in the trail. “It’s just hard to believe people aren’t falling over their feet to get your attention. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I fully understand not wanting to date, but you’re hot as hell.”
“Believe it or not,” Nik told him with a sardonic grin tugging at the corners of his mouth, “people do tend to get freaked out that I don’t have eyes.”
There was a long pause after that, and Nik felt the edges of panic creeping up on him that maybe Adam didn’t know—or had forgotten—before he spoke again. “I guess I kind of get that. I um…I mean. Obviously not the same way. I have eyes.”
Nik couldn’t help his chuckle. “I assumed.”
Nudging him again, Adam picked up his pace a little, and Nik followed suit. “I haven’t told you…um. So, I…”
Nik heard the panic, and he didn’t hesitate to reach out, fingers curling into the soft sleeve over Adam’s shoulder. “You don’t have to tell me anything, you know.”
“No, I know,” Adam told him, then laughed, but there was no amusement in it. “Can we sit?”
Nik folded his cane, then took the back of Adam’s bicep and nodded. “Wherever you want.”
Adam didn’t say anything except to warn Nik about the bump from path to grass and then as they approached the sidewalk. “There’s a bench here.”
“I’m going to assume we’re alone,” Nik said as he trailed a touch down Adam’s arm to the bench seat, then turned and lowered himself down.
“Yeah, I try not to, like, pride parade this whole coming out thing,” Adam told him. Nik felt something stir in him, like he knew something was coming, but he didn’t know exactly what. There was a word, dancing on the tip of his tongue, just out of reach, but he wanted Adam to say it first. “So, you know I’m a twin.”
“Your sister,” Nik said and searched his brain for her name. “Stella?”
“Yeah.” Adam breathed out. “Fuck, I forgot this was so hard. I haven’t done this in a while.”
Nik curled his fingers into his palm to keep himself from reaching for Adam, because the sound of fear in in his voice was almost too much to bear. “You don’t have to…”
“I want to,” Adam said. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel like I owe this to anyone—not even you. I want you to know, but it doesn’t make fear easier to deal with.”
“I understand,” Nik told him, then hesitated before his next question. “Do you want a hug?”
Adam laughed, high and tight. “Maybe after?” His swallow was so heavy, Nik heard it. “Stella is my identical twin.” He went quiet, and that sentence sank deep into Nik’s bones. He wasn’t often the man who got everything first, but that took no time at all to understand. “My mom was super cool about the fact that I was a boy. She even had boy names picked out from when she was pregnant, so it was…like…” He went silent, and Nik assumed he shrugged. “She just accepted it and took me to the doctor for puberty blockers, and I got to cut my hair and use my real name. It wasn’t like a thing, you know?”
“That’s lucky,” Nik said in the heavy silence between them when Adam went quiet. He felt the other man shift, heard something move like he was dragging his hand through his hair, or down his face.
“Yeah,” Adam said from behind a laugh. “It really was. It wasn’t hard until I was older. Kids were all super cool about it until puberty decided to make everyone its bitch. The blockers made it so I didn’t deal with periods and shit, or huge boobs or…whatever. But I was still different, and in middle school, kids noticed. And that kind of sucked. It wasn’t a small town like this, which is probably good.”
“It is,” Nik said, and he meant it. “Small towns might be quaint, but they’re quaint for a reason, and it’s rarely because of acceptance or kindness. I’m well aware of being noticed for my differences.”