Page 56 of Emmett
“How long?”
“I went in at eighteen and was out by twenty-one,” I tell him.
When was the last time that I was able to lay next to someone and talk to them like this? It has to have been ten years or more by now. Too fucking long, that’s all I know.
Staring into his honey eyes that reflect the last light of the day as the sun dips in the sky, I trace my thumb over the edge of his jaw and pull him into me for a kiss.
There’s a very distant part of me that feels guilty that I’m his first. Who I’ve become with him is not who I am with the rest of the world, and I can’t make him any promises that it will change, even if I prefer the version of myself that he seems to bring out.
The part of me that is not so distant still enjoys toying with people and playing into their fears. That part of me has built a life and held an empire by being cold and calculating in every move, and it’s become the core of who I am.
And I think - though he would never admit it - that Emmett is intrigued by that not-so-distant part of me. He certainly likes to push the buttons to bring it out.
“What did you do?” He asks.
“Would you believe me if I told you that I had done something good?”
A brow arches in response, challenging my statement.
“I was at a gas station,” I sigh, “and a man who had to have been thirty, maybe older, had a younger kid cornered in the back of the store. The kid was terrified, he looked like he was going to shit himself. The man was screaming at the kid, things that I had never heard someone actually say about a gay person before.
“So in came this pissed off teenager who had already been in enough fights to get kicked out of school twice, and I told the man to back off and leave the kid alone. He didn’t, so I reached for a fire extinguisher and I beat him with it.
“My grandparents had a fucking empire in their hands and enough money to make anything in the world disappear, but I needed tolearn a lesson,so when they were satisfied that I’d learned that violence wasn’t the answer to conflict,” I chuckle, “they got me out and had my history wiped. There are a couple of photos that recirculate ‘anonymously’ every few years with a different story so no one knows what I was actually in for.”
“They seriously put you away for that?” He sounds genuinely surprised. Horrified, even. “Isn’t that self defense or something?”
“The state didn’t think so,” I tell him with a shrug. “Take an eighteen year old kid with a history of unprovoked violence and an adult with a face full of broken bones who says that he was attacked for no reason. If you’re the judge, who are you siding with?”
“I’m asking the other kid,” he says. “The one the guy was yelling at.” A long moment of thick silence passes between usbefore he asks, “Does it piss you off that I don’t want to tell anyone?”
I climb over top of him, stroking his hair with my thumb. “About this? Or about yourself?”
“Would your answer be different one way or the other?”
I consider his question for a few moments; how either thing could effect his life, how they have and would still effect mine. I’ve done all of the necessary coming out; that ship has long sailed for me. There are people who still assume that I’m straight, or at the very least bisexual, but it’s of no interest to me to correct them. My female employees assume that if I had the opportunity, I would do whatever I wanted to them, and I don’t bother correcting them because it benefits me. They’re motivated to do what I ask of them, and in turn, what my more particular clients ask of them.
My other employees and associates believe me to be capable of doing to them exactly what they believe had me held up for three years.
I’ve been out since he was learning how to read and write, but the only person that Emmett is out to is me – I’m not entirely sure that he’s even completely out to himself, yet.
“No,” I answer truthfully. “And it doesn’t piss me off. I understand your hesitation. But…”
“But?”
“I don’t want you fucking anyone else.” I grip his chin and turn his face to the side, kissing just below his jaw. “Anyone. You belong to me, and to me alone.”
“How long did you wait?” He asks, his hands pressed against my chest. “I mean, did it take you a while to tell people you were gay?”
I nod my head. “Maybe six months, which for me, felt like years because I was scared of it.” I drop onto the bed andrest my head on my arm. “I didn’t want to be gay. It was— There is nothingeasyabout coming out,” I say, leaning forward to kiss his forehead. “So take your time with it.”
Something crosses over his features – concern, quickly followed by understanding. Typically when I see that face on someone, obnoxious fucking pity follows soon after. That little sideways head tilt that people do when they pull their lips downward; the expression that can be used as an umbrella for any unfortunate circumstance one may be facing. Your favorite shoes broke? Sure. You’ve had a migraine for three days? Why not. Your dog died? Makes sense.
But the pity never comes.
Instead, he just says, “Like calls to like. I get it now.”
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