Free Food for Thought by Amy Lane Page B

did tell his family, and they told him… it was a phase. And then they introduced him to a family friend and….”
    “Oh God.”
    Emmett wanted to shrug. Kid’s stuff, right? First crush, you forgot about it, right?
    I thought we were married.
    “Yeah.” He grimaced. Hell. “Remember how you said you’d never been walked in on by a girlfriend before?”
    “Jesus.”
    “I wish Jesus had walked in. He was supposed to be very gay friendly. No. Jordyn was crying on me, and…. God. I’d just missed him. And you know—right out of the movies. He looked at me, all big eyes, and parted lips and….”
    “You started fucking like monkeys?”
    Emmett had to laugh. “No—but we did start kissing. We were… well I was naked, and he was on his knees, and that’s when she walked in.”
    From the side of his vision, he saw Keegan pull his hand through his hair. He’d managed to put it into order before they left, but now it was sticking out all over his head, like a porcupine. When he spoke, though, he sounded completely put together.
    “God, forget sugar—I need popcorn . This right here is a movie moment, you know that?”
    “Not so much fun when you were living through it, no.”
    Keegan let out a sigh. “You protected me. When Christine walked in, you protected me. Did he do that for you?”
    Emmett could see it so clearly. He’d been leaning back on the dorm room bed and Jordyn knelt in front of him, mouth warm and welcoming and greedy. The door opened, and Paula had walked in, Aryan perfection—blonde, blue-eyed, legs up to her chin—the perfect bookend to Jordyn’s blond, American-boy good looks.
    “Jordyn?” Unlike Christine, Paula didn’t sound put out, or angry, or even shocked. “Jordyn, I thought you and I agreed—this was kid’s stuff. You know. It’s time for all little boys to grow up.”
    Jordyn had melted at the first word, rolled away, huddled on the floor, an absolute misery of shame.
    And Emmett had been left, naked and subject to Paula’s scathing gaze.
    “You can go now,” she said, dismissing Emmett, his withering erection, and all his hopes for the future in a single glance. “Jordyn isn’t doing this anymore. He’s a big boy now.”
    One look at Jordyn, crouching in the corner, looking at her like a whipped puppy, confirmed it, but Emmett hadn’t been going to give up that easy.
    “Jordyn? Baby? You… we loved each other!”
    “Oh come on, Emmett,” Jordyn choked. “You haven’t even told your father!”
    Well, there was no arguing with that.
    “I will,” he said, meaning it. “We were going to be together—”
    Jordyn was clutching his knees, eyes closed, shaking his head, and Emmett was caught completely unaware when Paula threw his own pants at him, catching him in the face.
    He managed to zip up and grab his shoes and shirt before he stumbled out of the dorm.
    “No,” Emmett said, yanking himself into the present, into squinting through the blinding summer sun through his windshield, into a possible future with a man who had just stayed through the girlfriend visit, and who had helped him clean up his mess. “No. We didn’t protect each other.”
    His hand was growing uncomfortable, and he pulled it away from Keegan’s grasp and grabbed his soda from the cup holder so he could take a big swallow. He put it back, keenly aware that Keegan hadn’t stopped looking at him.
    “So… so what did you do?”
    Emmett gave an almost humorless laugh. “I almost flunked out of school, for one thing. But first I went running home. But not to my dad. My dad and I… we… we didn’t….”
    “Talk. I got that.”
    “Yeah—but… I mean. He loved me. I know he loved me. I just….”
    “You needed a mommy?” Keegan asked, not ironically in the least.
    Emmett risked a glance at him. In the past year, he’d spoken sparingly of a family that disapproved of him, but not once had Keegan mentioned his mother.
    “Do you… I mean… you have a mother, right? What’s