Page 54 of Make the Play
“I think about Emerson all the time,” Jason points out.
“I bet you do,” Andrew mutters, glancing towards the door. “Charlie would be better at this, but the asshole isn’t here.”
“Better at what?” Jason asks. “You’re being weird, even for you.”
“Have you considered that maybe you like Emerson?”
“Of course I like Emerson, he’s the best,” Jason says, sloshing a bit of his mocha on his sweats. “What are you implying?”
“I wasn’t implying anything. I was flat out saying it,” Andrew sighs. “Though apparently not explicitly enough.”
The bell above the door jingles as Charlie saunters into the room, making his way directly to Andrew and infringing on his personal space despite there being plenty of room for him to sit on the other chair. “What are we talking about?”
“Emerson,” Andrew answers.
“Nothing,” Jason replies at the same time.
“Oh, are we talking about Jason’s massive fucking crush on Emerson? He is really pretty.”
“Stop calling him pretty,” Jason snaps, the first half of his sentence taking twice as long to register. “Wait, what?”
“Your crush,” Charlie says, ignoring the way Andrew thumps him on the backside of the head.
“We talked about tact, Charlie.”
“Fuck, tact. Jason is our brother, and I can’t sit around watching him make puppy eyes without saying something. Unless he doesn’t want to ask Emerson on a date, at which point I’d be happy to do the honors. Maybe he’d let me wine and dine him in that new suit he’s getting and?—”
“Don’t you dare ask him out,” Jason growls.
Rather than look put out by his tone Charlie merely grins. “Why, because you want to? Because you’ve had a thing for redheads since you were a kid? Or is it because you look at Emerson like you simultaneously want to wrap him a hug and talk about feelings while also devouring him?”
“Charlie,” Andrew whispers, tone warning and leaving Jason reeling. Does he really look at Emerson like that?
“I’m just being honest,” Charlie tells Andrew. “Besides I’m not going to ask him out, he's too—sweet for me.”
“Emerson is perfect,” Jason frowns. “You would be so lucky.”
“Do you see this,” Charlie says to Andrew before he returns his attention to Jason. “Listen, you should ask him out, before someone else does.”
That burning in Jason’s chest intensifies, and it occurs to him that it is, quite possibly, not heartburn. He thinks about Emerson and his little resting grumpy face. Emerson and his endless Lord of the Rings facts. Emerson and his toothy smile when Jason offers him a Dr. Pepper every day. Emerson and his beautiful red hair and kissable full lips. Emerson and his peanut butter sandwiches and quiet laugh. Emerson and his beautiful, brave heart.
Emmy.HisEmmy.
“Oh shit,” Jason whispers, the sudden clarity staggering. “I have a crush on Emerson.”
11EMERSON
Emerson followsDenise into the back, hardly paying attention to his surroundings, his own mind processing. Jason warned him the twins could be a little intense, and they were but not in the way Emerson expected. Charlie was a little much, though nice enough. He’d liked Andrew though, with his steady demeanor. He reminded Emerson a bit of Jason, albeit a lot less smiley and open. He had the same calm countenance as Jason though.
Thinking about the twins, it’s impossible not to compare them to Jason. They were both friendly enough, and definitely handsome, although in a much different way. They had the same black hair as Jason, but where Jason’s short hair is always a little messy and wind tousled like he was just playing outside, Andrew’s is perfectly styled, not a hair out of place. Charlie’s got thick waves that look purposely styled in a way that he wants to look messy but is too perfect to actually be so. The twins are tall too, maybe two inches taller than Emerson but not nearly as tall as Jason.
Despite those variances, their relation is clear in the shape of their big brown eyes and the slant of their noses, but the differences are bigger than the similarities. Where Jason is thick, Andrew and Charlie are both lean and lanky. Where Jason’s face is more square, the twins have a sharpness to their features. They’re attractive, undeniably so, yet neither of them can hold a candle to Jason.
Not that Emerson should be thinking about how handsome Jason is with his big smile, big body and even bigger heart. With a resigned sigh, Emerson knows there’s no point stopping his own train of thought. He’s got a crush on Jason. Although that word hardly feels appropriate. A crush is something small, unsubstantiated. By definition, it’s a brief and intense infatuation. Nothing about what he feels for Jason is brief and infatuation implies a shallowness which couldn’t be further from the truth.
What he feels for Jason ismore. He likes the way Jason fills the silence with words that are easy to listen to, often not expecting Emerson to join into the conversation but always including him. Then there are the times where Jason manages not to talk because he’s listening, letting Emerson ramble about one of his students or a book he read. Sometimes it’s in person and other times in massive walls of text messages that he always responds to as if he’s actually interested.
Certainly, his looks are eye-catching. Jason is the kind of attractive that everyone around him takes notice of. Emerson might not pick up on a lot of things, but he can’t pretend he doesn’t see the way men and women alike stare. Not that Emerson can blame them. Jason’s absolutely gorgeous. He’s the kind of handsome that makes Emerson curl his hands around himself in bed every night when there’s no one around to bear witness to his secret thoughts. The kind of handsome that makes Emerson ache with desire when he imagines all the things he’d do to Jason, or maybe if he was feeling particularly brave, things he might ask Jason to do to him. That is if he had the chance. Which he knows he won’t, ever. Jason doesn’t like Emerson like that because Jason isn’t gay.
