Utterly Forgettable | MM Romance | Complete

Fifteen: I'd Envy My Position If I Weren't In It Right Now (2/2)

Several minutes into the drive, Emery made an abrupt u-turn, before taking them in a different direction. Wherever he'd been taking them, he'd had a change of heart. Half an hour later, they were parked outside a small diner, Emery wearing a cautiously optimistic smile. "I fear I'm woefully overdressed for this, but you asked to be surprised, and I give you my word the food is well worth it."

"Mission accomplished," Josh replied, stepping out of the car. "Consider me surprised. You don't look like someone who even knows these places exist."

"Looks can be deceiving." Emery's voice sounded different this way, softer, turned inwards. "I spent most of my teenage years indulging in their strawberry milkshake." A slight quirk of lips. "It remains one of my guilty pleasures."

Right. Josh kept forgetting Emery had had a perfectly normal childhood. Money had come later. "I'll have to try it, then."

He was halfway through the small parking lot when he realized Emery wasn't following him. He turned back at the sound of his name, Emery's voice carrying perfectly in the mostly-empty lot.

"Josh. I brought you here because the food is good and it holds fond memories for me; not because of what you're wearing." Night had fallen, making it impossible to distinguish his face even in the parking lot lights, but his entire stance was diffident. "I stand by what I said earlier. Your outfit is perfectly adequate, and I'd be happy to take you anywhere you'd rather go, so if you were expecting something else—"

It was only just dawning on Josh: Emery had brought him somewhere important. Meaningful for him. That was more endearing than any exclusive restaurant would have been. "Are you trying to cheat me out of that strawberry milkshake now? Too late, we're already here. Come on!"

He could swear Emery's step had an added spring to it as he moved to join him. "Strawberry milkshake it is. And Josh?"

Up close, Josh could see he was smiling once more. "Yes?"

"Consider yourself owed a steak dinner at Emma's friend's restaurant. Whenever you'd like, wearing whatever you'd like. Feel free to collect on that debt at your leisure."

Why did it feel, after he'd parsed Emery's words, that they'd just set up a second date when they hadn't even started their first one yet?

Yet? When had this become a date in his mind? The man was his boss. "I'll hold you to that," he blurted out before he could think it over.

He was doomed.

#

The milkshake was as good as Emery had promised, and the burgers were a close second. The elderly lady behind the counter had greeted Emery with a familiarity borne of years of seeing him grow in between bites of hamburger and sips of milkshake. Had Josh really ever thought he needed proof of Emery's status as a flesh and blood human being?

Emery had been right — he was overdressed for this setting — but he was so comfortable here it barely showed.

"You made me feel ashamed of myself today with your reading," Josh confessed, halfway through their meal. "I thought Emma was exaggerating when she said I was awful, but listening to you, I... Damn, I'm really bad at it."

It never felt like Emery was laughing at Josh. Never at, always with. "I'm not convinced you're quite as bad as she painted it. Emma can be a harsh taskmistress. I'm open to providing a second opinion."

"No, thanks." After his display today? There was no way in hell he'd let Emery hear him read if his life depended on it. "I thought you were a numbers man anyway. What are you doing defying stereotypes and being good at reading poetry? You're not supposed to be someone who appreciates beauty and whatnot."

It was obviously tongue-in-cheek, but Emery, eyes blazing, swallowed so fast, in order to be able to reply, that Josh wondered if he should be afraid Emery would choke on his food.

"Numbers are beautiful. They're the very fabric of the universe. Galileo said 'Mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe' and, Josh, I'm not convinced about God, but I have no doubts whatsoever where mathematics is concerned." He paused for breath, eyes alight. It was a different sort of passion than the one Josh had witnessed that afternoon, with the poetry reading, but no less enthralling. The layers of hidden depth Emery had, just waiting to be discovered, were more enticing than he'd ever imagined.

"Anyone who thinks people who appreciate numbers have no mind for beauty," Emery continued, "has yet to realize that numbers are all around us. They're in the patterns that keep repeating, they're in our bodies, in what holds them together — and in what makes them decay and fall apart. Numbers are in a falling star, that we see so many light years after it has already been extinguished, and they're in the cadence of a poem's syllables. They're our building blocks."

His expression softened, eyes gazing at Josh with a smile that did nothing to hide how fiercely he believed his words. "Numbers and patterns are why you're sitting in front of me now having a hamburger and a milkshake, at this precise point in time. I cannot tell you why because I lack hindsight, but if someone were to look at your particular history centuries from now, they'd be able to pinpoint it. They are what make us attracted to one another, or repelled by one another."

Josh barely dared breathe, not wanting Emery to stop. He'd never thought he'd find someone composing an ode to mathematics quite this compelling, but here they were.

"As we dedicate ourselves to fighting for causes in our lives — as we aspire for things like equality and justice — it's unfortunate that we forget that numbers are the sole reason that we can even begin to tell equality from inequality," Emery carried on. "Numbers don't need us — they exist, they repeat, they create, they simply are. They exist regardless of whether we claim to be able — or willing — to understand them or not. Numbers are life. I don't think anything could be more fundamentally beautiful than that. Do you?"

"Wow," was Josh's paltry reply, once it became clear Emery wouldn't add anything else.

Despite having been talking to him for the past few minutes, Emery seemed to only just now realize that he had a captive audience of one and, for the first time since Josh had met him, blushed furiously. "My apologies," he said, somewhere between the passion he'd displayed a moment before and the stilted awkwardness he'd shown during their first meeting. "I hadn't meant to get so carried away, or to bore you quite this much over dinner."

"No, don't apologize. I stand corrected. I'd never thought about it like that, but hearing you speak... Yes." Josh's helpless smile wasn't going to go away anytime soon. "Seen that way, numbers have no choice but to be beautiful. If anyone had described math like that when I was in school I wouldn't have had such a hard time of it. I'm anything but bored, really."

Emery's warm brown eyes rivalled the brilliance of the falling stars he'd mentioned. "That's remarkably kind of you to say, though I still believe an apology is in order. I merely... It's rare that I get the opportunity or the inclination to explain what drove me to understand numbers and patterns in the first place, and you were in the unenviable position of providing both opportunity and motivation."

"I don't know about that," Josh quipped, making a point not to look away. "I'm pretty sure I'd envy my position if I weren't in it right now."

"Would you, really," Emery said softly, more statement than question, before sipping his milkshake in a poorly-conceived move not to hold Josh's gaze.

"Yes," Josh felt the need to underline. "Yes, I would."

His food had gone cold — during Emery's passionate speech he'd been too absorbed to eat — but it still tasted delicious.

Doomed.

Absolutely, fucking doomed.