[ 161 ]
"We're not taking the car?" Fahren asked when they stepped out of the building and onto the busy roadside, where Emilio dismissed a car that was waiting for them.
"I'm following by your father's example and thought we would have a customary drink after a long meeting." He suggested and gestured down the road to where one of the few bars were located in the business nook of the city.
Fahren smiled to himself, "I think it can only be classified as customary when it's something you frequently do, Emilio. But I can't say I'm not surprised, as it's you who scolds me whenever I bring up having a drink other than water." They both turned and started walking down the street and away from Radical Innovations' main office.
Given the time of the day, the temperature had dropped quite considerably and the city's automatic lights were flickering on. People were eagerly leaving their work-places, either to head home or making a beeline for the boujee section of the city where Fahren once lived. But Emilio and Fahren walked against the tide.
"As your healthcare specialist, I wouldn't recommend drinking alcohol when you're still taking part in the occasional test." Emilio comfortably lapsed into his usual way of talking, but then paused to spare a look at Fahren. "But as someone whose immensely grateful to you, and wants to treat you, I'd say that a small drink couldn't hurt."
Fahren could practically feel the tension in Emilio's body as he walked beside him. Their minor moment of intimacy had bypassed all logic for the man who thrived off it. He was left struggling to figure out what to say and do. Which was why Fahren tried not to laugh when Emilio suggested they go for a drink in the first place, as it was clear the normally confident genius was somewhat anxious to be alone with him.
They stopped in front of a restaurant instead of a bar. It was relatively busy, but those inside were more likely to be colleagues who had let their work overflow into dinner arrangements. This boded well for Emilio, who seemed skittish when it came to anything formal at the moment. He opened the door for Fahren, who continued to suppress his amusement as he stepped inside.
A young woman was quick to greet them and asked if it was just the two of them. Fahren could almost hear the sardonic reply lingering on the tip of his partner's tongue. So he nominated himself as their spokesperson and was eventually guided to a table nearest to the window.
Before they sat down, Fahren peeked at Emilio and spotted an expression that made him pause. He turned his head to the woman and offered a charming smile.
"If you don't mind, can we get a table somewhere else?"
They instead moved to a table with more privacy, and while Fahren could feel Emilio's gaze on the back of his head, he never turned to meet it. He feigned ignorance as he shrugged off his coat and draped it over the back of his seat.
The waitress gave them some time to look over the menu, just as those nearest to their table got a good look at them as they got comfortable. When it came to Emilio, Fahren didn't blame the women for nudging each other and gesturing over.
He was in the process of taking off his coat and with his height, he was certainly eye-catching. Underneath he was wearing a dark-blue suit, which he had likely chosen to wear having expected to have his head bitten off by the entirety of the WATSS family. Ordinarily he chose to dress smart-casual, probably out of comfort and because he worked with the same people everyday, but the three-piece-suit was certainly a gift in itself for Fahren.
Emilio discarded his suit jacket and unfortunately that proved to be the extent of his undressing. But Fahren couldn't not ogle the sleeves of the engineering genius' white shirt, of which were deliciously tight and torturous in its revealing of the movements of Emilio's muscles underneath. It was like his own personal show, but in real time it was over far too quickly and Emilio soon took a seat, none the wiser.
He clearly practised what he preached, as his figure was impeccable. It's just that Fahren wasn't the only one to have noticed.
Both men were able to comfortably fall into conversation with each other, no matter the topic they both had an opinions which, in some instances, differed and yet there were no difficulties in expressing them. Fahren found himself unable to wipe the smile off his face, especially as Emilio visibly grew more comfortable in front of him.
His attention was focused solely on his dinner partner, unaware of how much he was being repeatedly glanced at along with Emilio. It was the CEO of groundbreaking technology who noticed it first, having finally bothered to look around at their surroundings as Fahren lifted his glass and took a savouring drink of his sole glass of wine.
It made the young man look so sophisticated and undeniably compelling. So much so that Emilio was forced to look away, finding himself struggling to diagnose the cause of his own accelerated heart-rate and scrambled thoughts. It took him by surprise, as the physical symptoms hit him out of no where.
When their food arrived, Fahren once again did the talking for the both of them. He offered a smile to the waitress and she went red right up to the very tips of her ears. But Fahren next looked at his food, appearing not to have noticed— or just wasn't bothered by it in the slightest. But Emilio knew the younger man well enough to at least know that nothing came between him and his food.
"What?" Fahren eventually asked as he swallowed yet another fork-full of food and looked up to find Emilio now still watching.
The mature blond shook his head, and focused on his own meal. "I think I have mentioned before, but your parents spoke about you incessantly throughout your treatment. They told me pretty much everything there was to know about you."
"Stubbornness with a side of sugar addiction?" Fahren pondered, to which his ex-doctor couldn't deny.
"But with all your faults—"
"Tread carefully."
Emilio scoffed and masked his smile by taking a drink. And so after a long pause, he swallowed a mouthful of his drink and continued, "I had an image of your personality already constructed in my mind. I'm still surprised how different you have turned out to be, because ordinarily my assumptions are correct."
Fahren paused in his eating and rested his head in his hand, looking enthralled by what the man had to say. "Please tell me how I have exceeded your expectations. I know you to be the type to always support your hypothesis, o' blunt one."
Instead of rolling his eyes, as was usually Emilio's preferred expression when dealing with Fahren's teasing, he blurted: "That's just it. I expected you would be like me in that regard, since your family told me how you had an aversion to socialising with people..."
"—foolish people." Fahren interjected and gestured for him to continue.
"And yet you have a way with your words that immediately draws people in. Even someone as emotionally disjointed as myself, can confess to finding pleasure being around you. You make it easy talking about things I find difficult even thinking about. You make me feel... comfortable." Emilio suddenly became aware of how his words sounded towards the end of his speech. He took his frustrated embarrassment out on rustling his own hair as his other hand sought out his glass of wine.
"Such sweet words coming from someone who considers himself emotionally disjointed."
Emilio frowned, "I'm still smart enough to know when someone's teasing me."
Fahren shook his head while smiling. "That's just another part of my delectable personality."
"I didn't say delectable," Emilio quickly refuted. "But I do admire your ability to make people feel comfortable and to appear to effortlessly blend in, even with complete strangers. While I seem to make people uncomfortable."
Fahren couldn't tolerate the forlorn expression. "I've never felt uncomfortable around you, nor do I think any member of my family has. Although I can imagine people are naturally intimidated by the sheer size of your brain. Which comes with a misconception that just because your life's work is Smart-Tech, then you automatically don't understand anything else when it comes to the fundamental basics of being a human being. Like understanding nosey sarcastic bitches, just like me."
"Well... I do find my technology more understandable."
"Emilio, you're not helping your case."
"Ah, sorry."
They filled the silence by eating their meals and by the time they had finished, Fahren had plucked up the courage to ask the question that had been plaguing him for a number of weeks.
"Can you tell me about your father?" His memory still dredging up the photograph stored away in Emilio's office.
The question came out of the blue, but there was a logical reason as to why Fahren asked.
"I fear it will ruin the mood." Emilio confessed.
"If it does, then the sooner you tell me the quicker I can go about rectifying our date."
Emilio was visibly struggling, being confronted with two polar opposite issues. The thought of having to speak about his father, and the notion that he was on a date with the son of the very same person who enjoyed repeatedly threatening him. He wished he had the ability to fuse himself with his Smart-Tech, so it could lighten the load.
"He was called Jonathan Alexander Griffin and he was a great doctor."
"I'm guessing that was what was often said about him?" Fahren wondered.
"You're right, a lot of people had many good things to say about my father. And from what I remember about my childhood, I would agree with them. He was always smiling, always supportive and always there for me. So your typical father. But I think everyone underestimated how much my mum meant to him." Emilio rubbed the back of his neck as he twirled his wine-glass around on the table.
"Because he was known to be such a good doctor, I think he subconsciously took on this massive responsibility to find the cure for his wife. Like I said before, I never noticed how bad my mother's illness was, as they were so good at hiding it from me. The only reason my father was able to still smile at me when she was at her worst, was because hope was the last thing to go. After my mother passed away, I didn't see him for a while. I ended up staying with family friends for a few years."
Fahren wanted to swear. Instead he reached across and took hold of Emilio's hand. Their fingers entwined perfectly.
"When I did see him, he was a shell of his former self. But one thing was clear, it was like he no longer saw me. I don't know if its because after all those years, I wasn't the child any longer, but he didn't recognise me and continued not to. He became erratic when anyone tried to tell him anything else, and I resented him too much at that point to care. Two years ago I was contacted by those same family friends who put up with me through my teenage years, and they told me he had passed."
Emilio kept his attention locked on their hands, and he unconsciously ran his thumb over the precious ring on Fahren's finger. A familial connection that he found himself envious of in that moment.
"How did he pass?"
"Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, or as it's commonly referred to— broken-heart syndrome." Emilio snorted.
"You're angry."
"Of course I am." Emilio lifted his head and his gaze was now chilly. "What my mother died of was hereditary and entirely unpreventable, while his was because he neglected his own health and allowed his stress to fester for years on end. It's unbelievably selfish, because my mother wanted nothing more than to live on with us while he practically threw his life away."
"And you.." Fahren added softly.
Realising who he had been glaring at, Emilio blinked and dipped his head. "Sorry. My father is one of my triggers." He felt ashamed enough to want to take back his hand, but like hell Fahren was going to allow that.
He pressed the back of Emilio's hand flat against the table and ran his fingers down his palm and down to his forearm, where he gently caressed. Instinctively, Emilio's hand closed around Fahren's own arm.
"You have nothing to apologise for. You've lived a life harder than most and yet are standing firmly with two feet on the ground, with a growing empire that is so close to being able to help so many more. Not just anyone could dream to accomplish what you have." He considered Emilio's slight squeezing of his forearm as a convincing reason to continue.
"You're strong, Emilio. Strong enough to use all the bad that you have experienced and configure it into becoming Radical Innovation's backbone. You are unbelievably impressive. And what you may consider a shameful trigger when it comes to your emotional response to your father, is what I consider very fetching. A manly-man is overrated."
They continued to look at each other long after Fahren's words vanished.
"There you are with your sweet mouth again."
"I believe it's called sweet-talking."
"Sure."
Their contact only broke when the waitress approached for the first time in what felt like so long. Any food that they had previously been eating had been abandoned in favour of their conversation.
Emilio looked guilty when she eventually left. "I wanted to bring you out for dinner in order to thank you, not have you console me."
Fahren leant forward, against the table. "Perhaps I knew the reason, and wanted to stop you in your tracks? Since there's really no need to thank me."
"I wouldn't put it past you."
"I also know that you're nervous to be around me. And now that I know your story, I can make my own assumptions." Fahren wore a cheeky grin.
"Which are?"
"You're not used to people being as honest as I am. You're not used to people helping you without wanting anything in return. So you likely thought that I would ask for something in response based on my blatant attraction to you. But I'm not going to. I like you a lot, but ultimately I care about you so much more. I just want to make you happy, and if I can succeed by helping you when it comes to your Smart-Tech, then I'm happy too."
Emilio's expression didn't change from his usual observant one. He was patient and let Fahren speak, and when he finished he also leant forward so his arms rested on the table.
"Am I allowed to voice my own assumptions based on this evening's observations?"
Fahren laughed. "Why, of course."
Emilio lowered his voice, even though their table stood separated from most. They had hardly cared if anyone had previously overheard.
"In light of what you have learned about my parents, and my childhood situation, you see me as someone who needs protecting. You listened carefully when I said that I'm not as confident as yourself when it comes to social situations, and believe I cannot accurately define how I feel. You also think, because I previously used it as an excuse when I was hesitant, that I won't make a move on you just because I respect your father."
Fahren was quite surprised, but more than anything he was completely overjoyed. It was just what he expected of his lover; Emilio wasn't that simple. He had been silently watching him, monitoring him as intently as the very technology he had engineered. As if waiting until a certain point, where Fahren smugly believed he was in control.
The waitress chose this moment of all times to return with the bill. Fahren tried to be as polite as he could as he all but threw money at her. Judging by her wide-eyed expression, he had been generous with the tip.
But he couldn't keep his eyes off Emilio, who was blatantly challenging him.
"There are one or two that I would argue weren't the case, but I can't bring myself to care because all I can think about is that final one." Fahren acknowledged and had to swallow in response to his body-temperature rapidly skyrocketing. "You are right, though. I thought I would have to fully court you before you realised my interest in you."
Emilio rolled his eyes. "You call me a genius and think I then won't use my perfectly-workable eyes to see what is in front of me?"
"Oh? And what's in front of you?"
"Luckily for this fairly-respectable restaurant, a table."
Fahren laughed but Emilio's flirtatious words helped encourage him to be brave enough to be direct with his next suggestion. "If I retract my earlier statement about you not needing to thank me, then can I tempt you with a nightcap where we can continue this discussion in private?"
"Where to, your place? I don't think your family would be too enamoured seeing me there."
"There are plenty of hotels around here with pretty impressive bars, I've heard."
Emilio drank the remainder of his drink and shrugged his shoulders. "It takes a lot for me to be impressed, but I'm intrigued." He looked so casual as he pushed back his seat and stood up, grabbing his suit jacket.
There was an obvious challenge to his words. One which Fahren, at that point in time, was all but raring to take on.
[ TBC ]
[ A/N: I wonder what happens next? Hm. ]
[ A/N: We're 161 chapters in, so I'm sure you know this off by heart~ But if you want to be an eager beaver and read the next few chapters, all while supporting lil old me, then why not check out my Patreon account? The link is: www.Patreon.com/bethworthington ] <3