Chapter Eleven
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Georgia/ Seven Years Ago
T he apartment is…quaint. I wonder if this tiny one-bedroom is what’s in store for my future. If my family cuts me off like my father threatened to, then this may be foreshadowing what’s to come.
I could sell things. I know the designer tag on my bag could get me plenty of money on its own, and that’s not including the clothes inside; everything from Hermes to Versace fills it. Things I never cared as deeply about the way my stepmother did. She said it was less about self-expression and more about making a statement to society, as if the house we lived in, or the multi-million-dollar business my father ran, didn’t let people know the Del Rossis had money.
I’ve been living in Lincoln Danforth’s apartment for five days, and not one person, not even Millie, has reached out. I’d expected my best friend to ask how I was at least once, but the silence I got instead cut deep. I’ll admit, she was never great at being my friend. There were times she’d get so caught up in her boy of the week that she’d stop talking to me until things ended with them. Then she’d get mad when I’d call her out for it and give me the cold shoulder until she decided to stop being dramatic. But this was different. She knew my father didn’t want me back at the house. She had no clue where I was going to go or if I’d found somewhere safe.
And still nothing.
Mrs. Ricci had my number too. Was she fired for taking the hit meant for me? Or was my stepmother able to save her for stepping in? Leani loved Mrs. Ricci. Despite my father’s reminders that the help was just that, Leani treated our housekeeper like extended family. She and I both had a soft spot for the older woman with kind eyes and a warm smile.
My father knew how close I was to her—how she was my sole ally growing up. He was never happy when he found out she’d sneak me food I wasn’t allowed to have or go out with her to run errands for a little freedom when I was supposed to be at home. Frankly, I never understood what the big deal was. But he always made a scene whenever I wasn’t locked inside my gilded cage like a princess in a tower waiting for her white knight to rescue her.
He wants to ensure I have nobody.
Nothing.
I’m sure it’s his doing that Mrs. Ricci, Leani, and Millie have been radio silent. At least, that’s what I tell myself. Because thinking about the alternative, that nobody actually cares, hurts far worse.
Living alone is…odd. Not quite scary but also not liberating either. Every creak in the night, every foreign sound that perks up my ears and stirs me from sleep, leaves it hard to find peace. Lincoln told me the sink faucet in the bathroom leaks sometimes, and for the last day I’ve heard the faint drip, drip, drip coming from that direction without a clue how to make it stop.
Apparently, there are also mice. Actual vermin. And when he heard the horrified sound I made after he explained they come in through the baseboard heating, he laughed and told me he’d check the traps when he was back on the weekend.
Traps. There were dead mice in traps somewhere in this apartment.
That made sleeping nearly impossible the first night. The second night wasn’t much better. I was up almost the entire time thinking I heard something in the walls when it was more than likely my imagination playing tricks on me. By the third, exhaustion had aided me in finally getting at least six hours. And last night, when I’d accepted that my phone wasn’t broken after checking it four different times to make sure it received messages, I fell asleep with a heaviness in my heart.
Lincoln had my number too, after I’d called him about his apartment offer. I hadn’t wanted to, but I soon realized my options were limited. It was either finding a shelter to take me, tucking my tail between my legs, and going home like my father wanted or this.
Besides giving me the address and telling me when he was leaving so I’d have the place to myself, I haven’t heard from Lincoln either. The strange thing is, I don’t know whether to be grateful or sad.
Because somebody who’s barely more than a stranger was willing to give me a place to stay with no benefits. He doesn’t expect sex or even for me to like him. But I think I do. It isn’t every day that somebody would give you a place to stay, but he did without thinking twice. And not hearing a thing from him makes me wonder what exactly I’m getting myself into whenever tightness clenches my stomach.
I recognize the feeling.
Disappointment.
He’d mentioned coming back tonight—that his new schedule was only Monday through Friday, with weekends home. I didn’t ask why he was away because I didn’t want to push for details that weren’t my business, and he didn’t enlighten me. But as each day passed by, when I struggled to create meals from his meek pantry and tried ignoring the odd looks I got from his neighbors whenever I went outside to get some fresh air, I started becoming curious about the man whose bed I slept in.
Like what cologne he wears that makes his sheets smell so good. After the first few nights, I got used to the woodsy scent and how it wrapped around me—how the soft cotton T-shirts I borrowed from his dresser cocooned me with the same smell, mixed with some sort of floral laundry detergent that I’d bet money he doesn’t do himself.
A girlfriend certainly wouldn’t do it, or else I wouldn’t be here. Does he hire somebody to clean his apartment and do his laundry? It’s cleaner than I’d expect a man’s place to be, let alone a bachelor. Mrs. Ricci used to tell me to hold my tongue whenever I wished for a husband when I was little. “Boys are dirty creatures, Georgia,” she tells me as she folds laundry. “You should enjoy not having to deal with them while it lasts.”
At the time, I was excited for the day when I could run my own household that I lived in with whoever I fell in love with—my husband—the person I’d chosen, like my mother and father had before me. I’ll never understand how so much changed, or when that distant, naive dream morphed into something completely different.
I suppose it started when I was a teenager when my father would look at me with pain in his eyes and say, “You’re growing up.” He made it seem like a bad thing, and maybe it was.
Maybe he knew when I was thirteen that there would be a day when he had no choice but to pass me along to somebody else. Had he known what would happen when I was twenty-one? I didn’t want to believe it.
But I was starting to wonder.
My hands run along the walls, which are all painted the same color beige. There are no pictures or paintings, but at least it’s color I didn’t have at the Del Rossi house. The furniture there was all the same dark wood, the walls all the same barren white and covered in hideous family portraits my father would make us sit through. Here, the furniture is mixed-matched. The carpets in the open living room are blue, the tile in the kitchen it leads to is red, and all the cabinets, countertops, and appliances are white.
I’ve been around The Del Rossi Group long enough to know that everything in the apartment is made of cheap leftover materials the owner used to piece this place together. My father specialized in concrete foundations but had other businesses that spun into contracting and interior design. I used to enjoy listening to his meetings and sneaking into his office to see the blueprints of whatever property they were planning to build.
It was through my father’s head contractor that I learned landlords didn’t want to invest too much in renovations for their rental properties, so they used whatever materials they had left from old projects, whether they matched or not.
Oddly enough, I like the quirkiness the small space offers. The building is in a quiet residential area of Middle Point, surrounded by families and retired couples who seem…normal. Not controlling or overwhelmed by wealth like my father has become over the past few years. It’s a chance to breathe without anybody telling me what to do, what to wear, or how to act.
I miss my father, Mrs. Ricci, and even Leani.
But I’d be lying if I said I hated this.
My thoughts are broken when I hear footsteps coming up to the front door. Heart going into overdrive when I hear two feminine voices from the other side; I bolt toward the bedroom door when the lock is undone and the door pushes open.
A brunette woman with silver streaks in her hair walks in with a little girl behind her carrying a bag in her hands. “—set up in, Oh!” She stops dead in her tracks when she sees me in the corner, her eyes wider than mine as she takes me in.
“I didn’t know Lincoln was seeing anybody,” the little girl says loudly, looking between me and the woman she looks so much like.
Quickly, I shake my head at them. “Oh. No! No, we’re not…I’m not…”
The little girl crosses her arms over her chest and gives me a stare-down that would put Millie’s to shame. “Are you a booty call then?”
The older woman’s face turns red as her attention snaps to the child. “Oh my God, Hannah! I don’t even want to know how you know what that is.”
The child, Hannah, rolls her eyes. “I watch TV, Mom. I’m not a baby.”
I suck in a deep breath until my lungs stop stinging so much. “I’m not Lincoln’s anything,” I force myself to say.
“Then why are you in his apartment?” Hannah interrogates, making me swallow my words. “Did you break in?”
Her mother sighs, pinching her daughter’s arm. “Excuse her,” she tells me with an embarrassed smile. “We were going to surprise Lincoln with some of his favorite cookies before he got home. We didn’t know anybody would be here.”
“He’s never mentioned you,” Hannah adds, rubbing the spot her mother pinched.
Her mother closes her eyes, squeezing the bridge of her nose in exasperation.
I’m not sure why, but my stomach dips, knowing I’m a ghost in his life—existed only in his reality. Maybe that’s the smartest way. After all, we’re nothing to each other.
A blip in the timeline.
Soon, my father will tell me he’s sorry and to come home.
“I can leave,” I quickly say, cringing when I realize I’m still in the clothes I took from his room. It’s clear the oversized T-shirt isn’t mine, but all of my other clothes are dirty, and I didn’t know where I could go to wash them.
“No, no,” the woman says. “Stay. We’ll only be a minute. Lincoln is due home soon, so we wanted to drop this stuff off. Then we can get out of your hair.”
Running my hands nervously down the front of the shirt that still faintly smells like Lincoln, I find myself nodding. I don’t know where I’d go anyway. A restaurant. Maybe the diner I saw down the road when I went for a walk the other day. Their sign says it’s open twenty-four seven.
“I’m Dee,” she introduces, sticking her hand out after setting a grocery bag on the counter. “Lincoln’s mother. This is his little sister, Hannah.”
I hesitantly walk over and take her hand, shaking lightly the way I was trained to. Not too firm, but featherlight. Ladylike, according to my stepmother. She’d scolded me for shaking too firmly before. “I’m Georgia.”
Her eyes brighten. “What a lovely name.”
Hannah murmurs, “It’s a state.”
Once the shyness wears off slightly, I manage to smile at Lincoln’s sister. “My parents—” My throat tightens at the thought of my late mother. “—met in Savannah, Georgia. They didn’t like the name Savannah, but they liked Georgia, so…”
Dee’s smile stretches. “I love that. Our Lincoln was named after the car. His father always joked he couldn’t afford the 1928 Lincoln Model L he always wanted to buy and restore because he had a child to support, so he named our child Lincoln to say he had one.”
“I’m not named after anyone,” Hannah chimes in, almost annoyed by the fact.
“It was the only name we could agree on,” Dee tells her, sounding like they’ve had this conversation multiple times before. She turns to me and gives me a once-over. “You’re an adorable little thing. My son would be an idiot not to make you into something.” Her wink has my face turning as red as hers was moments ago.
Hannah climbs onto the stool at the counter and digs through the bag. “Can I have some of the cookies?”
“We brought them for your brother,” Dee reminds her as she watches her daughter take one of the chocolate cookies from the plate covered in plastic wrap.
“It’s a delivery tax,” Lincoln’s sister replies, biting into the doughy treat unabashedly. “He owes me.”
Dee doesn’t even bother scolding her this time as she empties the rest of the bag out to reveal another plate of cookies and a card with Lincoln’s name written on the front. Is it his birthday? I don’t dare ask because that’ll lead to more questions about who I am to him. Clearly, not a friend if I don’t know when his birthday is or how old he may be turning. Is he older than me? The same age? Younger? A man built the way he is, all six feet of toned, lean muscle, makes it hard to tell.
Clearing my throat, I rub my arm. “I’m a bit…estranged from my family at the moment. That’s why I’m here.”
Dee’s blue eyes sadden when they meet mine. Lincoln must get his brown eyes from his father. I store that tidbit of information away.
I shrug, hoping to come off nonchalantly. “It will work out eventually. I’m sure of it.” My voice weakens, making it hard for either of the girls in front of me to believe. But I want to believe what Millie said, because they’re the only family I have left.
His mother’s smile returns, this time smaller, filled with sympathy. “That’s very sweet of him to look after you like that. I’m glad you have each other.”
I almost feel guilty when I say, “I’m glad we do too,” even though I don’t have him at all.
At the end of the day, I have nobody.
But I feign a smile and hope it meets my eyes. I’m well-versed in saving face. I’ve been doing it for most of my life.
“Smile, Georgia,” Leani commands, tilting my head up and fixing my hair. Her smile is tight, and her eyes are distant. “In our world, a pretty face and a good smile go a long way. The second you let people know you’re unhappy, it will be used against you.”
Fixing my hair absentmindedly, I stand straighter and let those words sink in. Sometimes, I wondered if Leani had two different personalities—the one she showed my father and the one she let slip when I was around. But it seemed like the frail version of her who drowned her sorrows in wine tended to win out more times than not.
Dee pats my hand and helps her daughter finish laying out the goodies they brought. I almost tell them to stay, to be here when Lincoln returns—to ask them questions or hope they enlighten me on who Lincoln Danforth is so I can know him better.
I don’t though. I say goodbye, feeling both of their eyes on me up until the door separates us. When it latches, I hear Hannah say, “But there’s only one bed,” on their way to their car out front. “I don’t sleep with my friends in one bed.” Then I hear an “Ow!” followed by a car door opening and closing, silencing them both.
*
My mood is somber by the time the door opens two and a half hours later. I sit up on the couch, which is directly next to the door in the cramped living space that only has room for the couch, a cheap coffee table, and a small flatscreen perched on a short stand tucked near the bay windows.
Lincoln looks tired. Exhausted, actually. There are bags under his eyes that I used to see on my father whenever he’d have meetings at work that would make him late for dinner. I remember the fights it would create between him and Leani, but my father always won. Usually, taking his cold dinner into the study and slamming the door to smoke or drink or whatever it is he did when he’d had enough of us.
His eyes find mine instantly, a smile lifting her lips. “Georgia.”
“Lincoln.”
He locks the door behind him, setting his belongings down and staring at me for a moment longer before turning to the kitchen. “Are those cookies?”
“Your mother and sister brought them.”
Lincoln’s shoulders tense halfway to the plate on the counter. “You met my mom?”
Is he upset? “You didn’t warn me that they could stop by. I would have left if I’d known,” I say defensively.
He scrubs a hand down his face. “I’m not mad, Peaches. I’m surprised, is all. And I don’t have access to a phone during the week. Training is rigorous. They don’t want us distracted.”
I bring my legs to my chest, hugging them close to me. “What training is it, anyway?”
His brows go up. “I didn’t tell you?” When I shake my head, he chuckles softly to himself. “I’m in the State Police Academy.”
“You’re already a cop though.”
“A deputy,” he reminds me, grabbing a cookie from the tray and biting into it. “Maybe after I graduate, I’ll finally get to know the captain as well as you do.”
He’s teasing me. I think. “I thought you said it would be bad if you got to know him.”
He lifts a shoulder, walks over, and drops down beside me. Not at the other end of the couch but on the cushion next to my feet. Shoving the rest of the cookie into his mouth, he grabs my legs and extends them over his lap.
I stare in confusion as he pats my calf, squeezing and rubbing the muscles with an easy smile on his face. “There are usually only two ways somebody that high up the chain knows your name. You either did something very good or very bad. Most of the time, it’s the second.”
Watching him massage my legs is oddly…attractive. He doesn’t even think twice before switching from one to the other. “My family knows Captain Chamberlin from the country club. He and my father play golf together while his wife and my stepmother spend time at the spa. They get invited to a lot of charity galas my father hosts. I’ve had to dance with him a couple times.”
I cringe, remembering the rancid smell of alcohol on his breath as he told me about what a good man my father was. I’m not sure how much he’d had to drink that night, but I remember him getting a little handsy during the second song my stepmother made me dance with him to. His hands tended to linger farther south than I liked.
“They’re important public figures in the community,” Lincoln says. “I’d be surprised if they didn’t shake hands and kiss babies whenever they could.”
The comment has my brows furrowing, but I don’t reply right away. I’m too transfixed by how good the pseudo-massage is. I clear my throat and try pulling my leg away when my leggings start rising up my shin, revealing the prickle of dark hair sprouting. “I haven’t been able to shave,” I admit in embarrassment.
His hand comes down on my ankle to stop me from moving away, his thumb caressing the stubble. “It’s just hair, Georgia. Not the end of the world. If you need razors, I can pick some up for you at the store tomorrow to have here.”
He’d buy me razors? “That’s nice of you.”
Despite the prickly stubble meeting his fingertips, he doesn’t stop. “Is there anything else you need? A certain type of shampoo you like? Soap? Make me a list. Or we can go together and grab some stuff to last you for a while.”
A while. “Why are you being nice to me?”
His fingers pause briefly on my leg. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Does he need me to point out that we’re strangers? I don’t. “So, you’re training to be a police officer?” I ask to change the subject, peeling my gaze away from how his hands move over the tight muscles in my calf.
“A state trooper,” he explains, a secretive smile curling his lips. “Better money, better benefits. I’ve been waiting for this opportunity for a long time.”
“You always knew you wanted to be one?”
His nod is nostalgic as he leans back, keeping a hand on my shin and using the pad of his thumb to lazily caress the skin under the leggings. “I’ve wanted to be a cop since I was a kid. Every Halloween, I’d dress up as one. My mom will tell you the same story she likes to share with everyone—that I’d go door to door asking people if they had any bad guys they needed me to get rid of instead of asking for candy.”
I try picturing a little Lincoln in a cop uniform. “I think that’s cute. I never went trick-or-treating. The Del Rossis were above the ‘silliness’ that came with dressing up in costumes and begging for sweets. I tried getting my stepmother to let me go with friends from school, but she’d always tell me no.”
I’d always been a little envious, especially when the girls I went to school with brought bags of candy in with them with stories of their Halloween adventures.
“Never?” he asks in surprise.
“The Del Rossis don’t do Halloween,” is all I say with a loose shrug. Mrs. Ricci would always give me a bag of candy that her children collected and told me to hide it well.
He watches me for a second before squeezing my shin. “That’s a real shame, Peaches.”
My cheeks heat. “Is that nickname necessary?”
“Do you not like it?”
I still remember what he said the first time he used it, fighting the heat creeping up the back of my neck, thinking about what he’d said about my taste . “It’s not that. It’s just…”
His lips stretch wider, knowing good and well what I’m thinking about but not calling me out on it. “It’s just what?”
“Crude.”
“I can be a crude person.”
No kidding.
“You talk about your stepmother,” he says, changing topics. “What about your mom?”
The invisible knife in my heart turns, piercing me at a whole new angle. “She passed away when I was little,” I reply quietly, staring at my lap.
His palms stop massaging me again for a brief second. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
I peek up at him through my lashes. “It was a car accident. I was four.”
He nods, moving his hands to my feet to start working them. “We should go out.”
I gape at him, my foot twitching in his hold as he presses into the arch. “What?”
“You and I,” he says, moving a finger between us, “should go out on a date. Get to know each other better.”
I blink slowly. “Why?”
“For one, you’re living with me.”
“I’m temporarily staying here while you’re gone,” I correct quickly.
He nods sarcastically. “Of course, sweetheart. You’re apartment-sitting and I appreciate it. I’d hate for my plants to die.”
I look around in confusion, wondering if I should have been watering plants while he was away. He hadn’t said anything about that.
Then I realize he has no plants.
Lincoln chuckles when I glare at him. “Secondly, I’d like to know more stories about your upbringing. I know your mother passed, your father remarried, and you have strict rules that don’t seem like they belong in this century. You’ve never been trick-or-treating; you used to get dragged to boring-ass charity events where you’d dance with people five times older than you, and it sounds to me like you hated every second. I want to know what else haven’t you done. What do you like to do? What did you want to be when you grew up? I want to know what makes you…tick.”
That’s…a lot. “I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up,” I admit. “Is that lame?”
He shakes his head. “That’s pretty normal. What do you like to do?”
I think about it. “Read. I like to read.”
“Maybe you can see if the library is hiring.”
I perk up. “There’s a library?”
His chuckle is soft. “Yeah. There’s a public library not far from here. A block or two over. I can take you if you’d like.”
Some of the tightness eases in my chest. “I would like that.”
“You never answered me,” he points out.
About the date. “You told me before you didn’t expect anything of me.”
“I still don’t,” he reassures, moving from one foot to the other. “You can say no. I don’t force women to date me. Frankly, I don’t need to.”
Jealousy, abrupt and ugly, settles into my chest at the thought of him with somebody else. It makes no sense to me, but I feel it all the same.
“But,” he adds, voice lowering, “I think you want to go out with me.”
“Is that so?” I challenge.
He simply hums.
I cross my arms, debating turning him down solely for my pride. Why does he have to be so cocky? So confident?
His hand trails up to my knee before moving back down, stroking my leg before continuing to massage the tense muscles. “It’s up to you, Georgia. I could use a drink. Maybe a burger, if those aren’t too beneath you.”
Hamburgers? “Why would burgers be beneath me?”
“You’re a Del Rossi. If they didn’t let you trick-or-treat, they probably refused to keep something as lower class as hamburgers around. I’d bet the money I made today that you were used to getting served finger-food sandwiches with the crusts cut off and that nasty tar-tar shit at those fancy galas.”
I go to argue but stop myself short.
He’s not wrong.
He knows it too. “So?”
I look down at where his hand rests on my leg leisurely, not a care in the world plaguing his body. “Just drinks and a burger?” I ask.
He nods. “That’s all, Peaches.”
Right now, I have nobody. Nobody except him. And the thought of getting to know him doesn’t seem so scary.
I take a deep breath. “Okay.”
Lincoln grins. “Come on, then. I’m hungry.”
“Now?” I doubt, watching him stand and offer me a hand up.
“No better time than the present.”
My eyes focus on the palm extended out to me before I let out a small breath and accept it, getting pulled up until I’m chest to chest with him.
His fingers squeeze mine once as his eyes dip to my mouth. They linger there for a moment before he lets go of my hand and steps back. “I’ll let you get ready.”
A funny feeling settles into my chest.
Something light and fuzzy.
And I don’t hate it.
An hour later, I’m on my first date with Lincoln Danforth, who I learn is twenty-four, loves his hamburger bloody, his whiskey neat, and has a dominating personality that should probably frighten me.
It doesn’t.
If anything, I find it attractive.
I find him attractive.
And that scares me more.