Lincoln
T wo weeks later
A cold breeze skates over the back of my neck, and I adjust my grip on my camera. Gravel crunches as I shift my weight, and I stare through the viewfinder at the abandoned rail yard. Old train carriages lie scattered across the landscape, some on rails, some listing to the side on the pockmarked ground; some barely scratched and others burned-out husks.
Bright graffiti covers every inch of metal, and tangled weeds burst through the stony ground, climbing the carriages and strangling the rails. I wouldn’t be shocked to feel a vine twining around my ankle.
It’s evocative. Brutal. The perfect addition to this city series. And this is the ideal light for this shoot—bright but overcast—and yet I can’t focus. Again.
I twist the camera lens a fraction, jaw clenched and chest tight.
Why can’t I fucking focus?
It’s that feeling . That prickle of nerves; that endless whisper in my brain that there’s something important in this city, something I need to find. And it’s been worse for these last two weeks than ever before, the urgent feeling so relentless that I’ve only slept a few hours each night.
Jenny must think I’m out of my damn mind. She keeps finding me crashed out at the kitchen table at the break of dawn, my face buried in my arms, my camera abandoned on the scratched wood.
Jenny.
Swallowing hard, I push all thoughts of my shy, awkward roommate away. Quiet girls like that aren’t for guys like me, and that’s without the fact that we live together; that I’m leaving soon; that it’s all a bad, bad idea.
Doesn’t matter that her face floats across my brain whenever I close my eyes. That I hear her husky voice in my sleep. That every molecule of my body, every instinct in my skull is screaming to go to her, to find her and corner her in that cramped little apartment and flatten her body with my own, to press her against the nearest flat surface and lick her neck.
“Asshole,” I mutter, fingers numb from the cold as I take a series of photos, shutter clicking. “She doesn’t want you.”
In fact, Jenny is scared shitless of me.
It’s humbling. You can spend your whole adult life thinking of yourself as a decent man, a bit rough around the edges, maybe, but basically fine. Certainly not someone any girl should worry about. And then your shy, sweet roommate flinches every time you enter the room, and it all comes crumbling down, and you feel like the worst piece of shit after all.
Did I do something, since I moved in?
Did I give the impression that I’d ever, ever hurt her?
Fuck. My temples ache as I lower my camera, my muscles taut as I flick through what I’ve got so far. They’re good. Great, actually.
This is where I should feel that rush, that triumph , that fierce satisfaction of a shoot coming together …
Nothing. I feel nothing.
I just want Jenny.
* * *
She’s hunched over her sewing machine when I come home, reels of thread and scraps of fabric and a pincushion in the shape of a tomato scattered over the kitchen table.
“Oh!” Jenny jolts upright the second she spots me leaning in the doorway. “I didn’t hear you come in. How do you do that? You’re so freaking quiet , .”
“I didn’t want to disturb you.” Didn’t want to scare her, more like, but in hindsight I can see how creeping around the apartment won’t achieve that. “Work stuff?”
“Yeah.” Jenny bites her bottom lip, glancing at the havoc all around her. Her blonde hair is piled in a messy topknot, a tight white t-shirt hugging her curves. Talk about torture. “I can clean it up if you need to use the kitchen.”
“I’m good.” As if I’d make her move all that stuff once she’s painstakingly set it up. As far as I’m concerned, she can leave it out permanently, and I tell her so.
A faint blush spreads over her cheeks, and Jenny shakes her head, staring at her pincushion. “You’re paying for half the apartment; you should be able to use it. Besides, where would you eat?”
I shrug, heart thumping. This is the longest conversation we’ve had in days. She didn’t flinch when she saw me, either, and you’d better believe I’ve made a note of that. “Standing up by the counter, I guess? Who cares?”
There.
That’s why I keep trying again with Jenny, why I keep making conversation despite her ‘no small talk’ rule. Because once in a while, I coax this soft, secret smile from her lips, and then I want to sprint a lap around the block and yell my triumph at the sky.
“You’d drop food down your fancy black t-shirts.”
I tilt my head, my insides rioting. Can’t believe my fucking luck. “Are you teasing me, sweetheart? You making fun of my clothes?”
That blush deepens, and she ducks her head. Adjusts the fabric under her sewing machine needle, then presses the pedal like I never even spoke.
Loud thumping fills the kitchen. Jenny feeds the fabric under the needle, lips pursed.
Fuck, I love her little-miss-prim act. Makes me want to ruffle up her hair and get a real laugh out of her. A belly laugh. Makes me want to drag out a chair and yank her onto my knee and run my big hands all over her.
“What are you sewing?” I ask instead.
Jenny huffs. “I’m raising the hems on a client’s skirts. Do you mind?”
I grin, suddenly light as a feather, because that’s not how you speak to a man you’re afraid of. Pushing off the door frame, I stroll across the tiny kitchen, and come to a stop behind her chair.
When I lean over her shoulder, my breath mists against her neck. Goosebumps ripple over her bare skin, the tiny translucent hairs standing on end, and heat coils through my gut. “Am I bothering you, Jenny?”
A puff of air. “Yes.”
“You want me to leave you alone?”
There’s a long silence. “…Yes.”
I grip the table on either side of her waist, the wood creaking under my hands. Fuck, she’s small. Tiny and curvy and perfect. “You don’t sound sure.”
Her chin drops down, the bumps of her spine standing out on her neck, and her voice is wobbly and breathless when she speaks. Pleading with me. “I’m—I need to work, .”
“Sure thing, sweetheart.” I straighten up and back up a few steps, though every inch away from her feels so fucking wrong. But I’ve tormented her enough for one day; pushed my luck as far as I dare.
Will she let me tease her again tomorrow? Will she let me get this close to her again?
Fuck, she smells amazing. Like vanilla and laundry powder.
Sucking in a final breath, I stride out of that kitchen before I do something I’ll regret.
* * *
Jenny comes to me that night, tapping softly on my bedroom door. I startle where I’m leaning against the headboard, one arm bunched behind my head as I read a battered old paperback. I lower the book to the covers.
“Uh. Jenny?” Have I ever been less fucking smooth in my life? As if I haven’t been praying for this moment since the second I laid eyes on her. “Come in.”
The door creaks open, and Jenny pokes her head in the gap, staring at the wall over my head like she might see something terrible if she dares to look down.
“I’m decent.” My mouth twitches when she lowers her gaze, that pink tinge spreading over her cheeks as she stares at my bare chest. “Well.” I shrug one shoulder. “Decent-ish.”
I’ve got sweatpants on, haven’t I? And the blankets cover my lap anyway. It’s no different from when I emerge from the shower, a towel secured around my hips, and anyway—I’m reading, not white-knuckled and working my cock with her name on my lips . This could have been a lot more awkward.
Casually as I can, I shift the paperback to cover my lap. I clear my throat. “What’s up, sweetheart?”
“I wanted…” Jenny’s voice is faint, like it’s coming from far away. She gives herself a little shake, drags her gaze up from my chest, and meets my eyes. Then tries again, voice stronger. “I, um. I wanted to ask you a favor.”
“Ask away.” Anything she wants, I’ll give it. Anything at all.
“I need you to turn me into a different person.”
Anything but that.
I run my tongue along my teeth, trying to figure out her angle here and drawing a blank. Why the fuck would she ever want that? She’s already perfect. I pat the bed beside me. “Explain, please.”
The way Jenny huffs and slumps her way across the bedroom, you’d think she was walking to the gallows, her baggy red pajama pants dragging along the floor. And I’m fairly confident that she’s not afraid of me now—she knocked on my door at night, didn’t she?—but that attitude brings out my scowl.
“There’s nothing to change,” I growl, shuffling over to make room for her. The bed dips slightly under her weight, but Jenny doesn’t lean back against the headboard. She stays ramrod straight, fingers locked in her lap and her eyes on the wall. She’s still wearing that tight white t-shirt. “Jenny? Are you listening? There’s nothing to change. No flaws.”
Her snort is bitter. “Don’t bullshit me, . I’m not a child.” Her fingers lock tighter, the pads of her nails going white. “I know I’m weird. A shut-in. I mean, I barely leave the apartment and I’m afraid of the smallest things. I don’t even know how I got like this, how I got so freaking scared of everything, but being around you all the time…”
I wait, heart in my throat.
“I don’t want to stay like this,” Jenny whispers, head dropping down. “Not forever. I want to be bold, like you.”
Ah, fuck. I rub my chest, a horrible ache there spreading under my skin. “You don’t want to change, sweetheart. And you definitely don’t want to be like me. You’ve got everything going for you here: your sewing, your apartment…”
“…And?” When Jenny turns to me, spearing me with her blue eyes, she looks so fucking sad. It steals my breath. “What else, ? Sewing and this apartment. What else do I have?”
Me.
She could have me, but I’m not fool enough to say that. This is about Jenny, and besides: I’m no prize. Telling her that would be like kicking her when she’s down. What am I gonna offer her, my life-in-a-backpack and collection of cameras? Yeah, right.
“You’re funny. You’ve got a good heart, and a quick brain. There’s a lot of things—”
Jenny’s mouth flattens into a line. She’s staring at the wall again. “Will you help me or not?”
What am I gonna say to that? Wordless, I nod.
The breath that gusts out of her sounds relieved. The bed frame creaks as she shifts, pajama pants rustling.
“We’ll start tomorrow.” Now that she’s got her way, she’s little-miss-prim again. Bossy Jenny. I bite back a smile, but I’m too chewed up inside to really enjoy this. Why would she ever want to change? “I was thinking, maybe I could come with you on your shoot? I finished all my sewing work earlier. I’m free, if you’ll have me.”
Always.
Any way I can get her.
…Fuck.