6. Lincoln
I watchthe sun start to set through the floor-to-ceiling windows in one of the building’s conference rooms as Greg and Tyler bicker about the wording for our latest draft.
It’s a Saturday evening, and yet, we’ve been here all day working on drafting a proposal for a new client. The deadline is approaching fast, and it’s a big enough project that there are five of us involved to make sure nothing gets missed.
All week, we’ve been hammering out the details, fine-tuning the contract. But it’s a Saturday night, and I’m in an uncomfortable suit in the office, bored out of my fucking mind.
There are a lot of days where I love my job, don’t get me wrong. But those days never fall on the weekend.
“Let’s call it, guys. I’m fucking starving. We can finish on Monday,” I declare after Tyler takes a big breath like he’s ready to go another round. Everyone sighs, nods, and starts to pack their shit up. Even Jeremy, who technically has seniority since he’s been here longer than I have. But I’m the boss”s son, and that does carry a little weight.
Not that I’m not damn good at my job. I’ve spent every waking hour for the past four years researching and networking and making myself indispensable just so nobody could say my job was handed to me.
So, while Jeremy has been here longer, I have rank. Not that the asshole gives a shit. He’s just happy to defer and let someone else call the shots. Bastard is riding out the last decade until retirement. The grin on his face as he walks toward me just solidifies how easy he takes it. Four years busting my ass, and my hair is already graying, and wrinkles line my face.
“Hey, Linc. Wanna hit up Tokyo?” Jeremy asks me, but the other three all hear and voice their agreements. He just rolls his eyes at them and raises one eyebrow at me.
“Yeah, let’s go,” I answer, not really in the mood for sushi but willing to eat Tokyo’s hibachi dinner to unwind with the guys. Workplace unity and all that bullshit.
The burly fuck slaps my back hard enough to jolt me forward as we all go to leave.
“Dick,” I mutter under my breath. His raucous laughter tells me he heard it just fine, though.
Being almost mid-spring on a weekend evening, the streets are starting to fill up a little more. People are braving the spring weather, coming out of their state of hibernation. Which means we walk in a tight group, weaving in and out of people as we make our way just a few blocks down the street to the Japanese steak and sushi house.
A few women glance in our direction as we go. Jeremy, big as he is, draws a lot of attention. He’s a decent enough-looking guy, but their gazes usually stray to Tyler and I…then stay there. Tyler eats it up. Loves the attention; craves it even. He will go out of his way to flirt with an attractive woman or lap it up if they approach him. With the number of women he brings home on the regular, I’m truly fucking shocked this man doesn’t have an STD or a surprise kid out there somewhere.
Guess he still might.
An elbow hits my ribs. “Did you see the ass on that redhead?” Tyler groans, eyes trailing behind us to follow the redhead as long as he can.
“Yeah,” I mutter back noncommittally. Completely uninterested.
“Oh, I forgot. You like brunettes,” he goads, trying to get me to talk about my love life. The guys, anyone at the company really, have only ever seen me with brunettes. At company parties or out at a bar, I always gravitate toward the brunettes.
Anyone who truly knows me, though, knows I like blondes. Or rather, a blonde. And when I couldn’t have her, I started looking for her in every girl after her. Which was fucking depressing and also completely unfair to whoever I was with.
So started my brunette infatuation persona. They are safer. Less likely to remind me of the one who got away. The one I pushed away.
Fuck, it’s been a minute since I’ve moped over her. Now that I have, I know her memory is going to stick with me again for weeks. It always takes a long time to try to forget about her. But then, something will happen to remind me of her, and the cycle starts all over again.
“You really have to expand your horizons, man,” Tyler continues, not even needing me to join his conversation. “Nobody fucks like a redhead. They’re crazy.”
I see Jeremy shake his head from the corner of my eye. Jeremy, who has been married to the love of his life for the past fifteen years and whose wife happens to be a blonde. A gorgeous one at that. Way out of his league, but they’re head over heels for each other.
We glance at each other and share a conspiratorial eye roll as Tyler goes off on one of his tirades.
“Damn. Look at that blonde,” he hisses in a low tone, and I do. Because of course, I do. I’m a glutton for punishment.
My eyes dart right to who he nods at. An absolutely stunning woman, probably not much younger than me, walking down the street toward us. She’s got on a pair of blue jeans that show off her slightly flared hips and small waist. My dick twitches in my slacks when I get a glimpse of her ass.
Even from here, I can tell the light blue quarter zip she’s wearing brings out the color in her eyes when her head turns briefly in our direction.
Fuck, she’s…
Wait.
I know those eyes. That mane of thick blonde hair. I used to spend a lot of time with it wrapped in my fist as I drove into her–
“Lillian?” I whisper, almost to myself. I don’t even register that my feet have stopped moving until Jeremy bumps into me.
“Linc? What’s up, man? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he grunts and follows my line of sight. To where I haven’t stopped looking at the girl I loved and lost.
“Linc, buddy. Why are we stopping? I’m hungry,” Tyler bemoans. I ignore him. I ignore all of them, still staring ahead.
She didn’t hear me, or maybe she’s ignoring me, but she doesn’t seem to have seen me yet. I call out again. “Lil?” My voice is louder this time, more sure.
Yeah, she heard me this time.
I watch as her body registers someone calling for her and then locks up a few seconds later. Like she knows, even four years later, what my voice sounds like.
I try not to be so smug about it because her body didn’t lock up from pleasure. That is a guarded pose. One I more than deserve but resent nonetheless.
Time seems to standstill as she turns her head toward my voice, and her eyes lock with mine. Even after four years, her stare still brands me. Still causes an almost unbearable ache in my chest that I never want to be rid of.
Painfully beautiful is how I used to describe her. And fuck if it isn’t true.
I think I hear one of the guys talking to me, but Lillian is like a magnet, drawing me in. My feet move on their own accord toward her. She doesn’t back away. Doesn’t smile, say hey, or show any emotion other than shock.
The last four years have been good on her. Everything about her is almost the exact same, but her face has slimmed a little. Gotten sharper, like she’s settling into her age. It’s stunning.
I don’t know what to say.
Hey, I broke up with you because my parents are monsters.
I’ve loved you for the past four and a half years.
Forgive me?
Then it hits me. All those reasons for staying away from her, for breaking up with her in the first place, are gone. Or they will be. Becca turns eighteen in less than a month, and then she’s coming to live with me. Our parents can’t do fuck all about it, and they won’t have any control over either of us anymore.
Maybe…maybe I can have her this time. I can fix things. If she’s not already married or taken.
That thought is like a punch to the gut, and I have to take a deep breath against the roiling, irrational surge of jealousy.
I stop a foot in front of Lillian and open my mouth to say who knows what, but I don’t get the chance.
“Mommy,” a sweet, tinkering voice filters up to me. It draws my gaze down to a beautiful little girl clinging to Lil’s leg.
Mommy?
My brow furrows, and it takes a second for my brain to register that the girl is calling Lil mommy. Mommy! As in, that’s her mom.
I feel my mouth drop open in shock as my eyes bounce from the little blonde toddler up to Lil and then back down. She’s the spitting image of her mom—blonde hair, blue eyes, sweet as a button.
The toddler tugs again on Lil’s pants and mutters something about ice cream.
“Mom?” I croak out.
Not only is she married, but she’s got a kid with some other man, too. Of course I’m too fucking late. What woman like her wouldn’t be snatched up so fucking fast? I’m the dumbass that lost her.
“Who are you?” the sweet girl asks me curiously, and I answer in a daze.
“I’m Lincoln. An old friend of your…mom’s.” The answer seems simplistic, but that’s all I’ve got. It seems to satisfy the… four-year-old? Three? I don’t fucking know; I’m awful at guessing kids’ ages.
Wait.
If she’s…
It feels as if my stomach bottoms out, and suddenly, I’m looking between the two of them in a whole new light, trying to find myself in the little girl.
“How old are you, sweetie?” I lean down to ask the girl with what I hope is a kind smile on my face, but really, I’m burning up on the inside.
Cool April evening? No, I’m about to shed the suit jacket and tie suffocating me.
Before the girl can answer, Lil butts in. “Come on, Gracie-Lou, let”s go get some ice cream. Then we can go play at Aunt Kim’s with Nicky.”
Her sister, Kim, and Kim’s foster son, Nicholas. I remember Lil telling me about that situation when we were dating. Nick’s parents had died in a boating accident while on vacation, leaving him without any family. He went into the system, and Kim, being his school guidance counselor, saw firsthand how his new foster family treated him. She applied for a license, and four months later, little Nicky was living with her.
Does that mean she moved back home to Flagstaff? Was it right after she got pregnant?
“How old is she?” My question is directed at Lillian this time. The sharp tone of my voice–the demand in it–has her eyes turning cold. Like I give a fuck. Not if that’s my kid she’s kept away from me for years.
“She’s not yours, Lincoln,” she replies in a bitter, matter-of-fact tone. When she bends down to pick up the kid–Gracie, maybe–and I see them side by side again, the doubt is hard to push back.
“Really?” I arch a brow.
Lillian scoffs. “Really. And thank God for that,” she half growls at me and turns away. “Great seeing you again, Linc. Let’s do it again sometime.” Which really means, fuck you, asshole, I never want to see you again.
It hurts, but I let her walk away.
“What the hell was that, man?” Tyler asks as I feel the guys come up to my side. A nudge at my shoulder is Jeremy’s way of checking that I’m okay, too.
Ignoring them both, I start walking toward the restaurant and pull out my phone from the inside pocket of my jacket.
I open up the contacts list, click ‘favorites,’ and put the phone to my ear. It rings as I weave through people walking lazily on the sidewalks, completely oblivious to the turmoil spreading through me.
The line connects just when I think I’ll be sent to voicemail. “Mr. Walton. How can I help you?”
“Vince. I need everything you can find on Lillian Frasier,” I tell the private investigator I’ve got on retainer for client backgrounds. Then I pause and add, “And Gracie Frasier.” Gracie, that’s what she called her daughter.
“F-r-a-s-i-e-r?” He spells back to me.
“Yes. As soon as possible, too.” The restaurant comes into view up ahead.
“You got it,” he agrees.
“Thanks,” I mutter and hang up.
Later that night, I’m sitting on my supersized sectional couch in my penthouse, laptop out, and going through a few work emails when my phone rings.
My eyebrows raise when I see it’s Vince already. Even though I told him I wanted information as soon as possible, I still didn’t expect anything today. The surprise is evident in my voice as I answer.
“You’ve got her information already?”
A chuckle rasps down the line, throaty, like the man is a daily smoker. “Not a full profile. But it sounded important when you called earlier, so I wanted to hit you with the regular background information.”
Well, I can’t say I’m mad about it. I’ll take every shred of information I can get as fast as I can get it. “Shoot,” I tell him.
Another chuckle at my eagerness. “Lillian Frasier. Thirty. Filed taxes last year with a 1040 as single with one dependent. So, she owns her own business. Dependent”s name is Grace Wilson. Four years old, and the foster license filed under Lillian’s name suggests she’s a foster child. Still looking into her background, though. Current residence is Flagstaff–”
“Thanks, Vince. Send the rest in a file, please,” I say, cutting him off and then ending the call abruptly.
My head is spinning. Mind reeling. Body feels somehow weightless and wound incredibly tight at the same time.
She’s still single. No husband, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a boyfriend. The kid, though… not mine. Not even Lillian’s. Because four years old is too young to be ours. Lillian would have had to have been close to full term when we ended things for Grace to be hers.
It’s irrational as fuck, but a little bit of disappointment hits me. Even though it would have meant she kept my kid from me for almost three or four years, a part of me–deep down, where I couldn’t dwell on the why of it too much–hoped she was mine. At least I’d have a legitimate reason to reach out to Lillian. A link between us forever.
She’d never slip away from me again.
I think about the rest of what Vince said. So she moved back to Flagstaff. I wonder how quickly that happened after we ended things. Those weeks and months after, I took to frequenting our favorite dinner or lunch spots. Going to the grocery store near her apartment just on the off chance that I’d run into her. Of course, she moved away, though. Just my fucking luck.
And to raise a kid, nonetheless. She talked about her sister’s fostering situation with such respect and a deep kind of awe that it really makes sense she’d want to do the same. From that perspective, at least. But when she talked about kids, a family, and the white picket fence life with me, it was always followed by, but not now. Not for a few years, at least.
She’d tell me she wanted to be more established in her career. It wasn’t the right time. Those kinds of things. Which made complete fucking sense. I’m four years older than her, but it still felt too soon for me as well. And she was only twenty-six at the time. But now I’m thirty-four, and fuck, do I want that life.
I’m so sick of all the meaningless one-night stands, the forced conversation over blind dinner dates, and the obligatory small talk of getting to know someone. Nothing sounds like a better life than coming home every night to the person you feel most comfortable around. Who you love and who loves you.
Every time I picture that life, it’s always Lil’s face that pops into my head.
A ping from my laptop draws my attention. When my eyes focus on a new email from Vince with the subject “Profile: Lillian Frasier,” something settles in my gut.
Determination.
Fuck my disapproving, demented parents. I’m going to get my sister out of that fucking ranch the day she turns eighteen, win Lillian back, and then live the life I should have been living for the past four years.