Chapter 19
Fifteen Years Earlier
Magnolia was on the phone harping at me about coming home for some event she was chairing that sounded like an exact carbon
copy of all the other events I’d attended at the Beaufort Yacht Club.
“Sorry, Mama, but we’ve got workdays for the internship.”
“And you can’t spare a day to raise money for the designer doggy fundraiser event?”
“Why do designer dogs need help, anyway?” I asked.
“Well, there’s this thing with overbreeding. The poor pugs can’t breathe because their noses are collapsing. They require
a nose job to correct their breathing. It’s actually a massive issue.”
I wanted to laugh, but it would only enrage my mother.
“Oh, someone’s at the door. Got to go!” And I hung up.
I paused briefly to make sure she wouldn’t call right back, and thankfully she didn’t. It gave me just enough time to slip
on a dress, fluff my curls, and spritz myself with a dash of perfume.
Then came the real knock.
I pulled the door open, grinning. “Well, if it isn’t my summer lover,” I said.
Lincoln rolled his eyes but smiled and took me in a hug. “You make me sound like a hunk of meat. Speaking of which—Chuck’s for a burger? I’m starving.”
“Let’s do it,” I said, and together we stepped out onto the street.
I was so comfortable squashed into Lincoln’s side as we walked; I wouldn’t have minded it taking longer. It had been a couple
of weeks by now of us spending time together, and more often than not, he was the highlight of my day.
“How was work?” I asked.
Lincoln groaned. “Mind-numbing misery. Need I go on? The accountant, Marty, is super nice, but staring at numbers and spreadsheets
all day drains the life out of me.”
We reached the door to the dive bar and pulled it open. The music poured out as we stepped in and squeezed through the crowd
to the bar.
I picked up a menu. “Why don’t you quit?”
He rolled up his sleeves. “And just decide to live on the street and starve?”
“I mean, find a different job.” I gave him a playful nudge in the ribs.
Lincoln leaped back and grabbed his side, laughing. “Hey now. It’s not that easy.”
We stopped to order burgers and then slipped into a sticky booth. Lincoln reached into his back pocket and pulled out a well-loved
stack of Uno cards and brandished them in front of me. My favorite way to spar with him.
I waggled my eyebrows. “Deal ’em. But seriously, though, what’s so bad about getting a new job? People do it all the time,
and from what I can tell, you’d probably charm the socks off any interviewer.” I batted my eyes.
“It’s a great job,” Lincoln said, cutting the deck and shuffling them together. “I’m making good money. Plus, I have benefits and a decent bonus once a year.”
“But you hate it. I’m just saying, there’s more than one way to make money.”
A server came over and slid two beers in front of us as Lincoln dished out cards on each side of the table. He set the stack
of remaining cards in the middle.
“No offense, but you just wouldn’t get it,” he said, fanning out the cards in his hand. “Not with how you grew up.”
“Trust me,” I said. “If there’s anything my mother is concerned with, it’s money.”
“True,” he said. “But you’ve also never had to worry about there being enough of it. My parents were constantly arguing about bills and rent. I can’t count the number of times we moved because we were behind. When you’re broke, nothing
else in life works.”
I knew Lincoln’s childhood had been different from mine. Most people’s were. But I was only then realizing how much it might’ve
shaped him and the way he moved through the world, as if he was motivated by the fear of repeating his parents’ mistakes.
I set down a red two. “I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s just—when you talked about the ghost tours and all the family fun, it
seemed like y’all had it pretty good, like there weren’t a ton of worries. You sounded like a family with a lot of love.”
“We did have a lot of love. We weren’t ever short on that,” he said, setting down a red card. “But I wish my parents had made different
choices—better ones. If my dad had just taken a real job, not gone full-time musician, we could’ve avoided so much of it. Plus, it wasn’t only the job choice. He played at bars
and clubs, and he drank too much, too often. He said it was part of the gig of being a tortured artist, and he didn’t care
how it affected the rest of us.”
“I guess that makes sense,” I said. The life Lincoln had set up for himself was exactly what he thought his father should’ve done.
The server returned with our burgers, and we set down the cards in exchange for the food.
“Honestly, I blame my dad’s selfishness for my parents’ divorce.” Lincoln chewed. “The stress of not having the money they
needed to raise two kids—at least from where I sat—was the reason they couldn’t make it work. Me and my sister were elementary
schoolers having to deal with the fallout of their messy divorce.”
“Otherwise they were pretty good together?” I asked.
Lincoln nodded, and we ate in silence for a few moments. It was easy to ignore the very real fact that, being young and swept
up in a fun summer romance, we needed more than just enjoying each other for a couple to make it in the world. Heavens, my
own father hadn’t even stuck around to see me born.
“And it’s not like I’m not hopeful, you know,” Lincoln said. He set down his burger and wiped his fingers with his napkin.
“One day, I do think I’ll make it as a real photographer, but you really have to get a shot out of a big studio in New York
or LA. Even if I’d kill for that to be my real job, it doesn’t mean I’m going to take the starving artist card when I’ve got
chances like my current job.”
“I bet you’ll get that chance,” I said. “And I think our parents—or lack thereof—have a bigger impact on us than we’d like
sometimes. At least in your case, your dad’s choices have made you thoughtful and responsible. You won’t ever treat a partner
or children so casually.”
I dropped my gaze.
I’d imagined so often how my life might’ve been different had my father stuck around. Part of me suspected Magnolia had chased him off so she wouldn’t have to split decisions with anyone else. The other part of me wondered if I just wasn’t worth sticking around for, but much like Lincoln’s situation, the ripples of my father’s choices followed me everywhere I went, coloring the choices I made.
I felt the urge to tell Lincoln this, and maybe I would eventually, but the conversation was feeling too heavy. With every
part of me that Lincoln accepted without pause, like my ghastly mother and my nonexistent father, it felt like a step too
far down a path toward real feelings.
Instead of saying anything else, I picked up my burger and munched on a juicy bite.
Lincoln smiled gently. “Look at me putting a massive damper on things.”
I grinned back. “Don’t worry, I know it’s a tactic—trying to make me let my guard down on the Uno game.”
He shook his fist. “Drat!”
“Drat?” A laugh spilled out. Thankfully I’d swallowed my food. “What are you, some old-timey cartoon character?”
“I don’t know. It was an approved ‘diet’ curse word we used as kids.” Lincoln shrugged as he wiped his mouth with a napkin.
“Now those are some childhood stories I can get behind.” I pushed my picked-over plate aside and picked up my cards. “Ready?”
We played in silence, pausing only for sips of beer. The game stayed even for a while, ebbing and flowing in favor of one,
then the other. But soon, once my beer was almost drained, I found myself drawing and drawing until I held a good third of
the deck in my hand. Lincoln sat with only a few cards.
What I hadn’t mentioned yet was that while I adored winning, I was also the world’s very worst loser. I usually explained
it away as the product of my being an only child, but if I were to speak frankly, it had more to do with my personality—Lord
help me.
My face slowly folded itself into a scowl I couldn’t help.
“All right over there?” Lincoln sounded surprised.
“Just pulling more. Damn. Cards.”
I wanted to be cool about this, to laugh it off, but it was so hard. And the more visibly upset I became (about an Uno card
game in a dive bar, no less), the more frustrated I grew.
“Mack, we can stop.” Lincoln reached out a hand, looking at me with kind eyes.
I shook my head. We continued to play, and to my delight, I avoided the draw pile for a few hands.
“Can it be?” Lincoln gasped. “Are things looking up for you, Miss Cinnamon Sugar?”
I finally laughed. “Luck of the draw, I guess.”
I wondered which cards were in his hand and if he was letting me win. If he was, he didn’t let on, and twenty minutes of whittling
down my hand later, I won the game.
Lincoln was a gracious loser.
“Good game,” he said.
I reached over and shook his hand, and neither of us let go, instead lowering them to the table.
The comfortable feeling of him made me want to stay.
I’d promised myself—and him—that this was just for the summer, but the more time I spent with Lincoln Kelly, the less sure
I was that I wanted to set an expiration date.
“I’ll walk you home?” Lincoln asked.
I nodded, and we gathered ourselves and left.
We walked the ten blocks toward my apartment, past the odd horse-drawn carriage stacked with high-endurance visitors. I could
hear every drip of the courtyard fountains we passed in the silence between us.
We stopped at my apartment door.
“When can I see you again?” Lincoln asked.
I melted inside, and I shifted a hip closer to him. “Is tomorrow too soon?”
His brow crinkled. “Do I have you hooked, Ms. Bishop?”
I giggled. “At least for the summer.”
He dipped his head to the tender side of my neck and set a warm kiss on my skin. “Tell me where and when, and I’ll be there.”
My insides whipped and churned, and I wanted to leap into his arms and stay there. I wanted to let go of the past, a past
I didn’t like and didn’t want. I wanted to say that being with him for a few hours flew by like moments. That he zapped everything
into high definition.
“I’m not ready for this to end,” I told him.
Then I took his hand and pulled him, dragging him behind me into my apartment.