Chapter 15 Lincoln
Lincoln
With sleek couches, low coffee tables cluttered with coffee dressings, and a whiteboard wall scribbled with illegible writing, the lounge wasn’t a place where actual work got done.
Someone’s UNO deck was spread across one of the tables, as if a meeting had turned into a game night.
A little announcement board hung in the corner, featuring a motivational phrase, more dare than encouragement.
Especially since the genius had misspelled commitment.
Two m’s where they didn’t belong. Four t’s.
Nina had told me I wanted a higher role here. Climbing up the corporate ladder. Another item on the long list of shit that didn’t make sense. Who’d want to spend any time listening to Curt’s remarks about how Carmen needed to show less attitude and more cleavage?
The Keurig machine made a bizarre sound, signaling it was struggling to function. I could relate, for sure. I scooped out ice cubes and dumped them into the mug, and they clattered against the ceramic, coffee sloshing and burning my hand.
“Fuck!” I hissed.
“What are you even doing here?” Carmen’s voice carried through the doorway.
“Getting coffee.”
I let one more ice cube fall in the cup. More than three and it’d taste too close to iced coffee. That wasn’t what Nina had said. At some point, messing with my drinks brought her joy, so I’d keep it going. After all, I was putting my plan into motion for how to give her some petty satisfaction.
“What do you need help with?” Carmen asked. “I can’t pretend I don’t enjoy your misery, but—”
“Yeah, that’s clear. You set Nina up with your brother …”
“You mean my sweet, gentle brother who looks like he just stepped out of a reggaeton video?” She smirked.
“Precisely.”
“I told you. My methods are … unorthodox.”
“That’s why you had to casually tell me where they were …?”
Carmen nodded.
“And you told Natasha.”
“No—” Carmen laughed. “That was karma for you.”
“Nina must think I’m back with her, Carmen.”
“Nah.” She waved her hand dismissively and picked up the Post-its I’d been writing on. “I don’t think Nina is too worried about you and Nasty Tasha.”
I would’ve agreed. Except Carmen didn’t see Nina’s face when Natasha wrapped her arms around me and buried her nose in my chest. She didn’t watch the color drain from Nina’s cheeks or hear the finality in her voice when she told Carmen’s brother “No.” Carmen wasn’t there at two in the morning when Nina slipped in after her date, and I’d been losing my mind on the couch.
I’d been waiting, restless and hopeful, though resigned to the possibility she wouldn’t come home until after breakfast.
I turned the lamp on to a soft glow as Nina stood barefoot in front of me, boots in hand.
Shapely curves, cheeks flushed with a twinge of red that only came from alcohol and willpower.
Her hair was loose, brushing her shoulders.
The lamplight caught her eyes, restless but bright, and her weight shifted.
Earlier that night, I’d been in her arms, and she’d looked at me in a way that gave me hope we could move forward.
Then hesitation and defensiveness wrapped around the softness she’d started to show me, and for a moment, I couldn’t decide which part of her I craved more: her strength or her tenderness.
“Did you have a good time?”
It wasn’t the question I wanted to ask. What I’d wanted to say was uglier, needier. Did he kiss you? Did you like it? Did you wish it was me?
“Did you?” Her voice shook, the edge betraying the sting of her own hurt, and her brows drew together as she shrugged out of her jacket, fists clenched tightly around the material, and flung it onto the armchair.
“I left Natasha standing at that corner a minute after you walked away. Wanna know what I did after?”
“Not really, no.” She bent to place her boots on the floor. Her off-the-shoulder top dipped with her, and I caught a flash of lace, the swell of her breast threatening to slip free.
I closed my eyes and drew in three steadying breaths. Not the right time.
“Too bad.” I opened them again, sharper now. “I’m going to tell you anyway.”
I stepped forward until her spine hit the wall. She froze, breath quickening, and I planted my forearms on either side of her head, flat against the wall, and leaned in until our noses almost brushed. Her breaths were hot against my jaw.
“I followed you,” I said. Shameless. Truthful.
“You followed us?” Her voice was high-pitched, and her chest rose in quick and shallow pants until it brushed mine with every ragged inhale.
I dipped closer, my hair grazing her temple.
The word “us” sliced through me, excluding me without room for argument, but I bit down on the fury.
“I did. To a bar. Bouncer wouldn’t let me in.
” My lips hovered a hairsbreadth from her neck.
“It was a good thing. I would’ve dragged you from his arms to mine. ”
“You had no right.” Her eyes sharpened, slicing through me as she pressed herself harder to the drywall.
“I didn’t. But that won’t stop me. I feel this pull between us. I know you feel it too.”
Her lips curled. “Do you feel that pull with Natasha too, when she rubs herself off against your chest?”
I laughed low. “Jealousy looks good on you, babe.”
Her eyes went glacial. Wrong move. She shoved me, both palms to my chest, hard enough to make me stumble.
“You’ve got some fucking nerve, Lincoln.”
But I didn’t retreat. I couldn’t. “No one’s going to hurt you on my watch. Not Carmen’s brother, not Natasha. Hell, not even me.”
Her glare sharpened, molten and merciless. “You don’t remember, but I do. And I won’t let you rewrite everything just so you can act like the shit you did never happened. Where was this alpha bullshit when you were the one getting a kick out of my misery?”
She lunged into me, chest pressed flat to mine, anger sparking hotter than desire. “Yeah, I feel what could’ve been between us. But to me, it’s just a reminder. You don’t get to set the terms.”
We stood locked together, breaths ragged. I saw the moment I lost her. The moment her gaze turned cold steel.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she’d whispered, stepping back. Cold air had rushed between us, cutting me open. “It’s time, Lincoln. I’m moving out.”
Carmen poked at my chest with her index finger. “I warned you.”
I exhaled, shaking the sour memory of my latest fuck-up away. Dr. Ross was going to have a field day with that one.
“So, what are we doing?” Carmen’s voice got me back into focus.
I’d put this petty plan together, and now I needed Carmen’s help so it wouldn’t always be my handwriting.
I’d wanted to do it all on my own, but I’d cause for multiple people to talk shit about Nina, so I needed to show multiple people were talking shit about me.
“Apparently, I was horrible to Nina.”
“I know,” Carmen said. “I was there.”
“You were hired after her.”
“No, whatever happened in this sexist pigsty of a company I’d have stopped, sure, but I didn’t mean that.” She looked me straight in the eyes. “I was around for what you put her through in high school.”
“We went to high school together?” I asked, confused.
“Briefly. You guys are older, Nina was only at Stevenson for senior year.”
“What did I do?” My stomach knotted, those moths I’d become so familiar with trying to scratch their way out of my stomach.
“Oh, you know,” she said, flipping through the different-colored Post-its. “High school can be hell on earth, and you were her personal devil. Word back then was that she missed some big interview because of you.”
Bile rose up my throat. I thought I’d been shitty but with stupid pranks. This sounded—
“So, what are we doing, then?” She interrupted my train of thought as if she hadn’t unleashed palpable, paralyzing fear within my insides.
“I—” Suddenly, my plan sounded juvenile. “I was going to spread rumors about myself. She said once that I’d never understand what it felt to wonder if everyone’s whispering about you.”
“Fun!” Carmen said. “Whatcha got?”
Maybe it wasn’t as silly as I thought. Maybe it was just the right kind of petty to show Nina I knew I’d messed up.
Together, Carmen and I wrote down snappy comments about me.
Lincoln’s biggest accomplishment: mansplaining Photoshop shortcuts.
She laughed out loud, her curly ash hair bouncing.
And I raised her with a Lincoln has a small penis.
He doesn’t even use it well. Then came, Lincoln uses AI for his graphics, and For Lincoln, Helvetica isn’t just a font, it’s a lifestyle, and my favorite, Lincoln can’t rebrand for shit without a Canva subscription.
Carmen added a couple of additional jabs, but we had a good spread.
We stuck them to the most visible places in the staff lounge so no one would miss them. Let the rumor mill run wild. As we rode the elevator up toward the office space, I asked Carmen if she thought that’d even out some of what I’d done in high school.
She scoffed. “Not even close, man.” She pressed the eleventh floor bottom. “But it’ll for sure make her laugh when I show her the pictures later today.”
“You guys are meeting?” I asked, forcing myself not to dip my shoulders.
“Yes, Reality Bites. I’m taking two hours off so I don’t have to listen to Curt brag about my work.” She turned to me. “You should come.”
“I don’t know that I’m Nina’s favorite person right now.”
“I guarantee you’re not.”
I stared at her blankly.
“What? You gonna cry and give up?”
I shook my head. No, I needed every second around Nina I could get, especially since I couldn’t get her to change her mind on moving out, and I’d have even fewer opportunities to woo her.
“I need to ask another favor,” I said.
“You’re racking up favors, and they ain’t free, Lincoln.”
“I know. It’s for Nina.”
Her expression softened before she nodded.
“You’re good with computers, right?” I asked.
“Understatement.”
“Could you look into someone’s inheritance? What it was? Where it went?”
Carmen’s eyes glinted. “You know what? You’re not as stupid as I originally thought.”
I found no joy in her assessment, but I might have at least had another thread to make things better for Nina. Something about Vinny’s speech on safety nets and trustfunds carried a dark air to it.
I’d finished out the workday. Carmen hadn’t been wrong about Curt.
He’d sang her praises about a proposal for a new client, bragging on how his leadership made it happen.
Except the man had no fucking clue. He called the logo “that little thing in the corner,” and referred to the color palette as “fonts.” And he raved about how unique it was to finally have a woman, Carmen, who was good with numbers.
Curt didn’t know shit, but he sure knew how to take credit.
I left the building by 5:13 p.m., dodging Natasha on my way out, and I spotted the hanging chalkboard sign of Reality Bites around 6:30 p.m. They’d closed half an hour earlier, but Lynnie had reluctantly given me a key.
I paused, admiring the shop that had carved out a place for both Nina and myself, as well as for every discarded, mismatched secondhand item inside.
Slipping off my pink leopard sunglasses, I pulled out the keys and let myself in quietly.
The little doorbell chime had already been switched off for the night.
We weren’t on good terms after her date, and I wanted to make things right.
My silly Post-its wouldn’t fix anything, but maybe they’d coax a smile from her—and, just maybe, convince her not to move out.
Closing the door behind me, I heard it. Familiar chords floated through the speakers, and I knew the song before the words even came.
“Songbird.” My chest tightened, and my hand went to my ribcage, as if the notes themselves had reached in and bled onto me.
Then this verse hit and my breath staggered.
I didn’t just know the song, I knew her, Nina, listening to it: hair falling into her face as she looked at me with those brown pools of sorrow as if I could ease her pain.
That brief fucking moment when I’d known Nina Reyes was my soulmate but hadn’t known how to handle that she needed something different than I did.
From then onward, I’d stopped feeling grief, trading it for rage.
I shoved the door open and ran out into the street. Memories crashed in, filling in the blanks I’d never wanted to remember. But these were my memories. Mine again.
I blindly walked until I rounded the corner and collided with someone, both of us hitting the pavement.
But what I saw wasn’t the man in front of me; it was Nina, younger, drenched, heaving and rattling on the ground with filthy jock straps around her.
My stomach lurched. I knew what it was now. An attack.
Hands gripped my arms, pulling me upright even as the swirl of every rumor I’d ever started pressed down tightening into a vise around my chest. All the shit I’d talked, the lies I’d fed into break rooms, the poison I’d left to eat at her—it all clawed at my skull.
Fingers lifted my chin, and through the haze, I caught those sharp, unyielding charcoal eyes.
“What the fuck, Lincoln? Are you okay?” Vinny’s voice cracked through the static.
I wasn’t okay. I was the reason she’d scraped for meds. The reason high school had been hell. She’d gasped for air, and I’d turned my back.
My knees hit the concrete, hard, and my body convulsed.
Acid burned my throat as bile surged up, hot and acrid.
I gagged once, twice, then everything in me emptied onto Vinny’s shoes.
The stench of sour vomit mixed with asphalt and car exhaust was thick in my nose.
My stomach cramped, my ribs aching with each heave, until nothing came but strings of spit and the hollow ache in my gut.
I clawed at the ground, desperate, as though I could tear the rot out of myself with my bare hands.
Only rage remained—raw, corrosive. Vomiting had scraped the poison out of my body but left behind the wreckage of what I’d done. I had no one to blame but myself.
I understood then. What she’d tried to tell me all along. I’d destroyed us before we even began. No clean slate or way forward.