Chapter 21 Nina
Nina
The espresso machine hissed and sputtered, its sharp swishing cutting through my thoughts as I studied the projected conversion rates for BrightMark.
Carmen was arranging something on the counter while humming the song that Diego kept singing last night over dinner.
Lynnie was taking a few days off from Reality Bites.
Now that I was off barista and cleaning duty, being there without her felt …
off. Working there would bring attention to why I wasn’t at home.
Have Lynnie and Carmen asking why I wasn’t comfortable in Lincoln’s apartment, and I was.
Still, I didn’t want to admit to anybody that this house without Lincoln felt …
empty. Because Lincoln’s absence left a hole no one’s incessant hummings could fill.
Carmen’s presence demanded attention. But as she tucked herself into his corner of the couch, where the cushion had still held the ghost of him, another remnant of him frayed.
The scent of vibrant leaves and rain-washed earth, the best oxygen you’d ever breathe, was fading.
Sometimes, I had the urge to go into his bedroom. There, his smoky, grassy hint of vetiver clung to the space, making my chest ache. The air healed me from the inside out. Of course I’d never actually admit that. Lincoln was the obsessive one. Not me.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Carmen placed a cup of cappuccino in front of me with the correct amount of foam that I never got right. “You know, since denial doesn’t seem to be working out for you.”
I blew air out through my lips and arched my brow at Carmen. “I’m not in denial.”
Carmen placed both hands on the counter, one on each side of my computer. “I’d thought we’d hammered out all this brooding.”
I forced a shrug, aiming for casual, but my throat tightened. “I’m not brooding.”
“Really?” Carmen slid onto the stool across from me and shut my laptop with one finger as if I was working on something inconsequential.
She propped her chin on her palm, eyebrows raised.
“Because in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been putting Lincoln through the wringer myself. ” She wagged her finger at me.
I arched my brow. “Why would you bother putting him through anything?”
She scoffed. “Well, you must have noticed he’s trying to get with you, and he’s been a total prick. So, I did what I do.” She waggled her eyebrows. “I put together a plan for revenge. True story.”
I wanted to smile at her joke, but the words pulled at something sharp inside me. “What did you do, Carmen?”
Her face lit up. “Oh, I, of course, put my brother in your path. I sent Lincoln to watch you, brought him to Lalo’s, kept sending Natasha his way, and I’ve been having him help me at work.” Her smile was calculating and proud.
“You’ve really been milking that cow, haven’t you?”
She laughed. “You have no idea.”
I shook my head, staring down at the countertop until the marble blurred in under my gaze.
Carmen felt … like a friend. It was difficult to embrace.
It made me think of that first year after my parents passed when I’d been handing out the benefit of the doubt pretending it didn’t cost me anything, trusting people wouldn’t walk away and leave me holding the weight of everything.
Then they did. A little voice in my head whispered that I was just that poor orphan girl who couldn’t keep a connection.
I hadn’t kept a single one. Even Kevin had left.
I blew out a breath, setting my mug down a little too hard. “We’ve spent a lot of time together lately, but you don’t owe me any loyalty to pick my side against Lincoln’s.”
Carmen’s gaze became tarnished with pity, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I flipped my laptop open to have something to do with my hands.
“Hey,” Carmen interrupted, her fingers twitching as if she was holding herself from touching me.
“He was awful in high school; he can handle some harsh teasing for a while.” She smirked, and then her expression schooled again.
“And Nina, maybe I don’t owe you loyalty, but I’ll give it anyway.
” Her brown eyes bore into mine, and after the intensity reached its peak, she winked. “For the most part.”
I didn’t think her joke was funny. My life had shown me you couldn’t count on “for the most part.” She could keep that.
“How are things with your cousin?” Carmen’s change in topic threw me for a loop.
“My cousin Vinny?”
She nodded, lifting the mug to her lips.
He’d offered his place, then stopped returning my calls. I shrugged. “Vinny’s … flaky.”
Carmen snorted into her coffee, jerking her cup away as coffee sloshed over the rim. “Flaky is the under-fucking-statement of the year. He’s a coward, Nina.”
“And he isn’t my problem,” I shot back, hovering my fingers over the keyboard, ready to dive into work just to shut this conversation down. “Especially if I land this pitch and never have to ask for his help again.”
“Life goals!”
“Is Curt not sending anyone to pitch for BrightMark?” I asked Carmen point blank, wrapping my hands around my mug. The heat grounded me. “I don’t mind, but I’d prefer not being blindsided if Natasha is going to show up.”
Carmen traced the rim of her coffee cup but didn’t meet my eyes. “You want to talk shop, or you want to talk about lover boy?”
“Lincoln’s not my lover.” The denial came out too fast, too sharp, and we both knew it.
“Only because there’s a lot of bad history.” She wiggled her eyebrows, grinning. “If you’d just met him in all his amnesiac glory of burning the world down for you …”
She wasn’t wrong there. I pretended to type something, even if my thoughts were as scrambled as the random letters filling the screen. If I could just stay mad at him, everything would be simpler, but there were these flickers of excitement for him inside me.
“But I’ve known him in all his cruelty and calculation,” I said, jaw tight. “He even made me lose a scholarship. And I’m not even getting into how his girlfriend got me fired and he did nothing.”
Carmen opened her mouth to argue, but I cut her off.
“And yes, I’ve seen the post he’d made about my being fired, trying to clean my name and denounce the big bad, corrupt marketing company, but he still did those things.
Also, Natasha’s horrible, if he doesn’t want her around, please don’t put them together. ”
Carmen smirked. “Jealous much?”
“In Lincoln’s dreams,” I muttered.
Carmen leaned back on the counter, crossing her arms, her mug still nestled in one hand. Her expression was serious this time. “It actually comes down to something simple.” She tilted her head, studying me. “Do you believe people can change?”
The question made something flicker in my chest—hope, anger, I wasn’t sure which.
“I don’t,” she said after a beat, shaking her head. “I think people are who they are, and they show you really fucking early. But …” She swirled the last sip of her coffee, thoughtful. “I think people can learn to redirect certain impulses. Like me.”
I stopped hovering my hands over the keyboard and looked at Carmen.
“Like Lincoln,” she uttered, “and this whole hero’s journey thing he’s got going on.”
A knock at the door put the conversation on hold. I got up, grateful for the excuse, but found no one there. Just a cupholder and a to-go bag from the coffee shop I loved next to that tiny studio apartment I’d loved living in, even with attack-inducing mold.
There was a neon-yellow index card taped to it. I recognized the handwriting immediately. I wanted to focus on all the bad blood, but my lenient, forgiving heart still skipped a beat at the sight. I carried the tray to the counter. Carmen’s eyes glinted, seeing right through me.
“I thought you were team Diego?” I asked, a little more defensive than I meant to.
“Diego’s a distraction,” she said, shrugging. “But he’s too … sunny for you. You’ve had some rough patches. I bet he wouldn’t know what to do with that.”
Words to defend Diego formed at the tip of my tongue, but they shriveled in my throat. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t understand. I wanted more intensity than he could ever give.
I tore the note out of the bag and read it.
Nina’s world’s about to upgrade. I know you’re going to burn yourself out working on this pitch. So here’s what’s happening: you work. I’ll keep you fed, caffeinated, and unstoppable until Monday. You’re going to own that room. No one’s getting in your way this time—I won’t let them.
Carmen pointed at me. “He’s also done all of that. Bought coffee refills. Moved out of his own apartment so you could have a safe place to live. Wore stupid pink clothing.”
Lincoln hadn’t done all bad. Especially not the past few months.
But he also left the second he’d remembered.
I could have gotten answers. What had I done for him to hate me so much?
From afar, sure, he’d kept me healthy, in his home, delivered my meds on the day they were filled.
Groceries. My favorite coffee. I’d recited his meanness to myself so much I was starting to feel immune.
The tenderness and thoughtfulness he’d shown me lately almost overpowered the hurt of the past.
“You should know, he’s not staying with me anymore.”
“What?” The word was a whisper. “Where did he go?”
Carmen nodded at the tray. “Where do you think?”
“I have no idea.”
“He’s renting your old apartment, silly.”
My stomach dropped with the weight of the revelation.
He was living my old life, maybe even with my roommate—the mold stain.
He’d looked down on the precarity of it, but now he’d taken over the only place that had ever been just mine.
The only space where I hadn’t needed to cater to someone else’s needs.
He was there, catering to mine. His choice to live there brought all those self-deprecating Post-it Notes to life: telling me he’d protect whatever I’d decided was important at his own cost. That he owed me his loyalty.