Chapter 24 Lincoln
Lincoln
Carmen stopped by the hospital to give us a ride to the house after Nina’s discharge.
I waited for Nina to dig out the keys from her precious tote that Carmen had brought back for her.
I leaned against the wall while she unlocked the door, then stepped in first as though it’d always been hers.
Each of her movements betrayed familiarity with the house.
It was exactly what’d been missing when it’d been me coming out of the hospital.
Something loosened inside me. Seeing her take her shoes off and put her bag down, made my chest flood with warmth. She didn’t even realize her claiming my home as hers healed parts of me.
She left the door open, but I didn’t follow. I stood in the threshold, admiring her. Her hair curtained her face when she bent to set down the hospital folder. It wasn’t until she noticed I hadn’t come in that she circled back, brows pulling together.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked, her brown eyes glowing copper in the dim lighting.
“I’m making sure you’re okay.” I exhaled, shoving my hands in my pockets. “And I don’t want to intrude.”
“Lincoln, this is your home. I’m just—”
“If you say anything about moving out after this giant fucking scare, I swear I will lose it, Nina. Just don’t.”
Her lips pressed into a thin line. “I’ve been taking care of myself my whole life. I don’t need you to sweep in and rescue me.”
“You don’t need rescuing,” I said, hovering over the threshold. “But you could use help. And I’m giving, like it or not.”
Her discharge papers were clear. She needed rest, meds, and someone to watch her every breath for the next few days. The inhalers and steroids would do their job, and I’d need to figure out how to make sure she didn’t lift a finger while I lived in her old apartment half a city away from her.
“Lincoln.” Her voice softened, and when I looked up, she was holding out her hand. “Come in.”
I’d held her hand before, but this time, I wondered if maybe there was something I could salvage from the wreckage I’d made of us.
I shut the door behind me, the latch clicking drawing a line between the chaos outside the world and the explanations I owed her.
Nina held my hand while sinking into the couch, leaving me the corner closest to the window.
A remnant of the domesticity we’d shared back when I couldn’t remember how I’d failed her.
“Do you want tea? Coffee? Your inhaler?” I asked, trying to delay a conversation I didn’t know how to have.
“Sit,” she murmured, patting the couch.
I toed my shoes off, letting the rush of her request settle for a beat. Then I breathed in and sat. Close, but not too close. Enough to catch the tired determination in her eyes.
She pulled her hand away from mine, resting it between us, fingers curling and uncurling. “You said you had choices for me.”
“I do,” I said, leaning forward, forearms braced on my knees. “And explanations.”
She nodded. “Let’s start with choices,” she said, voice still coarse from the roughness of her attack.
I placed my hand on my knees, steady, so she’d see them and knew those days where she’d needed to brace for my nastiness were over.
“About your aunt and uncle,” I said, voice low, careful.
“The money they took, your parents’ inheritance, it wasn’t theirs to touch.
You can file a civil claim, try to get your parents’ money back.
Or you could get the authorities involved on account of fraud.
” I paused, letting the words sink in. “Or both, of course.”
Her fingers twisted on the edge of the couch, brushing against my leg.
Her body still showed the aftermath of the attack: purple shadows beneath her eyes, the occasional exaggerated rise of her chest, that frayed voice that unknowingly governed the beat of my heart for longer than I’d realized.
She might look fragile, the havoc of her own body and family written across her face, but all I could see was the strongest, most beautiful woman I’d ever known.
I’d once wanted her to hate me, wanted any emotion from her to the point I’d twisted everything.
Now I just wanted to be the person she trusted not to add to the shit hand she’d been dealt.
“Your house, the one they sold,” I said, watching her face for a reaction, “was worth more than they told the court. They pocketed the difference. Then there’s the contractor work your father did, all the assets tied into that.
The thirty grand you did get …. Your parents had so much more. Maybe not in cash flow, but still—”
I reached inside my coat’s inner pocket and pulled out the folder.
“These are just the highlights. You have every detail and number in there.” I set it down in the space between us.
Her arm shifted away from it, as if the file was something toxic she couldn’t let touch her.
My jaw locked, heat rising in my chest. “I won’t lie. It’s sickening. That Vinny knew—”
“I don’t want to talk about Vinny.” The words were sharp, but her voice broke at the edges. Her chest stuttered with a shallow breath.
I nodded once, letting it go. “That’s fine. But Nina, they deserve to pay you back. I don’t think they can do it with money, but in some way—they need to be held accountable.”
She stayed quiet, her gaze going distant, shoulders curling inward. “Do I have to do anything?”
“Yes.” I reached over, stilling her twitching fingers against the couch cushion. “You need to rest.”
“I don’t want their fucking money.” She hissed it through a ragged exhale. Her chest trembled with the effort, tears springing hot to her eyes. “I just don’t know if I have it in me to send them to jail.”
I nodded slowly. I’d suspected this might be the case, so I’d told Carmen to keep everything under wraps.
“It’s your choice.” I slid my thumb over the back of her hand, steady and deliberate, feeling the pulse on her wrist. “And whatever you decide, I’ll handle it.
Making calls, setting up meetings, whatever you need. You just breathe.”
Her shoulders softened a little, as if I’d gained enough of her trust that she believed me. “That … actually helps.”
I let the quiet stretch for a beat, her words settling deep into my chest. This was the opening I’d been waiting for—my chance to uncover the rot inside me and what it’d done to what could have been.
Turned out, she wanted that choice for herself too.
“What about you?” she asked, pulling her hand from mine, raising those defenses I thought she was too tired to leverage.
“You talk a big game about holding my aunt and uncle accountable. You were cruel, Lincoln,” she whispered, low but slicing.
“And now you’re here treating me as though I’m someone precious to you.
Like I’d always been someone precious to you. Why?”
My throat worked around the jagged edge of her truth.
I almost looked away, almost swept my own pain and hers under anger the way asshole Lincoln would have.
But this time, I stayed and faced her pain.
I let it sting, and burn. Because she was right—she deserved an answer that didn’t dodge or deflect.
I could do this. I’d rehearsed this in therapy.
“I went to see you at Reality Bites. Almost a month ago, you know?” My gaze slid to the window for a breath before I forced myself back to her face. She deserved to see this in my eyes.
Her fingers stilled against her knee, jaw tightening enough that I knew she was bracing.
“I let myself in, after it closed. I heard ‘Songbird’ on.” My throat burned, remembering. “And it all just came rushing through me. I understood then what you’d been saying. There was no coming back from all that shit. You’re right—I was cruel, and I got off on it.”
The words scraped on their way out, but I stayed steady, present, because she needed to hear all of it.
“So I left you here, thinking I was keeping you safe. But it took me a minute to figure out I owed you, at least, an explanation.”
Nina’s breath hitched, almost imperceptible, but her eyes didn’t waver. “You think an explanation’s going to make it better?” Her voice was quiet, the kind that carried more hurt than shouting ever could.
“No, I don’t.” I leaned forward, elbows braced on my knees.
I wasn’t hiding. I knew well about hurt.
“I’ve been obsessed with you since that day you stepped out of Vin’s parents’ car in overalls, listening to that song.
You’d lost people too, and I thought—” My throat tightened.
“I needed someone who got it, Nina. No one did. They’d say cliché things and tell me it’d get better with time, but time didn’t help, and my father kept getting worse. ”
Nina’s lips parted slightly, her lashes fluttering. She knew exactly what worse meant.
“And when I looked into your eyes that day …” I shook my head, meeting her gaze. “I don’t know how to explain it other than I saw my own pain there and knew no one would understand me like you would.”
Her chest rose with a slow, deliberate breath, but she didn’t look away. It cracked me open a little more.
“I felt the same thing, I think,” she admitted, voice low. “I think that’s why it hurt from the very beginning, you know?”
I scrubbed a hand over my jaw. “I understand now, thanks to my therapist, that I wanted you to grieve my way. To relieve my pain over something you’d also lost.” My knee bounced, restless, until I forced it still.
“I had no right.” I exhaled with heaviness at how toxic I’d been and how much worse I’d become.
“So when I asked you out, and you said no, I—”
“When did you ask me out?”