Chapter 7 Lincoln
LINCOLN
@pancakesareelite:
I don’t need your help
@theanswerisno:
Wasn’t helping. They broke the rules and I told them off.
@pancakesareelite:
Is this where you admit you’re the creator of this server?
@theanswerisno:
Does it matter?
@pancakesareelite:
Not really. But as the creator, could I force you to play a game of DotA with me or should I assume *the answer is no*?
@theanswerisno:
I’ll never say no to that.
Mornings were my favorite time of the day. Running through the city when everyone else was asleep gave me a moment to clear my head. Perhaps it was the pull of my muscles or the way my heart pumped against my chest, but in those bursts of heavy breathing, my mind was clear.
I leaned against the office gate and swallowed a deep breath before scanning my fob and letting myself into the staff bathroom in the basement.
After washing off this morning’s jog, I slipped into the fresh shirt I’d hung there and made my way up to my office.
I had a few more minutes of silence before my office mate showed up.
The seventh intern always arrived with a bang. An actual bang sometimes. Yesterday, she’d knocked over an enormous vase of flowers, something that shouldn’t have been in her path in the first place.
“Good morning, Mr. Carden,” she said, a little more enthusiastically than usual. And she was usually very enthusiastic.
“Elizabeth.” I kept my head down. Even after almost two weeks of working in close proximity, I wasn’t quite able to face the combination of her charming smile and stormy gray eyes.
“Mr. Carden, I have two things to say-slash-ask, and then I’ll let you do your morning focus session and won’t bother you until you take your first coffee break, which is usually in around an hour and a half, right?”
I glanced over at the time. She was spot-on.
She continued. “Okay, so, first, thank you for the notes. I read them all and only cried a little bit.”
Cried?
My head snapped up, only to be met with her laughter. Her smile was as bright as I anticipated it would be. Today, her copper hair was pinned back on either side with blue butterfly clips, showing off her jewel-adorned ears. I never noticed her tragus and helix piercings before.
“Just kidding. I didn’t cry. Externally,” she said, and a second finger joined the first. “Second, when is my first evaluation or has it already happened?”
Straight to the point. I appreciated that.
“There’s a reason that information isn’t shared with you,” I replied.
“What are you going to say about me? Is it bad? Or is it best I don’t know?” She pressed her hands on my desk and tapped her fingers nervously.
I sighed, and using all my learned social behavior, I looked up and met her gaze.
Mistake.
Those eyes were as stormy as I remembered. She bit on her pink-painted bottom lip. “I’m the cat. I’m going to obsess about it all weekend.”
For some unknown reason, Elizabeth Gordon-Bettencourt’s presence deleted every thought in my brain. “What?” was all I managed.
“That curiosity killed. It’s me, the cat.” She drew a finger across her neck. “What animal best describes your curiosity style?”
Taken off guard by her ridiculous question, I answered, “In your analogy, probably an ostrich. Head in the sand and all that.”
She grinned. “Your brain is way too large.”
I shut my eyes, but a smile played on my mouth. The seventh intern was cheekier and far feistier than I expected her to be. “I don’t really know what to say to that.”
“You don’t need to say anything. This is already the most you’ve ever said to me that wasn’t criticism.”
“Might be the most I’ve ever said to anyone here.”
She giggled.
It was a nice sound. In terms of all the giggles I’ve heard, it was a good one.
What type of thought was that?
Shaking my head, I sidestepped her and tapped the drawing I’d marked up. “Stop worrying about the meeting. Focus on improving. You can’t change the mistakes you’ve made, but you can avoid making them again.”
A soft breath whooshed out of her, and for the first time since Elizabeth showed up, my office was silent.
I glanced upward. Elizabeth was frozen in thought. Before I could say anything, my phone buzzed against the desk, and the screen lit up with a message from Claire: Come outside. It’ll take five minutes.
“Be right back,” I said, without looking at Elizabeth. I couldn’t risk her trapping me with one of her all-powerful gazes or her words that left me tongue-tied.
I hurried downstairs to meet my best friend. The one I was going to kill.
Cleverly, Claire arrived with defense in the form of caffeine and sustenance. She held up a brown paper bag and a coffee cup, scrunching up her nose. “I’m sorry for abandoning you last week. Was game night without me really so bad that you had to skip this week and avoid me?”
“I wasn’t avoiding you. I was busy. I’m drowning with these new tasks.” I grabbed the coffee and took a swig. Cream, sugar. She knew exactly how I liked it. “Management is awful.”
We walked a few steps away from my office and sat on either end of a nearby bench with the food between us.
“Wanna talk about it?” she asked.
“Nothing much to say. It’s just a lot. I’m struggling to keep up. I’m not sleeping enough. Haven’t helped my mom pack. Couldn’t make it to game night.” I looked skyward, thinking of a topic change. “Why’d you miss last week, anyway?”
“Dean and I had a spontaneous date night.” Her cheeks flushed, and I was glad to see it. She opened the paper bag. “Peace offering?”
I salivated at the scent of a freshly baked feta and spinach muffin. “Things are… better?”
“Much.” Her little smile widened. “Who would have thought taking fewer shifts at the hospital and starting therapy would do wonders for a marriage?”
Seeing her happy again lifted the weight on my shoulders ever so slightly. It didn’t even matter that I was mad at her.
“So,” she said, running a hand through her auburn hair, “are you still angry at me for telling them about Lily?”
“A little. This is helping.” I held up the coffee and muffin.
“Let me explain.”
Leaning back, I gestured for her to continue.
“I know how you are.” She smiled but shook her head.
“You hide your feelings until you’re so far gone, you can’t come back.
And I think you care about Lily way more than you let on.
I think there’s a chance you’ve created this perfect idea of her, and it’s the reason you’re not hooking up with anyone in real life. ”
The air was knocked right out of me. “That’s… not entirely true.”
But it was a little true. Yes, I was consumed by Lily, but that wasn’t the only reason I wasn’t dating anyone. The truth was more complicated than that.
I felt nothing for anyone else. And I’d tried. And failed. And it was awful and uncomfortable, and I had no desire to do it again.
Something was obviously wrong with me.
Claire’s brows hugged as she stared out into the distance. “I want to know who she is and whether she has the power to hurt you. Because if she does, I’ll have to learn how to fight. Lincoln, do you know how hard that’ll be for me?”
I chuckled, but a tightness spread through my chest at the mere thought of Lily hurting me. There was only one way to prevent that. “You don’t have to worry. I have a plan.”
“Are you sure? What if you meet and it’s like an online-friends- to-real-life-lovers situation and then—”
“The plan is simple.” I lifted a finger, interrupting her segue into romance novels. “We’re not going to meet. We’re never going to meet. And I’ve told her so. I like her where she is, exactly how she is.”
“Oh.” She scrunched her lips up on one end, and I assumed she was withholding all her questions.
But there was no way to explain why I needed this internet stranger to confide in when Claire was always ready to listen.
I didn’t know how to tell her that, while all I wanted was for my friends to be happy, it was hard seeing them expand their own personal lives without me, and Lily was…
mine and somehow completely unaffected by anything going on in or around my life.
Besides, no real person could ever live up to the Lily I had in my mind, and I didn’t expect them to. She was perfect. I definitely wasn’t anything like my online persona.
“I’m presenting at a transportation conference in a couple weeks,” I said, hoping to change the topic.
Claire’s face lit up, despite not knowing anything about the conference or engineering. “Ooooh, when? Where? Can I come?”
“It’s in LA, and pretty last minute, so I really don’t expect you to join,” I said, amused. “I need to double-check the date, but it’s on a Friday.” I blew out a long breath. There was a mixture of nervousness and excitement at the thought of presenting my research.
“Awesome,” she said. “Presentations are your thing. Which is weird for someone who doesn’t like talking.”
I chuckled and shook my head. It was a little different when I had the opportunity to prepare what I’d be saying.
Claire raised a brow. “So, you said you’d tell me about your new intern in person. What’s his deal? Is he awful?”
“She’s not awful. She’s…” How was I supposed to describe Elizabeth? “Interesting.”
“How so?”
I bit into the muffin and thought about Elizabeth while chewing. Where should I begin? “She’s wearing butterfly clips.”
Claire squawked. “Is that a problem?”
“In my office.”
“Mmm-hmm. How dare she? A criminal offense, really.”
“As an engineer, it…” I said, struggling to find the point I was trying to make.
She shook her head. “You’re full of crap sometimes.”
I tutted, swallowing hard and taking another big bite. “She hums.”
“At least she doesn’t sing.”
“She doesn’t eat.”
“What do you mean? Everyone eats.” Claire bit into her muffin.
“She doesn’t. I’ve seen her drink coffee, plenty of it. But never eating. At lunchtime, I’m the only one chewing in the office.” I crumpled up the brown paper bag. “No snacks, even.”
“She could be trying to lose weight.”
“She looks great as is.”
Maybe that wasn’t the right thing to say.
Claire’s eyes narrowed, but she said nothing. “Maybe she’s trying to save cash. Engineers in these internships can’t be getting paid too much, can they?”
“She doesn’t need the money.”
“How would you know?” Claire crossed her arms.
I stood. My five-minute break had come to an end.
“Because she’s a Gordon-Bettencourt.”