Chapter 20 Linc
LINC
Saturday afternoon finds me at a community pickleball court in Prospect Heights, a nice suburb for young professionals and weekend warriors. The complex has a generic apartment-living vibe—beige siding, budget landscaping, and functional outdoor light fixtures.
From the parking lot, I immediately spot Jules wearing a blue skort with stars and a red and white striped tank top.
I catalog every inch of her as I approach.
Those legs. Toned, smooth, and tan. Her hair is off her neck, pulled back in a ponytail.
She gestures wildly while talking to a tall woman and a desk-jockey-type, who offsets his time spent sitting with a fitness trainer.
“Linc!” Jules waves me over.
I’m unintentionally walking a tightrope.
One slip of the tongue about penalties or playoff schedules and my whole summer as a regular guy crashes down.
For once, someone is getting to know me before they know my stats, my salary, or what team I play for.
I’m not ready for that conversation to happen over pickleball and burgers.
“These are my friends. Olympia—Oly—and Nate.”
Oly gives me an appraising look. “So you’re the mysterious boss.”
“The Abraham Lincoln descendant,” Nate adds with a grin.
Because my competitive spirit cannot be contained, I add, “And pickleball champion. Jules called upon the best.”
It doesn’t escape my notice that Oly mouths Jules as if questioning the nickname I settled on for her.
The one that came out when we were at the rooftop party and I felt protective.
I temporarily turned into a territorial caveman.
Which makes no sense because Jules isn’t mine to protect.
She’d probably kick me in the shins if she thought for a second I was jealous of the guy with the man bun or irate at how Iva acted.
She folds her hands like she’s saying a prayer. “Okay, so here’s the thing. It’s not exactly a standard pickleball game.”
Of course it isn’t.
“We need another couple for the Grand Old Flag tournament,” Oly explains. “But we play with … variations.”
“Variations?”
Nate produces a jar of actual pickles that look like they came from a farmer’s market. “Winner of each point gets to eat one. Loser has to answer a truth-or-dare question.”
I look at Jules. “You’re kidding.”
“It’s fun!” she insists. “And silly. But mostly fun.”
When we reach our side of the net, I whisper to Jules, “Confession, I’ve never actually played this game.”
Face stricken with horror, she looks like I just warned her that a werewolf prowls behind her. “Um, that’s a problem.”
“How hard can it be?”
“On a stomach full of pickle juice?”
“We’re going to win.” I spin my paddle in my hand.
She doesn’t look convinced.
Pickleball, it turns out, isn’t exactly easy, but I am a professional athlete.
The game area is smaller than a tennis court, the paddle is solid, and it’s played with a veritable wiffle ball.
Jules is terrible and tries to offer a lengthy explanation every time she misses.
Oly is competitive and the reigning trophy holder in their community. Nate treats it like comedy hour.
I score a fair number of points, eating my share of pickles and Jules accepts increasingly ridiculous dares.
She has to do an impression of Kermit the Frog (adorably accurate), sing the alphabet backwards (she gets stuck at L), and demonstrate her best “trying to be professional at work” face (which makes everyone, including me, crack up because it’s a glare cast in my direction).
Unfortunately, I lose our next point and choose truth.
She asks me, “What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?”
“Fermented shark in Iceland,” I answer.
“Why were you in Iceland?” Nate asks.
“Work trip,” I say smoothly.
My other work. The one that involves skates and sticks and gliding smoothly, while I hear the rush of my breath in my helmet and experience the satisfaction of a team working together to win.
Unlike this, but it’s not so bad.
The tournament ends with Oly and Nate winning, mostly because I started playing with Jules on my back like a koala—it was one of the dares. She’s breathless and glowing a happy grin as we exchange a high five that lingers …
“We’re even now. Thanks for coming. You can go,” she says abruptly.
I drop her hand, feeling like I was just fired on account of the loss. We’d been having a good time. “Am I being dismissed?”
Her eyes widen. “I meant, assuming you want to leave, you can. I’m sure you have holiday plans. I’m sorry I dragged you into this. I probably owe you now.”
Before I can respond, Oly appears. “You should stay for the barbecue. We’ve got burgers, Nate’s famous macaroni salad, and the pool is open if you want to swim. There’s a clubhouse with showers, too.”
Nate adds, “Plus fireworks later. It’s the Fourth of July. We will light up the sky with our patriotism.”
Jules looks at me uncertainly. “But you don’t have to.”
I check my grandfather’s watch around my wrist. The smart thing would be to leave. Go home, review more spreadsheets, refortify the distance between Jules and me that’s been eroding bit by bit since that night on the rooftop.
“I’ll stay,” I hear myself say.
Jules’s smile is radiant. Because I almost can’t endure it, I pick her up, sling her over my shoulder, and march us toward the pool.
“Linc! Put me down!” she squeals, pounding koala fists against my back, but she’s laughing.
“Not happening,” I say, adjusting my grip as she wriggles.
Instead, I cannonball us both into the pool.
She splashes me and splutters.
When we surface, she looks murderous.
I feign innocence. “What? You were hot.”
She goes still as if wondering if she heard correctly.
Yeah, she’s hot. Any man would have to be blindfolded not to see that.
She nods as if deciding I didn’t mean anything about it and accepting the third-place trophy. “It is a warm day in July.”
I chuckle and splash her. “You know that isn’t what I meant.”
I catch a secret grin that she squirrels away like she wants to save it for cold weather.
We playfully wrestle before she swims to the deep end. I make chase, grabbing hold of her ankle and pulling her toward me. We pause at the pool’s edge, both out of breath.
Sudden awareness shoots through me as my pulse spikes. I’m holding her. Our bodies pressed together, warm and alive.
Voice rough, I take a risk and say, “You’re looking at me like that again.”
“Like what?”
“With sugar eyes.”
Her brow furrows. “Do enlighten me, sir.”
Her hair is wet and tousled, her cheeks flushed, and she’s looking up at me with those eyes that see through every wall I’ve built. Eyes that tell me she also thinks I’m hot.
“Like you like what you see,” I answer, committing to telling the truth like Honest Abe.
Her breath catches. The only sound is water lapping against the pool tiles and the distant hum of summer insects.
“Sugar eyes, huh?”
“Yup. I’ve noticed a few times in the office. At the rooftop party. When we were at your house. Today. You look at me a certain way.”
She blinks a few times as if caught and deciding whether to double down and grow a Pinocchio nose or come clean.
Instead, she splashes me, chilling us both, which is probably what we need. HR and all.
The barbecue is laid-back and welcoming—the kind of gathering where people talk to each other instead of networking.
Oly works in marketing and has strong opinions about everything from the best deep-dish pizza in the city to whether aliens exist. Nate was recently laid off, but tells water cooler stories that have me laughing more than relating, since they all think I’m also a corporate guy.
Jules is different here. Still quirky and prone to saying unexpected things, but there’s an ease to her that I don’t see at the office. She’s not trying to be professional or appropriate. She’s just herself.
Hilariously and adorably herself.
We end up sitting by the pool as the sun sets, our feet dangling in the water. She changed into a soft white sundress with little embroidered yellow and red flowers that make her skin look warm and buttery. She adds a sparkly red, white, and blue headband with springs topped with glittery stars.
“This is nice,” she says quietly, bonking me with the bobbly stars.
I chuckle. “Yeah, it is.”
And it’s true. When was the last time I felt so free? So me?
“Can I ask you something?” Jules steadies the stars with her hand.
“Sure.”
“Earlier, when I said we were even—did that bother you?”
I consider the question. “Why would it bother me?”
“I don’t know. You suddenly had a look on your face like …” She shrugs. “I don’t know how to describe it.”
Like I felt rejected? Or maybe I don’t want us to be even. I don’t want this to be a transaction where favors are exchanged and debts are settled. I don’t want the life of a businessman—to turn into my father.
“I had fun today,” I say instead.
“Really?” She lights up as if ready to drag me back onto the pickleball court.
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
Her laughter is bright and unabashed. “At work, you’re so serious. All buttoned up. I wasn’t sure you knew how to spell fun, no less have it.”
Until today, fun consisted of boating and wakeboarding on Lake Michigan with the guys. Jet Ski races and cliff jumping in Hawaii. Paintball and Go-kart bumper car battles. My mother would scold me if she knew about my fun, but risky behavior. But yeah, it’s a blast.
Sitting here with Jules, eating burgers and watching kids run around with sparklers is not where I expected to be.
It’s wholesomely pleasant and delightful.
Not my typical fun, but I like it more than anything else I could be doing, whether with the guys or on a yacht, so I stay—talk to Jules’s friends, eat a piece of the slightly askew Grand Old Flag blueberry, strawberry, and whipped cream cake she made, and just be with her.
Turns out that fun is spelled J-U-L-E-S.
As the cotton candy sky flattens into gray, then black, she shivers and rubs her upper arms. I give her my sweatshirt. She tries to decline.
“I’m prepared to wrestle you into it so you’re not cold.”
She lets out a huffy breath, lifts her arms to the sky for the sleeves, and I drop it over her head like I’m dressing her. My mouth goes dry.
Jules bunches up the neckline and inhales.
Hoping it doesn’t smell bad, I must be staring in alarm.
She sighs and then notices I’m watching. “Don’t say anything about sugar eyes.”
I chuckle, diverting my thoughts to the fact that the hoodie looks comically large on her.
I’m thankful I had the presence of mind not to bring an Ottawa Outlaws-branded one.
Having something real like this, whatever it is and wherever it goes, is too good, too pure to ruin with the added dimension of me being a public figure, a professional athlete, on top of being a billionaire’s son.
Stevens teases me about my first-world problems.
But it’s all relative, and for once in my life, I’m just me. Linc. The same guy my mother knew and loved. Whatever is building between Jules and me feels closer to real than anything has in a long time.
Later, as the bursts of gold and red and blue burst in the dark sky, Jules gasps at each one like she’s seeing fireworks for the first time. She sits close enough that I can smell the summery scent of sunscreen and pool chlorine over the cherry blossoms and almonds.
When they’re over, I’m halfway through telling her a random story about how Bīri?? got carried away with the fireworks on the lake one year, resulting in a high-speed aquatic chase, when a boom splits the air. She jumps, laughing, and her shoulder brushes mine.
I forgot about the grand finale and lose the thread.
“Beautiful,” she murmurs as red, white, and blue sparkles in the sky.
I don’t answer. I’m too busy noticing the faint freckle at the edge of her jaw, the way she presses her lips part slightly.
“What?” she asks, catching me.
“Nothing,” I say. Just … forgot where I was for a second.
The air between us crackles, charged with something that has nothing to do with the pyrotechnics above us. Her breath hitches, and I have the sudden, overwhelming urge to kiss her.
Then a child sprints past us, shrieking with delight and breaks the moment.
Dudes don’t get butterflies. They get dragonflies and a fleet of them nearly knocks me off my feet.