Jacob gave him a mock salute. “Counting on it.”
* * *
Linc had seldom been so reluctant to have a day off, and not even a long run with Ray and Garrick early Sunday morning settled him. He didn’t bring up Ray talking to Jacob while they worked out. First because he didn’t want Garrick involved, but also because he didn’t even know where to start. It wasn’t that much of a surprise—anyone with eyes probably had noticed Jacob’s behavior after Linc’s dad died and Jacob was around helping him, a near daily thing. Then Jacob had come out and everything had gone to shit with Wyatt. Jacob had toned it down some over time, kept the flirting private, but Linc had been deluding himself if he’d thought Wyatt was the only one who had figured out Jacob had a crush back then.
Although, as he pounded out the miles along the back roads in companionable silence with his friends, dogs at their heels, he had to be honest with himself, admit that calling it a crush was maybe not the fairest to Jacob. That implied that Linc was blameless, like he hadn’t eaten up the attention right up until Wyatt warned him off. Jacob at least had had the excuse of being nineteen, horny and on the rebound. Linc was supposed to be the older, wiser one, but even now he could recall exactly how Jacob had looked helping him move mountains of crap out of the house, muscles flexing right along with that damn dimpled grin, sun in his eyes, sweat rolling down his neck, a trail that Linc had wanted to trace with his tongue. Then Wyatt had reminded him where his loyalties lay, and he’d boxed up all those impulses, tried to forget the moments spent working side by side, Jacob a bright spark in one of the darkest of times in his life.
At least Ray thought all that was in the past, small mercies. Both his friends seemed oblivious to Linc’s inner turmoil as they headed back toward his place. Which was how it should be. No one knew about that...collision after the funeral. And if Ray had a suspicion about Linc himself, well, he wouldn’t be the only one of Linc’s friends to know. Wyatt had, mainly because they’d been kids together and he’d told him everything once upon a time. Garrick knew. Linc had never been particularly good at faking attraction with women, bumped along here and there with some ill-advised short-term relationships, but mostly he’d just lived his life as he saw fit, privately as possible. It wasn’t a state secret or anything, just something Linc preferred to keep away from work and stupid people.
Bigger issue was this thing with Jacob. Not that there was a thing, but Ray thought he sniffed smoke, and Linc needed to be damn sure there wasn’t a fire for him to find. Hell, he didn’t know how to admit to himself let alone Ray that neither of them had ever let that long-ago attraction lie in the dirt where it belonged. No, it had merely shifted. Become a private game almost where Jacob tried to get him in bed, a score he was determined to settle, and Linc resisted, and not just because of Wyatt and having a healthy love of his own skin. No, he’d resisted because those old feelings, those moments, they weren’t a game to him, not ever. Not even when they drove him to do desperate things like after the funeral and again on Friday when he’d lost his damn mind, kissing Jacob in the parking lot, when he didn’t even have the excuse of grief and guilt.
Nope, this one was all on him. And if he replayed that kiss, over and over while he showered after the run, well, that was between him and the hot water. He’d tried rationalizing the kiss all weekend as relief that Jacob had come back in one piece from his first solo jump. That was why he’d waited around, thinking he might as well tell Jacob he’d done well, give him some of that praise he always seemed to be seeking. But that was a lie. He could have simply sent a quick text, told him “good job.” No, he’d waited around because he’d needed to touch him, needed proof that he was okay. Need, not relief, had driven him. He’d needed Jacob, needed the touch and taste of him, until nothing, not even news of Ray’s warnings could stop him from kissing Jacob like a drowning man clinging to the last buoy.
And now he had to go to Jenna’s party, act normal, and most definitely not lose his head like that again. Which meant getting ready, even if he didn’t particularly want to. Because he’d been the hungry Reid kid showing up empty-handed to Hartman family gatherings too many years when younger, he refused to do it now. So after his shower, Ray and Garrick long gone, he made a plate of deviled eggs to take to the party. Mrs. Billups, a widow he helped from time to time, had had extra eggs when he fixed her fence the day before. He wasn’t one to let food go to waste. So eggs. All fancy, his mother’s recipe from a cookbook older than he was. And a clean shirt, one with buttons, and him showing up at the party only a little after the appointed time.
“Hey! It’s Uncle Linc!” Jacob greeted him at the door, holding baby Willow in one arm, Junior right behind him.
Linc’s heart did that funny thing it always did when he saw Jacob with the nieces and nephews. Stupid heart had damn near beat out of his chest at the hospital after Willow was born, when he’d seen Jacob holding the baby while Jenna held May, who was crying because Wyatt wasn’t there to see.
“Here.” Like back then, Jacob passed him the baby, who was bigger now, a warm weight to settle in the crook of his arm while he handed off the eggs to Jacob, a trade-off as easy as if they did it daily. The baby didn’t even protest the change, snuggling into Linc as they all trooped toward the open kitchen.
“I found Uncle Linc,” Junior announced in a carnival-barker-loud voice. Looking at him was a flashback thirty years ago to Wyatt in kindergarten, faded memories of a little blond boy with a big family and a long ride into town on the school bus filled with shared sticks of gum and crumbled trading cards. A friendship born of convenience but forged in blood nonetheless.
“Find a seat,” Jenna called, so Linc took a chair next to some older boy cousins playing on tablets at the table, transferring the baby to his other shoulder.
“Do you need me to take her?” May flitted over, thinner than he’d seen her last, but somehow less fragile, not quite stretched so tissue-paper thin. Maybe living here with Jenna suited her. And maybe too it was the passage of time, the relentless march forward that Linc tried not to dwell on.
“Nah. She’s fine.”
“Thanks, Linc.” She gave him a pat on the shoulder before heading back to the kitchen.
“You’re always the baby magnet. We need to find you a wife.” Jon, one of the older Hartman siblings, slapped him on the back, giving a meaningful glance in May’s direction.
“Gonna nip that bad idea in the bud right now,” Linc said in a low, firm whisper. Jon was only a year younger than him and Wyatt. They’d all hung around some, had their first beers and plenty of other adventures together.
“What? I’m just saying—”
“Well, don’t. And don’t let her catch you at it either.” Even if Linc were so inclined in that direction, May was so far off-limits as to be wrapped in barbed wire. Luckily, the feeling appeared to be mutual, with her always cordial but cool, the way she was with all Wyatt’s buddies. But the last thing he needed was the all-too-helpful Hartman clan playing matchmaker.