I want to ask if it explains the two of us. If it provides some insight on where we go from here and the consequences I know we’re going to face.
“Are we going to talk about how this changes things?” he asks, once again invading my thoughts.
My heart feels like a square wheel trying to turn as I try to keep his stare. So many conflicting emotions work to be heard, each eclipsing the last. Hope, fear, denial, and regret steep together. “Does it change things?”
Lincoln’s fingers fall flush against my waist. “Let’s just say your perfume has stained more than my pillow at this point.”
I stare at him, hearing his words, and for some reason, the leading emotion is sadness as his face blurs from a thin layer of tears I work to blink back. “I don’t want us to get into a burning car.”
“That’s good. I don’t want that either. But just for the record, are we talking literally or philosophically at this point, because mine was intended to be both.”
“You have so much going on with football, and Pax is your best friend, and you’re going to leave soon, and I can’t even figure you out most of the time. You like me, you don’t like me, you might like me, you avoid me. And now with my dad and my mom and—”
“I know I’ve fucked up.” His fingers knead into my waist as he nods, his jaw flexing. “I have. I can’t make excuses. You’re different—everything feels different. With other girls, I’ve never worried about what they think of me, what they need, or what they want. I was a selfish bastard because it scares the hell out of me to let someone in. But, with you, it matters. Everything matters. My mom ruined my dad. They’ve been divorced for fifteen years, and he’s still in love with her. Five failed marriages later, and he doesn’t give a shit because he’s only loved one person, and these weddings are charades—an attempt to forget the love and anger he still holds. And I worry about that, I worry about that with you because I know you’d ruin me.”
“That doesn’t scare you now?”
“It scares me more to be away from you. To possibly lose you.” His fingers slip from my waist, weaving with my fingers.
My fears become an infection, spreading faster than I can stop them, the rules and reasons I had committed to for avoiding Lincoln are each still valid, exacerbated by my dad’s actions.
Lincoln’s dark eyes drift open, his lips pressing into a firm line before his fingers squeeze mine. “I’m not him, Rae. I’m not your dad, and I’m not my dad. And you aren’t either. Don’t let their demons define us.”
“I’m afraid they live inside of us, and we won’t be able to prevent them.”
He shakes his head. “Astra indlinant, sed non obligant.” He repeats the words from his tattoo, of freewill and choices, and the hope he lights in my chest has me squeezing his hand even tighter.
“I should go sleep on the couch. This isn’t the way Pax should find out.”
Lincoln shakes his head. “He’s at Candace’s. He’s been sleeping there for a week now.”
“Candace? What? When did that happen?”
“Around Halloween.”
I sigh, a new wave of disappointment hitting me for having been absent and distant from my brother. “Arlo and Caleb will tell him.”
“Arlo has been staying with a girl named Kelsey, and Caleb is like you and doesn’t wake up until noon.” He leans up, propping his weight on his elbow as he pulls the covers higher. “Stay here, Rae, and stain it all. Stain everything.”
Logically, I know I should go. Distance and space will be our only salvation when this ends. Right now, we’re attempting to tether our fears with lust, and it’s driving us together—leading me to question everything and the validity of it all. It also makes us both want to hold on tighter. Perhaps it goes back to expectations and control: as much as we loathe them, without them, neither of us knows how to operate fully.
The feeling of him wanting me here lures me in, but it’s the way his hand finds my waist, sliding under the tee I’d put on that has me staying. It’s the weight and steadiness of his grip that makes me never want to leave.
His eyes slowly open again as I’m studying his features, the darkness contouring each perfect plane and line. “I can’t promise this will be easy or that I will always be rational because you have the ability to undo everything inside of me with just a single glance, but we’ll figure this out.”
“I’m worried you’re going to regret having me here once the sun rises.”
Lincoln tags me around the waist with both hands, hauling me closer with a quick jerk. “There’s a lot that I regret between us, but none of those regrets involve being with you or talking with you or spending time with you. They revolve around my inability to get past the fears you’ll be like my mom or that I’ll lose my best friend.”
“Are you still worried about that? About Pax?”
His breath fans my cheek. “I think he will want us to be happy.”
“What about your mom?”
Lincoln blinks slowly, sorting through words and feelings I wish I had access to. “She tried to make things work. She tried telling him she wasn’t happy. The problem was he never listened. My problem is, I never stop listening. When you talk about something, it’s hard for me not to react to it—to want to fix it. I had to avoid being around you because my impulse was always to act.” He nuzzles closer to me, kissing my lips, and then my cheek, and then my jaw. “You make me want to fix the whole damn world.”
Kisses fan my shoulder, waking me up, though it’s two hours before I need to be up. “I have to go to practice. Your car’s going to be here by ten. You want me to take you to Poppy’s?” Lincoln’s voice is low and smooth like velvet on my skin.
I blink against the bright closet light and the opened window shade. “I need to get ready.” My own voice is husky and choppy.
“I’m in no hurry.”
“I’ll just call Poppy. I need to arrange for my car to get fixed.”
His lips fall against my cheek. “It’s going to be here by ten.”
I focus on his brown eyes, his still-damp hair. He looks like a daydream. “What do you mean?”
“I know somebody who works on cars. They’re going to change the tires and bring it by.”
“Is this you fixing stuff?”
He grins, but it teeters too close to a frown. “We need to discuss the letters.”
I sigh a bit too heavily. I don’t mean to sound annoyed or ungrateful, I just hate the idea of allowing something to tarnish this small piece of perfection we’re huddled together on. “My dad’s sister is a cop. If I tell anyone, she’ll find out, and then my dad will find out, and I really don’t want to deal with all of that right now.”
“You said the letters sounded sad?”
“They did. It honestly felt like I was this person’s diary for a few weeks.”
“Have you noticed any trends?”
“Like when I receive them?” I ask.
He nods. “Or who you’re with, where you’re at.”
I shake my head, pulling the covers a bit higher. “I thought it might be a girl who liked Derek since I started receiving them the first night I met him. But I don’t know. Nothing about it makes sense, but I still think it’s a she and not a he.”