Chapter Twenty

“Okay, Mopey Melvin.” Marie slid a cappuccino in front of Lincoln. “Time to fess up.”

He glanced up from his computer, where he’d been working on finding a bug in the code he’d been assigned.

“Mopey Melvin?” He raised a brow. “Is that even a saying?”

The small woman shrugged. Pulling out the chair across from him, she sat. It was just after three in the afternoon on a Wednesday, and he was the only person in the shop except for the owners. A week and five days since the wedding, a week and four days since the amazing snowed-in day he shared with Lilly, and a week exactly since she accused him of living in the past and told him to figure his shit out. Not in those exact words, but the sentiment had been implied.

And here he was. A week later. With not a damn thing figured out.

“Why aren’t you at work?” Marie asked.

He pointed to the computer in front of him. “I am. I’m working remotely this week. They’re painting the fourth floor. All the devs are working from home.”

Or a coffee shop, in his case. He hated to admit it, but his basement apartment had felt cold and lonely the past few days. Ridiculous, because there’d only ever been him living there. How could he miss a woman he’d never even had a relationship with? She’d never stepped foot inside his place. He shouldn’t miss her while sitting on the barstools in his tiny kitchen. He shouldn’t lament not hearing her laughter as he sat alone on his leather couch, watching some stupid TV show. He shouldn’t ache to hold her in the darkness of night as he tossed and turned on his large queen-size bed, wishing she was there with him so he could kiss every inch of—

Okay, maybe the bed part made sense, but the rest didn’t.

Why was Lilly in his mind twenty-four seven when they’d never even gone on a proper date?

Because I’m in love with her.

Damn! He’d promised himself he wouldn’t go down that road again. Dating? Cool. Fun relationship? No problem. But serious love-type emotions? He wasn’t doing that again.

“Okay.” Marie tilted her head, silky, short black hair sliding over her cheek.

She pushed it back behind her ear with a single finger, the move reminding him of how Lilly always used a single finger to push her glasses up her nose. Dammit. Why did everything remind him of that woman? Even his best friend, whom he’d known a hell of a lot longer than Lilly.

“That answers question number two, but what about question number one? What’s with the ’tude?”

“I don’t have a ’tude.”

“Kenneth!” Marie called over her shoulder.

From behind the counter, where he stood cleaning some weird piece of coffee equipment, Kenneth shrugged. “You got a ’tude, dude. Noticed it the second we got home from the honeymoon.”

“What happened with her?”

He stared at Marie, conjuring up his best confused expression as he asked, “What happened with whom?”

His friend, wise to his bullshit, rolled her dark eyes. “Lilly.”

Dammit.

“Why would you think anything happened with Lilly?”

“Oh please.” Marie laughed. “You always smiled, big and bright, whenever you were around her. A real smile, not that fake toothy monstrosity you’ve been putting on for the past year. The sprinklers almost erupted due to the fireworks you two had during the dance class. Any time the woman’s name is even mentioned, you get all puppy dog eyes.”

He scowled. “I do not get puppy dog eyes. I don’t even know what that means.”

“It means you like her, dumbass. Maybe even more than like her.”

“Hey!” He leaned to the side to call out to Kenneth. “Your wife just called me a dumbass.”

“You are a dumbass,” his buddy replied.

Marie nodded. “Especially if you let a great woman like Lilly slip away from you.”

She wasn’t slipping away. He’d pushed her away. And didn’t that just make the entire situation even worse? Here he was, a divorcé who didn’t believe in love, but did believe in commitment, but didn’t want to commit his heart to anyone again. His logic was so screwed up he could barely follow it.

“Come on, Kenneth,” he pleaded with his friend. “I thought you were against the whole Lilly-and-me thing?”

Kenneth rubbed the back of his neck, a slight grimace on his face. “Yeah, I’ll admit I might have been thinking a little selfishly at the time. Ya know, didn’t want you and our wedding planner messing around to screw up our day, but Lilly is great, man. Like, really great. I still can’t believe the miracle she pulled off at the wedding. I thought the snow was going to ruin everything for sure. But she found a way to save everything. A woman who cares that much about other people’s happiness is a keeper.”

“You know what?” He closed his laptop. “I don’t think I want to have this conversation right now.”

He started to rise from his chair, but a hard glance and a finger point from Marie caused him to retake his seat.

“Too damn bad, Reid, because we’re having it.”

He placed his laptop in his bag, reaching for his coffee as he focused on his friend. “Okay. Say your piece, Marie.”

“Thank you. I will.” She cleared her throat, placing her hands on the table, one folded on top of the other. “Lincoln, you know how much Kenneth and I love you.”

He did. They were the three amigos. Best friends through thick and thin.

“So,” she continued, “it not only hurt you when Jessa cheated. It hurt us, too.”

His jaw clenched at the mention of his ex and her infidelity, but he let his friend go on.

“Watching the pain and doubt you went through killed us. I wanted to find that bitch and rip her hair out strand by strand for what she did, but Kenneth wouldn’t let me.”

“You would have gone to jail, honey,” Kenneth called from the counter. “Lincoln wouldn’t have let you risk yourself like that, either.”

Damn right he wouldn’t. He loved his friends’ loyalty, but he didn’t need them to fight his battles. His lawyer had taken care of that when she made sure Lincoln didn’t pay any alimony to his unfaithful ex.

“The point is, we hurt for you. And we were angry at Jessa for what she did. But when she left your life, she left ours, and eventually the anger faded. I know it’s harder for you because you were the one who was in the actual marriage.”

“I’m trying to get over it.” He shrugged.

“Are you?” Her brow furrowed. “You haven’t really dated anyone since Jessa. You haven’t even been interested in another person. Not until Lilly.”

Shit. That was true. He hadn’t wanted anyone after his divorce. Not until he’d caught the eyes of a beautiful brown-haired goddess at the hotel bar. Talked with her, laughed with her, made exciting, passionate love with her. To tell the truth, he’d been hooked on Lilly since night one. The morning he woke up to find her gone—no note, no last name, no number, no way of contacting her—he’d had a small ache in his chest. A whisper of lost opportunity, missed fate.

Then, when he saw her again in the meeting for Marie and Kenneth’s wedding and he realized he would get to spend more time with her, the ache disappeared, only to be replaced with desire, longing, a single-minded determination to not waste the second chance fate had given him.

But then he’d gone and screwed it all up. And he wasn’t sure how to fix it.

“I—” He cleared his throat when his voice cracked, emotions rising to the surface. “I don’t know if I can do this again.”

Marie tilted her head in confusion. “Do what?”

He remained silent for a moment, weighing the outcome of making his confession out loud. If he kept it in, he could go on ignoring it. Pretend it didn’t exist and go back to his status quo. His life was perfectly satisfactory before Lilly came into it. He was certain he could live a long and relatively happy life going back to the way things were.

But he couldn’t. Not really. And he knew it. You didn’t go back into a dark cave once you saw the brilliance of the warm, bright sunshine. You didn’t go back to butter on toast once you had the rich, velvety taste of cream cheese on a soft bagel. And he couldn’t go back to his pleasant, easy life now that he knew the opulent vibrancy Lilly brought to his humble existence.

Blowing out a weary sigh, he looked his friend in the eyes and admitted the truth. “I don’t know if I can take a risk on love again.”

“Oh, sweetie. We all take a risk on love. All the time.” Marie placed a hand on his. She glanced over her shoulder. “Kenneth and I know that every day we get is a gift. My cancer could come back at any moment and rip us away from each other.”

“No.” He shook his head. “You’re fine. You’ve been in remission for over a year. It’s gone now.”

She smiled. A soft, sad tilt of her lips. “You’re very sweet, but we both know that’s not how it works.”

“Life’s a bitch, man.”

He glanced up at Kenneth’s words. The other man had come out from behind the counter at some point in the conversation Lincoln was having with his wife and made his way over to the table. Now he stood behind Marie, a supportive hand on her shoulder, but his attention was focused on Lincoln, expression serious.

“Don’t think Marie and I haven’t talked about what we would do if her cancer came back. We have. It’s a possibility, but it’s not a reality—at least not right now. And you have to live in the now. If you live in the land of possibility, always worrying about what might happen, who could get hurt, then you aren’t really living at all.”

“Thanks, Dr. Phil.”

“Hey.” Kenneth held his hands up. “I admitted I was wary of you and Lilly hooking up at first. And it wasn’t just the wedding stuff. You two really don’t seem to have a lot in common, and I didn’t want you to get hurt again, but then I saw the way you look at her. The way she looks at you. I know what that look means, Lincoln. I’m living it.”

He leaned down to kiss his wife on the forehead. “Also, my very intelligent wife explained to me that it’s your life and if you don’t start facing your fears and living it, you’re going to regret what you could have had.”

Marie reached up to squeeze her husband’s hand. “Believe me, I know. I almost made the same mistake.”

He wanted to be flippant. Ignore the harsh truths his best friends were dishing out and push everything way down deep like he’d been doing for the past two years. But they had a point. Ever since he and Jessa split up, he hadn’t been living in the now. Sure, he’d moved on, moved out of their house into an apartment, eventually moved states and jobs, even convinced himself he could start dating again. But all of it had been surface-level stuff. All things to show he’d moved on when he really hadn’t.

He didn’t love his ex anymore. She’d destroyed their love with her betrayal. Maybe he had been too boring or whatever, but she could have come to him. Told him what she was feeling—hell, even asked for a divorce before stepping out on him. But she hadn’t. She hadn’t shared any of what she’d been feeling.

Lilly shared. She was the most honest person he’d ever met. The woman was fascinating, a dichotomy of buttoned-up civility and uninhibited passion. She commanded a room with a single look but held a world of compassion with nothing but a touch. She didn’t take any shit, but she cared, deeply, for those around her. Honestly, she intimidated him a little. And he loved it. He loved her.

“Say that again?” Ken asked, letting Lincoln know he’d spoken his last thought out loud.

“I love her. Lilly.” He shook his head. Finally saying it out loud astounded him even as it warmed the dark part of his heart he thought long dead. “I love Lilly.”

“Hell, man. We know that. Anyone within five feet of you two knows that.”

Marie laughed softly. “Yup. Even her friends want you two back together.”

His eyes widened with shock, a small smile ticking up the corner of his mouth. “They do?”

“Yeah.” Marie smiled. “Mo called me yesterday asking if she could bring some brownies over to the shop for you sometime this week.”

His smile dropped, remembering Mo’s earlier threat. “Do not eat those brownies!”

Marie reeled back at his fervent demand. “She hasn’t brought them by yet. Why? Is she a bad cook?”

He had no idea, but knowing how close Lilly was to her friends—something they had in common—he was sure she’d told them all about his jackassery over the wedding weekend. He’d bet all the terabytes in the world Mo was making him the kind of brownies that would have him staking out in his bathroom for an entire week.

Oh boy, he had some serious groveling to do.

A thought occurred to him, and a smile curved his lips. “Hey, can you two help me with something?”

Marie crossed her arms. “Depends on what it is.”

“Is it a plan to win back Lilly for whatever asinine thing you did to piss her off?” Kenneth asked, absently massaging his wife’s shoulders.

He stared at his friends, at the love they shared. They’d faced one of the absolute worst things life could throw at a relationship. Marie stared death in the face and told it to fuck off. Okay, she didn’t, because his sweet friend would never use that kind of language, but she did kick cancer’s ass. She also opened her heart to Kenneth, allowed him to take some of her load. Trusted him to be by her side no matter what the future brought. She placed her faith in the person she loved, and Lincoln wanted to do the same with Lilly.

If she’d still have him.

Good thing he had a kick-ass plan to help with that.

“Yes,” he answered. “I have a plan.”

“It better involve a lot of groveling,” Kenneth leaned over to not-so-silently whisper. “Women like it when you grovel.”

Marie elbowed her husband in the stomach. “We like it when you boneheads admit you’re wrong. The groveling is simply a perk.”

Kenneth leaned down to kiss his wife’s cheek.

“There will be groveling,” he assured them. “And a present.”

“Everybody likes presents,” Marie pointed out while Kenneth nodded. “How can we help?”

He had the best friends in the whole wide world. They were there for him when he needed support or a swift kick in the ass. How the hell did he get so lucky?

Maybe life would smile a bit more on him and allow him to win back the heart of the woman he knew owned his.

“Okay, here’s what I need.”

Lincoln laid out his idea while his friends listened avidly, nodding here and there, assuring him they could help secure the item he needed. When a customer came in, Kenneth moved behind the counter to take their order while Marie headed to the back to catch up on some paperwork. Knowing he needed to finish up his workday, Lincoln pulled out his computer again, but while his fingers worked code, his mind whirled with all the possibilities before him.

Lilly could say no to anything further happening between them. She could think he wasn’t worth the trouble or find his apology lacking. Or she could say yes, and they could start something amazing, which would either last a lifetime or burn out, leaving them both scarred. All the possibilities terrified him, but if he didn’t at least try, then he’d just be stuck where he was. Going through life without really living, without passion, without aiming for true happiness.

He had to try. And if he failed…at least he wouldn’t be left wondering.