Lincoln
I’d drivento my small apartment on base and hadn’t stepped out of my car.
I was simply sitting there.
Staring out at the building in front of me. But I wasn’t looking at the beige walls and slightly darker doors. No. All I could see was Joy.
Joy and her pretty face.
Joy and the disappointed look she’d given me when I’d turned down her offer to come inside. Fuck. I rested my head on the steering wheel and shut my eyes, and Boom! There she was. Curvy and warm, her soft floral scent lingering at the forefront of my mind and just barely in the interior of my car.
Fuck! If I could bottle up her scent, I’d be a billionaire.
I’d tried to be a gentleman.
I knew exactly what would have happened if I’d stepped foot into her place. I hadn’t wanted to risk it. But did I tell her that? No! Because I didn’t know how to tell her how I felt. Fuck! How could I be thirty-six and so damn emotionally stunted?
My phone rang, and I smirked. Speaking of emotionally stunted. My brother. Chuck. I’d let his calls go to voice mail the last couple of weeks, but something came over me. I answered it.
“Hey,” I muttered, resting the back of my head on the headrest.
“Hey. How are you?” There was an edge to Chuck’s voice.
“Fine, you?” I muttered like nothing had happened. Like I hadn’t been laid up in a hospital the last couple of months because Chuck didn’t need to know that. I’d mention it in passing next time we saw one another because there was no hiding the scarred-up skin down my chest.
“I’m…” He paused, and his hesitation caught my attention.
“What’s wrong?”
“Wrong? Nothing, man, I just… Look, I heard you were in the hospital,” he blurted out. I sighed. Guess there was no mentioning it in passing anymore.
“I was.”
“Jesus, Linc!” he exclaimed. I winced, feeling like an ass. “You couldn’t call?” The concern in his voice was clear as day, and I felt like a bigger asshole than I already had .
“I didn’t wanna worry you. I’m fine.”
“You’re fine? You didn’t wanna…” I heard his sharp intake of air like he used to do when I would get on his nerves. Probably counting to ten in his head to find a reserve of patience for his little brother. “You’re my family, Linc.”
“I know,” I softly agreed as I sat back in the driver’s seat. I wasn’t going to argue like I usually did. I knew I’d fucked up.
“You’re the only family I got left,” he strained. I swallowed hard.
“I just… I’m on R&R. Maybe I will head home for a couple of days,” I tossed out an olive branch hoping it would work because I didn’t want to argue with my big brother. Not right now. Not after obviously fucking up.
“That would be good.” He sighed and then cleared his throat. “Maybe you can come up and meet your future sister-in-law.”, he added quietly.
Silence fell between us.
Chuck was a great guy. Solid, salt of the earth. But he had been like me. He didn’t do long term or commitments. And now he was saying he was getting hitched? Just like that?
“You’re getting… married?” I asked, my stomach heavy. With what I wasn’t sure.
“Yeah, man. You remember Suri, Angelo’s sister?”
“Little sister!” I laughed.
“Linc,” my brother warned, and I sat there trying to process it.