I swallow hard. Accepting praise has never been a strong suit. “I know. It’s been an adjustment having someone other than Ramona love me unconditionally.” No one is being paid to care for me or watch over me. This is pure, unfiltered adoration. Not unlike what Rexy felt for me, but with Lincoln, I’m untethered in a way I’ve never been before. I gave him all I have left. It’s his to do with what he pleases. “I can’t wait to marry you, Lincoln.” I lay a hand on his chest. His heart pounds against my palm. “I’ll always be on your six.”
His grin is beatific. “What if I’d rather have you at my three? By my side instead of covering my back?”
Reaching as high as I can on tippy-toes, I clasp my arms around his neck and hug him. “What if I can be both at the same time?” I ask, pressing my mouth against his pec. “I want to be both.”
“You can be one through twelve, Maeve. Whatever you want. It’s yours.” He kisses me, twirls the lighthouse necklace fondly, then gets into the steamy shower.
My phone pings from the other room and I decide to give him a head start before I join him. I grab a towel off the stainless-steel warming rack and wrap it around my body like a cape before I set off to find my phone. I hope Ramona is okay. I hope Chonk is okay with Aspen. I can’t help but worry, even in my state of elation. I’ve finally found what I’ve been searching for my entire life. I pick up my phone, open my text messages, and nearly drop it when I see the first line of the note from an unknown number.
We have a deal. You’ll know when we’ve come for you.
When Lincoln told me he didn’t actually speak to Rena on the phone, it was a mailed letter, I thought something like this might happen. Sure, she was ready to apologize and play nice when she mailed it, but that was before she spoke to Rufio and knew what was on the table. Given my head on a platter proved to be too much of a lure to stay true to whatever promise she made Lincoln.
I read the two sentences over and over before deleting it completely from my phone. I should have known that this life with Lincoln would be too good to be true and not something an orphan with a murderous bloodline deserves. I’m getting exactly what I expected. I just hate myself for saying yes to Lincoln before I got this message. There’s no time machine to go back and change my answer, nor is there any way around this that won’t break his heart. If I’m going to have his back, I need to do everything in my power to keep this from him.
After I compose myself, I head back to the bathroom, hang the towel on the rack, and open the shower door to join Lincoln. Pretending nothing is wrong is easy. It’s how I survived childhood. I’ve never had to pretend in front of someone who knows me as well as Lincoln, though. Instead of giving him a reason to question me, I throw myself into his arms and ask for more. There’s no thought other than he’s giving the person he loves what she wants.
Lincoln picks me up and presses me against the shower wall, sinking into me, his forehead pressed against mine. With his eyes closed, he thrusts his hips, the water slapping between our bodies. The hot water cascades over us from two showerheads, and it washes away the tears sliding down my cheeks. It wasn’t supposed to be this way, but it can’t be any other way.
Chapter 9
Lincoln
I still can’t believe how easily Maeve agreed to move in with me. She walks through my front door carrying a tub marked kitchen. When I asked what she thought about staying a little at her house and a little at mine, she wouldn’t have it. She said, “Nope, Turner needs one home. We can keep my house for weekends or rent it out or something.” I peck the side of her head as she shifts past me. Wearing a smile and humming a song, there’s no arguing Maeve is happy. It’s just that, I don’t think it should be this easy for her to move out of her dream house and into the suburbs. Even I recognize my neighborhood for what it is. A great school district with cookie-cutter houses and neighbors who don’t mind their own business.
Isaac shuffles in holding a long rectangular box. Her clothes. “Closet,” I tell him. To Maeve, I call, “Your clothes are here. I made space on the right-hand side.” Looking at the two wardrobe boxes sitting on the front porch, I realize the space I cleared isn’t going to be big enough for a fraction of her clothes. “Uh, yeah, I’ll clear out the office closet and put my stuff in there,” I say, deciding on the best course of action on the spot.
“I’ll take the office closet,” she counters, coming to stand next to me. “No need to shift everything around, plus that one is bigger and has space for my shoes. Those are still in the moving truck.” Her smile is cheeky. “There are more shoes than there are clothes.” Going up on her tiptoes, she kisses me square on the mouth.
“Get a room. Wait, don’t do that, help me unload this truck, Linc. I’m working for a case of beer here.” I didn’t trust anyone in my house or with her stuff, given the circumstances surrounding us of late, so I only wanted help from those closest to me. Aspen and Ramona are helping, too, but Maeve says they’re goalies, and will help unpack at the end instead of unload now.
“I got the rest. Go take a look at the closet in the office and see what you need to move. Isaac and I will handle the rest.”
Maeve adjusts her flannel shirt and nods once. She thanks Isaac for the hundredth time and heads down the hall to the office. My parents came to visit and took Turner out for the day. They were going ice skating and to the toy store. It wasn’t the best timing, but I’m grateful Turner has something to do today as he’d be bored to tears. To say he was excited about Maeve moving in and us getting married is the understatement of the year. I let Maeve tell him, and instead of merely telling him, she gave him a little leather bracelet with a gold plaque on the top. It has all of our initials engraved. Turner hasn’t taken it off since.
“Her house is down to bare bones,” Isaac says, following me back out to the moving truck. She left most of her furniture and big stuff. “What are you guys going to do with the place?”
I shrug. “It’s strange she’d give it up so easily. She doesn’t want to sell it; I know that much.”
“You really don’t get it? Stavros bled out in her living room. You were shot in front of her eyes by a twin she didn’t know she had. You’re questioning her reasons for wanting to get out of that house?”
I narrow my eyes as I lift a heavy box labeled shoes. “I thought about that, but she was fine directly after it happened. She said it didn’t bother her.”
“She told a man recovering from being shot that she was fine, wow, that’s really surprising. Maeve cares about you, man. She’s not going to worry you with that when you were being such an enormous baby.”
“Fuck off. I wasn’t being a baby. I have never been so bored in my entire life.” My shoulder twinges as I set the box down in the entrance of my house and slide it so it’s out of Isaac’s way. “Maybe you’re right,” I admit.
“I’m right. This is Turner’s home. I don’t think for a woman like Maeve there was any question.”
I furrow my brow. “What do you mean, a woman like Maeve?”
He looks down and away from me as he drops his box and heads back out into the temperate winter day. “That came out wrong. She’s all in, in all ways. With you and your son. I can’t see her making concessions on anything.”
I swallow hard. That stings. “I don’t want her to be the one making all the concessions. How do I fix that? This is all new territory for me.”
“For starters, let her do whatever the hell she wants to the décor. Women are particular about that.” Even as he says it, I know she won’t want to change anything about my house. “Then you let her set the new parameters in living together. If she needs her space in the morning, you give it. Or, if she wants to watch awful shit on TV, you pretend to like it. Trust me on this.”
I nod as he tells me tricks he uses with Tasha.