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She was grinning when she said it, but he was still pacing. “No! It’s not that. You’re going to be pissed. Not upset. I know you are.”
“I’m starting to feel that way now because you’re not getting to the point. Spit it out, Lincoln. It’s not like you.”
“I should have talked to you earlier in the week, but you’ve been working and I wasn’t sure if anything would come of it. I let Egan know right away and then Hailey was at the airstrip and she told me she was taking care of it. I figured it was fine. I guess I was wrong.”
“Hailey?” she asked. “If my cousin is involved it’s a legal matter. Did you break the law or something?”
“No,” he said. “Nothing like that. Come sit down.”
He guided her to the living room and sat in the chair across from her. “If it’s not a legal matter then why is Hailey involved?”
“Let me start at the beginning. Or at least go back in time. You’ve slipped in comments before about me saying I’ve been burned in the past.”
“I have,” she said. “And you never talk about it. I was frustrated with it before, but I figured when you were ready you’d let me know if it mattered. I guess I started to assume it didn’t and that is my mistake.”
“Honestly, I’m not sure I’d ever be ready and didn’t want to say anything now, but I don’t have a choice.”
She held back grinding her teeth over his statement. That he didn’t want toevertell her. “Tell me now.”
“When I was in high school I was dating this girl, Lara. She was way out of my league, but she had approached me.”
“Okay. We’ve all had bad experiences in high school. More so with dating.”
“This is different. It was different. She came from money. Her mother’s father had it. Her grandfather had some business and her father worked there. Lara’s parents were strict with her. Or so she said.”
“You didn’t think so?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Looking back, they might have been more so than my parents, but I don’t think they were outrageous. She was a girl. Their only child. They spoiled and sheltered her. When they started to give her some more freedom around sixteen she rebelled. She didn’t like being home at curfew, she’d talk back. She wanted to move away. I was her first.”
Grace was trying to absorb all of this as he rapidly fired facts at her. “Some people hold onto their first. That it’s special or something. I can’t say mine was. I remember it not being horrible or anything, just a fact of life.”
“She wasn’t my first, but I loved her. She loved me. She could be jealous of the girls that talked to me. She had a temper. But I didn’t mind so much. I was flattered. I guess it went to my head.”
All she heard was that Lincoln loved this girl. The one he was telling her about that burned him.
Someone who seemed somewhat like her.
Had money.
Showed a bit of jealousy.
Had a temper.
This wasn’t going well in her eyes.
“That is probably normal for most teenage boys.”
“Her parents hated me. I wasn’t good enough for Lara. They didn’t like her spending time with me. They felt like all her rebelling was because of me. They had no idea Lara didn’t plan on going to college and was going to move with me.”
“Didn’t you say you’d have to be married for her to live with you in the service?” she asked.
“That was the plan,” he said. “My parents knew it. I had no problem with it. But I didn’t like that she wouldn’t tell her parents. It didn’t feel right to me. Here her parents were planning this life for her in college. She was leading them on that she was going and then she said maybe she’d go one year while I was in training, then drop out to be with me when I was stationed.”
“I don’t think I could do that to my parents,” she said. “Whether money was an issue or not. Did she go and then decide she wanted a different life? Is that why you felt burned?”
Maybe he was led to believe one thing and Lara just ghosted out of his life.
“No,” he said. “I thought that would happen. I almost expected it. I planned on being with her. Protecting her from her parents whom she didn’t like all that much. Deep down I knew it was fabricated, but love clouds things, especially when you’re a teenager.”
