“I don’t think they think I intentionally break things off with women.”
“They think you just rush into things.”
“Yeah. And they know you feel things deeply. If I rushed into this with you without thinking, then you had feelings, then I changed my mind, you’d be hurt. Deeply. And they’d be pissed about that.”
“Did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Did you rush into this? Have you stopped to think it through?”
“No, I didn’t rush into this. I’ve done little else but think about it, analyze it, come to grips with what is happening here. And that is something real. Something lasting.”
“Good. Because you’re not wrong.”
“About what?”
“About me feeling things deeply,” I admitted. “I’m feeling this, Lincoln.”
“I’m feeling it too,” he admitted.
It wasn’t a declaration of love. I wasn’t expecting one. It wasn’t time yet. He was deeper than I had ever realized, but he was not the wishy-washy kind of person I was, the kind of person who–with one deep look–could see the future generations our bond would create.
He would get there.
In time.
And I, well, had nothing but time now.
“That’s good. Because we have to have Aunt Cat over to dinner sometime soon. She’s not afraid of carbs, is she?” I asked, mentally flipping through all my best recipes, trying to figure out which would be the most pleasing.
“Nope. She would go crazy for your homemade bread.”
“I can make my own homemade rosemary butter.”
“You make butter?”
“I mean, I don’t go to the tap and milk the cow, but I have been known to churn butter once in a blue moon. For special occasions. Kai demands I make it for Thanksgiving since he joined the family. It’s amazing.”
“You know… I think you should make it once before our dinner with Aunt Cat. Just to make sure you have perfected it and everything.”
“Yes,” I agreed, lips curling up, “that would probably be wise. And I should probably make some fresh bread to go with it.”
“I mean, we want to make sure you haven’t lost your touch with that either.”
“That’s true. It is a real possibility. Just to make sure, I think it would be smart to maybe make some spinach and ricotta ravioli to go with it as well.”
“From scratch?”
“Is there any other way?” I asked, resting back down on his chest.
I liked that his love language was food, that there was no guesswork in the quickest way to pick up his mood, to make him feel warm and appreciated and loved.
Because I liked to show my love by taking care of those around me. Very little made me feel better than to see someone eating food I had prepared them, watching how the joy of good food could wipe away even the roughest of days, could reset their mood.
“Gem?” Lincoln said a while later, long enough that I figured the epic sex session had caught up to him, dragging him off to unconsciousness.
“Yeah?”
“I’m really fucking glad you came back into my life.”
It took the worst period of my life to do it.
And yet…
“So am I.”
Whatever Lincoln was about to say was cut short by the sound a knock on the door.
“You two might want to get dressed and fix your sex hair,” Bellamy called, making us both spring apart immediately. “Daddy Quin is on his way up. Seems he wants to talk to you guys about the next step with Blairtown Chem.”
Somehow–and I was inclined to blame his military training–Lincoln was fully dressed while I was still trying to find my arm holes in my shirt.
“Take your time. I will tell them you were taking a nap. I will meet you out there,” he assured me, pressing a quick kiss to my temple then throwing himself out into the hall.
From the sound of things, just in time to greet Quin.
I went ahead and changed my clothes, threw my hair into a ponytail, checked myself over for any visible love marks, then I walked out to hear about my future.
ELEVEN
Lincoln
“Hey, babe. Come sit,” Quin demanded, waving toward the couch, choosing to stand himself.
I didn’t like his tone.
It sounded tired, maybe a little defeated.
Anyone who knew Quin knew that tired and defeated was not what you wanted to hear from him.
“To put it plainly, your boss is a lazy ass,” Nia supplied, throwing herself down onto a chair. “I have sent out dozens of emails to him. Clickbait ones and official-looking ones. He hasn’t opened a single one of them, let alone clicked on one of the links so I could get into his computers or even his cell.”
“That makes sense,” Gemma agreed, pulling her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her knees. “Most of his emails filtered through me. When I first started there, one of my tasks was to clear out his emails. There were seventeen-thousand of them. It hadn’t even been that long since he’d had an assistant, so that goes to show how negligent he is with his emails.”