Page 70 of The Best Man Problem
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.
