Capture, Page 39

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Dani

  He wasn't coming.

  It's not like he specified a time to shimmy up my drainpipe, but I assumed it would be before midnight. It was already 12:05. With a sigh, I shifted to turn off my lamp when a small stone clattered against my window. Giddy, I jumped out of bed, hurried over to my window, and pulled it open.

  There he stood, looking up at my window, face sexy and gleaming in the moonlight. Be still my heart, my pulse, my body… Heck, be still everything. He was so gorgeous it was unfair. "Hey, Romeo." I laughed. "What brings you by my window so late?"

  "I was hoping to get lucky." Linc winked.

  I started to close my window.

  "Joke!" he yelled. "It was a joke!"

  I popped my head out and crooked my finger. "Aren't you going to climb up?"

  Linc was wearing a hooded black sweatshirt; he pulled the hood over his face and shoved his hands into his pockets. "Actually, I was hoping you'd come down."

  "It's midnight!"

  "Actually…" He checked his watch. "… it's nearing 12:08, but who's keeping track?"

  I was. Embarrassingly enough. "Why do I need to come down there? In the cold?"

  "I built a fire."

  "You're from LA, so when you say you built a fire, you have to understand that I assume you hired someone to dig you a hole, throw firewood in it, and light a match."

  "I'm a guy. Playing with matches is basically right up there with discovering your hand can make the shape of a gun."

  He had a point there.

  "So?" He held open his arms. "Don't leave me hanging. Plus, I have a surprise."

  "Really?"

  "You'll never know unless you come down."

  I chewed my lower lip. Jaymeson would kill me if I was caught out with Lincoln, especially since he'd warned me that very night to keep my distance, and when I asked why, he'd said, "Because I said so, that's why."

  It was literally like my father had possessed Jaymeson's body. He even used the dad voice and stomped off like it was my fault he was getting gray hair or something.

  "Fine," I called back. "Give me a few minutes."

  I threw on a pair of skinny jeans and a sweatshirt, pulled my hair back into a ponytail, and hid the blonde locks under a Yankees cap. I'd discovered how to sneak out the day I moved in; it wasn't hard. Each level had a balcony with stairs, so all I had to do was make it to the balcony, about a two-foot jump, and I was already running down the stairs and into Lincoln's arms.

  "Ooof!" He let out a curse as I tackle-hugged him. "Wasn't expecting you to pack such a punch."

  "Stronger than I look."

  He paused, cupping my face with his hands. "Yes, you really are."

  "So…" I cleared my throat so I wouldn't focus on the tender way he was looking at me, or the way my heart did cartwheels in my chest. "… where's my surprise?"

  "Follow me." He gripped my hand and led me down to the rocky cliffs that lined the beach. We carefully found the main trail as the sound from the ocean grew louder with each step.

  "This…" Lincoln stopped in front of a giant bonfire, complete with two lawn chairs, enough blankets to keep us warm during a blizzard, and what looked like snacks with a canister of either coffee or hot chocolate.

  I started toward camp, but he jerked me back. "Not so fast."

  "What? Why?"

  "We never celebrated, you know." His voice was barely above a whisper. The ocean threatened to drown him out. "You talking, you being able to talk instead of having to text everything. Nobody speaks about it. It's almost like you've been talking this whole time, but I feel moments like that deserve to be mentioned, they deserve to be celebrated. So tonight… we're celebrating."

  Tears welled in my eyes, because he'd found the one vulnerable spot that I'd pushed back into my subconscious, ignored, because paying attention to it freaked me out with worry that it would come back, only worse this time.

  "Thanks—" I held a sob in. "—for doing this."

  "And…" Linc dug into his pocket and pulled out a necklace. "… since milestones are supposed to be remembered, I had this made."

  It was a small gold-chained necklace with a little plate anchoring the front. On it was the date I started talking again.

  "I can't believe you did this." I grabbed the necklace; it was heavy in my hands. Holy crap, it had to be real gold. No guy had ever gotten me a present before. "It's beautiful."

  "Yeah well, I won it at the arcade downtown, and wouldn't you know? It was the exact date I was looking for." He winked. I loved that about him, his ability to make light of something that had been nothing but darkness for so long, it was hard to remember light had even existed in the first place. "Want me to help you put it on?"

  Nodding, I handed him the necklace and turned as he slowly fastened it then kissed my bare neck. "Perfect."

  He was perfect.

  Or pretty dang close.

  "So, what's on the menu?"

  "Oh that?" He pointed to the canister. "Alcohol, so I can get you drunk and have my way with you."

  I rolled my eyes.

  "Or…" He nodded. "… hot chocolate, though they were completely out of marshmallows at the store.

  I smiled to myself. "Yeah, I think I know why."

  "Good looking, I'll give him that…" Linc started pouring the hot chocolate out of the thermos and into two cups. "… but odd, don't you think?"

  "Eh, we all have our things. You have Skittles. He has marshmallows."

  "Having a candy obsession is completely normal," he said defensively.

  "It's all sugar. All weird." I took my mug from his hands and sipped. "Hmm, homemade?"

  "Yes, I slaved over a stove, boiled water, and added those little packets into the water, then stirred. Blood, sweat, and tears sweetheart."

  "It shows." I nodded seriously as I tried to keep the smile from my face.

  He held up his hand. "Paper cut to prove my worth."

  "Aw," I grabbed his outstretched hand and kissed it. "Better?"

  "Always." His eyes flashed, and I thought he was going to kiss me. Instead, he glanced back at the fire and dropped my hand. "So, how are things?"

  "Small talk?"

  "Yup." He sipped his hot chocolate.

  "Really?" I was a bit surprised he wasn't already kissing me and telling me all the reasons we shouldn't be together, yet making it impossible for us to be apart.

  "Friends have small talk… and friends that kiss… well, they need to fill the time with something other than kissing so that friends doesn't turn into something else before one or both are ready." It felt like he was saying that more for his own sake than mine.

  "I'm ready."

  "You're… not." He frowned, staring into the fire. "So, I'll ask again. How are things?"

  "Things are… good." I nodded, trying to play along. I'd always been bad with small talk, especially after the accident, when words were so much more than things you tossed into the cosmos just to hear yourself talk. Words held meaning; they held power.

  "You hesitated." When I looked up, Linc was staring right through me.

  I tucked my hair behind my ear. "Did I?"

  "I really want to know."

  I let out a huff of breath. "Things are fine, except when I go to sleep. Then, not so good." Just thinking of last night's nightmare of the accident had me shivering all over again. This time I was in the driver's seat, and it was my fault we hit the other truck head on.

  "How so?" He scooted closer to me, then, as if giving up, pulled me into his lap and covered us with a blanket.

  I cuddled into his chest, feeling more secure in his arms than I'd ever felt in Elliot's. "I go to bed happy that I've been talking all day, relieved that when the old lady at the crosswalk asked me what the time was, I didn't completely freak out and then, when I close my eyes, it's like I'm either experiencing the accident all over again or—" I gulped. "—I try to talk to you and fail, and you walk away."

  "If I was going to
walk away, I would have walked," Lincoln said simply. "I'm here. Right. Here." His arms braced me harder. "As for the no-talking thing, I think it's normal for you to have that fear. It makes sense to me. You literally just started talking again, and you're afraid that it's going to get ripped away from you, stolen."

  Just like my parents were.

  But I didn't voice that.

  He tensed beneath me as if reading my thoughts. Maybe with Linc I didn't need to voice things like that because he knew me well enough to know what was going through my head, which admittedly, sounded crazy considering it had only been around three weeks. But he was one of those people, the type that had such a magnetic, yet familiar, pull that you were powerless to stay a stranger for longer than twenty-four hours.

  "You'll never be able to move forward," he whispered, "until you stop looking behind you." His lips grazed my neck. "You know that, right?"

  "Is that life experience you're speaking from… or just wisdom because you're old?"

  His good-natured laughter vibrated against my back. "Just promise me you won't put me in a home for my twenty-second birthday…"

  "Dang it! I knew I should have hidden those brochures for Seaside Manor!"

  "Very funny." Linc kissed me softly down the right side of my neck; his lips lingered over my pulse. "And I'm speaking, from… experience."

  I tilted my head and glanced up at him, raising my eyebrows.

  "Why, Lincoln, what do you mean?" he said in a ridiculous falsetto that was meant to represent my voice. "Tell me your deepest, darkest secrets."

  I rolled my eyes.

  "You were thinking it. I was just voicing it for you." He smiled as I made myself more comfortable in his embrace while keeping his face in sight. "Sometimes it seems stupid to share my story, like it isn't tragic enough to be important to anyone but the nine-year-old kid who had to live through it, you know?"

  "Yeah." I played with the thread of the blanket, twisting it around my fingers until my circulation started to get cut off. "I still feel like that. I mean, my parents died, but at least I had parents."

  Linc grunted. "Some days, I wished my parents would get in an accident. At least one bad enough that my grandma would have to come take care of us, or better yet, we'd be able to go live with her." He looked disgusted with himself. "It's horrible, admitting that out loud. Confessing that my prayers at night were for my parents not to come home, while your prayers were for them to come home unharmed. Twisted in a really sick way."

  My body tensed; I couldn't help it. "Did they hurt you?"

  Linc's eyes didn't meet mine. He watched the fire as he spoke. Maybe the memories were too painful; maybe he was afraid that if I looked into his eyes I'd run or see too much. "Our skin wasn't marred by physical abuse. Our souls, well, that was an entirely different thing. It's sad when you break your kids so much on the inside that they wish you would just break them on the outside so they could at least explain to their teachers or other family members how bad it is. But as a kid, it's always your vote against the adults, and with no bruises, no scars… who's going to believe you? I can't even count how many times my parents would say that to us. 'Who's going to believe you?'"

  Feeling sick to my stomach, I almost didn't want to ask. But Linc kept talking, and for once, it was nice to hear about someone else's pain, not because it made mine hurt less, but because I was honored to share it with him. Pain recognizes pain, and his was suddenly so evident on his face that my heart threatened to break. Had I really been that blind? That wrapped up in myself that I no longer recognized when someone else was struggling? Better yet, when someone else was stuck in the same pit I was and trying desperately to claw his way out?

  "It wasn't bad at first. When I was little, they bought my love. As I grew older, I realized that having the latest in technology was a crappy substitute for a mom's hug. I can still remember asking her for a hug, the look on her face. Damn, I may as well have asked her for a pet alien. She laughed and told me only good boys get hugs. I asked her how I could be a good boy, a better boy, and you know what she said?"

  I shook my head.

  "Figure it out."

  I gasped.

  "I was five, and because money was such a big thing in our house, I figured that the best thing to do, to be a good boy, was to earn my keep. I started doing chores around the house, got a job delivering newspapers, and for my mom's birthday, I bought her the most expensive necklace I could find. I even convinced my sister to pool her money with mine so we could surprise her. The day of my mom's birthday, we ran into her room, so excited to give her the present, only to find our mom in bed with another man and another woman. My dad was away on business."

  I covered my face with my hands. "What did you do?"

  "Well, she yelled…" Linc flinched as though hearing it all over again. "… and told us to get the hell out, which we did. Later that morning, when she was finally sober enough to speak to us without yelling, we gave her the present, and she threw it in the trash." His voice shook. "My parents… are both, quite possibly, the most selfish human beings in the history of L.A., and that's saying a lot. If it hadn't been for my grandparents, I'd probably be just like them. As it is, my sister, well, she takes after my mom, while I'd like to think I favor my grandfather."

  "Linc…" My voice was heavy, emotional. "… I can't imagine a mother treating her son that way. I mean, why even have kids?"

  "Tax write-off?" he suggested in a joking tone. "I asked my grandmother that, and she said it was a competition thing. Having kids was about keeping up appearances, showing everyone how perfect and rich she was."

  "Linc, no offense, but your mother should be shot."

  "Ha." He lowered his head then looked at me out of the corner of his eyes. "Probably. Then again, she'd probably survive and somehow get a medal made in her honor for going through such a difficult trial. If anything, it would make her more popular in her circle of friends, and that's the last thing this world needs — for her selfishness to spread its ugly tentacles throughout society, choking the life out of more people by just being touched by her poison."

  I was silent.

  "Sorry." He swore. "That was uncalled for. No matter how horrible of a person she was or is, it's no excuse to put her down. That makes me just like her, and the last thing I want is to be associated with a monster."

  "Why acting?" I asked after a few minutes. "I mean, don't get me wrong. You're really good at it."

  "Remind me to sign your bra later," he joked.

  I smirked. "Well if I was wearing one…" I froze. Where had that come from?

  Lincoln's entire body went taut. "Are you trying to kill me?" Swearing, he adjusted me on his lap. "Play with fire long enough, Dani. Just remember I gave you fair warning."

  "Sorry."

  "No, you aren't," he growled, "but for your benefit, I'll just keep talking about myself so I don't think about you or the… bra situation." He cleared his throat. "So, acting…"

  "Yeah." I leaned back against his chest as he wrapped his arms tighter around my body. The heat from the fire was nothing compared to the heat emitting from him. It was enough to set me on fire — in the best way possible. I'd only ever read about this type of feeling or seen it on TV, and, quite honestly, I never thought I'd experience it in such a real way, but there I was, sitting on Lincoln Greene's lap in front of a roaring fire, dreaming about a future, thinking about a future for the first time in months. It felt so good; I wanted to live in that moment forever. As it was, I knew I would treasure it even longer.

  "My grandparents finally clued in to my parents' insanity, but they knew if they came down hard on my parents, they'd just make it so we couldn't visit anymore, so they basically enrolled us in every single summer camp you could possibly think of. When I was seven, I did one of those local drama camps. I was immediately scouted by an agent, who stupidly contacted my mom, creating stars in her eyes like you wouldn't believe." Linc sighed. "The good news was that I actually liked the escape
. Acting's kind of like reading. For one brief moment in time, you can be somebody else. You can feel their pain or rid yourself of yours. You experience life in a completely different way. It was my therapy," he admitted. "It still is."

  "And your parents?" I couldn't help but wonder. "What did they think about it?"

  "Ah, my parents." Linc's tone was bitter, detached. "They freaking loved it. Suddenly, I had all the attention I'd never gotten but had always been desperate for. Within a few years, I was making more than my parents combined, and that's saying a lot. Let's just say Angelica quickly learned the easiest way to get attention was to do the same thing, so that's our Cinderella story of how we got started in the entertainment industry." As if stuck in a memory, his voice took on a faraway sound. "I think that's why Angelica acts the way she does now. Any attention is still attention, you know?"

  "Wow." I thought on his words, hesitant to ask him anymore, since I could tell by his rigid body language that his family was a sore subject, for good reason too. "I'm glad." I kept my voice peaceful, calm, even though my heart broke for him. I hated pity. I figured he would too. When you've been on the receiving end of stuff like that for so long, you realize how much it sucks, how much you really just want someone to say, "Wow, that blows" and move on. "No matter how you got into acting, it's your calling. So really, if your parents weren't so crazy…"

  "I wouldn't be sitting here. In front of the fire. With the most beautiful girl in the world."

  "Laying it on kinda thick," I murmured.

  Lincoln shifted me so that I could see him again. The outline of his face was seductive in the flickering firelight, his full lips so close to mine I yearned for a taste. "It's not a line, Dani."

  Self-conscious, I tried to duck into his chest, but he gripped my chin with his hand, tilting my face toward his. "You are… absolutely gorgeous."

  "Oh…" I swallowed my nerves. "… so that's what attracted you? And here I thought it was my inability to speak."

  "I've had enough whiny women to last me a lifetime." He chuckled softly. "So if you ever stop talking again, know I'll be okay with it."

  "Are you calling me whiny?"

  "I would never accuse you of that." He smiled, his white teeth flashing in the darkness. It was a tie between burning up from the fire or the way he looked at me as though he meant every single word he was saying. "Besides, you're more of a negotiator."

  Nodding, I let out a weak laugh. "I'm okay with that."

  We both fell silent. My body leaned toward his, and his mouth descended toward mine.

  "I don't want to be your friend anymore," he whispered, his lips brushing against mine. "But I kind of feel like a weak ass going back on my word."

  "Weak ass," I repeated. "I like it." I licked my lips in invitation.

  "Really?" He let out a low growl. "Stop tempting me, or I'm going to take a bite."

  "Good."

  "Aghhhhh." He let out a few curses before pulling away and helping me to my feet. "I'm going to ignore those seductive eyes and get you back to your room before I do something stupid."

  "Am I the stupid in this scenario?"

  "No." He took another look at me and groaned. "That would be me."

  "Linc…" I grabbed his hand. "… I like you."

  "Oh good, because for a second there, I was worried about your feelings and really didn't want to have one of those awkward conversations where I asked to be your boyfriend."

  "Boyfriend?"

  "Way better than Elliot, I can promise you that."

  "You've met him once, and already I have this weird suspicion that if you met him for a second time, he'd have an accident or something."

  "I was thinking something freak, nothing fatal. You know, like, 'Oh shit, sorry that you ran into that pole, man, I really didn't mean to push.'"

  Laughing, I picked up the blanket. "You sound like Zane. He likes to toss out threats too."

  "Zane." Linc spat his name. "Can you find a new friend?"

  "I don't have that many, so I can't really be picky. Besides, he stays up at night with me—"

  "I'll do it." Linc said quickly. "How hard could it be? Guarding your dreams?"

  "Hard." I swallowed nervously. "Especially when I see that stupid car again."

  "The car?"

  "The one that scared me right before I stopped talking. I remember every vivid detail. Demetri too. I know it wasn't the car's fault; I was just spooked, but still. I see that black car in my dreams, and it's like I'm reliving it all over again, I wake up thinking I'm going to stop talking again."

  "Dani…" Lincoln tossed some sand onto the fire. "… I say next time you see the car in your dream, you throw something at it. Attack what makes you afraid. It's the only way to conquer fear. You run at it."

  "If only I could control myself in my dreams."

  Smiling, he pulled me in and nestled me against his body. "Let's get you home, and maybe, if I stay the night, you'll dream of me instead."

  "Taking guard duty seriously, aren't you?"

  "I take everything regarding you very, very seriously." Linc kicked sand over the fire, extinguishing it as he wrapped an arm around me and kissed my forehead.

  "Thanks," I whispered. We walked hand in hand back to the beach house. It was easy getting back into my room, and Linc was tall enough that all he had to do was take a long step and he was at my balcony, making himself comfortable in my room.

  "So…" His eyes fell on the bed. "… sleep."

  "Yeah." I yawned. "But I sleep naked, so turn around?"

  "What?" He hissed through his teeth.

  "Kidding." I patted him on the shoulder. "I'm going to go throw on a pair of really baggy sweats."

  "Doesn't work if I'm already thinking about what's underneath," he grumbled.

  "Sleep," I said again, probably to convince myself as much as him.

  Linc let out a long exhale. "Right, I mean it's not like I've ever slept with a girl and not… slept with her."

  My eyebrows rose.

  "I can do anything. Really, I'm not Zane, I have self-control."

  The joke was on him, considering out of all the guys I'd met in my life, Zane clearly deserved a medal in that department.

  "We only have a few hours until we're needed on set anyway." I shrugged. "Let's put them to good use."

  "By sleeping," he said for the third time.

  "Is it easier if you keep saying it out loud?"

  "Hell yes." He ran his hands through his hair. "Right, okay." More nodding. "Good."