Page 14 of Lillian

“Linc, buddy. Why are we stopping? I’m hungry,” Tyler bemoans. I ignore him. I ignore all of them, still staring ahead.

She didn’t hear me, or maybe she’s ignoring me, but she doesn’t seem to have seen me yet. I call out again. “Lil?” My voice is louder this time, more sure.

Yeah, she heard me this time.

I watch as her body registers someone calling for her and then locks up a few seconds later. Like she knows, even four years later, what my voice sounds like.

I try not to be so smug about it because her body didn’t lock up from pleasure. That is a guarded pose. One I more than deserve but resent nonetheless.

Time seems to standstill as she turns her head toward my voice, and her eyes lock with mine. Even after four years, her stare still brands me. Still causes an almost unbearable ache in my chest that I never want to be rid of.

Painfully beautifulis how I used to describe her. And fuck if it isn’t true.

I think I hear one of the guys talking to me, but Lillian is like a magnet, drawing me in. My feet move on their own accord toward her. She doesn’t back away. Doesn’t smile, say hey, or show any emotion other than shock.

The last four years have been good on her. Everything about her is almost the exact same, but her face has slimmed a little. Gotten sharper, like she’s settling into her age. It’s stunning.

I don’t know what to say.

Hey, I broke up with you because my parents are monsters.

I’ve loved you for the past four and a half years.

Forgive me?

Then it hits me. All those reasons for staying away from her, for breaking up with her in the first place, are gone. Or they will be. Becca turns eighteen in less than a month, and then she’s coming to live with me. Our parents can’t do fuck all about it, and they won’t have any control over either of us anymore.

Maybe…maybe I can have her this time. I can fix things. If she’s not already married or taken.

That thought is like a punch to the gut, and I have to take a deep breath against the roiling, irrational surge of jealousy.

I stop a foot in front of Lillian and open my mouth to say who knows what, but I don’t get the chance.

“Mommy,” a sweet, tinkering voice filters up to me. It draws my gaze down to a beautiful little girl clinging to Lil’s leg.

Mommy?

My brow furrows, and it takes a second for my brain to register that the girl is calling Lil mommy. Mommy! As in, that’s hermom.

I feel my mouth drop open in shock as my eyes bounce from the little blonde toddler up to Lil and then back down. She’s the spitting image of her mom—blonde hair, blue eyes, sweet as a button.

The toddler tugs again on Lil’s pants and mutters something about ice cream.

“Mom?” I croak out.

Not only is she married, but she’s got a kid with some other man, too. Of course I’m too fucking late. What woman like her wouldn’t be snatched up so fucking fast? I’m the dumbass that lost her.

“Who are you?” the sweet girl asks me curiously, and I answer in a daze.

“I’m Lincoln. An old friend of your…mom’s.” The answer seems simplistic, but that’s all I’ve got. It seems to satisfy the… four-year-old? Three? I don’t fucking know; I’m awful at guessing kids’ ages.

Wait.

If she’s…

It feels as if my stomach bottoms out, and suddenly, I’m looking between the two of them in a whole new light, trying to find myself in the little girl.

“How old are you, sweetie?” I lean down to ask the girl with what I hope is a kind smile on my face, but really, I’m burning up on the inside.

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