Page 44 of Send It
Reiss walks away and I watch as Colson eyes Jack suspiciously before slipping into the driver’s seat.
“I fucking hate that guy,” he says under his breath, and I watch as he messes with the air conditioner.
“Who Jack?” I slur, trying my best not to sound drunk.
He doesn’t answer me, but the way he’s driving tells me he’s pissed. He takes every turn a little too fast and his foot hammers down violently on the accelerator. Every curve makes my head swim and when we stop at the next red light my stomach turns.
“Colson, I…”
Before the words finish leaving my mouth there’s vomit all over the floorboard of Colson’s truck.
Oh no.
“Are you okay?” He whispers. “You drank way too much. You shouldn’t do that to yourself. You could have alcohol poisoning.”
I groan, my head still propped up on my elbows between my legs. “I dunno what was in those jello shots but they fucked me up.”
The jello shots, the sun, the dehydration. The back and forth with Colson. It was all hitting me a little too hard.
22
Colson
Lincoln passed out in the truck before we ever made it to my house. I opened her door and tried my best to get her out without getting vomit on her. I struggled carrying her to the basement couch because every time I stepped down on my leg it sent a stabbing pain all the way down to my ankle. It felt like a screw driver was lodged in it and someone was twisting it every time I put pressure on it.
I didn’t care. She wasn’t going to sleep anywhere but in my arms.
I’d never wanted to drag someone out of Lakeside before but Jackson Fairbanks better be counting his blessings tonight. Actually, fuck it, I still might kick his ass. I know damn well what his intention was, and it irritates me that Reiss is so blind.
The notion of what might’ve happened had I not been there hangs in my mind as I watch her chest rise and fall.Someone taking advantage of Linc upsets me. Doesn’t matter if it’s sexually or emotionally.
I hobble over to the couch and lift her head up off the pillow and slip down under her, laying her head back on my lap. I drag my rough fingers through her hair, and softly laugh at how windblown and tangly it is. Stassie would’ve brushed it by now but Lincoln is different. She’s perfect.
She’s wild and feisty. She’s girly but rough around the edges. She’s the girl that is going to absolutely wreck me.
“I love you,” I hear her mumble, her eyes barely opening to see me. “I do, Colson. I love you.”
Her voice is gravely and even a little slurred but I have no doubt that she means what she says. Unlike other girls, Lincoln saves her words until she feels the person deserves them. She doesn’t yap all the time, so when she does speak to you, you know that it is important. Even still, hearing those words leave her lips stun me.
“I don’t want you to say it back,” she slurs. “I don’t need you to say it back to me, but you needed to know it, dipshit.”
I laugh softly, “Is that the liquor talking?”
She tilts her brows in, “No, it’sLincoln.I’m Lincoln not Liquor.”
The way she annunciates her name makes me smile. I take my index finger and gently rake it down her forehead to the tip of her nose, watching as her eyes close. Doing it over and over again until she’s back asleep.
“I love you, Lincoln Bane.” I whisper, knowing damn well she can’t hear me, but also knowing how fucking true those words are. How long they’ve been true. For as long as I can remember.
I will continue to love her for as long as I’m breathing I’m afraid.
The next morning I wake with a crick in my neck and an empty lap. Lincoln appears in the room with wet hair and only the t-shirt that I was wearing yesterday covering her body, her legs bare beneath it.
“Hi,” she whispers, her feet fidgeting nervously against one another. “I’m really sorry about last night. I got up and cleaned your car.”
I groan, “How are you even moving, Lincoln? I thought you were on the verge of death last night. You really worried everyone.”
“I drank too much.” She waves me off, “No harm done.”
