“What if we promise not to talk about the Navy?” That was the only point of contention between us. If we could avoid it, I didn’t see the problem. We could always delve into that once we were on more solid footing as friends—or whatever we ended up as.
Lincoln’s head dropped a fraction of an inch to the side. “No talk about the Navy at all?”
“Not a word.” I mimed zipping my lips. “Just two friends eating and getting to know each other.”
Slowly, he started nodding as a lazy grin spread on his lips. “Okay. I can do that. Let’s go. Do you like tacos?”
“Love them.” I took a step back toward my car. “I’ll follow you?”
“There’s a Mexican restaurant close by. And by restaurant, I mean a food truck that doesn’t have wheels anymore and has permanently fastened their awnings to the ground. The tables are plastic and the food is cheap but good.”
He thrust his chin up like he was expecting me to argue, but I shrugged and shot him a smile. “Those kinds of places are my favorite. I’ll follow you there.”
When he’d said it was close by, he hadn’t been lying. We parked in a dirt lot beside the place not two minutes later and climbed out of our vehicles side by side. After grabbing our street tacos, we walked down a path to a quiet part of the beach instead of waiting for a table during the lunchtime rush.
“Haley, my best friend, used to live near here when we were kids,” I said after we’d walked in silence while eating our seriously delicious food. “I think our names are still carved into one of these trees just off the path.”
“You carved your names onto a tree?” he asked, sending me a look of mock horror while light danced in his eyes. “Don’t you know they have feelings?”
I sobered my expression, letting my head hang forward. “I didn’t at the time. I was just a kid.”
Lincoln nudged me with his arm as we walked. “It’s okay. I’m sure you’ve been forgiven by now.”
“I don’t know.” I widened my eyes. “Maybe we should stop talking about it. The trees might hear us and object.”
“If that were true, trees all over would be starting riots. I think we’ve all carved our names into one at some point in our childhoods.”
I spun around, walking backward so I’d be facing him. I remembered every twist and curve in this path. Hopefully, I remembered them well enough not to land on my ass for not looking where I was going.
“Where is the tree that has your name in it?” I asked. “I just realized I don’t even know where you’re from.”
“I grew up in a small fishing town in Maine no one has ever heard of.” A faraway gleam clouded his eyes, but he shook it off. “There’s an old pine tree or two there with my name on it.”
“What’s the town called?” I asked. “Haley and I thought of going on a road trip to Maine once. I might have read about it.”
His lips formed a smirk. “I doubt Stonington would have been high on your list of places to go girling in.”
“Girling?” I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at him. “We didn’t want to go girling. We just wanted a rest. Peace, quiet, and lots of excellent wine on a quiet beach somewhere.”
“Stonington’s got all that in spades,” he replied, rolling his eyes. “But you might have become the stuff of legend around there if you’d consumed all that wine right there on the beach.”
“I like the idea of being a local legend.” I smiled but noticed a flicker of something in his eyes. “Do you miss it there?”
He shrugged, his expression shuttering again. “I’ve been here a long time.”
“Do you visit there much? It must have upset your parents when you went to the Navy, knowing how far away you’d be moving.”
“I wouldn’t know.” Jaw clenching in a way that told me to drop it, he dipped his head back to look up at the wispy clouds floating in the sky.
There were definitely some issues in his past, but I didn’t push it. We’d had enough of that for one day.
Since the atmosphere between us needed some comic relief, I dove into a story from my childhood. Haley and I had gotten up to so much mischief. It wasn’t long before Lincoln’s tense muscles relaxed again.