about another hour before my phone chimed. It was a text from my father, so I didn’t want to read it with Lincoln right next to me.
Our thighs were touching from how we’d sat down, and the heat of his skin against mine was sending tingles up and down my spine. While I didn’t want to lose the contact, I knew it was almost time for me to go.
“Hey,” I said as we stood up, dusting off our asses. “There’s a big party on the beach this weekend. If you’re free, you should come.”
His gaze snagged on mine, narrowing as he rubbed the back of his head with one enormous hand. “I’ll think about it.”
“I’ll take it.” I grinned. It wasn’t a flat-out no. Something seemed to be brewing between us, and there was nothing I hated more than a what if.
No, one day when I was old and gray, I wouldn’t look back on this moment and wonder what might have happened. I’d be sitting in a rocking chair next to Haley, describing in detail—because old people said gross things all the time and propriety didn’t seem to matter anymore—the orgasms the handsome SEAL had given me before we’d parted ways.
Chapter 13
Lincoln
One of the first and only luxury items I’d purchased once I’d been able to afford any at all had been a boat. Eden had called me crazy, but he hadn’t been able to talk me out of it.
Fishing was a transcendent experience for me. It was the one link I had to my childhood and the person I used to be. The boy Mom had known was long gone, but fishing allowed me to reconnect with my past and glimpse who I hoped I’d be in the future all at the same time.
My upbringing hadn’t been one of luxury, opportunity, opulence, and the romance of living in a fishing town in Maine. Mom and I had worked hard and went to bed early. No rich man had come to town to sweep her off her feet and love her son as his own.
That last fact was one I was immensely thankful for. I’d have fucking hated if some dickhead had come and lured Mom away from our home. Love wasn’t something either of us had ever wanted from anyone else, yet I’d caught her once or twice reading sappy romance novels about small towns.
In the years that had passed since, I’d wondered about those books. I’d wondered if she’d held out hope until the end or if she’d been as at peace with our lives as I had been.
Then again, I’d only been at peace with our lives until I’d learned about the Navy. I’d never have joined up while Mom had still been around, but then she hadn’t been, and I hadn’t looked back since.
Talking about my childhood with Sofia had triggered a need deep within me to get out on the water, though. It wasn’t nostalgia or sentiment driving me, but the way the potentially turbulent waters could also provide such infinite calm.
There was only one other thing that did that for me, but since going into battle was out of the question, fishing would have to do. After I’d thrown some supplies into my ratty cargo backpack, I put in a call to Eden.
My best friend answered groggily, which made sense considering it was hours before sunrise. “What the fuck do you want now?”
“I’m going fishing. Want to come?”
“Right now?” He groaned, then replied to his own question. “Of course, you’re going right now. Give me twenty and I’ll meet you in the lobby.”
Sooner or later, Eden and I would have to take up more permanent quarters again. We’d been in and out of the country so much the last year that we’d given up the place we used to share to some friends.
Our minimal amount of stuff was in storage. The clothes we needed from day to day remained in the hotel between trips, and our vehicles had spaces on the base.
My boat was really the only possession I cared about. There was some old stuff of Mom’s in my storage unit, but I hadn’t seen any of it in years.
As I closed my room’s door behind me, I vowed to at least check up on the storage unit soon. I owed my mother so much more than that, but that was all that was left I could do for her.
Eden somehow beat me to the lobby. Probably because I’d been spending so