Talkin' Trash
Page 36

He had me around the waist and was spinning me around in his exuberance as he bounced me on his shoulder.
I loved the picture. I loved it so much that I saved it as the desktop background on my laptop.
“What’s that smile for?” Linc rumbled from the bed beside me.
He’d just made love to me. Slow, sweet, heart-stopping love that I was confident I’d remember for a long time.
“I like the picture,” I told him honestly. “It makes me happy seeing it.”
He rolled over until he was pressed up against me, his big hand going to my face and pulling me bodily to him.
I went, dropping the computer on the bed beside me before rolling until I could wrap my arms around his big head.
“You make me happy,” Linc said. “I love you.”
I felt something inside me take off at hearing him say that.
“Linc,” I said softly. “Do you think we’ve done this too fast?”
He laughed.
The big shit laughed.
“Linc.” I pinched him, causing him to curse.
“What?” he chuckled.
“Why are you laughing?” I questioned. “This isn’t a laughing matter. You just declared your undying love to me.”
He looked so freakin’ sexy, face sleepy, and mouth split wide. He was still very much naked, and each time a chuckle left those delectable lips, his abs would tighten and bunch.
“I did,” he agreed. “But what I also did was laugh at you because you think this is too early.”
“Well,” I hesitated. “It is. We haven’t been seeing each other for long. Hell, at some point it went from a joke Phoebe blurted out to being a favor to you to something real, and I’m not sure when or how that happened. When is our anniversary? Is it the day that the media found out I was fake-pregnant with your baby? Or is it when we first did the deed?”
His head tilted. “Is it important?”
I gave him a level look. “Of course, it’s important.”
His grin kicked up at the corner. “Fine,” he said. “Then our anniversary is November sixth.”
I looked at him blankly.
“What are you talking about? It’s the summer. We’re still three months away from November,” I informed him haughtily.
He lifted his hand up and smoothed my hair over my head, getting all the flyaways out of my eyes.
“November sixth is the day that you were first introduced to me,” he said. “It was the day that I saw you for the very first time.”
I felt everything inside of me still.
“Linc…”
“You were dressed in blue jean shorts that showed off your hot as fuck long legs, a pink cheer shirt, and you had your hair up in a ponytail.” He paused. “You weren’t wearing any makeup, and you had the cutest glare on your face that I’d ever seen in my life. I knew within ten seconds of seeing you standing there behind Steel that you would be mine.”
I felt tears burning my eyes. “You’re serious.”
He nodded once. “As a heart attack.”
I couldn’t help it. He had to know that I felt the same exact way.
“I’ve loved you from the time that your eyes met mine,” I whispered. “I’d never been given a lot in life. Everything was a struggle, and I was in a perpetually bad mood because nobody ever wanted just me.”
“I only want you,” he whispered fiercely. “I’ve managed to keep you all to myself, and I’m going to keep it that way.”
I buried my face into the hollow of his throat, and never knew that in just twelve short hours, every single glorious moment of the last five minutes would be forgotten.
There were forces that were hell-bent on keeping us apart, and neither Linc nor I could change that.
Chapter 16
Home is where those fuckers aren’t.
-Conleigh to Linc
Conleigh
I smiled when I felt warm lips running over my cheek, and heard Linc’s rumbled, “Love you, Con.”
I cracked one eye open and offered him my lips. He took them and then patted my ass. “I’ll be back in two days. Text me when you wake up.”
I licked the wetness he’d left behind off my lips, and then sleep reclaimed me.
The next time I woke, I forgot his request to text him, mostly because I’d slept through forty minutes of my alarm and had to rush to get to work.
At some point during the morning, after being at work for well over half the day, I remembered getting a text.
I ignored it because I’d been ankle deep in a cardiac arrest and hadn’t had the time to spare to check it.
It wasn’t until an hour later that I had a chance to check the message.
Linc: Erobf
Thinking he hadn’t meant to send me anything at all, I shoved the phone back into my pocket and went about my day. Maybe if I hadn’t, maybe if I’d called to ask him what that text had meant, things wouldn’t have turned out like they did.
That night, after finally catching my breath from work, I called.
And called.
And called.
And called.
He never answered. Not once.
Finally, after getting fed up with his lack of contact, I’d gone to bed, only to sleep straight through my alarm again the next morning.
***
The saying goes like this: All good things must come to an end.
Mine and Linc’s end came in the form of a picture.
I’d been darting around the emergency room all morning for the second day in a row and hadn’t once picked up my phone because it’d been so freakishly busy.
Maybe if I had, and seen Linc’s text messages or eighteen thousand calls, I would’ve known something was wrong.
Maybe if I had, maybe if I’d done something other than overreact like I always did and thought about the fact that Linc would never do that to me, this might’ve gone differently.
But it didn’t.
Then again, maybe I wouldn’t have.
Maybe I’d have seen the pictures and been just as horrified.
But I didn’t get his calls explaining the pictures, and I did get upset the moment I had a chance to breathe and check my alerts on my phone.
What I saw took my knees out from under me.
I was furious.
I was madder than hell at the situation, and I was even more upset that I’d done this to myself.
I knew that Linc’s fame would someday come back and bite us in the ass.
Knew it, yet I’d done it anyway.
“Are you okay, Conleigh?” Pru asked warily.
I’d only meant to pick my phone up for a quick glance to see if Linc had gotten back to me, and that quick glance had turned into me seeing a Google Alert with Linc’s name plastered all over all thirty of them.
The first one I’d clicked on had been accidental. I’d tried to swipe my phone open and had ended up accidentally clicking the Google Alert. From there, I hadn’t been able to look away from the train wreck in my hand.
I swallowed hard and swiped to the next picture, repeating the process over and over again until I got to the very last alert, this one of him in front of a hospital looking like shit warmed over.
In the picture, he had his phone to his ear with one hand fisted in his hair, and I wanted nothing more than to shove my fist into his throat just so he’d feel the pain that was currently dominating the inside of my chest.
My breathing turned ragged, and I scrolled backward, looking at the photos that were much worse than the last one.
“Oh my God.”
I swallowed as Pru put voice to my words.
Though, I wouldn’t have stopped there.
I felt tears starting to swell in my throat, and I started to hyperventilate.
And, closing my eyes and praying for strength, I closed my phone, turned it on silent, and pushed it into my pocket.
Then, without another word, I went back to work and didn’t once think about Linc again.
Also, that was a lie.
***
I didn’t make it through the day well, but I made it.
“Whoa there, darlin’.” Someone grabbed my wrist when I pushed angrily out of the back doors to the hospital.
I smiled absently at the man but froze when I saw that the man holding my wrist was a man that looked almost exactly like Tyson, but more rough and tumble.