“Linc, my man!” he greeted me with a hand clap and one-shouldered embrace.
“Hey, Josh. Have you seen Jaden?”
“Yeah, he’s at the pool. Things are getting pretty wild out there. This party is epic.”
I watched Josh take off up the stairs with a red cup in his hands.
“Epic, alright—an epic pain in my ass.”
Hopefully, Josh was exaggerating about thethings getting pretty wildpart.
Outside, by the pool, the DJ—someone’s friend or cousin with a laptop—bounced and bobbed as he clicked on his device. People danced, some lounged on chairs in swimsuits, and others sloshed around in the pool.
As I stared at the pool, for a moment, everyone in there disappeared. The image of a younger version of myself in another pool, miles away, in a different time, appeared. A Massachusetts summer… A girl’s legs wrapped around my waist as we drifted. She was beautiful—hair wet and slicked back from her face, which was radiant with youthful innocence. Droplets beaded on her long lashes. Her amber eyes, which were close enough for me to count the flecks, fixed on me. Our mouths were just centimeters apart…
“I love you, Lincoln,” she whispered.
I said the words back without hesitation.
Her soft declaration echoed in my mind as I slowly came back to the present. The noise slammed back in. The image vanished, replaced by strangers splashing around. I gave my head a sharp shake to clear away the ghosts and shoved my emotions back into a box.
I recognized a familiar face. It was the physiotherapist who typically worked with Jaden and his teammates. Walking over to him, I grinned. “Tom, what the hell are you doing here?”
Grinning sheepishly, he pulled his hand from his pocket, and we shook. “I got invited, and I didn’t want to be rude.” He swept the backyard with a hint of amusement mixed with horror in his eyes. “I guess I also dropped by for the same reason you did. Keeping an eye on the guys.”
I grunted as Jaden did a backflip off the diving board into the pool. Well, at least his legs were insured.
“Now that someone else who isn’t insanely reckless is here,” Tom said, “I can inch my way to the exit.”
I chuckled.
“Besides, the wife is expecting me home soon.”
“Yeah, go ahead. I’ll make sure nothing disastrous goes down tonight.”
Laughing, Tom made his way toward the sliding doors. He disappeared inside moments ago, but I still stared at the door. The hollowness I’d been feeling in my chest for a while struck me. Tom was one of the lucky ones, having a wife and a kid to go home to. My penthouse felt cold and empty. After a while, the glitz and glamor of this world got old. You needed someone to share your life with, to make you feel like there wasn’t a void in your entire existence.
“Lincoln!”
Jaden’s enthusiastic greeting pulled me from the emotional spiral I was heading into. I wondered what the hell was wrong with me lately. I couldn’t call it a midlife crisis at thirty-two. Maybe it was more like a fear of missing out. My friends from college were settling down one by one—getting married and having kids. Shaking off the weirdness, I turned to see Jaden jogging over. Water dripped from him as he shook his dreads and wiped his face.
“How’s it going, Jaden?”
We did that handshake I’d gotten used to—a horizontal high five, with our palms sliding down to lock fingers, followed by an aggressive flick of our thumbs. That was how he greeted me when we met. I’d been shocked, and a tad amused. Jaden said it was how guys greeted their “brethren” in his father’s home country, so I guess it was a Caribbean thing. It was an honor to be considered his brother. The twenty-year-old was a pretty good kid.
“You made it! Man, I thought you were gonna ditch. I know this isn’t your thing, but I’ve got to have the big man here. You know what I’m saying?”
I smiled.Big manwas a term of respect in his culture. “Thanks for the invite. Look, I’m not staying long. I just came to…”
“Make sure I don’t burn down the mansion, get drunk or high, and leap from the balcony, get caught up in a sex scandal with some models… Relax, man. I won’t.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “I’d hope not. Actually, I came because you’re meeting the reporter from Springfield tonight. I wanted to meet him first.”
“Oh, that’s right. He’s supposed to stop by.”
“Uh huh.”
“Cool. I’ll keep partying until he gets here. I have to keep the ladies entertained. You know?”
