My stomach flips.
“You don’t get to flirt with me.”
“Oh, but you can flirt with the seagull that looks like me?” he asks with a smile.
“Ew. Don’t smile with food in your teeth, dude,” I say, trying my hardest not to laugh because he looks ridiculous.
This is nice. Despite everything, this is still nice. I thought I would hate being out here with him, but it kind of feels like closure. Bringing him here… it feels natural.
After some silence, I notice Lincoln is just looking at me, having finished his food, his legs stretched out, his arms behind him bracing him up.
“What?” I ask, curious.
“This is the place you wanted to take me, wasn’t it? Before you came to find me and I wasn’t at work?”
There goes the mood.
I sit up, putting down what’s left of my burger, which is only a handful. I clap my hands to dust off the crumbs, then toss some toward the birds.
“Gabby…”
“…Anyway, I want to get back,” I say, getting up.
“Okay,” he says quietly.
He’s still sitting there, staring at his shoes absent-mindedly.
He stands and grabs the garbage, taking some of the fries and throwing them out to the seagulls as we both feed them. When I look over at him, I notice he’s smiling as he tosses food, and I’m shocked by how captivated I am. How much I actually miss him. How deeply I know I’ll never have him that way again. And how sad that reminder makes me.
His eyes lock onto mine, catching me staring. I look away.
We head back toward the car quietly. The speakers are still playing the precious melody of Nessa Barrett’s “Dirty Little Secret.”
I turn around and wave at Handsome; the seagull uses the wind to coast and hover above my head. The wind carries him over to Lincoln, who’s right in front of me, and he lands on Lincoln’s shoulder.
He just stands there, staring straight at me, like he’s using Lincoln as a perch to get himself eye level with me.
For whatever reason, it makes me want to cry. It’s so poetic and… just so meta.
“I guess he likes me,” Lincoln says, smiling. But his smile falls when he sees the look on my face.
I hate these emotions. They sneak up on me from nowhere. And in a weird way, it feels like I’m saying goodbye to my husband. There’s so much I want to say to him.
“I can drive,” he tells me.
I nod. He walks to the passenger side door and opens it for me. Handsome flies up and lands on top of the car as I stand there with a tear sliding down my face. Lincoln just stares at me.
When I sit in the passenger seat, he remains outside the passenger side, then leans in and pulls my seatbelt across me.
A deep prickling sensation spreads across my skin at the memory of him doing this for me so many times. He looks at me, his face right in front of mine.
He remembers too.
My hands move on their own, threading into the back of his hair and pulling him down so my lips can reach his.
At first he’s still, his lips moving slowly, like he’s fighting it, just like he did the first time we ever kissed. But then he can’t control it. He leans into me, pulling my legs so they’re hanging outside the passenger side of the car.
His moans, God, his moans make me crazy, and I moan back, which makes him even more excited.
