Lincoln's hospitality knew no bounds. We spent the rest of daylight walking about the central, and though we didn't talk much after lunch, we still enjoyed each other's company. I obviously considered Lincoln a friend, but I couldn't help but feel a kind a loving nature from him towards me. I'd never had a friend or companion like him in my adult life. But really, thinking back, I never really had someone I could confidently call a best friend. My mother was really that, but I was never the same after that day.
When we got home, we ordered dinner and sat watching late night shenanigans on the telly, sitting close, but not too close. The kind of close that two friends would sit. I didn't know, it felt more intimate than sitting each at a separate corner of the sofa.
Eventually the coziness and fatigue hit me and I fell asleep, and like when you were a child and you fell asleep in the car, and you'd wake up in bed trying to figure out how the hell you got there, I woke up in the early hours tucked away under the sheets and comforter. I threw the blankets off and tiptoed to the door, opening to find Lincoln passed out with a woven blanket over him. Chivalry was not lost.
In the morning I woke up to the same bright golden light peering through the sheer curtains. I felt like a cartoon princess, waking up to the sun shining and the birds singing. But the earliness of my awakening reminded me of the weekend being over, and that I couldn't spend the day wandering around town with Lincoln, but I actually had to work. Monday's were always slow.
I quietly got dressed for the day. Once triple checking my jumper tucked into my pants wasn't bulky and lying flat, jeans were zipped, and purse was full, I slowly cracked open the door. Lincoln was illuminated by the morning light, lying messily tied up in a blanket, barely covering his upper body. I giggled, tiptoeing across the floor.
He looked peaceful, even though he was sprawled across the couch, somehow comfortably. I smiled, reaching down and wrestling the blanket out from under him and laying it out nicely over him, though it barely covered half of him. I smiled, peering down, just appreciating how calm he looked. I was envious, not wanting to leave the comfort of Lincoln's apartment, especially since I didn't want to wake him just to say goodbye. Work was only eight hours, we'd survive.
I cabbed to work, sitting looking out the window as the scenery turned from bright clean city to the suburb apartment buildings. It seemed so dreary now. I asked the driver to drop me off a little further away from Juniper so Shay wouldn't see I'd not walked. She'd have questions.
Like always, she was easy to spot, standing with her curly hair tied up, tan skin, pretty figure. And like always, as soon as she spotted me so bounced over and hugged me.
"Oh Aerie, I haven't seen you in ages!"
"You saw me on Friday."
"Yes, but that was ages ago!"
I laughed.
"Well don't be a stranger, come in and tell me about your weekend!"
I froze up.
Well Shay, here's the scoop; on Friday night I went clubbing with that guy you think attacked me but you also know him as Lincoln from the bar, and met his friends and they're amazing, then when I got home my house was broken into and I almost died, or got kidnapped, or worse, and then Lincoln came back to get me and now I'm living with him. Oh and he's also on the trail of knowing about my past. How was your weekend?
"Oh, nothing too interesting," I said, tying my apron, looking at the ground. "I went out on Friday with the guy from the bar."
She gasped. "Leonard?!"
"Lincoln."
"Lincoln, right!" she corrected. "You guys went on a date?"
"Not a date, like, we went out to a club and I met some of his friends," I stated.
