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“I don’t trust anybody who doesn’t eat hash browns,” I say.
He laughs. “Season starts soon. Time to start avoiding carbs.”
“And no coffee?”
He lifts a shoulder. “I had a cup in the room. I don’t want to overdo it and speed through my speech because I had too much caffeine.”
“Okay, I can let that one slide, I guess,” I mutter.
“Is the hash brown thing going in your story?” he asks.
I shrug. “Maybe. Depends if you’ve got anything more interesting to say.”
“About what?”
I take out my phone and press the record button, and then I start firing off questions. “How did it feel to be invited to give this commencement address?”
“It’s an honor. Being back in Columbus brings back some incredible memories of my own time here.”
“That was a long time ago,” I say, and he chuckles.
“Not that long.”
I think back to his senior year. We both knew he was going to Ohio, but I suppose I thought we’d ride out the storm together for two years before I ended up there, too. I figured it was only two years of long-distance. We could manage that. I thought we’d end up together. It just seemed so natural.
And then it was all shot to hell.
I ended up at UNLV, a great school but not where I’d planned.
I thought about Ohio again for a hot minute my senior year.
I thought maybe I’d track him down and find a way to make it work without the pressures of our fathers nearby, hovering over every decision we made.
But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not when our fathers were in the midst of the fight over the bar…not when I knew it was truly over between us because he’d somehow become the enemy.
“Tell me about your time here,” I say.
He shrugs. “It was all about football. I earned a degree in business while having the time of my life on the field.”
“And the women?” I’m not sure why I ask. It’s not like it’ll go in any story I write about this weekend. Call it morbid curiosity, I suppose.
“Banging down my door.” He grins, but it fades as he shifts his eyes down to the table. “But I was heartbroken, so I didn’t answer.” His voice is subdued as he says it, and I have a feeling I’ll listen to this part of our conversation far more than the parts I’ll actually need for the story.
“You were heartbroken?” I press.
His eyes lift to mine, and the pain and uncertainty is clear in them. “Of course I was. I was just a kid doing what I thought I had to do.”
I shouldn’t press this line of questioning, but I do. “Would you do the same thing now?”
His gaze rests on mine a few beats before his eyes shift toward the window. “Turn off the recorder if you want an honest answer.”
I turn it off and slide my phone across the table toward him to show him that this portion of our conversation won’t be recorded. “I always want an honest answer from you, Lincoln.” I hear the desperation in my own voice, the bitter need to know that he didn’t want to end it but for some reason he did anyway.
He leans forward and lowers his voice so this is just for me. “This is off the record, obviously. My father didn’t trust anybody. Including you. He made it clear that I’d be risking my entire future staying with you once I turned eighteen.”
I’m taken aback by his words. The thought never even crossed my mind. “How?”
He clears his throat, and our waitress comes by to drop my coffee and his water. He waits until she’s out of earshot to answer that. “He found the condom, Jo. He was concerned about my future. He didn’t want me to give up football to raise a kid, and he was afraid that once I turned eighteen and you were still fifteen, one little fight between us would send you to the cops to have me hauled off.”
