Measure of a Man Page 2

  “Don’t sweat it, Linc. You want this between us, then it will stay between us. But if you want my opinion, I don’t think you mean any of this.”

  Lincoln nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. I probably just got spooked.”

  “It’s been known to happen. Ask any old-timer.” Flex leaned back in his chair. “I know it happened to me once.”

  “Really?” Lincoln considered him. “When?”

  Flex shrugged. “A few months back. Just before my transfer went through. It was a pretty bad warehouse fire. I had the whole life-flashing-before-my-eyes thing happen. Hell, I’d forgotten I cheated on a third grade social studies test.”

  Lincoln laughed. “Well, I didn’t quite experience that.”

  “Good. That must mean you can go into heaven with a clear conscience.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that.” Lincoln shifted against his piles of pillows beneath him. His mind immediately rifled through the scores of women he’d dated. The relationships’ inevitable doom were, more times than not, his fault. However, every lady in his past took a piece of his heart when she walked out of the door.

  “I’ll be damned. Are you blushing?”

  Lincoln jerked from his thoughts, but then slid on a sly grin. “Women,” he confessed. “I think they’re the one thing I want to understand before the good Lord takes me out of here.”

  “Hell, I could help you there.” Flex laughed. “I have so much estrogen flowing through my family that I suffer from PMS by default.”

  “Sisters?”

  “Five of them.”

  Lincoln’s eyes widened. “Damn, you aren’t kidding. Any brothers?”

  “Nope. I’m the baby.”

  Lincoln laughed as his gaze took in Flex’s Herculean physique and had a hard time associating the word baby with him in any shape, form or fashion. Just as quickly, Lincoln’s active imagination slapped a wig, a dress and some lipstick on his friend, and then multiplied the image by five. He was horrified by the results.

  “So if you ever need help with women,” Flex continued, “feel free to ask.”

  Lincoln shuddered. “Yeah, I’ll do that.”

  “All right.” Flex shrugged. “If you want to continue to crash and burn, that’s your prerogative.”

  “If you’re so knowledgeable, how come there isn’t a ring around your finger?”

  The smile vanished from Flex’s lips as he glanced down at his bare finger.

  Sensing that he’d struck a raw nerve, Lincoln immediately tried to make amends. “Hey, man. Sorry, I didn’t mean to put my nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  Flex waved off the apology and quickly returned the smile to his lips. “Nah, nah. It’s all right. I mean, you had no way of knowing, but I was in a long-term relationship. Ten years to be exact.”

  “Really?” Lincoln crossed his arms in amazement. Other than the old-timers in the department, he couldn’t think of one of his buddies who had been in a relationship that long. Ten years might as well have been fifty years. “What happened?”

  Flex shrugged. “I didn’t listen to my sisters.”

  “Ah.” Lincoln nodded. “They didn’t like her?”

  Flex’s smile strained. “Something like that.” He looked reflective before he spoke again. “There’s a lot of good things about surviving in a family of women, and a lot of not so good things. One being subjected to five different opinions about everything.”

  Lincoln jumped in excitedly. “See? That’s what I’m saying. I’m convinced that there are no two women alike. You go through one relationship, trying to incorporate what you’ve learned during the last relationship, and that woman turns out to be the total opposite of the last girl. I had this one woman dump me because I built this big mahogany bookcase instead of buying her jewelry for her birthday. It’s maddening. Which means more—something you just pick out in a store or something that took you six weeks to build?”

  Flex’s laugh returned. “You are lost, huh?”

  “Lost? Hell, I’m just about ready to give up.”

  “Don’t tell me that you’re going to swing the other way.”

  “Ooh, no.” Lincoln rolled his eyes. “I’m one hundred percent a ladies’ man, but I might have to give up the notion of settling down. It seems the harder I try, the worse things turn out.”

  “I guess that goes to prove that you can never judge a book by its cover.” Flex swept a hand toward him. “Looking at you, I would never have thought you had trouble attracting women.”

  “Whoa, whoa.” Lincoln held up his hands. “I never said that I had trouble attracting women. It’s the right woman I’m talking about. Women say that they want a nice guy, but the minute they meet one, suddenly they want a thug. It’s crazy.”

  “Maybe you’re trying too hard.”

  He thought it over for a moment. “You think so?”

  “Could be.” Flex shrugged. “I mean, what’s the rush, anyway? How old are you?”

  “Thirty-nine.”

  “There you go. Warren Beatty didn’t hang up his playa shoes until he was staring down the barrel at sixty. Besides, my sister Peyton always says that she can sense desperation in a man.”

  “Really?” Lincoln frowned. “Wait a minute. Your sister’s name is Peyton?”

  Flex rolled his eyes. “I have a Sheldon, Frankie, Michael, Joey and a Peyton.” He shrugged. “My father kept hoping for a boy.”

  “And when he finally got one, he named you Flex?”

  “Not exactly.” Flex shifted in his chair. “Flex is sort of a nickname I gave myself when I was a wrestler in high school.”

  “Mind if I ask?”

  He hesitated.

  “I promise, it won’t leave this room.” Lincoln crossed his heart. “If you want to know the truth, Lincoln isn’t my name, either.”

  “Really?”

  “Nope. Bill collectors call me Trey Carver. My friends dubbed me Lincoln.” He shrugged. “When I was fifteen I snuck out of the house and took my father’s brand-new Lincoln for a cruise around the neighborhood. Problem was, it never made it back home.”

  Flex winced. “You wrecked it?”

  Lincoln nodded. “Wrapped it around a pole and knocked out all the electricity in the neighborhood. When my father was through with me, I couldn’t sit down for a week. From that day forth my friends called me Lincoln. It started off as a joke, but it stuck.” He glanced back at his friend. “So spill it. What’s your real name?”

  Flex huffed and then mumbled, “It’s Francis. Francis Marion Adams.”

  Chapter 3

  Peyton rushed through the door of her apartment ready to pass out from the pain in her feet from wearing her brand-new Prada shoes. Sprinting to the living room, she collapsed on her plush cream-and-gold sofa not a minute too soon.

  “I love you, but you have got to go.” She peeled her babies off and sighed with relief as blood rushed back into her toes. However, that was the high cost of beauty.

  The phone rang and she moaned in disgust before she reached over and picked up the cordless from the end table. “Hello.”

  “Hey, Peyton, it’s me.”

  “Me who?” she asked, frowning. All the women in the family tended to sound alike.

  “Me, Michael.” Her sister had the nerve to be annoyed. “Have you talked to Flex today?”

  “Can’t say that I have. Why?”

  “Well, I was on the web today and I ran across his picture on a news site.” />
  Concern squeezed Peyton’s heart. “Is he all right? Did something happen?”

  “Yes and yes. According to the papers he’s fine, but he’s being hailed as a hero for saving a little girl and one of his colleagues from an apartment fire. Can you believe it?”

  “Really?” Peyton’s shoulders slumped with relief, but she pulled herself up and limped all the way to her home office. “He’s been in Atlanta for three months and he’s already a hero. That’s fantastic.”

  “Dad is going to be thrilled when I tell him. Who knows? It might even salve some of the hurt feelings he has over Flex transferring to another state.”

  Peyton booted up her computer. “I’m surprised you didn’t call him first.”

  “I tried, but it’s poker night.”

  “Shame on you. How could you ever forget that?” Peyton teased, and in no time she was surfing the web. She found an article with a picture of her brother smiling and her heart swelled with pride. “I sure do miss him,” she said, forgetting that she still had the phone tucked under her ear.

  “I know what you mean. We should plan a trip to go out and see him.”

  “What, the whole family?”

  “If not, at least a few of us. Heck, we could go in turns. That’s the best way to keep an eye on him.”

  Peyton shook her head as she pressed her print button. “I seem to remember him saying that he wanted to get away from our constant nosying.”

  “Whose nosying?” Michael’s voice rose an octave. “We’re just checking on him. Besides, Flex needs to learn that it’s not healthy to run away from his problems.”

  “He’s not running. He just needs a break.”

  “From us or from Morgan?”

  “Look, just because their relationship ended—”

  “Cut me a break, Peyton. You’re starting to sound like Flex’s parrot instead of one of us. Put the pieces together. He asked for that transfer within days of their breakup.”

  “Well, they were together for ten years.”

  “So he moves away. He hardly calls any of us and for the first time in his entire life he won’t be with the family for Christmas. Someone should go and be with him. I don’t like the idea of him being alone for the holidays.”

  Peyton frowned. She hadn’t really thought about this apparently as much as Michael had. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right. So why don’t you go?”

  Peyton nearly choked. “What? Why me?”

  “What, you’re not concerned anymore?”

  “Well, sure I am, but—”

  “But nothing. You and Joey are the most flexible. Neither of you is married—”

  “Neither are you.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’m engaged. It’s the same as being married. I tell you, you should consider yourself lucky. You don’t have to juggle trying to see two different families anymore.”

  Peyton rolled her eyes, but didn’t have the heart to remind Michael that she’d been engaged for nearly four years now. “Then Joey should go. I have way too much work to do during the holidays. Three of my artists are having major shows in January. No way I can just pick up and travel to the other side of the country right now.”

  “Sure you can. You and Joey should both go. Frankie and I could probably go in the spring and we can give Sheldon and her husband the honor of going in the summer.”

  “You’ve already talked this over with them, haven’t you?”

  A long pause hung on the phone line before Peyton rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair. “You know how much I hate it when you plan things behind my back.”

  “Oh, chill out. No need to get your panties in a bunch. Either you want to do this or you don’t.”

  “Thanks for asking— I don’t. I mean, what if Flex doesn’t want me there?”

  “That’s a very good point,” Michael conceded.

  “Thank you.”

  “Which is why we’re not going to tell him.”

  A red flag flashed before Peyton’s eyes. “Whoa. Bad idea. If he gets mad about my sudden appearance, then I’ll be the one he’ll take it out on. No, I say this is your idea and you should go. I’ll take spring duty with Frankie.”

  “Peyton—”

  “Michael,” she snapped back in the same impatient tone. “We need to let Flex live his own life. If he doesn’t want to come home for Christmas, then we need to respect that.”

  “Flex doesn’t know how to ask for help. You know that. He’s too busy acting like nothing ever bothers him. This Morgan thing has really crushed him and I’m surprised that you’re buying into his denial act.”

  Peyton sighed, but she did believe that Flex ran to Atlanta to get away from the pain of ending a long relationship. Maybe he shouldn’t be alone for the holidays. Hadn’t she heard somewhere that the suicide rate skyrocketed around these times?

  “I tell you what. I’ll call him and get a feel for his state of mind. If I sense that he’s lonely or miserable, then I’ll go. If not, then I think we should respect his wishes.”

  Her sister didn’t respond.

  “Take it or leave it, Michael.”

  “Fine. I’ll take it. But dig deep, Peyton. He always has been able to pull the wool over your eyes.”

  “Fine.”

  “Call me back and tell me everything he says.”

  “Michael—”

  “That’s the condition,” Michael insisted.

  “All right. You have a deal,” Peyton finally agreed.

  * * *

  Lincoln tried everything he could to reach the ungodly itch that was in the center of his plastered leg, but nothing was working. He thought about buzzing a nurse and begging her for a coat hanger of some kind, yet in the end he figured he would come across as being a baby about the whole thing.

  Just don’t think about it, he told himself, and tried to lie still.

  “Is the leg still killing you?” Flex asked, returning to his room and carrying two sodas. He handed one over to Lincoln. “Sorry, but the vending machine doesn’t carry Heineken.”

  “Thanks.” Lincoln accepted the can and set it down on the desk beside his bed. “You wouldn’t happen to have a coat hanger on you, do you?”

  “I knew I forgot to bring something.” Flex laughed. “Hey, you mind if I hit the can before I head out?”

  “Nah, knock yourself out.” He wiggled a finger into his cast, certain that this time he was going to reach his itch.

  Flex just shook his head at Lincoln’s antics and stepped into his bathroom. No sooner had he closed the door did a shrill ring fill the room.

  Lincoln looked over at the table and spotted Flex’s cell phone. “Hey, it’s your phone, Francis.”

  “Not funny,” Flex called out. “Can you answer it? I’m expecting a call from my landlady.”

  “No problem.” Lincoln leaned over onto his side and picked up the phone. “Yellow,” he greeted with more chirpiness than he felt.

  Silence greeted him.

  He tried again. “Hello.”

  A female’s lyrical voice came onto the line. “Hello, Flex?”

  “No, actually I’m, uh, a friend of Flex’s.” Lincoln glanced over at the bathroom door. “Flex is, uh, sort of indisposed at the moment. Can I take a message?”

  “A friend of Flex’s?” the woman asked.

  Lincoln frowned. “Yes, I am. Are you the landlady?”

  “Oh, no.” The woman suddenly sounded
excited. “I’m Peyton, Flex’s sister.”

  “Ah, Peyton. Yes, your brother told me about you.” He smiled, quite taken with the sound of the woman’s voice. “Yeah, he told me all about…let’s see, uh, Sheldon, Frankie, Michael, Joey and Peyton. Am I right?”

  “Wow. That’s pretty good.” She laughed. “Well, this is great. He’s moved to Atlanta and has already met a new…friend.”

  Lincoln laughed. “I’m sure I’m not the only one. A man like your brother won’t have any trouble in that department.”

  “Yeah, he’s quite a guy.” Her voice sounded full of pride. “You like him?”

  “Like him? Hell, after last night, he could never do any wrong by me.”

  “Oh, that’s great. The girls will be happy to hear that he’s…moved on.” She sighed and he could hear her relax. “We were sort of worried when he left. He had just, uh—”

  “Oh, the bad relationship thing.” Lincoln nodded. “Yeah, he told me all about it.”

  “He told you?”

  “Yeah, ten years.” Lincoln shook his head. “It’s a shame, but you know he seems like he’s ready to get his feet wet again. I’m just the person to push him along.”

  “This is great.” She laughed. “And here my sisters were trying to convince me to fly out and surprise him for Christmas.”

  “Well, you should.” Lincoln sat up. “I would love to meet some of his family.” Peyton in particular, he thought. From the bathroom, he heard the toilet flush and then the sudden spray of water from the sink.

  “You would? You don’t think Flex would mind?”

  “Why should he? He has had nothing but good things to say to me about you girls.”

  “That’s good to know. I have to see if I can work it into my schedule, but if I don’t come this month I’m sure I’ll make it there in the near future.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Great, er, hmm, I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name.”

  “It’s Trey, but my friends call me—”