Page 1 of Creeping Lily

LILY

L incoln scoops me off the ground like I’m still a little kid, spinning me high into the air. The world blurs — sky, trees, and the glint of the pool tilting around me. I’m laughing and squealing at the same time, my fingers digging into his forearms in panic.

“Put me down, Lincoln!”

He does, eventually, lowering me until my sandals hit the patio stone. His grin stays fixed, a flash of white teeth against summer-browned skin.

“Look at you, all grown up, Lily bird.”

He ruffles my hair, deliberately wrecking the part I’d made neat down the middle.

Lincoln’s bigger than I remember. Broader shoulders, arms roped with muscle that weren’t there two years ago. He still towers over me, but the boy I used to know has been sharpened into a man.

“When are you coming to stay for good?” he asks, flopping into one of the sun lounges.

I follow him, pulling my knees up in the chair. “That’s irrelevant, isn’t it? You don’t even live here anymore. ”

He grimaces, the truth sitting between us. He’s only here on college break. Same as me — visiting my mother during my spring break. My real life is across the country, with my grandmother, and school.

We’ve always been close. Summers here since I was eight, after my mom took the housekeeping job for Senator Walker and his wife, Olivia. At nineteen, Lincoln’s now in his second year at an Ivy League law program. I’m still serving time in high school.

“You skipped a year,” he says, pushing his sunglasses up into the mess of his dark hair. His ice-blue eyes catch the light, locking on me like he’s studying the difference two years can make. “Can’t believe how much you’ve changed.”

“Had to grow up sometime.”

He tilts his head, not buying it. “So why didn’t you come last summer?”

My fingers smooth over my thighs. Lincoln’s the one person I’ve always told everything… until now.

“Tell me,” he says, softer this time, like the words are meant to coax instead of press.

“I failed a class. Had to retake it.”

His brows lift — surprise flickering there. He doesn’t ask the obvious question, but it’s written across his face: How does Lily Snow fail anything?

I don’t tell him about Grandma Jo’s sickness, or the days I skipped school to hold her hair back, or the late nights that bled into mornings just to catch up. Those truths stay buried.

“That’s why you didn’t make it?”

I nod. His gaze drifts to the pool, voice quieter. “I really missed you, Lily bird.”

A splash shocks me awake, cool water misting my skin. I blink, squinting against the slant of the sun as it dips below the tree line.

“Wakey, wakey, sleepyhead.”

“You know, for a college student, you can be a real child,” I mutter, brushing droplets off my sundress. Lincoln surfaces, grinning, his dive having drenched me head to toe.

“Come on, Lily. Time’s wasting. Jump in.”

I peel off my sundress, revealing a floral one-piece with a halter top and boy shorts — vintage ’50s style. Modest, comfortable. Safe.

The water grips my skin as I wade in. Lincoln’s hair falls into his eyes, and he pushes it back, watching me inch closer. Eight years of summers, and nothing’s really changed — he’s still my anchor here.

When I stop a few feet away, he closes the gap, grabbing me suddenly and hoisting me up before dropping me into the water with a splash.

“Welcome home, Lily bird,” he says.

It’s not home. Not really. I’ve never stayed longer than a summer, always as the housekeeper’s daughter — welcomed, but not the same. Lincoln is the senator’s son. His older brother, Bentley, is the golden boy already set on a political path. Their worlds are carved from marble; mine from concrete.

We’re floating on our backs, our fingers just brushing, when a shadow slices across the water. I gasp and sink under. Lincoln hauls me back up by the hand.

Bentley’s laugh hits my ears first, warm and deep. He looks different too. His dirty-blond hair sweeps to the side in a casual mess, his blue eyes bright but sharper than Lincoln’s. The Walker brothers are beautiful in different ways — one dark and steady, one golden and blazing.

Bentley holds out a towel. I climb out, and he wraps it around me, tucking it snug at my neck before leaning down to kiss my forehead like he’s done every summer since I was little.

“Look at you, all grown up,” he says, chucking me under the chin.

His suit and polished shoes soak up the water dripping from me, but he doesn’t move, eyes holding mine until Lincoln claps him on the back.

“Glad you could make it, brother.”