Khristos didn’t seem at all offended. In fact, he merely chuckled and motioned for her to go ahead of him. “My apologies. I thought Nina was a good enough reference.”
Stopping when they reached the stairs leading down to her apartment, Quinn dropped her carryon bag, letting it thump with a satisfying crunch to the hard, semi-frozen ground. “I hardly know Nina, and what I do know of her is enough to give me nightmares for a hundred years.”
Had she said that out loud?
Nina popped her lips, her eyes narrowing under the fluorescent streetlights. “I’m sorry, Lite-Brite, but wasn’t that you back in the Parthenon, clinging to me like some damn leech, begging me not to leave you alone with big scary Khristos? I’m all the nightmare you got right now. If I were you, I’d shut that yap of yours, and I’d shut it now.” She leered down at Quinn, making her shiver a cringe.
Yep. She’d said it out loud.
Honey. You get more flies with honey than vinegar, Quinn, her Aunt Rachel had always said. Reaching up, her fingers shaking, she patted Nina on the shoulder before snatching her hand away. “That was rude of me.”
“The rudest,” Nina said before growling at her and snapping her teeth.
Headlights shining in her eyes as a big SUV drove up forced her to squint and back away from Nina.
Ingrid clapped her hands in delight. “It’s Marty and Wanda!”
Nina rolled her eyes before slapping Khristos on the back. “If you thought this one was a pain in the ass—wait. Marty and Wanda are the champions of ass pain.”
But laid-back, easygoing, hotter-than-hell Khristos rocked on his heels and smiled. What was with all the smiling? “Can’t wait.”
Marty and Wanda fell out of the car in a cloud of hair and perfume, rushing to Ingrid and scooping her up in a hug. Their eyes, sympathetic with only hints of shock, locked with Quinn’s.
And then they were scooping her up, too, in vanilla-scented hugs and bangle bracelets clacking in the howling night air. “Oh, Quinn!” Marty said, rubbing her arm with a gentle hand. “How are you feeling? Do you need to talk about it? I wish Ingrid had contacted us instead of Elvira here. We’re far more sympathetic to the changes you’ll experience, and well, we don’t swear nearly as much.”
Nina leaned down and looked Marty in the eye, flipping her middle finger up into the air. “Oh, eff you, Pretty-Pretty Princess. She’s here, isn’t she? Not a hair on her head out of place and her boobs even managed to stay inflated, all nice and poofy, just like I found her. I’d say that was damn well the best display of sympathy ever.”
Wanda sighed, poking Nina with a gloved finger between her shoulder blades. “You. Quiet. Now.” Reaching for Quinn, she hooked her arm through hers and smiled.
Wow. She was pretty—for a halfsie.
“I’m Wanda Schwartz-Jefferson, and we’re here to help. Now, let’s get you inside where you can warm up and we’ll chat over some tea, yes? You drink tea, if I recall what Ingrid said correctly, right?”
As Wanda led her down the flight of stairs to her apartment, Quinn couldn’t help but find her strangely soothing, in her slim-fitting taupe trench coat and silky turquoise-and-brown scarf. She smelled of good things—warm, kind things—and Quinn was instantly drawn to her.
Quinn nodded, reaching into her purse to dig for her keys, to no avail. “I can’t find my keys.” But she sure knew how to find an apple.
Nina groaned. “Move,” she ordered, parting the group and skipping down the steps to grab the handle on her door.
The other two women yelped, “No, Nina!” just as she mutilated Quinn’s doorknob with her long fingers.
Mutilated. As in, pulverized with a mere turn of her wrist, the heavy metal so twisted, it dropped and fell to the ground with a loud clang.
Oh, cripes.
Nina’s defiant black eyes found Quinn’s as though she were daring her to complain. Her raven eyebrow rose while she waited for Quinn to react. When she didn’t—because hello, throat-puncher alert—Nina grinned and said, “After you.”
She traded off clinging to Nina for clinging to Wanda. If nothing else, she was softer for the clinging, and she didn’t gnash her teeth at her.
Pushing her way through the door, she flipped on the lights to her very tiny living room and sucked in the familiar air of home, her eyes scanning the pastel colors and bleached white walls. She’d worked hard to make this space hers, using her favorite colors—pale blues and white—and decorating it with all the things she loved, like roses and hydrangeas and sheer curtains with lace.
“Jesus. Did Barbie die and leave you all her shit?”
Naturally, someone like Nina would find her tiny abode, decorated in various shades of white and muted blues, distasteful. She probably had deer antlers and beer mugs hanging from the walls of her castle.