Quinn giggled. “Thanks for covering for me. I’m not ready to explain about Igor yet.”
“So seriously. Are you really, really going to let that douchenozzle crap on your future dreams? Don’t you think it’s time to let the failures go?”
Youth, in all its impatience, thy name is Ingrid. It had nothing to do with letting go. It had to do with a dream dashed, and coming to terms with the dashing.
“Look, Miss Youthful and Resilient 2015, you’re young, maybe too young to have experienced real betrayal. So while Igor is a piece of limp wiener, we were in a relationship for over a year. Maybe at your age that’s no big deal, and maybe the day after you found out the man you thought was your soul mate cheated on you, you’d skip right off to the next available guy with tickets to a Justin Bieber concert. But at my age, a year means something. It’s time invested, and it still stings a little. I’m gun-shy now. And it isn’t much about Igor anymore. It’s about all of my failed relationships as a whole.”
“Hey, Old Maid,” Ingrid prodded, swatting at her arm. “First of all, no way I’d date a dude who liked Bieber. Second of all, I’d mourn my lost relationship for at least a week before I even considered dating anyone else. I might even go two weeks, and I’m not saying you shouldn’t be angry and bitter over all that time invested. Not at all. I’m just saying, never give up. It’s what you told me when we had to write that stupid essay about some ancient artist’s perspective of his death. Remember how I struggled with that? Christ, I wanted to raise him up from the dead just so I could kill him all over again.”
Quinn sighed, but she shot Ingrid a fond smile. “One essay and several drastically bad life-choices are exactly the same.”
“You’re breaking me,” Ingrid said mournfully, letting the cookie drop to the plate.
Quinn patted her hand and wiped the side of Ingrid’s mouth free of crumbs. “Don’t be broken. I’m not.” And that was the truth.
Carl stood up suddenly, pushing aside his chair and grabbing a big tote bag from under the table. He stooped in an awkward half-bend of knees and pulled out a book.
Holding it up, he grinned crookedly at Quinn and held out his hand, now duct-taped securely to his wrist, the shiny silver metallic catching the overhead light.
Quinn cocked her head in Nina’s direction.
Nina smiled, and when that smile was in direct relation to someone she loved, it was the most amazing, serene sight to behold. She was so beautiful when she wasn’t threatening to turn your liver into paté.
Nina ruffled Carl’s dark hair like a proud parent. “He wants to read to you, Lite-Brite. Carl’s an intuitive little dude, and he must sense you’re sad about all this love goop. He loves to read. Reads everything he can get his hands on. It makes him happy. He thinks it makes everyone else happy, too. Don’t you buddy? It’s his way of cheering you up.”
Quinn smiled up at Carl then, her heart tight and melty in her chest. “I love to read, too, Carl. It’s my absolute favorite pastime.”
Carl grunted and stuck his hand back at her with that grin even the hardest of hearts couldn’t deny.
Quinn took it, letting Carl lead her to her bedroom, where he sat on the edge of the bed and patted the place next to him.
And there she sat, on her frilly romantic bed with the plump white and blue lace pillows, right next to a vegetarian zombie who clumsily nestled Goodnight Moon on his thighs and grunted out words to her.
And it was the second most amazing thing that had happened to her today.
Chapter 9
The doorbell, tinny and obnoxiously loud, had Quinn literally falling out of her bed, stumbling over Carl, who’d fallen fast asleep after they’d read together.
Buffy and Spike stirred only briefly from their spot on the pillows before yawning and settling back in, curling together in a warm ball of contentment.
Grabbing her bathrobe, Quinn made a break for the door in the hopes whoever it was, holding their finger to the damn doorbell as if they were demanding entry to Heaven, wouldn’t wake Nina.
Because she did not want to be the one who ruffled those bat wings.
But it was already too late. Nina held the door wide open, the freezing rush of air whooshing around Quinn’s ankles.
The vampire folded her arms over her red thermal shirt with black bats on it, crossing her long legs covered in matching thermal underwear, and cocked her head in Quinn’s direction. “Ding-dong, parental unit calling,” she growled.
Oh no. No, no, no.
“Quinn?” Her mother rushed in, pushing her way past Nina to stop directly in front of Khristos, whose big body was sprawled awkwardly on her couch, sound asleep. His beautiful face took her breath away, relaxed and serene as though his liver wasn’t in dire danger of being pecked out.