MOM:
Can you process here, with us? Because we understand the freak-out. We do. I get that our decision to not tell you some things was . . . questionable . . . but can you accept that at the time of your adoption, all we knew was that we loved you like you were ours. Period. And maybe we’ve been overprotective of that but nothing’s changed. We still love you like you’re ours. Because you are.
DAD:
What your mom said.
QUINN:
I love you both. I’ll call soon.
MOM:
Tomorrow. You’ll call tomorrow.
QUINN:
I’ll call tomorrow.
And she would. She needed to remember that she wasn’t the only one who’d lost Beth. So she got that they didn’t want to lose her too. Not that they would. She just needed a minute to rebuild some trust.
Maybe a few minutes.
Next, she called Chef Wade and chewed on her nails waiting for him to pick up, trying to figure out how to keep her job from two hundred miles away.
Chef Wade didn’t pick up.
Not a good sign. She left an awkward voice-mail message and hoped like hell he wasn’t about to fire her.
As she disconnected, Brock called.
“What do you mean you’re not coming back yet?” he asked.
“It’s about my sister—”
“Beth?”
“Tilly.”
“The fifteen-year-old you told me about in your texts? What about her?”
“She’s so . . . alone.”
“Yeah and that sucks. I feel bad for the kid but . . . wait. Are you about to tell me you’re going to bring her home with you?”
“Would that be so shocking?”
He chuckled a little at that. “Hell, yes. Did you forget that you’re afraid of kids?”
“No, I’m afraid of your twin two-year-old nephews,” she corrected. “They’re crazy.” But it was true, she couldn’t imagine anything more terrifying than taking Tilly on, taking all of this on. But nor could she see herself just walking away either.
“Teenagers are a whole different species,” Brock said.
“And?”
“And it’s your call, but I’m game.”
“Game as in . . .”
“Anything that gets you back to the land of the living, back into a relationship.”
“You’re game,” she repeated, stunned. “To get back into a relationship.”
“Yes,” he said. “But fair warning in the interest of honesty, I’ve been sowing my oats. You’d need to give me a minute to clear my deck.” He paused. “Or two. Tops.”
She waited for the pain of his sexual escapades to hit, but before it could, he went on. “Look, babe,” he said, voice more serious now. “Honestly? I’ve been hoping for something to come along and snap you out of it.”
“Hoping,” she said carefully. “While screwing everything that moves?”
“Well, not everything. And my point is that I’m here for you, whatever you want. Just come back.”
To L.A. Where her life was.
It was a reasonable suggestion. But Tilly was here and Quinn didn’t see her up and moving to L.A. in the middle of a school year.
“What if I stayed here awhile?” she asked. She couldn’t even believe the question popped out of her mouth.
On Brock’s part, there was such a long silence that she pulled the phone away from her ear and looked to make sure they were still connected. “Hello?”
“I’m here,” he said. “How long is awhile?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head, completely overwhelmed.
“Quinn,” he said slowly, “our thing, you and me . . . it never involved leaving L.A.”
Even though she knew this, her heart did a little squeeze. “First of all, I never said I was leaving L.A. And second of all . . . so I’m the One for you, but only if I agree to stay in L.A., on your terms?”
“I love you, Quinn. But I love my job too. It’s very important to me. You know that.”
She did. And she knew something else too. “I don’t think this is going to work,” she whispered.
There was a loaded silence. “So you’re staying in Wildstone.”
“No. No,” she said again, softer. “But that’s not what I’m talking about. I don’t like the ultimatum from you.”
“That,” he said. “Or you’re looking for excuses, as you have been for two years.”
She inhaled a long shuddery breath, looking for calm. And didn’t find any. “I’m sorry if you feel like you’ve been waiting on me, but we never agreed to that. You know I’ve had a problem with emotions and feelings.”
“Two years,” he repeated.
“Stop. You have not been waiting around, pining for me, for that long. You’ve been . . . sowing your wild oats!”
“Quinn—”
“No.” She knew that voice of his, that overly calm, reasonable tone, and she wasn’t having any of it. “Maybe I need to sow mine. You ever think of that?”
He was silent for a beat, processing. Thinking.
Which she suddenly resented. “I’ve got to go.”
“Don’t do anything hasty, babe.”
“Hello, have you met me?” she asked. “It took me a year to decide which condo I wanted to buy!”
“Uh-huh,” he agreed. “And only an hour after receiving shocking news to jump into your car and drive three hours north of here without telling anyone.”
She shook her head. “You’re not understanding what’s going on up here.”
“Come home and tell me about it.” There was a beep in her ear. “Shit,” he said. “A call just came in that I have to take,” he said, apology heavy in his voice. “We’ll get back to this, okay?”
“Sure.”
“Don’t get pissy, like you don’t care or feel anything, since it’s clear you’re back to doing both.”
“I gotta go too,” she said. “Bad connection.” And she turned off the Jetpak and let the crappy Internet cut out on them.
But not before Chef Wade’s text came through: no worries, Marcel’s covering for you.
Not exactly music to her ears . . .
Chapter 8
Things that annoy me:
1. Feelings
2. People
3. Basically everything, I have no idea why I started a list . . .
—from “The Mixed-Up Files of Tilly Adams’s Journal”
Fifteen minutes later Quinn was at the Whiskey River for a badly needed drink. She didn’t imbibe much. First, she was a lightweight. And second, normally she preferred to eat her calories.
But her shitty week called for alcohol. Her gaze fell to the flyer on the bar touting the “Bartender’s Special,” so she ordered one of those.
“After the day you’ve had, good choice,” the good-looking bartender said with a wink.
She resisted covering the large red bee sting she knew still stood out in the middle of her forehead and turned to take in the crowd.
The music was surprisingly good and she sat there absorbing the easy laughter and sounds of conversation around her. By the time the door opened and in walked no other than Mick Hennessey, maintenance guy, mind reader, and incredible Levi’s filler, she was relaxed.
Or so she thought. Because from across the large room, Mick’s gaze met hers and she stilled from the inside out, if that made any sense at all. It was the oddest thing.
The bartender greeted Mick with some complicated handshake followed by a back-slapping guy hug. “Beginning to look like you’re sticking,” the bartender said.