by Liz Lincoln
Pushing the journal away from herself, she gave him a tight smile and took a drink. “Thanks.”
He nodded, not meeting her eyes. She cast a sideways glance at him. His shoulders and jaw were tense, his breaths still not entirely steady.
At least he was as affected by that moment they’d had as she was. She didn’t have to suffer alone.
She should go. She had articles to write, ideas to brainstorm, a few calls to make. She had to get it done tonight; tomorrow she and Annie had a wine, cheese, and Parks and Recreation date with Netflix while they organized postcards to send out for Annie’s city council reelection campaign.
Ridiculous as it was, though, she didn’t want to leave. She wanted to spend more time with Quinn. Maybe Netflix and chill with him instead of her friend. It was a terrible idea, but she couldn’t help it.
Definitely time to go, before she could do something like propose exactly that.
Before she could move, though, Quinn cocked his head to the side and studied her notebook. She’d decorated next week with an addiction awareness theme, including a red ribbon sticker, doodles, and a few inspirational quotes about forgiveness, acceptance, and being a fighter. Things to engage her inner warrior and help her reframe some of the worst parts of her childhood.
“You doing some sort of charity walk or something?” He pulled the notebook closer, squinting at the page. For Sunday evening, she’d written the entry for her Al-Anon meeting larger than usual. It was in a different location and she wanted to make sure she had it correct. Then while on a phone call, she’d absentmindedly doodled so Al-Anon was in bold block letters and surrounded by brightly colored shapes and patterns.
“You go to Al-Anon? The group for loved ones of addicts?” He looked up at her, eyes wide, expression stunned like he’d been kicked in the stomach. “Natalie, what the hell is this?”
Why did she put her planner out where he could see it? They needed to hash this out at some point. But not tonight. Not when that hug-that-was-more-than-a-hug had left her feeling so vulnerable.
“I—”
“Shit, Nat, do you go because of me? Still?”
* * *
—
She closed her eyes and ran her hands over her face. It was none of his business, and yet she couldn’t not answer. She wasn’t a good enough liar to come up with something plausible.
And for reasons she refused to think about, she wanted to tell him.
“Yes and no. I started going right before…the article. But not really because of you. Something else happened around then. That article maybe was a result of it. If that makes sense.” She rested her elbows on the table, keeping her face in her hands. She couldn’t look at him. Her hair fell around her, hiding her further. Good.
She didn’t talk about her dad’s series of trips to the hospital for alcohol poisoning with anyone. Annie knew, of course, but they never discussed it.
“My dad, he got a lot worse for a while. His drinking. My stepmom too, but I guess she wasn’t as bad, or was lucky or something. Anyway, they were out and he had a seizure and was in the hospital for a few days. I was in New York then, and I couldn’t get away so I just talked to my stepmom on the phone.”
His hand was achingly gentle as he slid her hair over her shoulder, out of the way, and eased her hand away from her face. He scooted his chair closer as he wrapped her hand in his. “Natalie, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
His voice was so broken, so scared, his hand not quite shaking, but vibrating with tension as he held hers, she had to look at him. His handsome face was pinched in worry, his hazel eyes turned a tumultuous gray.
Their gazes connected, and again there was that pulse of connection. Familiarity and heat and need all wound together. The hesitant beginnings of friendship and reconciliation.
And she would ruin it if she told him. He would hate her for withholding it all those years ago.
But she couldn’t not tell him. So she turned to face him, their knees bumping together. “Everything was a mess at SI then, everyone was getting laid off. So I had an unstable job and it was the middle of the season and I couldn’t get home for even a day. And Cherrie was such a bitch about it. So were my brothers and sister. It was awful. One of the worst times of my life.”
He snorted. “I can imagine.”
Would he believe it if she told him the only other time that came close on the misery scale was after she left him?
He squeezed her hands; she hadn’t even noticed he’d taken her other one.
“He got out of the hospital, and of course went to rehab. Thirty days in the cheapest place they could find and he was drinking again as soon as he got out. A month later, he had another seizure.” She bit down on the inside of her lips, waiting for his response.
When he just blinked, seeming to absorb the information, she rushed on. “And he did that cycle three more times. Five total hospital admissions in less than a year. All those seizures, not to mention years of alcoholism, wrecked his brain. He’s got brain damage. No short-term memory or attention span. His balance is terrible. His hands shake.”
She had to pause and swallow back the knot of tears in the back of her throat. She wasn’t close to her dad. She didn’t even like him. But he was still her dad. Seeing what he’d done to himself was painful. “And they still drink. He’s cut back a lot but she still gets blackout drunk most days. So do my older sister and brother. He’s killing himself and he doesn’t care. So, yeah, that’s why I started going. And on some level, that’s why I wrote the article.” She never had to specify which article she meant. He knew.
Quinn still just stared at her. Like she was speaking a foreign language and he was struggling to put the words together. Then he did something she never saw coming.
He kissed her.
She didn’t have time to register what was happening until his hands were on her cheeks and his lips pressed against hers. He held her face in that way only he had, like she was precious. His mouth was so soft, so sweet as he nibbled at hers, something inside her opened and all the feelings rushed in. Familiar, warm feelings. Remembered hot feelings. And new, tentative feelings too.
Look at that, she was touching him too, her hands wrapped around his biceps, sliding back and forth over his smooth skin. She responded to the kiss, her lips moving against his, small tastes, gentle exploration. Neither one moved to take it deeper, which was fine. This was perfect.
Slowly he drew back just enough to talk. “Jesus, Nat, I’m so sorry.” His voice was still thick with emotion. His forehead rested against hers, and when she opened her eyes enough to peek at him, his eyes were closed, brows drawn down.
His thumb smoothed back and forth over her cheek. “I wish…I don’t even know. All you ever said was he was kind of a heavy drinker. Why didn’t you ever tell me how bad he was?”
And there was the magic question. She’d expected more anger or hurt, but instead he still sounded concerned. Like he cared.
But that was an illusion. Working on the car had wrapped them in a make-believe bubble where they were fooling themselves into thinking it was the past. College Quinn was worried about College Natalie. This wasn’t really them anymore.
She had to pull away. She couldn’t answer with him so close. She slid her hands along his arms until she could hold his wrists and draw his hands away. She squeezed his wrists and bumped her nose against his before standing and walking away. She dropped onto the couch and shoved her fingers into her hair.
Natalie heard him moving behind her but didn’t turn to see him. “Natalie. Don’t I deserve at least an answer to that?”
She swallowed against the press of painful memories constricting her chest. She liked the comfort of the kissing a whole hell of a lot more.
“I spent most of middle school hiding from everyone so they couldn’t find out what my dad was like. That’
s when he married my stepmom, and the two of them together were awful. If she didn’t think my dad was drinking enough, she insulted his manhood until he drank more. That’s also when Katie and Adam got reputations as big partyers and drinkers. Since I was their little sister, people assumed I was that way too. So it was easiest to keep to myself.” She didn’t pause at all as she spoke. If she kept talking, there was less room for memories.
“High school was a little better. My stepmom didn’t drink quite as much and she and Dad actually tried getting sober a couple times. Plus, Annie’s parents started to realize how bad things were at my house and I spent most of my time there. Adam and Katie moved out. I got very into the school newspaper. But I was still the daughter and sister of drunks.”
His footsteps said he was coming over to her. Damn him. She wouldn’t get through this without crying if he sat with her. But he was right, he did deserve to know. If they were ever going to bridge any sort of friendship—was that even what they were doing, now that he’d kissed her? Or was that a friendly kiss?—she couldn’t keep it from him.
Unfortunately, that included telling him why she left him that night.
His big body passed in front of her, his legs brushing hers in the close space between the couch and coffee table. Despite her emotional ache, her legs tingled from the contact.
Yeah, their relationship was definitely more complicated than friends and colleagues.
With a deep sigh, Quinn dropped down next to her. “I’m sorry you went through all that. And I know your stepbrothers couldn’t have been much of a support system.”
“They were too young. But I had Annie. She was amazing. And her mom is great. She basically adopted me after my mom left anyway, so I leaned on their family a lot.”
“I still don’t get it. We shared everything. I thought.” The hurt in his voice ran deep, making the ache in her chest tighter. “Why did you leave out something this huge?”
She turned toward him, tucking her foot up underneath herself. “I didn’t tell anyone in college. I didn’t want to be that person anymore. It was a new start, no more drunk older siblings, no more shitty parents. Just me and my future. That’s why as much as I wanted to be with Annie, I didn’t go to UW with her. I needed a completely fresh start.”
He picked up her hands and slid his fingers through hers. He was so warm and strong and inviting. She wanted to sink into the comfort he offered. But there was still more to say.
“I think I get it. I guess. It’s not like I tell everyone I meet that I’m an alcoholic. I want that to be my past too. But I wasn’t just some random guy. We were…”
She wanted to ask how that sentence ended but she couldn’t. Her chest ached with how much hurt she was delivering now. Maybe she shouldn’t tell him the rest. Maybe it was better to leave now.
She opened her mouth to say she had to go, but the words wouldn’t break past the constriction in her throat. Only a squeak escaped.
“What? You want to say something else, just say it. No more bullshit.”
There was the anger she expected. Just a hint of it in his voice, but it was there. He probably didn’t realize his hands had tightened on her.
“I never told you why I left that night.” The scene flashed through her head. She’d awakened in the middle of the night with terrible nausea and known she was going to throw up. She still didn’t know if she’d eaten bad food or gotten a stomach bug. She’d hurried to Quinn’s bathroom, only to find him in there curled around the toilet, also puking. He’d undoubtedly gone past his tolerance limit, as usual. So she’d been forced to use the sink.
Sobbing as she heaved her guts up and listened to her boyfriend do the same, the déjà vu had hit fast and powerful.
She remembered all those times she got sick—she’d had a nervous, finicky stomach back then—and she’d stood at the sink because her dad was on the floor, draped over the toilet. Their little house had only one bathroom so they’d been forced into the worst sort of father-daughter bonding.
“No, you most definitely have not told me why you disappeared in the middle of the night. I believe your email the next day was two sentences.” His voice turned icy and he pulled his hands away from hers. Shifted away from her on the couch.
She deserved his distance—really, she hadn’t deserved the softness he’d been giving her so far today—but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. Why couldn’t she do the smart thing and just stay away from him? She should find another friend who liked classic cars.
But first she owed him an answer. “I’m sure you remember I had to work on that paper so I stayed in while you went out.”
He merely grunted in response.
She waited, trying to collect her thoughts, trying to organize things into an explanation that made sense.
She must have paused too long, because he said, “So, what, in the middle of the night you woke up, decided you didn’t trust me anymore, and left?”
His words felt like a punch in the chest. “What? No! Of course I trusted you.” She’d loved him with everything she had. The strength of her love was why she’d left. And what was love without trust? “I loved you, Quinn. You have to know that was true.”
He gave her a hard stare that said he didn’t know anything.
OK, she just had to say it. Get it over with, they could go back to being mad at each other and life would go on the way it had been for years.
“I had a stomach that liked to throw up all the time. Annie’s mom insists it was a stress reaction. So I used to have to share a bathroom with my dad, puking in the sink because he was puking all his alcohol into the toilet. I tried so hard to tell myself you weren’t like him, that you weren’t going to become like him, it was just a college thing, partying a little too much. I wanted to believe so badly that it would get better, not worse. It hurt so much seeing you do that to yourself. And I thought—” Emotion choked off her rushed words and she had to pause to pull in a steadying breath. She shook her head to clear out all the excess and focus on getting this over with.
“I woke up with some kind of stomach bug. And when I went to the bathroom, there you were, just like my dad, praying to the porcelain god, and I had to use the sink and it was everything I’d told myself we would never be. It was my worst fears about us wrapped up in one vomit-filled moment. And I just, I couldn’t anymore.” Fuck. She was going to cry. She couldn’t cry, not in front of him. “So I got my shit together and dragged myself home and called Annie and she drove down at three in the morning so I could sob in her lap. And that was it. That’s why I left. It was weak and cowardly and I owed you an explanation. I know that. But I was a chicken. Because I just couldn’t do that again. And now I see my dad, and…” And she saw what Quinn could become if he didn’t stay sober and it terrified her.
She blinked hard to hold in the tears. She had to get out of there.
“I should go. I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess.” Natalie stumbled to her feet, snatched her purse off the coffee table, and hurried for the door.
“Natalie, wait.”
She ignored him as she fumbled with the deadbolt. Yanked the door open and rushed down the front steps, the door slamming shut behind her.
It wasn’t until she reached her car that she remembered her planner. She really didn’t want to go back for it. She couldn’t face him right now. She was a mess of contradicting feelings, the chaos in her head and her chest so wild, she couldn’t have pinned down any one of them.
But that notebook was her life. All her story notes, phone numbers, everything she needed for work. It was an extension of her brain. So, like she always did, she sucked it up and headed back.
* * *
—
There should be a limit to the number of emotional bombshells a person had to deal with at one time. His conversation with Natalie definitely exceeded that limit.
Holy
shit. As he stalked across the house to get another glass of water, he had no idea if he should be mad or sad or glad or worried or indifferent or some other feeling that hadn’t occurred to him.
As he snatched his empty glass off the table, his gaze snagged on Natalie’s notebook. Ah, hell. He didn’t really want to deal with her again right now. He was too charged up; he was likely to do something dumb. Either yell at her or kiss her, he wasn’t sure which. Maybe both.
But she relied on her little blue planner. He’d watched her scribbling furiously in it, taking notes, writing down whatever she thought needed to go in there. A momentary urge to flip through the colorful pages—she always had a dozen pens of different colors with her and she used stickers and shit to make it pretty—hit him, but he shoved it aside.
He was curious about her life outside the Dragons, even if it was a self-destructive curiosity. But he also wasn’t a complete asshole. So he flipped the notebook shut and took it with him to the door. Maybe he’d catch her before she pulled out. Given how quickly she’d fled, she’d probably peeled out and was already halfway home. But it was worth a shot.
An image of her crying in her car flashed through his imagination. She’d been visibly upset and he’d caught the shining in her eyes.
Shit. Once upon a time, things had been so simple with her. Now it was more complicated than the rules that governed what constituted a catch. And those had gotten really damn complicated in the past few years.
He yanked open his door, only to get knocked in the forehead by a small fist. What the hell?
Natalie stood before him, arm raised to knock. She jerked back with a startled expression.
“I forgot—”
“You left—”
They both stopped talking and stared at each other. Like before in the garage, and again at the table, tension arced between them, residual feelings twining with new desires. He didn’t want these new desires, but he seemed not to have much say in the matter.