“Don’t know,” I answer. “Visiting her dad maybe?” Only he teaches on the west side of campus with the other Business instructors. “Or saying ‘hi’ to her old boss?” I toss Andrew my keys. “Can you get my car? I’m going to see what’s up.”
He waggles his eyebrows. “See if she can convince all the girls here to wear tight shirts like that, too, would ya?” I quicken my pace down the leaf-littered sidewalk, and he hollers, “Think about it, Kingsley. Boobies everywhere!” I laugh, giving him the finger and jog over to where Quinn is planted on a wall, digging through her purse.
“You know, rehab is available for girls addicted to their boyfriends,” I joke as I draw close. Her hand stills and she looks up, eyes wider and rounder than usual.
“Hi.”
“Couldn’t wait until tonight to see me?”
She pinches a smile, and if I didn’t know any better I’d say she wasn’t expecting to see me. Even though she’s at my school. “I thought you were going to dinner…” Her brow falls, voice dwindling away as she notices Andrew stroll in the direction of the parking lot.
“We couldn’t practice on the water because of the wind, so we worked weights today. We’re headed to Coach’s house now.” Cringing against the throb in my head, I drop a kiss on her mouth at the same time stealing a peek to where her hand is buried in her purse. No cigarettes, I hope; last I knew, that habit died a few months ago. “What’re you doing here? Thought you had a meeting with one of your instructors.”
“Oh, um…” She tugs the hem of her striped tank top, stretching it over the waist of her jean shorts. “Yeah, about that. I, uh,”—she looks up to the swaying tree above—“it was cancelled.”
“And you’re here because…?”
For a split second, between one blink and the next, glass eyes—empty and unfeeling—stare back at me. It’s the Quinn she once was, back when she was a shattered frame of a girl trying to hold herself intact like a broken vase pieced together with a dried-up glue stick. Back before she allowed me in.
My skin attempts to caterpillar off my body.
Another blink and the look is gone, replaced with smiling eyes as she flattens her hands on my cheeks and kisses my nose. “Can’t blame a girl for needing a quick fix of her boyfriend to hold her over a few hours.”
It doesn’t add up—what she says. Still, the tension in my head eases with her touch, the sweet scent of her, like I’m suddenly immersed in a steaming-hot Jacuzzi. The moment doesn’t last because her words seep back in like icy tentacles, latching onto my skin… She took the city bus all the way here to possibly see me for two minutes before I head off to a birthday party? When we weren’t supposed to be practicing here in the first place?
Sliding her hands from my face, I gulp down the tasteless, niggling thought that there’s something she’s not telling me, and say lowly, “While I’m flattered you wanted to see me…maybe when I’m done at the party and I do pick you up, you could do me a favor and tell me the truth?”
Silence descends like a lead blanket, air so heavy it could drown a butterfly. A gust of wind blows, threading a strand of hair across her face. With her fingers, she tucks it behind her ear, then clears her throat and stands with her arms slung across her stomach. Not upset, like I expect, but grinning. “Only if you admit the real reason you’ve been dodging me the last three days. Because, for some unexplainable reason, I’m not quite buying the homework excuse.” The heat of her challenging tone hangs in the air like smoke, thick and choking, which means she’s on to me just as much as I am to her.
Crap.
She gathers her purse and without another word turns for the bus stop.
~*~
Coach’s birthday party drags on well into the evening, the pain in my head worsening with every meaningless conversation I have: season recaps with Jace, a freshman who’ll likely school the entire JV team; chocolate frosting versus vanilla with Coach’s twelve-year-old daughter, Riley; and the mere fact that I still look like shit—even worse now—with Andrew.
“I’m just sayin’ I’ve never seen you this worn down before,” he says to me as he kicks a recliner back and stretches out. “All week. Not to mention the shit performance you displayed during practice and the awkward meeting with your girl earlier.” I reel my head off the couch and look at him. He holds up his hands. “Not spying, but I saw the way you two were standing with each other as I parked and waited. All stiff, her arms crossed, the look on your face that screamed you had a million things to say to her but didn’t want to say any of them.”
Not a million. Just one.
“And you’re the body language expert?” I say, swallowing a sip of water. “The guy who can’t even read when a girl is not interested in him after she flat out says, ‘I’m not interested in you’?”
Laughing, he points at me. “Whatever. And in my defense, I think that chick had something wrong with her face, a muscle twitch or something that made her smile. She was totally smiling before she said that.”
It’s nine o’clock by the time I drop off Andrew and pick Quinn up from Loyola. She’s quiet the entire drive, staring out as the blue-black ocean sails by her window. Once in my room, I settle onto my bed and look up at her.
“I take it you weren’t visiting your dad today. Considering business has nothing to do with fine arts.”
She sits at the edge, a good two feet of space between us and another few unusually quiet seconds pass. On top of picking her nails and the poor attempt she’s taken at avoiding my eyes, I’d recognize her troubled expression underwater.
Obviously she’s not telling me something.
Tucking her feet in close to her body, Quinn shakes her head. “I wasn’t visiting my dad.”
I face her, clasping a pillow beneath my arm, and wait. For an eternity-like, quiet moment she fingers the camera sitting beside the bed, the tip of her nail tracing button after button. Her lips part and, just when I think she’s going to spill it, she lifts the camera to her face and squints at me through the lens.
“Babe,” I lower the camera and say, “you can’t hide behind the camera.”
She puckers her lips and releases a slow breath. “I’m not hiding. Just avoiding.”
“Me?”
“Telling you.” She sets the camera between us, rubs her face, then looks me straight-on. “That I’m going back to work for Mr. Hunter. As a model.” Her words sound strong and sure, but as I look into the depths of her eyes I see a flicker of something old and painful and definitely not forgotten.
“Hold up.” I sit upright and lean in close enough to smell the mint on her breath. “Why would you need to go back to that? Your tuition is covered. For as long as you need it to be.”
“Yeah, by you. And your family.” Her words snap and immediately the expression on her face softens, like she didn’t mean to raise her voice. It’s only been a month since my dad offered her family money for Quinn’s schooling, a reimbursement of sorts for all the damage my father and I caused when I came to Pacific Rim. She takes my pillow and hugs it against her chest. “I just can’t stand that I’m your fucking charity case.”
“You’re not my charity case.” I run my fingers up and around the back of her neck, tangle them into her hair. “You’re my girlfriend, Quinn. Who I love. Who I would pay a gazillion dollars just to never see stand naked in front of strangers again.”
She rolls her eyes. “It’s not that bad.”
“When all I’ll be able to think about is other dudes checking you out it is. Do you know what that could do to my ego?”
A tiny giggle bubbles off her lips, and she leans into my hand. “I’m sure your ego will survive, Mr. All-the-girls-look-at-me-‘cause-I’m-captain-of-the-rowing-team.”
The thought of her stripping off her clothes in front of other people burns a venomous hole into my stomach. “Why not something else? I can talk to Sal, get you a job at the sandwich shop. You’re really good at cooking. Remember that chicken wrap you made? The one with t
he pineapple? Sal’s thinking about putting it on the menu.”
“That’s preparing, not cooking,” she says, a small smile sweeping over her lips. At least once a week she comes in during my shift and plays with the ingredients, creating out-of-the-box subs. “And no offense, but you of all people should know how shitty Sal pays—I’d barely be able to afford my cell phone bill working for him, let alone books and housing.”
No, no, no. On top of everything else, I can’t handle this right now. I pull her near, close my eyes, and whisper against her lips, “Please, for me, don’t take the job. I’ll help you look for something else that pays well.”
“I have to, Torrin.” She hooks her finger on the collar of my shirt and tugs it down then softly kisses my chest. Strands of hair whisper against my chin. “I know I won’t make enough for my full tuition working for Hunter,” she continues, her lips tickling my skin, “but it’s something. And it’s now. And it’ll be enough so your dad won’t think I’m mooching off him. Or you.”
My brow shoots up. “Is that why you’re doing this? Because you’re worried what he thinks? My dad’s a bit of a hard-ass, but he would never think that.”
“No.” Hot breath edges up my neck, followed by a lick of her tongue so slow and deliberate my skin ripples with shivers. “I’m worried about me. This is for me. I don’t want to feel like a complete loser for the next year or two or three—however long it takes my parents to pay your dad back.” Her words are silky smooth, which means she’s already made up her mind. No changing it now.
“When do you start?” I ask, squirming against the words.
“Tomorrow. Mr. Hunter wants the remainder of the quarter to feature dual models. I’ll be working with some girl named Crystal.” With an arch of her back, the material of her black tank top brushes against my chest. Fire blazes beneath my skin. The laziness of her touch, careful twists and turns of her body to lure mine into moving closer…
“Babe, are you trying to seduce me so I won’t talk you out of the job?”
“Maybe a little.” She catches her bottom lip between her teeth, raises her eyes up to mine with a mischievous glint. “Is it working?”
I laugh and pull her onto my lap. “Maybe. A little.”
Her gaze skips up and over my shoulder, landing somewhere in the vicinity of my desk. Her expression hardens then she tilts her chin and says, “Another project? You really did have homework this week? But I thought…”
“It wasn’t an excuse.” I kiss her then to keep the lie from evolving into something worse. As of now, it’s somewhat manageable. And believable.
Her hands drift up my arms and through my hair, and after only a few minutes she mumbles, “You have too many clothes on.” She struggles with my shirt at the same time scraping hers up her belly. I was planning to hint at the internship tonight, make up some story about a classmate who was accepted into one and gather her reaction to it, but when her shirt flies off and the black lace bra stares at me, all plans sail out the window.
Our fingers scrabble with the rest of my clothes then I peel off her jean shorts, throw them to the floor. Sitting on the end of the bed, legs draped over the sides, she watches me as I kneel on the carpet in front of her and run my fingertips up and down her thighs. My skin tingles under her longing gaze, the way it slithers over my body and settles on my face. Eyes. Mouth.
Clutching her hips I scoot her closer, shut my eyes against the heat her legs sear around my back. There’s an infinitesimal moment of silence, the two of us reading each other’s thoughts—I love her, I want her, she loves me, wants me—and then I grin, nudge her flat on her back, and pounce.
The mattress whimpers with my weight. Quinn’s fingers glide through my hair and guide me down on top of her. Skin to skin. Lips on lips. Jagged breath mingling between our mouths when I reach beneath to unhook her bra.
She wiggles out of her underwear and, this time, the words “I love you” don’t accompany the crinkly rip of a condom packet. Our fingertips don’t linger on creases or freckles or any other insignificant piece of each other we’d typically take the time to absorb. Nothing about our movement is gentle or unhurried, and something tells me if it was, the guilt would discover a way to tiptoe back in. Instead we become a knotted web of arms and legs and strands of hair catching on skin beaded with sweat.
At some point she yanks me off the bed and splays her naked body against the bathroom door, cheek pressed to the painted wood; an invitation to take her from behind.
Slowly I do, dropping kisses along her shoulder and neck. She peers back at me and smiles, at the same time directing my hand to the swell of her chest. My other hand journeys lower, and when I softly touch her, she dips and falls back against me.
A few intense minutes later, Quinn’s back arches followed by “mother of Jesus” rolling off a deep exhale. I shuffle her to the bed, and she leans over the edge, gripping clumps of comforter into her fists. The stretch of her limbs, the golden plane of her back, her ass and its impeccable roundness…only another few seconds pass before the words “holy shit” come out of my mouth with a burst.
A slick sheen of sweat coating her back, Quinn collapses, burying her face into the blanket. “That was amazing,” she slurs, still breathing heavily. I kiss her head then lie beside her, trying to find a breath of my own. “I wouldn’t mind doing that every day.”
Every day.
Every day.
Every day.
Two words that have the power to make me wince.
Without too much time passing, I force a believable-sounding laugh and mutter, “It’s probably not smart to admit that out loud with me right beside you. I might hold you to it.”
April 12th
I didn’t bring up the internship. Perhaps after a night like we had, my skin still tingling from her touch, washing it away so quickly wasn’t exactly a priority.
A dick move? Yep. Selfish? Yeah, that too. But things are going to change irrevocably between the two of us once she finds out I’m leaving in five weeks, and I don’t know if I’m ready for those changes yet.
Or ever. Just the thought of miles and miles between us, not seeing her every day, crushes my chest like a mile’s weight of water. A jittery panic scrapes over me, invisible hands smothering me from the inside out. Christ, I don’t know how much longer I can do this, fight the feeling that I’m drowning.
A cluster of freshman passes and I quickly scan their faces—young, naïve and very much male. Very much like they’d get off watching my girlfriend pose without her clothes for an hour. A tangy haze of paint and turpentine fumes dizzies me as I continue down the hall of the art building toward Quinn’s changing room.
Voices echo from around the corner. One Quinn’s, the other deep and…teasing?
“At least I didn’t trip,” the guy says, and Quinn laughs.
What the hell?
“Whatever. You try being the center of attention like that. It’s not easy.”
My feet itch to move faster, but I consciously slow my steps. She’s only talking with another student, nothing wrong with that.
“It’s obvious why Hunter asked you back, though,” he says lowly then clears his throat. “You’re really talented.”
My fists clench. I’ve seen the way other guys look at Quinn, like they wouldn’t mind seeing what’s beneath those little dresses she wears. And…this guy’s already seen it.
Her.
All. Of. Her.
An explosive fire detonates inside me, and I jog the last few steps. As I round the corner, both heads turn. I stop, taking the two of them in: Quinn standing against the wall, bulky pink bathrobe she uses to get to and from the classroom hanging to her ankles. A foot beside her, shoulder pressed to the cinderblock wall, is the source of the voice: taller than Quinn, yet wiry with straight blond hair sagging past his ears. His eyes, the color of the sky, assess me too.
Quinn faces me, folding her arms across her stomach. “Taking a detour from the gym?” A distinct Are yo
u checking up on me? tone slickens every syllable.
“Um…” I don’t have a reason for coming here, just felt the need to see her. Though I’m not confessing that in front of this guy. I don’t know why I’m feeling this, like I want to punch him. I’ve never cared when my girlfriends have talked to guys before.
But none of them were like Quinn.
And I wasn’t on the verge of possibly leaving.
Hands shoved deep into my pockets, I shorten the gap between us and swallow down the itch to scream. “…thought we could get some lunch. Maybe go to the beach?” It takes everything in me to not wrap my arm around Quinn and pull her toward me, away from him. “It’s nice out today and your suit is still in my car from last time.”
It’s a dig to this guy—making clear I’ve had the privilege of witnessing her in a skimpy blue bikini and he hasn’t. I don’t even care how pathetic I sound. Looking to him, I extend my hand. “What’s up? I’m Torrin.”
Returning my handshake with a lingering glance to my tensed forearm he says, “Billy.”
“Billy is Mr. Hunter’s T.A.,” Quinn announces, stepping closer to me, her shoulder brushing my arm. “He took the class last quarter. I guess you could say he’s a decent artist.” Her bantering tone elicits a grin on Billy’s pale face, and my hand bolts around her waist. He’s seen her pose nude on more than one occasion.
Pain like a vise clamps my gut.
“Babe…” I breathe in and out, and the sense that I can feel and hear my own heartbeat diminishes. “Why don’t you go get dressed.” It’s not a question, and my voice is a touch too hard.
For a moment her eyes skim my face, looking like the same thought has crossed her mind, wondering why the hell I’m being an ass. Then without a word to me she turns, telling Billy she’ll see him in class next week, and disappears behind the door.
Without You Page 3