by Jolie, Meg
A devious smile worked its way onto Quinn’s face. She sunk down onto her bed. Luke had left not long ago. Carter was down for the night. She knew Carly would be back home by now so she’d given her a call.
“About that…” Quinn said.
“What are you up to?” Carly demanded.
“I had an idea. You’re right. She’s going to flip, and not in a good way, when she hears about the house. You and Nolan are still planning to show up on Friday night, right?”
“Yes…?”
“I thought maybe I’d tell her about the house on Thursday night. That way, she’ll have something else to obsess about.”
“You’d do that for me?” Carly asked.
“Of course,” Quinn said. “Is Nolan nervous about meeting everyone?”
“He says he’s not. He’s been warned.”
“How was it, seeing Jesse the other night?” Quinn asked.
“Awkward,” Carly admitted.
“He still calls you Cricket.”
“He sure does.” Carly didn’t sound all that happy about it.
“Where, exactly, does that nickname come from?” Quinn hadn’t meant to ask. But there the question was.
“I don’t want to tell you,” Carly said. “It’s kind of an inside thing. You wouldn’t get it. It’s one of those things you had to be there for.”
“Eww,” Quinn said. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
Carly laughed. “No. It’s not ‘eww’. It’s nothing like that.”
“It’s not like a codename for your favorite sexual position or something?” Quinn teased. “Because that’s what I’ve been thinking all of these years.” She was only half joking.
“What?! No! And you think I have a dirty mind?!” Carly cried. “It wasn’t just sex with Jesse and me. I mean, yeah, there was a lot of it. But that wasn’t all it was.”
Quinn smiled at this admission. She had always wanted there to be more to it, for Carly’s sake.
“Fine. I’ll tell you but I’m warning you, you kind of had to be there. I mean, it’s not going to mean the same thing to you that it means to me.”
“I’m waiting.”
“Okay. Fine. When I was a senior, I went to a frat party—”
Quinn groaned. “Were you out hunting for Jesse?” As far back as that, Quinn knew it was not only possible, but likely.
“Yes, he happened to be there. Now, do you want to hear this or not?”
“Go on.”
“So. Like I just said, Jesse was there. To make a long story short, some of the frat boys were hitting on me. Jesse came stumbling in, drunk off his ass. One of the guys had me pressed up against the hallway wall.” As if she could sense her sister’s concern over the phone line, Carly jumped in to reassure her. “It was fine. I let him. But Jesse was blazing mad when he walked in. It’s not a huge surprise that those frat boys were after young-meat. In fact, they called the underclassman—they had no idea I was still in high school—but they called them grasshoppers.”
“Why? I don’t get.”
“Because,” Carly said with an agitated sigh, “apparently grasshopper is a nickname for someone young and innocent.”
“Oh,” Quinn said with a little nod. She still didn’t entirely understand where this was going.
“Like I said, Jesse came in, blazing mad. He threw the guy off of me and said, ‘Hands off. This cricket is mine.’ He meant grasshopper. But he was wasted and apparently he was confused. See?” she said. “You kind of had to be there. Anyhow,” she went on, “I ended up going home with him that night. It was the first time since…” She faded off.
“Since you handed him your virginity?” Quinn asked with raised eyebrows.
“Yes,” Carly said, unapologetically. “Anyhow, we laughed over it after he sobered up some. Then he just started calling me Cricket. And I liked it. I liked that he had a nickname for me. Especially one that he thought meant young and innocent.”
“You were young and innocent,” Quinn pointed out. “And then he brought you home and defiled you.”
“Whatever,” Carly said. She laughed at Quinn’s teasing tone. “I liked it. That’s all that matters.”
“I’m getting the feeling that there’s a lot more to you and Jesse than you ever let on.” Quinn was met with silence. “Carly?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“It always amazed me how you would come home in the summer and just pick up like you were never apart.”
“Well,” Carly said hesitantly, “maybe that’s because we never were apart all that long.”
Now Quinn was silent as she tried to make sense of what Carly was saying. “You’re going to have to explain that.”
“Okay, sometimes he’d come visit me during the school year. A lot of times, actually.”
“Are you serious?!” Quinn had had no idea.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” Carly insisted. “It never really meant anything.”
“Do you honestly think that he would drive four hours, one way, for a bootie-call?!” Quinn blushed. She was the prude of the family. “Do they still call it that? A bootie-call?” she nearly whispered.
Carly snorted out a laugh over the line. “It doesn’t matter what you call it. That’s basically what it was.”
“Oh no,” Quinn said. “No. No. No. There is no one who would drive that far for just sex. No one. Not when they can get it without leaving town without a whole lot of effort. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be mean but you know Jesse doesn’t have a hard time getting women in his bed.”
“I know,” Carly muttered.
Quinn instantly regretted saying it. “Carly,” she said softly, “the only reason I pointed that out is because if he’s driving that far, it’s not for sex. It was for you. Just. You.”
“Maybe I’m just that good,” Carly said. She was going for smug but didn’t quite pull it off.
“No one’s that good, sis. Not even you.” Quinn knew Carly didn’t think that. She was just trying to rationalize Jesse’s behavior. She frowned. “So did you sneak him into the dorms?”
“No,” Carly said. “He’d get a hotel room. A nice one. We always made a weekend of it.”
Quinn was stunned into silence. She had never realized how entangled Carly’s life really was with Jesse’s. And now they were over and she was marrying someone else.
Carly had gotten awfully quiet on the other end of the line. Quinn decided she needed to change that.
“So, a wedding dress. How soon do you want to start looking?”
17
“I’m sorry. I just don’t like that pretentious punk,” Luke said.
His gaze was zeroed in on Nolan, who was on the other side of the bar. He and Carly had just gotten up to shoot a game of pool.
Quinn frowned at him. She didn’t care for Nolan, either. But she wanted to hear what Luke’s reasoning was. “Why not?”
Luke clenched and unclenched his jaw. Finally he said, “Because he keeps checking out your ass. And he doesn’t seem to care that I notice.”
Quinn raised her eyebrows in surprise.
“That’s just not cool,” Luke said. “You don’t check out your girlfriend’s sister’s ass. I mean, yeah, maybe I checked out Carly’s back in high school when I was horny all the time. But I haven’t for years. I mean, she’s your sister. He shouldn’t be checking out anyone else. But least of all you. That’s insulting to me, you, but most of all Carly.”
So far, the night had not been what Quinn had expected it to be. She’d assumed she would like Nolan, just on principle. He was, after all, marrying her sister. It hadn’t occurred to her that she might not like him.
The evening had begun at the Johnson’s with a family dinner. Nolan had managed to overtake nearly the entire conversation. He spoke incessantly of the mountainside resort his family owned. He’d spent the better part of the meal tossing around names of guests. Politicians and athletes and the like that had visited.
Quinn and Luke had not
been impressed with such ostentatious behavior. Pete had seemed somewhat enthralled. Margo, possibly to everyone’s surprise but Nolan’s, had seemed completely enraptured with him.
She could’ve overlooked the dinner discussion. What bothered her most was the way Nolan treated her sister. He had told her first that she needed to put her hair down before going out because, he’d reminded her, he didn’t care for it when it was up. Next, Carly had come downstairs, ready for a night out. At Nolan’s request, she’d gone back to her room to change.
Nolan had profusely praised Margo for the delicious dinner. That in itself would’ve been fine. But he hadn’t left it at that. He’d found it necessary to say that it was such a shame that Carly hadn’t inherited her mother’s cooking skills.
To further her annoyance even more, he’d barely waited for Carly when they reached Shady’s. He’d headed across the parking lot, only stopping once he’d reached the door to see if she was behind him. Once inside, he’d ordered a beer for himself and left Carly standing at the bar alone. Luke had nudged her away, telling her to go pick a table as he got drinks for himself, Quinn and Carly.
“I think someone needs to take a course in Manners 101,” Quinn grumbled.
Luke smiled a little too brightly. “But your mom seems to love him.”
“I know, and now, somehow, it doesn’t seem all that shocking. Now that we’ve met him,” Quinn flatly stated. She shook her head. Her disgust was evident on her face. “Did you hear the bit about giving my parents a discount on the cost of the wedding reception? They’re insisting that it’s held at the resort but then they plan to charge my parents for their half.”
Luke burst out laughing but it wasn’t full of humor. “Your mom didn’t even blink. In fact, she looked impressed. Like she thought it was a real favor to them.”
“I get that they’re running a business,” Quinn said, “but it’s their son’s wedding, too!”
“Well,” Luke sarcastically replied, “they are throwing in the wedding suite. For half price.”
“How generous,” Quinn said as she rolled her eyes.
“I know. Did you see the dirty look he gave us when your dad mentioned we went to Eagle’s Ridge a few weeks ago?”
Quinn shrugged. “The resort his parents own isn’t a ski resort. It wouldn’t have been the same. I tried telling him that Eagle’s Ridge was kind of like our place. That we have a lot of fun memories from when we were kids.”
“He didn’t seem to care,” Luke said as he finished off his beer.
Quinn glanced over her shoulder. She could barely make Carly and Nolan out through the crowd. As soon as she was satisfied that they were still a safe distance away, she turned back to Luke.
“I never thought I’d say this, but I think Jesse is ten times better for her than Nolan. All of these years, I thought the two of them were just messing around. But now, I think there really was something between them,” Quinn said glumly.
“Was,” Luke agreed. His eyes were on Nolan and Carly. Quinn glanced over her shoulder again. Carly was watching Nolan with absolute adoration.
“When I went upstairs with her, when she was changing, she was so excited that Mom and Nolan hit it off.”
A dejected look crossed Luke’s face. “Yeah, well, when you were upstairs, Margo took me aside. She let me know, without a doubt, that she thinks you and I are making a mistake. She thinks we’re moving too fast. She also said she thinks I’m taking advantage of you because you’re so vulnerable right now.” He kept his voice low. He hadn’t wanted to bring this up here, now, but he couldn’t keep it inside any longer.
“Luke! That’s not true and you know it!” Quinn said, keeping her voice just as low. “I am not vulnerable.” She sounded offended at the very thought of it. “Jake’s been gone for almost a year and a half. But that’s irrelevant. She’s just flat out wrong. You know that don’t you?”
He nodded but Quinn could tell the comment bothered him immensely. “Yeah, I know.”
“I never should’ve told her about the house last night. I just wanted to help Carly out. I thought it would be good to take some of the heat off of her because she was so worried. If I’d had any idea how tonight would play out, I never would’ve said a word. Because now—”
“The heats on me,” Luke finished for her. He didn’t seem angry about it. He just looked resigned. “At least it didn’t come as a complete surprise. Not after overhearing her comment last weekend. She really doesn’t want us together.”
Quinn leaned over, resting her shoulder against his. She wanted to say something comforting but she was interrupted.
“Isn’t he just amazing?” Carly asked. She flopped into the booth opposite Quinn and Luke, startling them both.
Quinn pulled her gaze from Luke to look at her sister. Without answering Carly’s question she said, “Where is he?”
Carly motioned with her head. “He’s playing some guy that showed up. They’re playing for money. He said he might be awhile so I should just take a seat.”
“Oh,” Quinn said as she forced a smile.
“Mom loves him, don’t you think?” she asked. She leaned across the booth, beaming at Quinn and Luke.
“Yes,” Quinn said with a little nod. She forced a smile. “She sure does.”
“And Dad, too,” Carly added on. “I have been so worried for so long. And it was all for nothing! If I would’ve known how well it would go, I would’ve brought him home last year. Before we left, Mom told me we should start wedding planning as soon as possible. She said she wants everything to be perfect for me.”
“That’s great, Carly. I’m happy for you.” She was happy for her sister. Despite what she personally thought of Nolan and despite how Margo had been treating Luke, Quinn was happy that Carly was happy.
“You should see his parents’ resort, Quinn. It really is beautiful. I think I’m going to have my dream wedding, after all. With the mountains in the background, it’s going to be so gorgeous.”
“I’m sure it will. Just…let me know what I can do to help. Maybe one day over break, Dad can keep Nolan entertained and we can really start planning.” Quinn hoped their dad wouldn’t mind the task. She was certainly not going to volunteer Luke for the job.
“Oh,” Carly said as she cringed just a bit, “we’re not actually staying through the week.”
“You’re not?” Quinn asked. “I thought you were home for all of spring break.”
Carly shrugged. “Nolan thought a few days would be enough. He wants to head out Sunday night. That way he can spend the rest of the week at the resort.”
“That makes sense,” Quinn said. “I guess. I mean, if you two are here visiting your family now, it’s only fair to split things up and go visit his.”
Carly fidgeted with the label on her bottle, peeling it off and then pressing it back in place again. “He’s actually going alone.” She smiled brightly but Quinn was sure she spotted just a little bit of hurt behind that smile. “It’s spring break, you know? They’ll be really busy. He didn’t think it would be a good time for me to come along.”
“Why don’t you just stay here then?” Quinn asked.
“Because we drove together. I didn’t realize he didn’t plan on staying the week until we were almost here.”
“You know, if you want to stay,” Luke said, “Quinn and I can drive you back next weekend.”
“We can,” Quinn agreed. “It seems silly for you to drive back and then spend the entire break by yourself.”
Carly’s gaze floated over to where Nolan was wrapped up in his game. “I’m not sure. I’ll have to see what Nolan wants me to do.”
Quinn felt her eyebrows shoot up at that. Since when did Carly ever check in with a guy to see how he wanted her to spend her free time?
“Well,” Luke said, “the offer is there. Think about it.”
“I will,” Carly agreed. “I do appreciate it. You know you really are a sweetheart. So didn’t listen to what Mom says. She was probably jus
t blowing off steam.”
Quinn glanced at Luke. His expression had hardened. “What do you mean?”
Carly gave him a sympathetic look. “Nolan overheard your conversation.”
Luke’s cheeks reddened. Quinn wasn’t sure if it was in anger, embarrassment, or both.
“Mom had no right to talk to Luke,” Quinn said and Carly nodded her agreement.
“Nolan listened in, huh?” Luke asked. He took a gulp of beer and looked away.
“I’m sure he didn’t mean to,” Carly said. “I’m sorry Mom was so awful. She had no right to tell you that Quinn would be better off without you. Or that you’re bringing complications into her life that she doesn’t need.”
Quinn turned to Luke. “She said all that? I thought she just told you I was vulnerable right now.”
“No,” Luke said quietly. “She had a hell of a lot to stay about everything. I just didn’t want to get into all of it here.”
“Well she’s wrong! About everything,” Quinn forcefully told him.
For the first time, she realized just how tense Luke was. She’d been so preoccupied, trying to wrap her mind around the strange turn of events with Nolan, that she hadn’t been paying much attention to Luke. Now that she was, she realized how miserable he looked. She reached for his hand under the table and gave it a squeeze. He managed to force a sad smile in return. Of course it was important to him that her family accepted him. She was livid that her mom had gone out of her way to let him know that was not the case. She vowed then and there her mother would be getting an earful first thing in the morning.
“Of course she’s wrong,” Carly assured Luke. “You’ve known our mom long enough to know how she gets. Now that she’s okay with Nolan, she needs to have something else to be bothered about. For the moment, it’s you. But you know it’ll pass.” Luke gave a noncommittal shrug because he wasn’t so sure. “Besides, no one else thinks that.”
Luke’s gaze sliced past Carly, to the other side of the room. He frowned as he shook his head. “Oh, I think you might be wrong about that.”
Carly turned around to see what Luke was looking at. Quinn leaned over, so she could see past Carly. She groaned when her eyes met Tabitha’s. She was Luke’s ex-girlfriend and they’d already had a run in about Luke. Quinn cringed because if she had to guess by the cold way Tabby was glaring at her, she was primed for another run in.