by Linda Seed
His pride—that might prevent him from asking. But, screw it. He needed to know.
“So, what happened? Why didn’t you return my text messages or my phone calls?” He kept his voice neutral, as though it were merely idle curiosity.
“Quinn …”
He interrupted her. “I’m not mad about it. I’m not going to be one of those guys who turns creepy as shit when you reject them. I just want to know, that’s all.”
She avoided his eyes, looking down at her plate instead. “Maybe I’m just not ready.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
“I just … It was a big step for me, Quinn. Going out with someone. And that’s what it was—one step. I’m not ready for more. I’m not ready to run a marathon.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. His eyes narrowed a little as he regarded her and tried to decide how much of what she was saying was true and how much was bullshit.
Mostly true, he thought, and that was fine.
But it wasn’t going to get him where he wanted to go—if he even knew where the hell that was.
“I get it,” he said at last. “But I’d just like to point out that a first step is usually followed by a second one, and then one after that. Otherwise, that marathon might as well be in outer space for all the chance you have of finishing it.”
He stood up from his seat, picked up his plate, silverware, and glass, and nodded once. “See you later, Delilah. Or maybe I won’t. Either way, happy Thanksgiving.”
The boys ran up just as he was making his escape, Jesse holding a plate of pumpkin pie piled high with whipped cream, Gavin with apple. The volunteer who’d taken them to get the pie was leading them back to Delilah.
“Quinn! Where are you going?” Jesse wanted to know.
Gavin had his free thumb plugged into his mouth, his eyes wide, so he didn’t say anything.
“I’ve gotta go, buddy. I’ve got somewhere to be,” he lied.
“Are you going to see your family for Thanksgiving?” Jesse asked.
“Something like that.”
“But you didn’t get any pie,” Jesse said.
“Ah … I’ll grab some on the way out.”
Gavin pulled his thumb out of his mouth and held out his pie plate to Quinn. “You can have mine.” He said it so earnestly that the sweetness of it—the kindness—nearly broke his heart.
“That’s okay, Gavin.” He knelt down at the boy’s eye level. “That’s really nice of you, but you have it. I’ll get some from over there.” He gestured toward the pie table.
“Are we going to see you again soon?” Jesse said.
“I hope so.” His voice sounded a little rough, and he cleared his throat. “Listen, you guys go back to your mom, all right? Enjoy that pie.”
Then he got the hell out of there before he could do something stupid, like hug them.
Delilah couldn’t help watching Quinn go. He hadn’t said anything to indicate he was hurt, but something in the set of his back, the fluidity of his movements, told her he was.
Damn it, she’d never wanted that. She’d never wanted to hurt him.
But she hadn’t wanted to hurt herself, either, and that would be inevitable if she’d let this thing go any further.
She waited while the boys finished their pie, then she mopped up their messy faces the best she could with napkins.
Finally, she put on the most cheerful voice she could manage.
“Okay, guys. Are you ready? Let’s go back to Otter Bluff, and we can watch a movie.”
Chapter 15
Later that day, Delilah called her mother to say happy Thanksgiving, because she could get away with not being there—just barely—but there was no way she could neglect her family entirely on the holiday.
On the phone, she could hear the clamor of people and activity in the background—the murmur of football on the TV, and the sounds of her father, her uncle, and a couple of cousins yelling at the screen.
“How’d dinner go, Mom?” She raised her voice above the ruckus.
“Delilah? Honey, let me get somewhere quieter. I can barely hear you.” A moment later, the noise died down. “There, I’m in the bedroom. Men and football. I swear.”
Delilah tried again. “I was just asking how dinner went.”
“Oh, you know. It was fine. Three days of cooking just so everyone can devour it in twenty minutes and leave me with all the cleanup.” She chuckled in a way that let Delilah know she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“You should tell Dad to help.”
“Oh, he’s enjoying his game. And Roxanne’s helping. I just like to complain.”
In truth, Delilah’s mother rarely complained, even when she had a right to it.
“We missed you,” Jeanette said.
“I miss you, too.”
“Well, there was nothing stopping you from being here.” Her mother’s tone was firm, and she sounded a little put out.
Delilah closed her eyes and willed herself not to get into it. To change the subject, she told her mother about how the oven at Otter Bluff had broken, and how that had led her and the boys to the Cambria community Thanksgiving dinner.
“It was really nice,” she went on. “And the food—my God. An entire team of people must have been cooking for a week.”
“You ate your holiday dinner with strangers instead of your own family?”
Delilah felt the pressure of stress building in her chest. “Hey, Mom? Is Roxanne there? I’d like to talk to her.”
“Delilah, I wasn’t finished. I’d like to know why you—”
“Just give Roxanne the phone, Mom. Please.”
Jeanette was quiet for a moment. Finally, she relented. “Fine. Hang on a minute.”
“Hey.” Roxanne sounded cheerful. “How’s it going out there on the West Coast? See any movie stars lately?”
“That’s in Los Angeles. I’m hours north of there.”
“Well, that’s a shame. I hope you at least had some good turkey.”
Delilah told her the story of the oven and the dinner—and about how she’d run into Quinn.
“Ooh, the plot thickens,” Roxanne said. “I guess that’s the trouble with ghosting somebody in a small town. They have a way of turning up when you least expect it.”
“I didn’t ghost him.”
“You didn’t return his texts or his calls. I’m pretty sure that’s what ghosting means.”
Delilah wasn’t about to get into a debate over the definition of a term that hadn’t even existed five years ago. And that wasn’t the point, anyway.
“He asked me what happened. What he did wrong.” It hurt Delilah even to think of it—to remember the conversation and all of its nuances.
“So what did you tell him?”
“I … Well. I basically admitted that I’d used him as training wheels to … you know. Get back on the bike. Not in those words. It was a lot more polite than that, but that was the gist.”
“And he objected to being your training wheels?”
“Not exactly.”
“Well, what then?”
“He suggested that maybe, once I’ve gotten my balance, I might want to actually ride somewhere.”
“Or someone,” Roxanne put in.
“Charming,” Delilah said.
“Well, I think he’s got a point.” Roxanne jumped to Quinn’s defense. “Why bother with the training wheels if you’re not, at some point, going to go for a really great ride? A really great, exciting, high-speed, satisfying ride.”
She was clearly enjoying herself more than Delilah was.
“I think we’ve taken that metaphor as far as it needs to go,” Delilah said.
“I’m not sure we have. I haven’t even touched on the possible handlebar references yet.”
“You’re hilarious.”
“I really am.” Roxanne’s voice turned serious. “Delilah, I mean it, though. If you’re not ready to get into something, I understand that. I really do. But if you like this g
uy, it seems a shame to let him go just because Mitch is an asshole.”
This last bit took Delilah by surprise. “That’s not the reason. This isn’t … I’m not letting Mitch make my life decisions for me.”
“Aren’t you, though? He’s out of your life, at least on a day-to-day basis, and if you ask me, that’s great. That’s a big step forward. But you’re still living based on how he makes you feel. And in a way, that’s worse than you still being married to him.”
Over the next couple of days, Delilah couldn’t get what Roxanne had said out of her head.
Was she still letting Mitch control her? Were her feelings about him and her divorce determining what she did with her life? Was she still emotionally tethered to him in a way that would allow him to continue hurting her, over and over, until she was so used to the abuse that she considered it normal?
She couldn’t allow it. She wouldn’t.
She stewed over it as she took the boys to the natural history museum in Morro Bay; as she dealt with the repair guy Central Coast Escapes had sent over to fix the oven; and as she scanned real estate listings in Connecticut—not in Greenwich, where she’d lived with Mitch, but in Danbury, where she’d grown up and where her parents still lived.
The more she thought about it, the more indignant she became about the idea of Roxanne—or anyone—thinking she was still being controlled by Mitch.
And the more indignant she was about Roxanne thinking it, the more outraged she became at the idea of Quinn thinking it, too.
Of course, Quinn had never said outright that he thought that, but it seemed likely that he did. What, was the whole world convinced that Delilah had no backbone, no spine? And why? Because she didn’t leave Mitch when she first suspected he was cheating on her? Because she hung in there, hoping the problem would go away? She was being a wife, damn it. She was upholding her vows.
And now here she was with no husband, no home, no dignity, and no earthly idea how to move forward.
The least—the very least—she could do was tell Quinn Monroe where he could shove his ideas about her and her goddamned bicycle.
It was Tuesday before she’d worked up a full head of steam. Once she did, she called Dolly, pried to find out where Quinn lived—Dolly had said his next-door neighbor was her friend, so of course she knew—and arranged to leave the boys with Dolly for an hour while Delilah went over there to hand him his ass.
She could have called him, but a good ass-handing needed to be done in person, in her view.
Delilah drove to Lodge Hill, followed Google Maps to find the house where Dolly’s friend lived, then used her powers of deduction—and the fact that Quinn’s van was parked at the house next door—to find him.
She parked her car, marched up the front walkway, her feet slapping determinedly against the paving stones, and banged on his door.
He didn’t respond to the banging at first, probably because of the music that was blasting so loud it seemed to make the windows rattle. She banged louder, pounding the side of her fist against the door.
“Quinn! Open the door!”
She must have gotten through, because the music turned off, and a few seconds later, the door swung open. Quinn was standing there in nothing but a pair of jeans, his hair mussed, a two-day growth of beard shadowing his jaw.
His lack of a shirt threatened to throw her off of her mission, but she refused to be deterred.
“What’s wrong? What happened? Is everything okay? Are Gavin and Jesse all right?”
That threw her off a little. “What? Yes. Why wouldn’t they be?”
“It’s just, the way you were hammering on the door and yelling, I thought—”
“I was hammering and yelling because you couldn’t hear me over the music. I think I suffered partial hearing loss. Good God, are you sixteen? What the hell?”
His expression hardened. “I like it loud.”
“Apparently.”
“So if there’s no emergency, why are you here?”
Right. Back to the point.
“I’m here because you apparently think I don’t want to go out with you again because I’m so emotionally stunted after my divorce that I can’t function. And that’s just offensive! It’s just wrong! And I won’t have it, Quinn. I won’t have it.”
He rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Is that what I believe?”
“It’s what everyone believes! It’s what my sister believes, and it’s just … it’s demeaning! And cruel. And wrong. So you can take your assumptions about my emotional state and … and …”
“And what?” He raised his eyebrows in question.
“And go to hell!”
Delilah was so fired up that she was glaring at him, her fists balled up at her sides.
“Is that right?” His own manner was calm, reasoned.
“Yes. It is.”
He seemed to consider her. “Well, if I’m already going to hell, I guess this won’t make it any worse.” He reached out, grabbed her around the waist, pulled her to him, and devoured her mouth with his.
Quinn hadn’t meant to kiss her. He’d meant to tell her she didn’t know what the hell she was talking about in regard to him and what he thought about her. But what he meant to do and what he actually did got mixed up somewhere between the thinking and the doing.
Now that he was kissing her, thinking was no longer part of the equation.
God, she felt good. And she smelled good—like the lavender in Mrs. Foster’s garden. And the way she tasted made him want to lick and kiss and run his tongue down every part of her.
They’d get to that later, God willing. For now, there was this gorgeous, delicious kiss, and there might as well have been nothing else in the world.
If she’d pushed him away, he’d have accepted it gracefully. He’d have apologized and taken his hands off her and let her go on her way.
But this—the way she was clinging to him and melting against him and grasping at him—that was less expected but entirely more welcome.
His senses were alive and thrumming even as his brain shut off, making it impossible to think. Which was why he didn’t consider, even for a second, his resolution not to get involved with a woman who had more baggage than the carousels at LAX.
He pulled her into the house and shoved the door closed with his foot without breaking the kiss and without taking his hands off her.
Delilah was much shorter than he was, which was hampering him somewhat, so he lifted her and pressed her back against the closed door, his hands under her ass for support. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and that made him wish she were doing it naked.
Well, they could make that happen.
He broke the kiss just long enough to grunt, “Bedroom.” Apparently, he’d reverted to some primitive version of himself. Otherwise, he’d have been speaking in full sentences to ask her how she felt about taking things to the next level.
As it was, there were no full sentences. There was only her body and her mouth and the way they were making him feel.
Until she put her hands on his shoulders and started shoving him away.
“Quinn. Wait. Quinn.” Delilah pushed at him, and his eyes, which had been half-closed, opened and blinked as though he were slowly coming back to full consciousness.
He lowered her to her feet, stepped back to put the barest space between them, then took in a ragged breath and ran his hands through his hair. “Don’t try to tell me you don’t want me. Not after that. Because I won’t believe you.”
“I do. I do want you. It’s just …”
“It’s just what?”
She laid her hands flat on his chest, not pushing him away anymore, just feeling the solid warmth of him. “If we do this, it’ll be for the wrong reasons. I’d be using you to get back at my ex. Or, maybe not to get back at him, but to get over him. I’d be treating you like a … like a thing, Quinn.”
He looked at her with something inscrutable in his eyes. A muscle in his jaw tightened.
She stared at him, then nodded. “Me too.”
Delilah let out a yelp of surprise as he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom.
Chapter 16
“Oh, my God! You did it! You finally did it!” Roxanne practically squealed with glee that evening when Delilah called to tell her what happened. “They say the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else, right? Oh, my God. This is so great.”
Delilah got the feeling her sister didn’t fully understand the situation. “But … you don’t get it. I’m not ready for a relationship! I was just … just relieving stress!”
Privately, she worried that she was lying, both to herself and to Roxanne. It hadn’t felt like she was just relieving stress. It had felt like a hell of a lot more than that.
But it couldn’t be more. She wasn’t ready for more, and she didn’t know if she ever would be.
“Well, did it work?” Roxanne asked. “Did it relieve your stress?”
“God … did it ever.”
Roxanne whooped in joy. “Well, good for you!”
“But what about Quinn?” Delilah protested. “I mean … I slept with him knowing it’s not going to go anywhere! When men do that to women, we think they’re awful. We think they’re the worst kind of lowlife scum. I don’t want to be scum, Roxanne!”
Roxanne’s voice changed as though she were speaking to a particularly dense toddler. “Delilah. Did you at any point suggest to Quinn that you might want to marry him and have his children?”
“No! Of course not.”
“Did you persuade him to give you sexual favors by hinting that you might want to be his long-term sweetie?”
“Roxanne—”
“I’ll assume you didn’t. Did you tell him you wanted to go steady even though you secretly know you’re not ever going to wear his letterman’s jacket?”