“Hey, sweetheart. How are you feeling?”
I let my eyes drink in the sight of Quinn as he turned back to the skillet resting on one of the burners. Using one of the spatulas Eliza had left behind for me, he flipped the pancakes before cutting off the heat and sliding the perfectly round pancakes onto a waiting plate.
“How long was I asleep?” God, I barely recognized my own voice. It sounded and felt like I’d been gargling with rocks.
“About eight hours.”
Oh damn, I’d slept the entire day away. Pushing that realization to the side, I asked, “What are you doing here?”
He turned and walked toward the small kitchenette table, setting the plate down next to a bottle of syrup and a glass of water that were already in place. “I wanted to make sure you had something to eat when you woke up.”
It was then that I noticed the bandage wrapped around his forearm. The sleeve of his shirt was rolled up, but that did nothing to hide the bloodstains on the cotton. “Oh my God.” Without giving it any thought, I rushed to his side and grabbed his arm, lifting it for closer inspection. “What happened?” I could see the faint red from where blood had seeped through the gauze bandage, but it appeared to be old. “Are you okay?”
He took his arm from my hold and lifted his hand, tucking pieces of my hair behind my ear. “I’m fine. This is nothing. I cut it on a nail when I was fixing my deck.”
“Do you need stitches?”
His lips tipped in a soft smile as he stared into my eyes, and as the silence around us grew heavy, I realized just how much I’d missed him. “Don’t worry about me,” he spoke softly, placing his hand at the small of my back to lead me to the table. “Let me take care of you right now, yeah?” He pulled out the chair and waved for me to sit. I did so and looked down at the food in front of me.
His kindness was too much. If I hadn’t cried myself to the point of dehydration earlier, I probably would have morphed into a blubbering mess. Luckily, my tear ducts were no longer producing. “Th-thank you,” I rasped. “But you didn’t have to do all this.”
“I wanted to,” he spoke so earnestly, so sincerely. The look on his face made my stomach flip. He looked like it was taking everything in him not to touch me. I knew the feeling. However, after everything we’d been through — everything he put me through — I just didn’t have the strength for it. I was done in every way possible. After today’s meltdown, I knew I needed to reserve what little energy I had left into healing myself. No matter how badly I wanted to, I just couldn’t heal Quinn. It was time I took care of me for a change.
I blinked rapidly, my eyes so dry they itched. “Quinn, I…” I had to swallow past the thickness in my throat. “I think you should go.”
He grabbed the back of the chair next to me and slid it across the floor until it was only inches away. Once he sat, he rested his elbows on his knees and took both of my hands in his. “Lilly, I’m not leaving. After what I saw in that studio, it’s clear you need someone to look after you for a while. I’m going to do that. You shouldn’t be alone.”
I slid my fingers from his grip and sat tall in my chair. In the past, I might have caved to the beautiful concern written all over his handsome face, but I couldn’t do that anymore. For my own peace of mind, I needed a clean break. “If that’s what you really think, then I’ll call Eliza. But you can’t stay here. I need you to go.”
I could see the determination in his eyes. I knew that look as well as I knew all of his others. He was setting in for a battle. “Baby, you lost it in front of me, Kyle, and Samantha. They were worried about you. Hell, I was worried about you. I’m not leaving here until I’m convinced you’re okay.”
Yep, he was geared up to fight me. Only, this time it wasn’t going to work. The damage he’d done, coupled with the loss of my dad made it impossible for me to get past the animosity brewing in the pit of my stomach. “I know, Quinn, believe me. I lived through it.” I replied sarcastically. “I appreciate your concern. But I don’t want you here. Don’t you get that?”
“Baby—”
With that one word, I snapped. “Stop!” I shouted. I stood so fast the chair behind me crashed to the floor. Quinn followed suit and reached for me, but I managed to sidestep his hold. “Don’t call me that. And don’t touch me.”
He held his arms out in surrender, but that didn’t stop him from slowly moving toward me. With each step he took, I took one backward. “Okay,” he said quietly. “All right, I’m sorry. I don’t want to upset you right now, Lilly. But you’re not all okay. Can’t you see that? You need someone to take care of you.”
“I know I’m not okay!” I bit out. “I know that, all right? I know it’ll take a lot of work, and I’ll probably have more days like today, but the difference between me and you is, I know I’ll eventually move past it, because, unlike you, I can’t imagine walking through the rest of my life with this pain in my chest.” I balled my fist up and hit the spot right above my heart for emphasis, and at my words Quinn’s entire body locked up and quit advancing. I thought I had cried myself dry, but the sudden dampness on my cheeks proved me wrong. I reached up to brush the tears away only to have more fall in their place.
“You can’t take care of me, Quinn,” I continued, my voice as ravaged as my heart. “How can you expect to help me through my loss when you’re still holding on to your own? You’re so consumed with the past that you can’t see what’s been right in front of you.” I threw my hands out and gave a humorless, slightly hysterical laugh. “Please, explain to me how you think you can fix me when you can’t even fix yourself. Jesus, Quinn. Do you realize you’ve never even talked about her? She’s the mother of your daughter and you’ve never told me about her! You kept everything about you locked up so tight I never stood a chance, did I?” Reality suddenly slammed into me with the strength of a sledgehammer. I felt like such a fool. “All this time,” I whispered. “All this time I’ve been falling in love with you, and you knew… you knew you’d never be able to love me back, didn’t you? And you just let me fall deeper anyway.”
I expected the shutters I’d grown so familiar with to fall over his expression. Instead, a look of pure anguish spread across his features. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. The words sounded like they were ripped from his throat. “I’m so fucking, sorry, Lilly. I never meant to hurt you.”
I sniffled and pointlessly brushed more tears away. “But you did. Over and over again. I can’t do it anymore, Quinn.”
It was like my words were too heavy for him to carry. His knees buckled and he fell to the couch, his head in his hands as he repeated, “I’m so fucking sorry.” I stood silent for several seconds as he ran his fingers through his hair. Even disheveled, even hurting, he was still the most beautiful man I’d ever seen. “I don’t… I don’t know how to let her go.”
If there had been any pieces of my heart left intact, they would have broken right then and there. I couldn’t allow him to continue to hurt me, but I also couldn’t stand to see him suffering. Dropping to my knees in front of him, I took both of his hands and held tightly. “That’s not what I wanted. I’d never ask you to let her go, Quinn. She’s a part of you and always will be. She gave you Sophia. There’s beauty in that. I’d never expect you to let that go. I didn’t want to replace Addison. I wasn’t trying to take her place. I just wanted a place of my own in your and Sophia’s lives.”
His green eyes began to glisten and grow red, and I knew he felt the finality of what was between us just as strongly as I did. What we had was officially coming to an end, we both knew it, and that killed, but it was time for us to stop torturing each other.
“You can’t fix me, Quinn. And I can’t fix you, no matter how badly either of us wants it. We both need to heal, and we can’t do that as long as the other is holding us back.”
His eyes squeezed shut and he shook his head like he was trying to dispel my words. When he finally opened them again, I felt the agony reflected in the jade depth down to my ver
y soul. “What are you saying?”
I pulled in a deep, fortifying breath and finally said what I needed to say. “We aren’t good for each other.”
He shook his head again. His fingers clenched around mine to the point of pain. “That’s not true,” he objected desperately.
“It is,” I whispered. “It is, Quinn. And it tears me apart to admit that, because I love you so much. But we can’t keep doing this to each other. I need to get past losing my father, and you need to learn to cope with your past. I tried… I tried so hard to be what you needed, to help you see you didn’t have to live like this, but I can’t do it anymore. I’m sorry.”
I finally let go of his hands and stood tall, moving away from the man who had my heart. It felt like an eternity, but what I’d said finally began to penetrate, and Quinn got to his feet, looking down at me like the thought of leaving gutted him. “I wish things were different, Lilly. You have no idea how badly I wish that.”
I offered him a sad, watery smile. “I think I have some idea, because I wished that, too.”
He moved to the front door, his hand resting on the knob as he looked back over his shoulder one last time. “I know you don’t want to hear it, and you probably won’t believe me, but I do care about you… more than I’ve cared about anyone in a very long time.”
I shrugged as a fresh wave of tears rolled down my cheeks. “I wish that was enough.”
He nodded his head, turned the doorknob, and pulled it open. “You know I want the absolute best for you, right?”
“I do. And I want the same exact thing for you. Take care of yourself, Quinn.”
His shoulders slumped as he stepped across the threshold. His back remained to me as he whispered, “You do the same, baby.” And with that, he was gone. The snick of the door closing behind him rang out like a gunshot.
It was done.
I wanted to curl into a ball and let life pass me by, but I couldn’t. It would hurt, but I’d put one foot in front of the other and, eventually, I’d move on with my life, just like I told him I would.
I only hoped he’d learn to do the same.
34
Quinn
It had been two weeks since Lilly cut me out of her life, and I grew more and more miserable every day. She wouldn’t even look at me when I stopped by the school to pick up or drop off Sophia.
I’d gotten to the point where I was thankful to be on shift at the firehouse. At least I couldn’t fixate on Lilly when I was in the middle of fighting a fire. Things were slow at the station, today. Normally, I would have been happy for the down time, using it to catch up on sleep. But it seemed like every time I closed my eyes, the dream of the car crash came back, only this time, when I looked over into the passenger seat, it wasn’t my Addy that I saw there.
It was Lilly. And she was wearing the same heart-broken expression on her face that she had the day I went to the studio and saw her completely shatter.
I felt like I was losing my mind, being pulled in two directions. There was the part of me that felt unworthy of her love. I hadn’t been able to protect my wife three years ago. Hell, if not for me, she’d still be alive. I didn’t deserve another chance at love after failing so completely with Addison. Then there was the part of me that rebelled at the thought of letting Lilly go, which led to guilt at the thought of betraying my wife.
Not that it mattered, because she was finished. No matter how badly I wanted to hold on to the small piece of goodness Lilly offered, the soft ray of light in my dark world, I’d hurt her too much. She was done. And for the second time in my life, I’d lost the best thing that had ever happened to me.
I was a mess, and beating the hell out of the punching bag in the weight room of the fire department wasn’t helping like it usually would.
“You good there, Mallick?”
I looked over to find Tony watching me from his place on the weight bench. He was probably the closest thing I had to a friend within the department. Tony was about ten years older than me and had been with PFD for about fifteen years. I liked him, he was a decent guy, which was why I hadn’t minded picking up a shift for him a while back. I knew he was good to return the favor.
“Yeah,” I breathed heavily. “I’m good.”
He regarded me skeptically. “You sure? Because you look like you’re trying to drive your arm right through that bag. Won’t be much use in a fire if you snap a bone working out.”
Wrapping my arms around the bag to hold it steady, I dropped my forehead against it and worked to get my breathing under control before finally admitting, “It’s Lilly. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, man. I’m going crazy.”
“What about her?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “I thought you guys broke up.”
“I don’t even know if you can call what happened a breakup since we were barely together to begin with.” And if I hadn’t thought it was possible to feel worse than I already did, admitting that out loud just proved I was wrong.
“I’m not sure I’m following.”
I sighed and moved from the bag, ripping the tape from my knuckles before grabbing my water bottle and downing several long gulps. “We were together… we spent our free time with each other, we were sleeping together, but there wasn’t a label, you know? I just… I couldn’t put a name on it when it came to that.” Running my hands through my sweat-soaked hair, I dropped onto the bench across from him. “I cared about her… still fucking do, more than I should. But she said she loved me and I freaked. Ended whatever it was we had. Then her dad died and I couldn’t bring myself to stay away. She needed someone to lean on.” I paused as the memory of her breaking down gutted me. “I wanted to be that person for her.”
“So be that guy,” Tony answered with a shrug, like it was the easiest thing in the world. And I guess it was, for a family man like him. Tony had a wife who adored him and two little kids. To him it probably seemed as simple as breathing.
“It’s not that simple. I’ve got Sophia to think about.” It was a bullshit excuse, even I knew that. I dropped my head and studied my hands, the gold of my wedding band glinted in the overhead lights. “I can’t be the guy Lilly needs.”
“And what is it you think she needs?” he asked after several seconds of silence.
“A forever guy,” I replied honestly. “I can’t be that. I’m too fucking broken. I had forever once, and I lost it. She deserves better than being the woman I call when I start feeling lonely. She deserves a guy who’ll worship the fucking ground she walks on.” Even as I said it, the thought of her with another man made me damn near murderous. How fucked up was that?
“That what you want?” At his question, my eyes darted from my ring to Tony. “You want her to find some other guy? You think that’ll make what you’re dealing with right now easier?”
“Fuck no,” I growled in response, without thinking. It was purely instinctual.
“So, let me get this straight.” Tony leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees as he studied me. “For the first time since your wife passed, you finally found a girl who caught your eye. Not only that, but you actually liked being with her.”
I nodded, wondering where he was going with all this.
“So things start to develop between you two, and when she tells you she loves you, you freak, feel guilty because of Addy, and bail. But when something in her life knocked her down, you wanted to be the one she leaned on to get through the hard times, because despite feeling like you’re cheating on the memory of your dead wife, you still want this girl. How am I doing so far?”
“Uncannily accurate,” I grumbled and waited for him to finish his come-to-Jesus speech.
“Because you love her.”
At that, I froze. It wasn’t a question, it was a statement, and judging by the look on Tony’s face, he felt pretty damn confident in it. As he should, because he was right. I was in love with Lilly. I’d known for a while now, but the realization did nothing to ease the turmoil rolling around insid
e of me.
“I do,” I finally admitted out loud for the first time. “But I shouldn’t. It’s not right.”
The look on his face was one I hadn’t expected. I thought I’d have confused him, thrown him for a loop, but what I saw when I looked at him was understanding. He seemed to get it, which surprised to hell out of me.
And when he finally spoke, and revealed the truth behind that understanding in his eyes, I was floored. “You know, Sarah’s not my first wife.”
“What?”
He nodded as a wave of sadness passed over his face. “Yeah. I was married once before, right out of high school. She was…” he trailed off, seemingly lost in thought. “She was my everything. Never thought I’d have something like that with anyone else. Connie was it for me.”
My stomach dropped as I asked, “What happened?”
The smile he gave me was full of pain. “Two years into our marriage, she got pregnant. Didn’t think I could be any fucking happier than when I saw those two pink lines, man.” He laughed lightheartedly at the memory, and I found myself smiling along with him. And then the memory appeared to turn bad, because the happiness disappeared as he continued. “It was a rough pregnancy, but we were just so excited to finally meet our baby that we didn’t let it get to us, you know?”
“I know,” I said softly.
“She was already in her ninth month when she woke up bleeding one night. I rushed her to the hospital, but the placenta had torn, and she was bleeding so goddamned much…” He stopped for a while and breathed deeply, dropping his head in an attempt to compose himself. It took a few minutes, but I let him be, gave him the silence he needed to get himself to a better place. When he was ready to finish his story, he looked up. “I lost them both that night. My wife and my son.”
“Christ,” I breathed as my chest squeezed to an almost painful level. “Tony, fuck, I’m so sorry, man.”
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