by Amy Lane
Madison Vance had been trying to get Quinlan to go out with him for the last year, and Quinlan had been…
Ambivalent, really.
Mads was good-looking—not quite six feet tall, slim, brown hair, hazel eyes, with sharp cheekbones and chin—and he was smart and funny, and generally things Quinlan should have been looking for in a mate.
But Quinlan wasn’t ready to look for a mate yet.
Yeah, sure, St. Peter—Petey, dammit, Petey—was going into the second grade now, and Tay would be entering the fifth when Quinlan got back from tour. Belinda was in nursing school and rooming with Dustin, who had his own apartment a few miles away in Roseville. Melly was going to be a senior in high school after the summer break and could drive herself and Conroy—who would be a freshman—to and from school if needed. Nica could, in theory, run the household with only a little help from Cee-Cee, the housekeeper Nica’s mother employed just to “soothe her own conscience,” as Grandma Stacy put it.
The kids were growing up a little. The frantic “Oh my God, the world will come to an end if we don’t buy diapers right now” phase of the Robbins-Grayson household was long gone, but Quinlan didn’t feel superfluous.
He liked his little garage apartment.
It had been home for seven years.
And Mads wasn’t looking for a “Hey, we can get laid after we play the gig and go our separate ways afterward” relationship. He’d made that clear from the start, so there had been no sex involved yet—and Quinlan was fine with that.
The fact was, Mads didn’t hold his attention.
Quinlan would rather go hiking with Dustin on Saturday after Dustin got off work, or go to a movie with him and Belinda on Sunday. He liked Dustin, surliness and all, and Belinda was snarky and sarcastic and funny, and, well, he knew them.
He’d seen them grow up, yes, but more than that—they knew family jokes, they’d seen the same movies. Quinlan, who had spent much of his life as the outsider, the kid in the prep school who got good grades but didn’t say much, or the kid in the band or orchestra who could blow a great horn but retired to his room with a good book later, had more than friends.
He had family.
They would go see bad movies together so Dustin could lean over in the theater and make a dirty joke when Quinlan least expected it. Quinlan had followed that kid’s muscular, ripped thighs and ass through some of the most heinous underbrush in the Sierra foothills, just so Dustin could see a waterfall and take pictures.
Before her current boyfriend, Joachim, who seemed to be sticking, Belinda had taken Quinlan to plays or to nursing school potlucks when a plus one was needed and she didn’t have a date.
Hell, even Melly had taken to wandering into Quinlan’s apartment when she’d had a fight with her friends and wanted someone to eat ice cream with, and she and Conroy would come in and play his PS4 when the little kids were on the one downstairs in the family room.
Quinlan could live without sex—he hadn’t had a lot that excited him anyway—but he just really didn’t want to spend time with someone unless they were more interesting than the company he kept now.
Mads didn’t pass that test.
So how did Mads end up here, at the Robbins-Grayson dinner table, politely declining Nica’s linguini with clam sauce because it wasn’t vegan?
Quinlan blamed Dustin.
“So,” Dustin had asked the weekend before, as they were hiking out at Calcutta Falls, “gotten laid lately?”
Quinlan tripped on a rock and would have gone sprawling, but Dustin turned around with that maddening grace he had and caught him. For a moment they were two sweaty male bodies underneath the Gold Country sun. Something odd shifted in Quinlan’s stomach. Something unfamiliar and alien, and as he pushed himself off Dustin’s hard chest, he found himself reflecting on how square Dustin’s jaw had become in the past few years, and how appealing the lean lines of his mouth could be, especially when he was looking at you side-eyed, like he knew something funny you didn’t.
“That is not your business,” Quinlan said primly, finding refuge in the four years of being Dusty’s guardian. The truth was, Dustin wasn’t a kid anymore, and Quinlan was, more and more often, thinking about his mouth, or his jaw, or his bold no-bullshit nose, or—holy crap he was going to hell—his ass, which was lean and hard from all the walking and karate teaching the kid did after work.
Quinlan needed his thoughts to not get more personal than that, and Dustin’s question wasn’t going to make that happen.
“Your happiness is my business,” Dustin replied smoothly, apparently taking a page from Quinlan’s own book. “So is your health. If all you do is masturbate, your dick will fall off.”
Well, maybe not Quinlan’s book, but somebody’s book.
“Really?” Quinlan asked with an ingenuous smile. “Is that what happened to you?”
Dustin snickered like Quinlan had passed some sort of test and turned back down the path, wielding his walking stick like a weapon. Quinlan had given him the stick the Christmas before—it was made from a hand-polished piece of driftwood he’d found when Jacob and Nica had taken the entire family—grown-up children included—camping one spring break.
Dustin used it every time they went hiking.
A comfortable silence descended again, and Quinlan hoped maybe Dustin’s not-so-subtle prying was over with.
They got to the falls and stood for a moment, panting in the pine-scented air.
“The thing is,” Dustin said, like they’d been talking about something for the past half hour, “that you need a relationship.”
“I have—”
“Yes. Yes you have us. That’s not what I’m saying.”
“So, Mom, what are you saying?” Quinlan smiled, hoping Dustin would take the hint and butt out.
Dustin turned toward him, hazel eyes intense, scowling in irritation. “I’m saying that you need someone to love you. To kiss you, to touch you, to hold you down and make you feel something, Quinlan. And don’t tell me you feel things now—I know you do. But you’re afraid of getting hurt, afraid of change, and you are going to grow old and die over my parents’ garage, thinking that’s the best you can do. And it’s not.”
As Quinlan gaped at him, he turned on his heel and went back the way they came, when Quinlan had a lunch in his backpack that they were supposed to eat in this very spot.
“Dustin!” he called. “Dustin! Dammit! I packed us sandwiches! And dessert!”
Dustin stopped and dropped his head, rubbing the back of his neck. He turned around again and started toward the picnic area that was a little to the side of the falls.
He plonked down at the picnic table and glared. “Okay. Fine. Food.”
Quinlan felt like an idiot trotting over to the table, but, well, what else were they going to do?
“Petey isn’t even in middle school,” he said, a conciliatory smile on his face as he drew near.
Dustin’s eyes got even narrower. “Quin, I’m giving you an out here. I’m trying to be noble. I’m giving you a chance to find someone else, but if you think I won’t move in on you in a hot second, you’re sadly mistaken.”
Quinlan gaped. “Uh….” He swallowed past a dry throat and tried to still the wild heartbeat that had started in his stomach. “Dusty, I know you get lots of offers—you don’t have to resort to dating the babysitter.”
He started pulling food out of the backpack with assiduous care. Three sandwiches—two for Dustin. A bag of trail mix with cashews—for Dustin. Cookies—the Mint Oreos Dustin liked. Even sparkling water, Dustin’s preferred beverage.
Quinlan stared at the offering on the picnic table and tried to ask himself when his world started centering on the kid he used to quiz on his vocabulary homework.
Who was gazing at him with an expression that was not at all childish.
“If you think you’re my last resort, Q, you really weren’t paying attention.”
Quinlan grabbed one of the apples he’d actually pack
ed for himself. “I should be,” he said, darting a glance at Dustin’s face. “I’m… you know. Bachelor uncle—”
“We’re not related,” Dustin snarled.
Quin fumbled his apple, and it fell in the dust, bite side down. “Of course not,” he rasped. Oh God. He had to get a handle on this situation. “I mean, I leave for tour in a week—you just want me to prove I’m looking by then?”
“This isn’t a sitcom, Quinlan Alexander Gregory, man of three first names. This is your chance. I’m serious. I’ve been watching you not have a life since I was eighteen, horny, and legal—so this is your last chance to tell me to back off. Otherwise, you and I are going to be having long meaningful talks in your apartment that my mother will never, never see.”
“Dusty!” Quin knew he wanted to smile, to laugh it off, to pretend like it was a crush that needed to be gently rebuked. But Dustin wasn’t a child. He had the hard face, the battered knuckles, that wide chest of a man. And he came from a long line of people who had found their soul mates when they were very, very young, so he had the sort of conviction Quinlan had never hoped to have.
“That’s not no,” Dustin snapped. “And I’m done with this conversation for now.” He stood abruptly. “Sit down and eat. I’m going to go throw away your apple.”
As Quinlan watched his retreating back, munching obediently on a turkey sandwich, he had a horrible thought.
He couldn’t pull up a good no. Dustin wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t weak-willed. He responded to reason, and he responded to conviction—Quinlan had always understood that.
If Quinlan couldn’t come up with a reason or a conviction, then Dustin was going to….
What? Kiss you? Touch you? Manhandle you and make you submit?
Oh God. That last thought was so not what should have been running through his head.
None of it. None of it should have been running through his head.
He was twenty-seven to Dustin’s twenty-one. No, the age gap wasn’t huge, but dammit, shouldn’t Quinlan have some sort of advantage?
The question plagued him all the way back to the car. It plagued him when they were at the movies the next day, with Belinda and Melly munching popcorn and watching a rerelease of Jaws.
Dustin leaned over to say something and Quinlan leaned over to hear—usually Dustin’s sly asides during movies were worth it, like the time he’d referenced Galaxy Quest in the middle of Star Trek: Beyond and Quinlan had actually spit out soda.
But this time all he heard was the ocean sound of Dustin’s breath, and then…
The soft, teasing caress of Dustin’s lips on the shell of his ear.
Quinlan wanted to jerk back, protest, smack the little shit and say, “Jesus, Dustin, gross!” because it was the sort of thing Petey would do because the kid had that twisted sense of humor.
Except this wasn’t Petey giving a wet willie. This was Dustin, and he smelled warm and adult, and the tongue along the edge of Quinlan’s ear wasn’t gross… it was… it was….
Quinlan made a sound a whole lot like a whimper and closed his eyes. How long had it been since he’d taken a lover?
Four years. Since before Sammy got really sick.
He hauled air into his lungs like he’d been under water for a week, and Dustin finished with a suckle and a nibble on his earlobe. He let go, and Quinlan pulled himself upright in his seat again and tried to contain the wildfire rage of completely inappropriate desire under his skin.
“Quin!” Dustin hissed.
Quinlan looked at him, feeling naked and undone in the dark of the theater.
“I don’t bite unless you want me to.”
Quinlan shook his head and stared sightlessly at the screen, trying to sink back into the movie. It was a long time before his breathing went back to normal, and the tingling in his stomach stayed until he fell asleep that night.
Two days later, Mads was at it again.
“Oh come on, Q—that’s a total cop-out!” he complained as they were leaving Dodgy’s together Wednesday night. Mads played saxophone, and Sammy had put the two of them together to do a jazz trio with him for Jazz Night at the incredibly seedy—and very popular—nightclub. Sammy had been playing there since he’d been in college, and it was one of the few places he performed now that he was teaching music at middle school full-time.
“What?” Quinlan had been distracted all day… well, for the last three days, actually.
Ever since Dustin had stuck his tongue in Quin’s ear and it hadn’t felt like a wet willie.
“What’s a total cop-out?”
“You just said you were busy Friday night! But we just told Dodgy we weren’t playing because you were leaving on tour the next day!”
Quinlan grimaced. “Well, yeah. The family is giving me a special dinner—it’s a tradition.” Nica was making linguini with clam sauce, which was his favorite, and nobody was allowed to complain that they didn’t like clams. It was the best meal of the year—and given that this was the seventh time he’d asked for it, he should know.
“So? Blow it off!”
Oh the horror! Quinlan stopped dead as they approached their cars. Quinlan was actually driving the minivan—he didn’t own a car of his own, since 90 percent of the time when he drove, he was driving one of the kids around. The other 10 percent he relied on an Uber or Lyft, because Jacob and Nica’s house had been enlarged by judicious building to accommodate all the kids, but parking was always a nightmare.
And they let him borrow the minivan for night gigs. He was even on their insurance.
“What are you staring at me like that for?” Mads asked, wiping his sweating brow on his shoulder. “I didn’t say kill their puppy—I said come out and dance with me!”
“It’s a family thing,” Quinlan said stubbornly. “Even Dustin knows you don’t blow off family things.” Dustin and Belinda, in fact, were the first to show up at family things. Quinlan thought part of that was free food and free leftovers, and another part was a chance to do their laundry that didn’t involve quarters, but at least half of it was a desire to be with their family.
“Yes, but does Dustin want to blow you like a French horn?” Mads asked, completely irritated.
And Quinlan almost said, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure. That’s why my head’s been so far up my ass!” He swallowed that retort and grunted and hoped Mads read it as a negative.
“Look, Quinlan,” Mads wheedled after an uncomfortable silence. “I’m not trying to steal you away from them—I just… you know. Want some time with you. Would it be so awful to date me?”
Madison smiled winningly, and Quinlan sighed. What was he going to say? Yes?
“You can always come if you like,” he said instead. Well, why not? Nica was always asking him to bring friends over. He’d had Bobbie over a few times, both before she got married and after she had her twins, and Chrissy over when she was in town. Nica’s standard response when he told her he was having a woman friend over was “That’s not what I had in mind, Quin—could you maybe have a life or something?” but Quinlan had learned that Nica’s mothering often sounded like a nag, so he tried to ignore that.
“So I ask you to come out dancing and maybe get laid, and you ask me to the family interview with Mom’s home cooking. Nice.”
“Nica’s cooking is restaurant quality, you elitist bitch! I was going for a compromise, but if you don’t feel like even trying, then this idea of you and me is over.”
Quinlan felt that thing that happened to his body—his jaw getting square, his face getting hard. He’d always thought of it as channeling his father—and he only used it in defense. It had come out when the kids had gotten into trouble at school when it wasn’t their fault. It had come out once at the playground, when another kid thought it would be cute to push Petey off the swings. Once it had surfaced when some stuck-up bitch in the third grade had told Tay she could wear nice clothes if only her mom hadn’t had so many kids.
Quinlan was not a nice person when his jaw locked
like that.
And Mads was backtracking like a clown on a unicycle. “Okay, okay! I’m sorry. I’m sorry—you’re right. I was shitty because I wasn’t getting my way. I’d love to come over to the family’s house for dinner—if”—he pushed his hands forward like he was asserting himself—“if you agree to coffee at your place afterward.”
“Coffee and not sex,” Quinlan cautioned. “I need to be up at erk in the morning to make it to the bus.”
“Fine.” Mads looked disgruntled. “Coffee that’s actual coffee and some quiet adult conversation. I’ll settle for that. When’s dinner?”
“Seven.”
“That late?” Mads whined.
“We’re waiting on a lot of people!” Quinlan warned. “And the kids will be out in the pool until six thirty. So yeah. See you at seven.”
“You’ll text me the address, right?”
“Remind me,” Quinlan said, hoping he’d forget.
Mads rolled his eyes and shook his head and got into his Jetta without another word. His silver Jetta, Quinlan couldn’t help but noticing.
Dustin, true to his word, had painted the Camry bright wasp yellow. You could spot it a mile away.
Whatever. He shook off the unfavorable comparison to Dustin—Better sense of humor? Dusty. Better-looking? Dusty. More interesting hobbies? Dusty. Jesus, wine tasting was boring as hell—and got into the minivan.
Okay. Time to go home and confess to Nica. They were having company for dinner.
Which went about as disastrously as Quinlan expected it to.
“Yes, Mrs. Grayson—”
“Robbins-Grayson,” Belinda corrected, her eyes flat.
“Uh, Robbins-Grayson,” Mads echoed dutifully. Nobody at the table suggested he call her Nica. “Quinlan and I have been playing together with Sammy for the last year at Dodgy’s.” He looked at Quinlan, hurt. “You haven’t told them about me?”
“No, he hasn’t.” Dustin had a sort of predator’s gleam in his eye. “It’s almost like he pulled you out of his ass to prove he has friends.”