by Joss Wood
Quinn wiped his hand across his forehead. He was being too introspective; he was overthinking and overanalyzing. Take a step back and pull yourself together, Rayne.
He and Cal were friends who were having sex. It wasn’t something to fret over. And his secret was his to keep...
“Hi,” Cal said as she approached them and patted a chubby leg. “Meet Lee, who is a cutie-pie.” She flashed a smile at Kade and looked down at Cody. “God, he’s gorgeous, Kade.”
Kade’s smile was pure pride. “Isn’t he? I do really good work.”
Cal grinned. “I think Brodie might have helped a bit.”
Kade patted the seat beside him and stood up. “Have a seat. I’m going to put my guy in his stroller and then I might start a game of soccer.” He looked in Quinn’s direction. “Do you want to play?”
Quinn shook his head. “Maybe later.”
Quinn watched Kade walk off and then stretched out his long legs and tipped his face to the sun. “You’ve had a good turnout. There are a lot of kids here.”
“Yeah.” Cal sat down and the little boy curled up against her chest. “My mom started this event a couple of years before she was diagnosed. She loved kids.”
“As you do,” Quinn said. He half turned in his seat and gripped the end of her braid between his thumb and index finger. “During your marriage, I kept expecting to hear that you were pregnant.”
Distaste flashed across Cal’s face and Quinn frowned, puzzled. “You didn’t want kids?”
“Not then,” Cal muttered. She shuddered and her arms tightened around Lee’s small body. Quinn looked down and saw the child’s eyes had closed. He’d stopped sucking his thumb.
Quinn ran his finger down her cheekbone, along her jaw. “I’m presuming that you’d like a family one day?”
More family talk? There was definitely something wrong with him. Quinn watched as Cal captured her bottom lip between her teeth and nodded. “Yeah, I really, really would.”
He pushed the words past that expanding ball in his throat. “Then, after we’re done, you’re going have to marry again, find a good guy who will give you a kid or three or four.”
Cal rolled her eyes. “C’mon, Quinn, since when do I need to marry to have kids? Hell, I don’t even need a man to have a baby. Have you heard of sperm banks?”
Quinn looked at her horrified. “Are you insane? You can’t pick the father of your children out of a database!”
“Why not?”
“Because he could be a psycho?”
“I’m sure they weed out the psychos in their screening process.”
Quinn wasn’t sure if she was yanking his chain or not. “No sperm banks, Cal. Seriously.”
“Well, what are my other choices?” Cal demanded, leaning into his shoulder. “I suppose I could have a series of one-night stands with men I think would be good genetic material but that seems, well, tacky.”
Okay, that sounded even worse than the sperm banks. The thought of another man’s hands on her body made Quinn want to punch someone. “No one-night stands, Callahan.”
“Well, I’m not going to fall pregnant by wind pollination, Rayne. Anyway, I’m not nearly ready to have a kid and when I am, I’ll make a plan. I might even ask my best friend to donate some of his boys. He’s my favorite person, is stunningly good-looking, smart as a whip and I like him. But don’t tell him that.”
Quinn stared at her. He blinked, trying to make sense of her words. There was no way she could possibly be asking him for the one thing he couldn’t give her. No way, no how.
Life couldn’t possibly be that much of a bitch.
“Take a breath before you pass out, Rayne. Jeez,” Cal said, patting his thigh with his free hand. “It was just an idea that popped into my head.”
“Cal—”
Cal’s fingernails pushed through his jeans and dug into the skin of his thigh. “Okay, I get it, that’s a solid hell no.”
Hurt flashed across her face and dropped into her eyes. Her chin wobbled and Quinn felt like a toad. He pushed the words up his throat. “I’m sorry, Cal, but I could never do that.”
Quinn looked at her profile and sighed. He had to tell her, had to give her the reason for his refusal. Besides, if there was anyone whom he would share this secret with, it was Cal. He might be stupidly, crazily attracted to her, but she was still his best friend. Her friendship was still more important to him than the fantastic sex. He liked and respected her. She’d trusted him to show her how amazing sex could be; he could trust her with his biggest, darkest secret.
He took a deep breath and forced the words out. “There’s little I wouldn’t give you, Red, but I can’t give you—what did you call them?—my boys.”
“I get it. You don’t want to be a dad, have a family, be tied down.”
Quinn pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “God, Cal, shut up a sec. Okay?”
Cal jerked her chin up, but she stopped talking and Quinn sighed. The best way to say this was just to get it out as quickly and painlessly as possible. “I can’t have kids, Cal. I’m infertile.”
Cal frowned. “No, you’re not.”
“Yeah, I am. Every couple of years the Mavericks players have a full medical, where the team docs check us out from tip to toe. The results indicated that I am infertile.”
“Did they do a sperm test?”
“No, just a blood test. Apparently it’s quite a rare condition, but I’ve got it.”
“What’s the condition called?”
Quinn shrugged his shoulders. “Hell if I can remember.”
Cal’s fist thumped his thigh. “When did you find out and why didn’t you tell me?”
Quinn covered her fist with his hand. “They told me a couple of weeks before your wedding. I picked up the phone to call you, but then I remembered that you weren’t talking to me.” He looked at her distraught face and sighed. “Look, Cal, this isn’t a big deal—not to me anyway. I’ve never wanted kids, never wanted the whole picket fence deal.”
Cal leaned sideways and dropped a kiss on his shoulder. He felt the heat of her lips through the fabric of his hunter-green T-shirt. “I’m so sorry about that whole no-talking thing. That was my fault and it was wrong of me.”
“I did call your husband a first-class moron and threatened to kidnap you to stop you from marrying him,” Quinn conceded.
Cal kept her lips against his shoulder and her words whispered up to him. “Sometimes I wish you had.” Before he could ask her to explain her cryptic statement, she pulled away and spoke again. “I understand why you don’t want kids and marriage, Quinn.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “You do?”
“It’s not quantum physics. You were hurt and ignored as a child and you’re scared of being hurt again. Because your parents let you down, you are reluctant to take another chance on being loved.”
“Whatever,” Quinn growled, hating that she was right, that she’d put his deepest fears into words and made him face them. “My not being able to have kids is not a big deal, Cal.”
He wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince. Himself or her?
“It is, to me,” Cal stated, her tone fierce. “It’s a big deal because I think you would be an amazing dad, an amazing husband. If you dropped that shield, that fear of being hurt, and allowed yourself to love, you’d be a wonderful family man.”
Cal lifted her hand from his thigh and rubbed the back of her neck, her eyes on his face. “Look at you, all puzzled and weird, thinking I’ve lost my mind. I haven’t. I just know you, Quinn, better than anybody. I. Know. You. You’re a wonderful friend and you’d be a great husband.
“Listen,” she continued, “you need to investigate this condition, find out what you can do. There are other options for you to have a family. Adoption, s
urrogate sperm—”
“Cal, enough!” The words shot out like bullets. He shook his head and lifted his hands. “I’m good. This is my life. I’m okay with not being able to have kids. I always have been.”
Cal shook her head. “I don’t buy it. You could have it all, Quinn.”
Quinn shook his head and gripped her chin in his hand. “Don’t you dare feel sorry for me, Red.”
“This so-called infertility is just another excuse for you not to commit, not to get involved,” Cal said, her expression mulish.
Okay, he wasn’t going to waste his time trying to convince her. “That’s your perception, Callahan. Discussion closed.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Let’s talk about Carter, your marriage and his death.”
Her face closed up and her eyes turn cool. “Let’s not. Ever.”
“Why won’t you—”
Cal stood up and the child in her arms opened his eyes and blinked at the sudden movement. “Don’t do this, Quinn.”
“Why are you allowed to prod and pry, but I’m not? Why don’t you trust me with the truth?” Quinn demanded, following her to his feet and pushing his hands through his hair. Why did he need to know about Cal’s life with Carter? The man was long dead and he didn’t affect Cal’s life anymore, so why did her secrets about him bother Quinn so much?
God, this was confusing and annoying. This never happened when he slept with women he didn’t talk to. Quinn jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and rocked on his heels, frustrated. She might trust him with her body, but she didn’t trust him with her past.
And that stung.
Conversations like this—hell, any conversation with Cal lately—made him feel like he was standing in a basin on six-meter swells, desperately trying to keep his balance. Too much was happening, all at the same time. He was married, living with and making love to his best friend. His marriage would end at some point in the near future and, he assumed, sex as well. Would their friendship also end?
And if it didn’t, could he still be her friend without remembering the spectacular sex? Could he forget that she had three freckles on the inside of her thigh, would the memory of her breathy moans fade?
He’d said that sleeping together would cause difficulties, but he’d underestimated how many and he certainly hadn’t realized the degree to which the sex would mess with his head.
Cal was now, without doubt, his biggest complication.
* * *
“Coffee.”
Cal buried her head in her pillow and felt Quinn’s eyes on her. She was lying on her stomach, naked, the white cotton sheet skimming the top of her butt. She felt him rolling to his side and she turned her head sideways. He was supporting himself on a bent arm and his other hand played his favorite game, joining the dots on her shoulders. He loved her freckles as much as she hated them.
“Where’s my coffee?” Cal whined and he laughed.
“Good morning to you too, Red.” Quinn skimmed his hand down her back and over her butt. “Did you sleep well?”
“No, because you kept waking me up,” Cal muttered, squinting up at him. He had a crease in his face from the pillow, hectic stubble and bed hair and he’d never looked more beautiful.
“If I recall, you woke me up the last time.” Quinn pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes and off her forehead.
She blushed and Quinn laughed. “Don’t feel embarrassed, Red. Not with me.”
Cal closed her eyes, turned her face back into the pillow and let out a long groan. She couldn’t help it. She became an uninhibited, wild woman with him, happy to go wherever he led her. It was the only place where she allowed Quinn a measure of control over her. In every other sphere they were absolute equals.
He never questioned where she was or what she was doing and when she did explain, he listened to her activities with interest and trusted that she’d been where she said, doing what she said. He allowed her, without any fuss, to contribute to the expenses living on the boat and when she’d purchased some jewel-toned cushions to add color to the neutral palette, it had taken him three days to notice. He told her he loved whatever she was wearing but insisted he loved her birthday suit best.
He was easy to live with, but their friendship had always come easy.
Cal rolled over, pulled the sheet up to cover her breasts and pushed her hair off her face. “This is weird. Don’t you think this is weird? When do you think it’ll stop being weird?”
“What is weird, exactly?”
“You and I naked. Together. Friends don’t get naked.”
“We have, we do,” Quinn replied. “Don’t overthink this, Cal. We’re lovers in the bedroom, friends outside of it. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.”
Cal tipped her head and seemed to consider his words. Simple, no drama. So refreshing. She yawned and when she lifted her arm he traced the words of her white-ink tattoo across her rib cage.
“‘She flies by her own wings,’” Quinn read the words aloud. “Why that phrase, Red?”
It was a statement of her independence, but, like so much else, she couldn’t find the words to explain.
“When did you get the tattoo, Red?”
“About a year after Toby died.”
There, she’d said his name out loud. It was, she supposed, some sort of progress.
“I like the white ink,” Quinn commentated. “It’s feminine, pretty.”
She still found it difficult to talk about her past, so she lowered her eyes and sent him a hot look, dropping her gaze to his biceps and then his chest. “You are the baddest bad boy around and, sadly, the only one without any ink. How can you still be scared of needles?” she teased.
“I’m not scared,” Quinn shot back. “I just don’t see the point.”
Cal rolled her eyes. “I was there the night you tried to get your first tattoo, Quinn. You passed out when the guy sat down next to you and lifted the tattoo machine. Wuss. Repeat after me, I’m a scaredy-cat.” Cal sang the last word in an effort to distract him.
Quinn didn’t take the bait. “Why those words, Cal?”
Aargh! Stubborn man!
“I have another one.”
“You’re avoiding the subject and I’ll let you, for now. But at some point, sometime soon, I want to know why. So... Where? I thought I’d explored every inch of your body.”
Quinn pulled down the sheet and his eyes skimmed over her torso, down her belly. Her heart thumped and her skin prickled. Occasionally she forgot that he was her oldest friend. Sometimes he felt like a tantalizing mixture of new and old, of excitement and comfort.
“Where’s the second tattoo?”
“Here.” Cal lifted a slender foot and twisted her ankle so he could see the tiny feather on the instep of her foot. It was beautifully rendered, a subtle white and silver shot through with gentle pinks.
Quinn cupped her foot in his hand and swiped his thumb across the tattoo. “It’s in memory of your mom. She always picked up feathers, wherever she went.”
Cal bit her bottom lip, touched that he’d remembered. “She said they were messages from angels. I’ve started looking for feathers now too.”
Their eyes met and, through them, their souls connected. “And do you find them?”
Cal smiled. “Yeah, I do. All the time. I choose to believe they are my mom’s way of telling me she is still around, watching over me.” She pulled her foot from his hand and wriggled, suddenly uncomfortable. “I suppose you think that’s silly.”
“Why would I?”
“Because the dead are supposed to be dead, gone.” Cal spat out the words like they were bitter on her tongue.
Quinn rolled off the bed, stood up and grabbed a pair of jeans from the back of the chair in the corner. He pulled them
on, left the buttons undone and walked over to a chest of drawers, pulling out a T-shirt for Cal to wear. He handed it to her and Cal pulled it over her head, the soft blue cotton swallowing her smaller frame. She’d never quite realized how much bigger than her he was until they’d started sleeping together.
Big but gentle, in control of his strength.
Quinn lifted his shoulders to his ears before dropping them abruptly. “I think you are mentally, and spiritually, tougher than anybody I know. Anybody who lost their mother and husband within the space of two years and managed to keep going, to keep it together, has to be. And if finding feathers gives you comfort, then who am I to judge?”
Cal knew she shouldn’t compare, but if this had been a conversation with Toby, then she would’ve been ridiculed and mocked, disparaged and called a child. God, Quinn was Toby’s exact opposite.
“I’m not sure the feathers are a message from your mom, but I know how much your mom loved you, so if finding feathers makes you feel close to her, then I’m not going to judge that, Red. I have no right to.”
Cal’s eyes filled with tears and she felt comfortable showing him her pain. “I miss her so much, Quinn. Still.”
“I know, Red. I do too.”
Cal knew that to be the truth. Her mom had been his because his own mother had been so bad at the job. Rachel had celebrated his achievements with him, the sports awards, the very-impressive-but-not-brilliant report cards. She’d accompanied Cal to watch his hockey games. She’d attended his graduation. She’d been a strong and loving presence his whole life and Cal knew he flat-out missed her too.
“What do you think she’d think about this?” Quinn asked, his voice sounding strangled. “Would she approve of you and I doing this?”
Cal took a moment to respond. “I’m not sure. I mean, she loved you, but she might think it was strange, like I sometimes do. Don’t you ever look at me and wonder what we are doing?’
“All the time.” Quinn scratched the back of his head. “Do you want to stop?”
Hell, no! Cal dropped her head, inspected her nails and when she lifted her head again she grinned. “It’s not that strange.”