by G. K. Brady
But surely she could find another solution besides living with this egomaniac, couldn’t she? Sarah was no masochist, and subjecting herself to Quinn Hadley twenty-four-seven would be masochism on steroids.
“You have plenty of time on your hands now. Why don’t you take care of your mom?”
“Well, besides trying to stay in game shape and take care of her in other ways, there’s … woman stuff, and that’s … She’s my mom. But hear me out. By you being here, you won’t be couch-surfing at Gage and Lily’s and comingling COVID. Here, you’ve got plenty of room to spread out, and we can totally pull off the social distancing thing.”
I’m not a couch-surfer! she wanted to protest. “Wait. Let me see if I have this straight. I’m supposed to take care of your mom while staying six feet away from her. We’ll all live in our own wings. When we come into common areas, we’ll be masked and gloved. Oh! And we’ll carry around drums of antibacterial wipes so we can disinfect everything, and each other, as we go.”
“Something like that, but we can work out the details later. By the way, I don’t have that many wings, and after two weeks we can be as cozy as we want because we’ll either all have it or we’ll have dodged a bullet.”
Cozy. He didn’t have ulterior motives, did he? No. He hadn’t given off so much as a glimmer of that vibe. In fact, he’d made it clear he preferred to be shark bait. Which was perfect.
When she didn’t answer, he answered for her. “See? You don’t have a comeback because it’s a brilliant plan.”
Living under the same roof with Quinn, no matter if his house was the size of a several ice rinks, ranked right up there with root canals. On the other hand, she did like his mom, a lot, and … Holy moly, was she really considering this? No way.
“Brilliant?” she guffawed. “A little full of ourselves, aren’t we?”
“I can’t get anybody else. Would you please help me take care of my mom?” he pleaded. The little-boy voice totally threw her. “I promise I won’t look at you or talk to you. And I’ll make it worth your while.”
Without censure, her mouth galloped away from her. “We’d better be talking cold, hard cash, Sparky. If it’s the same kind of ‘making it worth my while’ you use with your fan club, then you are barking up the wrong tree.”
“Whoa, whoa! Talk about being full of our ourselves. That’s not what I meant. This is strictly business. I was talking about cold, hard cash—lots of it.”
She hmphed.
Quinn barreled ahead. “First of all, Sunshine, even though your brother is my best friend, he’d separate me from my balls if I tried anything. I’m rather fond of them, and I have no desire to give them up. Second of all, and no offense, while you’re not bad looking, you’re not my type.”
“Well, thank God for that! I would never want to be confused with your type.” Whatever the hell that was. Oh yeah. Blond, busty, and skanky. In other words, not her. “Yeah, still not interested.”
He sounded like a deflated balloon on the other end. “Right. Okay. I’ll tell Mom I tried. Bye, Sunshine.” He hung up.
“Hello? Hey, Sparky?” She stared at her phone. Wait! That was it? That was all the fight he was gonna give her? Wuss!
Sarah fell into a restive sleep, punching pink pillows at every turn, though she couldn’t say exactly whose face she pictured as she punched. There were any number of candidates: the virus, the people spreading it, the governor of Colorado, the president, Wolf, Quinn Hadley. In her less agitated, more lucid moments, she admitted she couldn’t lay the blame on any of them, though she was surely tempted.
It was this merry-go-round of thoughts spinning in her head—along with the pins-and-needles sensation in her legs—that forced her from her bed. Daisy’s bed. As a kid, Sarah had suffered from something they now called Restless Leg Syndrome, only they didn’t have pills for it back then. Grandma would fix her a warm mug of milk and pull her against her pillowy body while she stroked her hair. Before long, Sarah would drift off to sleep. If only the drug manufacturers could turn that into a pill, the world would be a much happier place.
Though she no longer had Grandma’s comforting body to sink against, there was milk in the fridge she could heat—her go-to cure for her fitfulness even now. As she was stealing down the hall into the kitchen, she heard a grunt from the living room. A manly grunt. Followed by a heavy thump.
She stilled a moment, picking up a gruff “Son of a bitch!” Definitely not Daisy.
“Gage?” she hissed into the dark.
“What?” came her brother’s growl.
She tiptoed to the couch. “What are you doing out here?”
Her brother’s torso sprang upright on the couch. “Daisy’s sleeping with Lily.” She could practically hear the clench in his jaw.
“Wait. Why isn’t Daisy out here? And why aren’t you sleeping with Lily?”
He huffed and scrubbed his hand over his beard. “We’re pretty sure Daisy’s allergic to dogs now that Archer’s been here a while, and the congestion’s keeping her awake. She’s decided sleeping out here is scary—something about the trees through the windows. So I offered to swap.”
“How long?”
“Going on a couple of nights now,” he sighed.
“But I thought …” Coincidentally, it had been a few nights since she’d heard the distinctive coitus noises through the walls. She began pacing the width of the couch. “Gage, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—look, why don’t you sleep in Daisy’s bed and I’ll sleep out here?”
A night-light glowed in the kitchen, reflecting pinpoints in his eyes. “Uh, nice of you to offer, Sar, but it really doesn’t get me any closer to sleeping with Lily.”
“Oh. Right.”
Well, shit. He looked dejected as hell. Or maybe he was exhausted from sleeping on the too-small couch. And it was Sarah’s fault. Not only had she insinuated herself and her allergy-inducing dog into their tiny house, but now she was the reason they slept separately. Guilt pinched her.
“I know what you’re thinking, Sar, and Lily will not tolerate you sleeping on the couch, so just march your ass back to bed and go to sleep,” he grumbled before flopping back down and hitting his head on the armrest. “Fuck!”
Milk forgotten, she turned for the bedroom, feeling like a class-A heel. Then she stopped and pivoted. “Gage?”
“Mmph?”
“Um, so I got this offer from Quinn …”
Gage shot upright again. “What the hell? In the middle of all this, he’s putting the moves on you?”
“No, no, that’s not it. What I meant was, he wants to hire me to take care of his mom on a live-in basis. I guess he hasn’t been able to hold on to caregivers, and now with COVID …”
He seemed to calm down. “Right. It’s gotta be near impossible to hire someone.”
“Exactly. So …”
“That might not be a bad idea, Sar.”
Her brother was actually going along with this wackadoodle idea? “I thought you said you’d kill him if he laid a hand on me.”
Even in the gloom, she could see Gage appraising her. “Who says he’s going to try anything? Quinn likes them young and dumb anyway, and you’re neither.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“What I meant was, you’re what? Five years older than he is? He likes them just old enough so they can drink legally, and like I said, he goes for the stupid ones. You’re not stupid, Sar.”
“And this guy is your friend why?”
He chuckled. “From a guy’s perspective, he’s got his good points. Most of the time he thinks things through. He’d do anything for his friends. He’d be the first guy I’d call after T.J. if I was in trouble because he’d drop everything.”
“So you’d be okay with me living with him and his mom? Temporarily?”
“It’s up to you, but yeah, if that’s what you want. Then when Lil and I move into the new place, you can move back.”
Whoa! The idea sounded so reasonable when her brother sussed it out.
Maybe she’d been letting her emotions run roughshod over her and cloud her judgment. “All right, Bro. I’ll think about it.”
Sleep remained at bay that night, but she finally came to a conclusion that would solve everyone’s problems. Well, almost everyone. And five happy people out of six was way better than none out of six.
Quinn lay on top of his covers without a stitch on, yet he still couldn’t cool off enough to fall back asleep. Slumber was as elusive as a unicorn. His buzzing phone surprised him, but more surprising was the name on his caller ID at 4:12 in the morning. Should he answer Psycho Sunshine’s call? Was she drunk or high and looking to entertain herself by chewing him another asshole?
Yeah, not in the mood for her vitriol.
He stuffed the phone under his covers to shut it up. Several seconds after the vibration stopped, a text chimed.
Goddamn, what does this woman want?
He told himself he was a dumbass for giving in to his curiosity, that it wouldn’t help him get to sleep, yet he hauled the phone to his face. A poke at the screen, and the little bubble with her message was crystal clear. And it shocked the hell out of him.
If the caregiver offer’s still open, I’m in.
Wiping his eyes, he looked again. The message hadn’t changed. He fumbled as he tapped out an answer.
Quinn: You are seriously texting me at four in the morning to tell me you’ve changed your mind about taking care of my mother?
Sarah: Give Sparky a gold star. Yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you.
Quinn shook his head. When can you start? Shit, he hadn’t meant for that to come across all eager-beaver. She’d get the wrong idea that he wanted to hire her after all. Except he did want to hire her. Well, he didn’t want to hire her, but he needed to hire her. He’d run out of choices. And somewhere along the way, he’d gotten on board with the crazy idea that Sarah as a caregiver could work—maybe because facing his mother’s constant gimlet eye as she fumed at him was a less attractive alternative.
“Better to be plastered against a hard place or spread eagle across a rock?” he mused aloud. As he thumbed his response, he half expected to A) never hear from Sarah Sunshine again or B) have her tell him to go fuck himself. His mind hadn’t caught up to scenario C yet, which was exactly what she hit him with: I’ll be over at eight.
Quinn: As in 4 hrs?
Sarah: Exactly. Archer and me. Does that work for you?
Numbly, he typed two little letters and hit send before he could reconsider. OK.
He sat up, flipped on his bedside lamp, and looked around. Maybe he’d been dreaming. He glanced at his phone screen. Nope. Jesus Christ! Had he really hired this wildcat?
On his nightstand were three red beanbags, and he snatched them up and started tossing them in the air while thoughts tumbled through his brain. Which room do I put her in? The one farthest from his, naturally. No, next to Mom.
“Shit!” he grumbled. “I’m stuck inside for God knows how long with two crazy women. I would’ve been better off holing up with Hunts and his strippers.”
The beanies looping through the air were hypnotic, soothing, and other thoughts bubbled to the surface. Like how happy his mom would be when he told her the news. Yeah, the news that a pink-haired, weird T-shirt-wearing spitfire was moving in—in four hours. With her dog. A spitfire whose life’s motto was Fuck All Men! And not in a good way. No doubt she had that slogan emblazoned on a T-shirt.
With an enormous exhale, he caught his beanbags and piled them back on the nightstand, then dragged his hand over his face. What had he just signed up for?
Chapter 9
Good Roommates Are Hard to Find
Hours later, fresh from a workout and shower, Quinn was still basking in the glow of his stunning accomplishment. His mother had been delighted when he’d told her about Sarah. That glow, sadly, dimmed when his brother called.
“Ronan the Accuser. ’Sup in the mighty state of Kansas?”
“Oh, you know. Living the life.” A child screamed in the background as if to punctuate Ronan’s declaration. “So I hear you finally got off your lazy ass and hired someone to take care of Mom. ’Bout damn time.”
Though Quinn knew full well Ronan was deliberately pushing all his buttons at once, he couldn’t keep his jaw muscles from bunching. Why did merely hearing Ronan’s grating voice make Quinn want to throw a fist in his face?
“It’s not like I haven’t tried, asshole. She’s fired everyone I hired.”
“Yeah, well, the way I heard it, you didn’t exactly make the best choices. So what’s this one like?”
“She’s a piece of work. They should get along fine.”
“Mom says she’s got a dog that can help?”
“Yeah, we’ll see.”
“Mom also said this girl’s pretty hot. That why you hired her?” Ronan started laughing—no, cackling.
“Fuck you.”
“Besides being unable to find the right people to help her,” Ronan poked, “how are you and Mom getting along?”
Like Raid and roaches. Like Round-Up and weeds. “Good. She’s stubborn as hell, though.”
“Ha! Like you’re not?”
“That’s not what I meant, dickhead. Did she tell you I came home and found her lying on the floor the other day? She’d had a little run-in with her wheelchair and lost the battle. But Jesus Christ, suggest she needs help and you’d think I’d just threatened to take her damn arm off. Did that shit happen when she was living with you?”
“No, but then Jen and I made taking care of Mom priority one.”
God, Ronan just couldn’t stop himself, could he? Quinn wanted to throw out that, from what Mom had told him, Jen had done most of the heavy lifting—taking care of Mom and the three rug rats—while Ronan golfed, partied, acted like Ronan. Instead, Quinn kept his mouth zipped.
“It’s been rough for Mom, Q,” the sanctimonious son of a bitch added.
“Like I don’t know that?” Quinn snapped.
“Well, it’s good you finally stepped up to the plate. That’s all I can say.”
Not really all you can say, asshole.
“Oh, hey,” Ronan droned on, “I heard from Dad.”
This had all of Quinn’s attention. He hadn’t heard from his dad in what? Two years? Nor had his mom, for all Quinn knew. So why the hell was Dad in touch with Ronan? Right. It was Ronan; his shit never stank. “What did he want?”
“To say he’s stuck in Poland until this blows over.”
“Well, no shit. He’s been stuck in Poland for the last three years!”
“Don’t be such a dick. Contrary to what you tell yourself, you are not the Mighty Quinn.”
Quinn rubbed stiff fingers over his forehead. “Look, Ro, as awesome as talking to you is, I gotta go. Sarah will be here soon, and I wanna be sure everything’s ready for her.”
“Oh, Saaarah! Smile for meeee,” Ronan sang. “Seriously, Baby Bro, don’t screw this up. Mom likes her. Keep your dick zipped unless you’re about to fire her ass, then by all means, tap it.” Ronan gave him a dirty chuckle. “Not that you need to get up in that with all those hotties hanging all over your NHL-playing ass. Good thing that’s what you do for a living, otherwise you’d never get any.”
Fuck, here we go. Only this time his mom’s words streamed through Quinn’s consciousness. Was Ronan jealous? “Yeah, too bad not all of us have what it takes to make it to The Show. Later.” Quinn hung up before his brother could get in another word. As for Sarah, Quinn would have no problem keeping his dick in his pants where Miss Sunshine was concerned.
Right on cue, the doorbell rang. Quinn pulled in a breath to fortify himself.
“Quinnie, I think she’s here,” his mom called helpfully from some hallway somewhere in the labyrinth of hallways.
“Got it,” he growled.
Plastering on a semblance of a smile, he jogged to the front door and threw it open, his eyes landing on Sarah. The hot-pink hair wasn’t quite so hot anymore, having f
aded to a hue he wasn’t sure was on the color spectrum. She seemed to be sizing him up with those big forest-green eyes of hers. Or were they hazel? Beside her, Archer sat on his haunches, his lips drawn back in a smile. Do dogs have lips?
“Hey, roomie,” Sarah said.
“Hi. Welcome to your new home.” Sweeping his hand in a welcoming gesture, he held the door wide. “Temporary new home,” he clarified. His eyes darted above her head and landed on a teal Jeep. “That yours?”
She turned to look over her shoulder, and when she did, her dark zip hoodie gaped open, revealing a T-shirt that read, “Zombies Hate Fast Food,” and the hint of curvature beneath. She swung her gaze back to his, nearly catching him. “Yep.”
“I’ll show you where to park it later and give you a garage remote. In the meantime, come in.” He made way for her and the dog in the foyer.
Her eyes shot up to the recessed dome that held a monstrous two-tiered chandelier, then took a turn around the space. “I love the lines of this entry. I feel like I just walked into an Italian villa.”
He shrugged. “Follow me. Party’s back here.”
Sarah and Archer trailed behind him as he padded to the family room. Archer’s nails—or are they claws?—clicked over the polished marble. His mom sat upright, her legs stretched out on the couch, her head bent over something in her lap.
“Hey, Mom?”
Mom lifted her head and whipped off her glasses before breaking into a bright smile. “Hello, hello!” She held her arms wide and beckoned the dog. “How’s my handsome man today?” she cooed. Archer rewarded her with a serious tail wag and several swipes of his long pink tongue.
Sarah looked on with a wide grin, one hand loosely holding Archer’s lead. “It’s lovely to see you again, Liz. I’m looking forward to hanging out with you.”