Keeping Quinn: The Next Generation

by Edwards, Riley

  “Then what are you doing?”

  “Getting you into bed.”

  My blood started to heat and it became increasingly difficult not to blow my top and make a fool of myself. Though, maybe if I did, he’d go running for the hills. If I told him I’d fallen in love with him, broke the terms of our agreement, he’d end the craziness. Which was what I needed him to do. I wasn’t strong enough to let him go.

  “I’m not having sex with you,” I blurted out.

  “What the fuck?” At his angry tone, my spine snapped straight, and when I took in his posture, I took a much-needed step back.

  “I don’t understand why you sound so pissed. There’s only ever been one reason for you to be in my bedroom. And since I’m tired and we’re not going there, I don’t—”

  I didn’t get to finish my statement. That’s because Brice moved, and when he did he crowded my space, his hands went to my shirt, he yanked it over my head and unclipped my bra. And that was when my brain finally kicked in and I batted his hands away.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Quiet!”

  He tore his shirt off. Suddenly it was over my head, and without much of a choice, I shoved my arms through the sleeves and stared at Brice in disbelief.

  “Seriously, what’s going on here?”

  He shuffled me to the bed, knelt in front of me, pulled off my shoes and socks, then he stood and removed my jeans. The next thing I knew, I was in bed.

  I was completely stunned—total loss for words—and when he undressed and climbed into bed next to me, he shocked me again.

  “Brice—”

  “Quiet, Quinn. You’re tired and I’m unbelievably pissed. Go to sleep.”

  “You’re pissed?” I snapped, my body going solid. “What do you have to be mad about?”

  “First time I take my woman out to dinner, we find her parents are at the same restaurant. So, I’m thinking we sit with them, get that outta the way, have a nice meal. But that doesn’t happen. Instead, my woman shuts the fuck down, gets quiet, and barely speaks. Then I’m treated to some bullshit about how you’re tired instead of you just coming straight out and telling me what’s crawled up your ass. So, yes, Quinn, I’m pissed. Now, you wanna tell me what your problem is?”

  His woman?

  Knife straight to the heart.

  Not only had he delivered the blow, he twisted it.

  “I’m not your woman,” I whispered.

  “You’re not?”

  “No.”

  But damn did I wish I was.

  “In the last three months we’ve been together, you’ve taken another man?”

  “Of course not,” I snapped.

  “Right. And in the last month, has it not been me waking up with you in my arms damn near every morning I’m not working?”

  “That doesn’t make me your woman.”

  “So, it’s not you I talk to five hundred times a day while I’m on shift? It’s not you I can’t wait to come home to? It’s not you who meets me at the door?”

  All of that was true, with only the slight exaggeration of five hundred texts a day, though it may’ve been close to that. And it felt damn good to hear him say he couldn’t wait to come home to me—but I knew better. He was looking forward to coming home because I was a sure thing. He knew I’d be waiting for him at the door ready to pounce on him.

  “Yeah, let’s talk about that—”

  “Which part?” he growled, losing patience—that is to say, losing what was left of his almost nonexistent patience.

  “The part about us talking five hundred times a day, or rather the things we don’t talk about.”

  “Come again?”

  “Two fatalities?” I reminded him.

  “Yeah?”

  “That’s it? Just yeah?”

  I sat up and glanced down at Brice lounging back on my bed like it was his, like he’d done it for years, like it was his right to be there—and that made me angry. It was irrational and dumb but it hurt to see him lying there. Which made me angry at myself for thinking I could keep him.

  “Babe, I have no idea where you’re taking this so you’re gonna have to give me more.”

  “You didn’t tell me two men died. You told me about the warehouse fire. You told me about five other calls you got, what the guys were up to at the station. You told me about the new kitchen appliances someone donated. You told me about the fundraiser the station was doing for the youth soccer league. But you did not tell me that two men died during a callout. Which served as a cold reminder, I am not your woman. We do not talk about important stuff, we’re surface. Sex and superficial conversation. Which reminds me, you are not going to my parents’ house for dinner.”

  “Let me get this straight. You got all of that because I didn’t tell you we pulled two charred, dead bodies outta the warehouse?” I flinched at his description and my lips pinched together. “Yeah, Quinn, that right there is why I didn’t say anything. I don’t want to fill your head full of ugly shit that happens. Death is never pretty, but in my line of work, it’s less so. What Jackson chooses to tell Tuesday is up to him. What he chooses to tell your dad and your family is up to him. But for me, I don’t want to lay my shit on you when you’re sitting here alone in your apartment. I don’t want you worrying about me and the dangers of my job. I want you sitting here worry-free, happy, waiting for me by the door with a smile on your beautiful face.”

  “That’s exactly my point—”

  “Christ, Quinn. Because I’m trying to protect you, you’ve twisted that into something that’s total bullshit.”

  “You’re not trying to protect me, Brice. You’re keeping yourself away from me. You didn’t tell me about the two men who died because you didn’t want me to ask you questions. Uncomfortable questions like if you were all right, or how you were feeling after seeing two dead men. I get it, I really do, your feelings are not my business. So don’t pretend I’m your woman. Don’t sit across from my parents and act like you’re something you’re not. And seriously, do not try to lie to me and tell me you were trying to protect me.”

  After that, I laid back down and turned on my side facing away from Brice. Every part of my body ached. My heart hurt, my nose stung, and my eyes prickled with unshed tears.

  The light went out but Brice made no move to roll next to me or exit the bed. So be it. If he wanted to sleep next to me, I didn’t have the mental energy to argue with him.

  What felt like hours later, I was finally drifting off to sleep when I felt Brice curl into my back, his arm going around my waist, holding me tight.

  I should’ve told him to move. I should’ve told him he was hurting me. I should’ve told him I was dying inside because I’d fallen in love with him and he’d never love me back.

  But I didn’t. I fell asleep snuggled in Brice’s arms feeling like that was where I belonged.

  However, I woke up alone.

  Which I knew was the beginning of the end.

  12

  Quinn had instigated her play and everything inside of me told me not to give it to her. To put a stop to the bullshit and force my way back in.

  But that’s not what I was doing. I was going to let her pull away and I was lying to myself in the process.

  I hadn’t seen Quinn since I’d left her sleeping in her bed three days ago. I’d called her dad to let him know I couldn’t make it to dinner and gave the excuse of needing to go see my brother. To make that not an outright lie and to give Quinn what she wanted, I’d hightailed it to Jacksonville to see Bryan.

  That was the second mistake I’d made, and it was arguably bigger than me letting Quinn go.

  Not that she was gone completely. We’d exchanged a handful of texts. She knew I was in Florida. I knew she was currently at her parents spending time with her niece. She even sent me a picture of her and Emma. But the messages were exactly what she’d said they were—surface shit.

  And I couldn’t figure out if they’d always been like that. I
did know the frequency had changed. Gone were the funny memes she sent, or the two line texts telling me where she was going, or asking me if I was having a good day.

  Everything had changed and I fucking hated it.

  “You ready to tell me why you really drove your ass all the way down here?” Bryan asked.

  I glanced around his backyard as if it held all the answers to my problems. Issues I’d created. Issues that I refused to face.

  “You act like I never come down,” I returned.

  “Didn’t say that,” Bryan started. “I asked if you’re ready to talk. Been here three days.”

  “And?”

  “And I know you, little brother. I know when something’s eating at you. Spit it out already.”

  “How’d you get over and move on from Lucy?” I asked the question that had been burning my gut.

  “Lucy? What the fuck?”

  “After what she did to you, how’d you get over it?”

  Bryan studied me, not even trying to hide his confusion. And I guess he would be perplexed at me asking about his high school girlfriend.

  “I’m not sure what you’re asking, Brice.”

  “She fucked you. You were with her eight years. Engaged. Then one day she’s not in love with you and breaks it off,” I reminded him.

  Bryan settled back in the chair as he continued to stare at me and I saw it, the exact moment light dawned and he understood my question.

  “Fuck. Please do not tell me that you’ve been sitting on this for the last twelve years.”

  “Hell, yeah, I have. I was there, Bryan, I remember what she did. I remember how crushed you were. Kinda hard to forget my older brother breakin’ down when the woman he loved broke his heart.”

  “Christ, Brice. Seriously? That’s why…” He let his statement hang and he shook his head before he pinned me with his stare. “Please, for the love of God, tell me I’m wrong.”

  “You’re not wrong,” I told him.

  After seeing the brother I idolized fall apart after his bitch of a fiancée dumped him, I didn’t want one thing to do with love.

  “Man, I wish you would’ve come to me sooner with this shit. You have it all wrong.”

  “All wrong? She gutted all of us. All my life, the bitch was around, for as long as I can remember, then all of a sudden she doesn’t love you. What the fuck, Bryan, how do I have that wrong?”

  Bryan shifted in his seat and looked away.

  “The break was my idea.”

  “What?”

  “We were young, we’d only ever been with each other.” He paused and smiled like he was remembering something fondly, which I have to admit was confusing as hell—why he’d smile thinking about the girl he wasted eight years on. “I remember seeing her the first day of school freshman year. ‘Member Danny O’Connell? He had such a hard-on for her I wanted to beat the shit out of him. Took me a week to get the courage to ask her out. Lucy Rowe, the hottest piece in the freshman class.”

  “I may’ve been eight, but I remember she was all you talked about,” I agreed.

  “I was fourteen, Brice. She was my first everything. And I hate to say this because it makes me sound like a royal prick, but my senior year I was going to break up with her, play the field, can’t remember what changed my mind. Then we both went to Georgia State and…shit, man, I was freaked out my first year of college. The only thing that felt normal was having Lucy. And I knew it was the same for her. We were comfortable, convenient, easy. That’s why we stayed together. Then suddenly years passed. Her parents were pushing for a commitment, it seemed like the next logical step and we were going into our senior year of college.”

  Bryan looked back at me and his eyes drifted closed. “Really wish we’d talked about this sooner. Twelve years this shit’s been fucking with your head when it shouldn’t have been. You spending your life blowing through women, living fast and loose because of something you didn’t understand. Fuck. I hate that for you.”

  The knot that had been coiling in my stomach for the last three months was suddenly getting larger by the second and my skin started to itch. I did not want to hear the rest of what my brother had to say. It didn’t matter if I misunderstood what had happened between Bryan and Lucy, the fact remained that love had the power to destroy. I’d missed Lucy, too, expected her to always be a part of our lives.

  “With our last year of college looming,” Bryan continued, “it felt like another huge change. Soon everything would be different, and once again I was holding onto Lucy because I was scared not to have her, not because I loved her. I knew it and I felt like shit about it. I’d also spent all of high school, and nearly all of college with the same girl. A girl I was merely comfortable with, not in love with. So I started thinking about all the things I was missing out on. I suggested the break. At first she didn’t want it, then she agreed. We split up, agreed we’d take a month to see what was out there, and go from there. Lucy was seriously hot, took her about one day to understand my wisdom. By the next weekend, I saw her on a date. Smiling, laughing, having fun. Two weeks later, I saw her making out hot and heavy by her car. It was a kick in the gut because I didn’t expect it, but I was not broken up about it. That’s when I knew, hundred percent, we didn’t love each other and had no business getting married.”

  “You were a fucking mess at Christmas,” I reminded him.

  “I totally was.” Bryan chuckled. “Lucy and I had officially ended things. I’d just spent weeks cramming for mid-terms. Had to think about finding a real job, start paying my student loans. And Holly Mahoney had delivered a serious wake-up call.”

  “Who the fuck is Holly Mahoney?”

  “The first girl I slept with after Lucy. Thought we hit it off, she took me back to her place, we had some wild sex. She was younger than me by two years and the girl was wicked hot in bed—showed me shit I could not believe. Swore the next morning I was in love, and she showed me the door. Told me it was fun, and if I ever felt like fucking her again and she wasn’t busy, she was game.”

  What the fuck? Bryan had spent the six weeks he was home for Christmas in a funk, totally moping around, foul-ass mood, slamming doors, hibernating in his room. I was sixteen, watching my big brother all but fucking cry himself to sleep every night thinking that it was Lucy’s fault. That she’d torn him up. That she’d abandoned us all.

  “What the hell—”

  “What was I supposed to say? That I was behaving like a pussy because I was scared to go out and live in the real world? That some chick who I barely knew made me feel like a chump. That because I didn’t have Lucy I was afraid I didn’t even know who I was or how I was supposed to act? I had no idea you were watching me that close. You were sixteen off doing your own shit. If I had known this was eating at you, I would’ve taken time to explain. But I had no idea. I was twenty-two, Brice, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.”

  “Fuck!” I gritted my molars and rolled my shoulders trying to alleviate some of the building pressure.

  “So now you wanna talk about the woman who has you all tied up and what the real issue is?”

  “No.”

  “Too fuckin’ bad, little brother. Talk!”

  “I think I screwed up—huge.”

  “If you think you did, that means there’s no doubt you did. Who is she?”

  “Quinn Walker.”

  Bryan whistled and shook his head. He knew who Quinn was. He’d never met her but he had met Jackson and her brother Jason.

  “How long has it been going on?”

  “Three months.”

  “Jason know?”

  “Nope. Neither does Jackson, but we had dinner with her parents the other night.”

  With very little prodding from Bryan, I laid it out. All of it. From the very beginning and how I’d been avoiding Quinn for years because I was attracted to her and knew Jackson would lose his mind, to her moving in next door, to our arrangement.

  “So you’re in love with her?”

>   “Yes.”

  My admission hung in the air and I waited for the panic to ensue. And it came all right, heavy and painful. I was in love with Quinn and I stupidly allowed her to pull away because I was a fucking pansy-assed fool.

  “If that’s the case, why are you sitting here in my backyard instead of trying to patch things up?”

  “Because for years I’ve lived my life avoiding feelings at all costs. I don’t have the first clue how to give her what she needs.”

  “Sure you do.”

  “No, really I don’t. Since I was sixteen, I’d shut all of that shit off thinking I’d watched my brother take a hit that was so painful it changed him. I never wanted to experience that. Never wanted to love someone if it meant they had that kind of power over me.”

  Bryan flinched and guilt hit me, it wasn’t his fault. It was mine, I’d done it to myself. “To clarify, I’m not blaming you. And part of me doesn’t regret the way I’ve lived my life, but now when it matters, I have no idea how to be the man Quinn needs.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been doing it for months.”

  “Surface shit. That’s what she called it. Told me all I give her is superficial and she’s right.”

  “So start there. Explain to her why you were holding yourself back.”

  “I’m not going there. Part of that is because I’m not airing your shit, and to explain I’d have to tell her about you and Lucy.”

  Bryan barked out a laugh then leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.

  “’Preciate you wanting to protect me, but I’m a grown-ass man now and I am not embarrassed about crying in my soup when I was a punk-ass kid who had no idea how to deal with an uncertain future. And that’s all that was. You saw it as heartbreak but what it really was, was fear of the unknown. Explain things to her, I bet she understands.”

  “Maybe.”

  “No maybe about it. Go. Get the fuck out of my house, get in your truck, and go get your woman before she realizes she can do about hundred times better than you.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Really, she can. If she’s half as hot in real life as she is in the pictures I saw, then she is a fine piece—”