by Ella Fields
“Why what?” Her dark brows lowered, her arms crossing over her chest. “Why’d I take Quinn?” She shrugged. “Same reason you did. Because I wanted him.”
“No.” My breath shook, my anger lowering to a simmer that now left me feeling a bit sick. “My sketchbooks.”
She didn’t answer, and I was beginning to think she wouldn’t when she all but hissed, “Because it hurts, doesn’t it? Having your heart crushed.”
“I already knew that. And you knew I did.” My hands were shaking, and I clenched them. “You didn’t need to do that.”
Alexis looked down at the ground, and I knew she felt bad; she just wouldn’t admit it. “I’m done with this. Have fun with the boyfriend you stole.”
I said to her back, “He’s not my—”
“Oh, come on.” She turned around to face me. “I’m willing to admit being the fool here. But you just couldn’t let go, could you?” An apology was on the tip of my tongue, but I held it back. She grinned sadly, as if she knew. “No point in saying you’re sorry. We both know you’re not.”
Alexis walked away, the sun shining down on her long dark hair, making her look like some kind of winter queen.
“No, Mom,” I said, stepping into the line at the diner. “I’m fine, seriously.”
“Really? So that’s why Amy called me, telling me some interesting news?”
I could feel my eyes bulging and whisper-hissed into the phone, “What the hell? What did she say?”
I heard her tinkering around, making dinner in the background. “Oh, nothing, nothing.”
Handing the cashier my card, I pointed at the spaghetti and meatballs, just as Quinn showed up at my side. I held up two fingers, knowing even if he’d eaten, he’d demolish mine if I didn’t. “Spit it out, already.”
“Oh, fine. She just said that you and Quinn had, um, maybe gotten friendly again.” She lowered her voice. “You’re taking the pill I got filled for you before class started, right?”
With my cheeks flaming, I moved aside, and Quinn mouthed, “Your mom?”
I nodded, and seeing my embarrassment, he grinned and took the phone from me, walking outside the diner while I got the food to go and tried to figure out how it was still possible for your parents to embarrass you when you lived thousands of miles away.
“Sure thing. She’s just grabbed some dinner, got her hands full.” He nodded, listening. “Uh-huh. I’ll tell her you want her to call you later.”
He hung up, slipping my phone into my bag and taking the food from me. “Thank you,” I said. “Jesus, I love her, but I’m eighteen, and still, she has this freaky ability to make me feel two feet tall with just a few words.”
Quinn’s laughter was muffled inside the brown bag as he shoved his face inside to see what I ordered. “I don’t think that’ll ever change. You got me some?” He looked over at me with a huge grin. “Thanks.”
“It’s to stop you from eating mine. I’m starved.” We moved around a guy yelling into his phone.
“My place?”
Spying his truck down the street, I agreed and followed him. “What were you doing here anyway?”
He opened my door, waiting until I was in before climbing in on his side and answering me. “I was actually going to grab something to eat. Toby’s gone out to dinner with Pippa. Didn’t feel like cooking.”
“And by cooking, you mean heating something up in the microwave?” I put my seat belt on.
He guffawed. “And what, you don’t?”
“Touché.”
We pulled up a minute later, and even though he lived close to campus, I was glad he decided to drive. It was starting to get freezing out.
Once inside, he set us up with plates at the dining table and got some glasses of water. True to my word, I was so hungry I barely said two words to him.
“Shit, Dais.” He wiped his mouth with some paper towel. “You miss lunch?”
“And breakfast,” I mumbled around a forkful of pasta.
“You can’t do that, Daisy.”
“I know, but I slept in.”
I could tell he was smirking without taking my eyes from my food. “Some things don’t change.”
“Nope. I’ve come to learn I’ll never be the most organized person. I’m good with that.”
“Good,” he simply said, finishing his food.
I took our containers to the trash afterward while Quinn washed our forks. “Really?” I asked, leaning on the counter and watching him get the cheese off them with the scrubber.
“Really,” he said, dumping them on the dish rack then going so far as to get the dish towel from the oven door and dry them, then put them away in the drawer. “He doesn’t harp about it all the time, but I can tell it bothers him.”
Knowing he was talking about Toby, I asked, “When things are messy?”
“Yeah, he struggles to relax or something. Hard to explain.”
“Pippa told me some of it,” I said. “That he suffers from anxiety, depression too?”
Leaning back against the sink, he dried his hands. He looked at me, hesitating, and I smiled, which must’ve reassured him enough to tell me. “He does. You wouldn’t pick up on it, just looking at him. Not unless you knew him well enough. He hides it well, unless he loses control.”
“What’s that like?”
Hanging the towel up, he gestured for me to follow him to the living room, where he pulled out some DVDs. “I’ve only seen him get real bad a handful of times. It can be small, or it can be huge. He can either fly off the handle, getting mad about shit real easy, or worst of all, he sleeps for days.”
“Really?” Pippa hadn’t said much, just that she was willing to give it a chance. And she was in too deep not to.
“Yeah. At playoffs last year, he lost his shit. Got into a fight with someone on the opposing team. Coach almost didn’t let him back this year, but well, he’s a damn good player.”
“Why’d he get that mad?”
He held up two DVDs, and I pointed at the one with cars on the front, not really caring what we watched. “No one really knows. It can be as tiny as something of his going missing, or maybe someone egging him on. As to why he gets down, I have no idea about that. Only that I think it all gets too much for him and pulls him under. He doesn’t like to talk about it.”
My brain was rolling over all he said, trying to match the new knowledge with the guy I’d recently gotten to know. Who was dating my closest friend.
“So he has aggression issues then?”
Hearing the alarm in my voice, Quinn’s eyes widened. “No. Well, yes.” He cursed quietly. “I’m not doing a good job explaining it. The truth is, I don’t know enough about it. But I do know him. He’d never … I know he wouldn’t. Besides, I’d never allow that to happen.”
The conviction in his voice had me believing him. “Okay.”
He changed the subject. “You going home for Thanksgiving?”
“Nah, it’s too far to travel when I’ll probably see them for Christmas. You?”
He put the DVD in and sat beside me. “After the game. Are you gonna come to that this weekend?”
“Your game?” He nodded, relaxing back on the couch. “Um, if you want?”
“I want,” he said. “I’d also love it if you came home with me after for the weekend.”
I was just getting comfortable next to him, the heat from his body making me warm all over, but then I tensed. “You want me to go home with you?” I thought I might choke on my heart.
He regarded me thoughtfully, his finger running over his brow. “You don’t want to?”
My mouth, which was gaping open, snapped closed. I did want to, but … “That’s a pretty big deal, Quinn.”
Grabbing my hand, he tugged until I was lying over his body. “It is. And it’d mean everything to me.”
The earnestness in his eyes had me tempted to agree right then and there. “I can’t.”
“Dais, please. I’m a desperate man who’s willing to get
down on his knees and beg. Just let me take you home.” He tucked some of my hair behind my ear. “Let me make you remember.”
The sound of screeching tires filled my ears, coming from the movie behind me.
“I’ll think about it,” I finally said.
His eyes dropped to my lips, and I pressed my finger to his, murmuring, “Don’t get too ahead of yourself, Q tip.”
“I’ll give you more than my Q tip. Just gotta tell me when and where.”
I burst out laughing, my head dropping to his hard pec. “You did not just say that.”
His chest rumbled with his own laughter beneath my cheek. “You had it coming.”
Moving me around to lie half on his side, half on the couch with my head resting in the crook of his arm, we settled in to watch the movie.
I didn’t remember watching much of it, but I did remember breathing in his scent and feeling like I fit perfectly against him.
Cheering ensued, Quinn making a perfect pass that had another player, I think it was Paul, gunning for the end zone.
“This shit gets intense,” Pippa mumbled around some popcorn.
“Oh, yeah. One time, I saw a bunch of fans from opposing teams get in a fight. It was a freaking high school game.”
Pippa laughed, her eyes stuck on Toby, who’d been benched for the first quarter and didn’t look very happy about it. “He’s pissed,” she said, her posture getting stiff.
“He looks it. Why’d he get benched?”
“No idea. Must’ve done something Coach didn’t approve of.”
When the second quarter rolled around, he was up and on the field before the coach could even send him on.
“Ax ’em, Tomahawks!” a guy hollered from behind, making us wince. His friends all joined in, getting louder as we neared halftime.
A person standing a few rows down facing me snagged my attention, her arms waving above her head. The man sitting beside her was trying to tug her back into her seat.
Quinn Sr. and Amy, Quinn’s parents. Nerves erupted, filtering through every cell in my body. She didn’t look mad, though. She looked happy. So hesitantly, I waved back before Quinn’s dad managed to get her back in her seat.
“Who was that?” Pippa asked.
“Quinn’s parents.”
She nudged me in the ribs. “Don’t be nervous. She was waving at you like a lunatic.”
I couldn’t help it. It’d been so long, and I didn’t know how they’d feel about me now. After these past few months.
“Oh, shit.” Pippa stood.
“What?” I asked, glancing around. Then I saw it, in the corner of the field, two players from either team, pushing and shoving each other. A fist flew, and I gasped. “Toby?”
“Yeah.” Pippa’s hands were covering her mouth, her body tense as if she was about to run down there but wasn’t sure if she could even move.
They were on the ground, rolling around, fists flying, before some of the other players broke it up. We watched, the crowd silent as the ref chewed their asses out, and the coaches got involved. Our coach stabbed his finger toward the sidelines, and Toby tore off his helmet, his arms spread out wide.
Murmurs and jeers filled the stands, but all we could do was watch silently.
Toby finally made a beeline off the field. His helmet was tossed to the ground, and he kicked a basket of water bottles over. He didn’t stop there, though. No, I could almost see the sweat bouncing off his hair as he roughly shoved his hand through it, then swore up a storm in the coach’s and referee’s direction. You couldn’t hear what he was saying, but you definitely could feel the anger and vulgarity of it.
“Oh, God.” Pippa sat down as Toby disappeared under the stands. The water boys scrambled to collect all the drink bottles Toby had scattered over the side of the field.
The Tomahawks all seemed to be unmoving, even when the whistle blew and the ref called halftime.
“I need to find him,” Pippa said, collecting her stuff.
“Wait.” What Quinn said to me earlier that week about Toby had me concerned. “Don’t you think you should let him cool off?”
She was already shuffling out of our row. “It’ll be fine. I’ll call you later.”
I wanted to believe her. I mean, she knew him much better than I did.
I finished watching the game with my stomach in knots, worried for Pippa, for Toby, and also about what the hell I would say to Quinn’s parents.
Turned out, I didn’t need to worry about that last part very much. I made it out of the stands and into the parking lot before Amy found me, immediately engulfing me in a hug that almost choked the life from me.
“Oh, my goodness,” she whined into my ear. “You’ve grown so much. You’re a real woman now.” Pulling back, she grabbed my shoulders, her eyes teary as they swept me up and down. Her hands moved up to frame my face, her lips wobbling. “You’ve always been effortlessly pretty, but now, you’re beautiful. Effortlessly beautiful.”
Quinn Sr. cut in. “Let her go, Ames.”
Reluctantly, she did, and my nerves resurfaced as familiar hazel eyes stared back at me. Then he smiled, and I knew I was okay. “Come here. Shit, look how tall you are.” I was gathered to his chest for a hug, Amy joining us.
“Don’t tell me you’ve had the reunion without me,” Quinn’s voice sounded from behind. We separated to find him standing there. He dumped his bag to the ground, his hair soaked and his shirt wet as if he’d taken the quickest shower known to mankind.
“Great game, kiddo.” His dad ruffled his hair, then pulled him to his side. It was crazy how much they resembled each other. Their large, broad frames, hair, eyes and the hard, square cut of their jaws. They even had the same smirk. But now, Quinn was almost an inch taller.
“Yeah.” Quinn sighed, looking around the lot.
They’d won, but I could tell he was thinking about what went down with Toby. “Have you seen him?” he asked me.
“No. Pippa went to find him as soon as he left the field, though.”
Brows furrowing, he nodded, and his mom clapped her hands. “Let’s go. It’s getting late. Have you got your bag packed, Daisy?”
Stumped, I blinked a few times. “Sorry, what?”
Quinn’s dad glanced away, laughing quietly.
I looked at Quinn, who was busy studying the ground. “Quinn.”
“Huh?” The look he gave me was so rueful, I wanted to smack him and kiss him stupid at the same time.
“Did you tell them I was going home with you?” I tried to keep the panic out of my voice. Tried.
“Maybe. I might’ve mentioned it, can’t really remember.”
“You can’t remember?” My brow rose.
His mom chortled behind us. “Not much changes, does it? Would it help if I told you I’ve already started preparing a feast for tomorrow?”
My lips twitched, and I pushed my glasses farther up the bridge of my nose, not removing my eyes from Quinn, who was openly grinning at me now. “Maybe.”
“Then it’s settled. I’ve already got everything ready, just in case we’re asleep when you arrive.”
Giving us a brief hug, they walked off to their car, Quinn Sr. telling Quinn, “Drive safe.”
“Oh, you’re so sneaky,” I hissed, whacking him in the chest once they were driving away. He grabbed my hand, pulling me to his body. He smelled like his shower gel, and I wanted to stick my nose into his neck and inhale. I tilted my head back, glaring up at his face. “What did you tell them?”
He licked his lips, eyes hooding as his arm tightened around me. “Just that you were thinking about it. Which you know translates to a yes when it comes to you and me.”
Scoffing, I pushed out of his arms. “That confident, are you?”
“Just waiting you out, but yeah, as I said, inescapable.”
“Happy Thanksgiving, beautiful,” Callum said, his arm looping around my neck and pulling me into his front. Quinn actually growled, which made me laugh. Callum smacked a kiss to
my cheek before freeing me. “Chill, Burnell. She owes me a kiss because I won her a frog. Should I just take what’s mine now? Or would you prefer I wait until you’ve finally won her back?”
Quinn’s jaw was granite as he gritted out, “You put your lips anywhere near her again, I’ll rip them clean off.”
Callum gave me a wink. “Later then.”
Quinn moved, and Callum jogged off, laughing as he waved at me over his head.
“Fucker,” Quinn grumbled. “What the hell did he win you?”
“A stuffed frog.”
“The one you left in my truck that night?”
Ignoring the heat behind his husky words, I said, “I’ve been wondering where it went.”
Back at my dorm, Quinn waited for me downstairs while I packed an overnight bag.
Pippa wasn’t in, so I quickly pulled my phone out and sent her a text to let her know I’d be back on Monday.
Excitement and trepidation funneled through me as I walked slowly down the steps, unable to believe I was actually doing this. Not only was I spending two whole days with Quinn, but I was also going back home.
Quinn was on his phone when I opened the truck door. “Can’t get a hold of him.”
I climbed in and shut the door, putting my bag on the floor. “Toby?”
“Yeah.” He sighed. Putting his phone away, he turned the ignition over. “I hope he’s okay. Coach is pissed as hell.”
“Pippa’s probably with him.”
He hummed, the lights from the dash illuminating the worry on his face.
Grabbing his hand, I played with his fingers as we started the two-hour drive back to Clarelle.
Stretching my legs, I felt my foot nudge something in the foot well.
My frog. I picked it up, setting it between us with a sly smirk. Quinn looked down at it, looked back at the road, then looked at it again. His jaw was clenching, fingers drumming over the steering wheel.
Then, as we got onto the highway, he said, “I hope you’re not too attached to this.”
“What?”
His window wound down, and he grabbed the frog, tossing it out of the truck. “Now you don’t owe him a damn thing.”
“Quinn!” I spun around, watching it bounce toward a car driving behind us. “I liked it. It was cute.”