“How many siblings do you have?”
“Oh, quite a few,” Quinn said, rubbing her eyebrow with her thumbnail. “I have five brothers and three sisters.”
“Nine kids?” Xandy asked, astounded. “I thought my parents were bad with six of us.”
“Well. In Northern Ireland there isn’t a lot to do, but drink and make babbys.”
“Babbys? Oh, babies,” she said, getting the slang.
“Very good.”
“So, what are the houses like there?”
“Well, I can tell you that some of these movies were pure bollocks when they portray the Irish as poor potato farmers in nothin’ short of mud huts. My da did pretty well for himself, we lived in a very nice manor in Belfast.”
“Your da?” Xandy repeated. “That’s your dad, right?”
“Right.”
“So it was a big house?”
“It was… is, they still live there. All the same it was only five bedrooms so we had to double up a bit.”
“Are you the oldest?” Xandy asked, fascinated by Quinn’s background.
“No, I’m round about the middle, three of my brothers and one of my sisters is older. The rest are younger than me.”
“Wow,” Xandy said. “Your parents had their hands full.”
“Nah, the older kids usually kept the younger kids in line. Usually.”
“You were trouble, weren’t you?”
Quinn laughed. “I had a tendency to forget that I was supposed to be home, I was forever out after dark, playing and adventuring.”
“Is that why you joined the army?”
Quinn considered the question for a minute. “Yeah, I guess that’s probably why,” she said, as if she’d never really considered that before. “I always wanted to go on adventures, different lands, different experiences, I was insatiable.”
“Never thought you’d end up stuck with someone like me, did you?”
“You’re not so bad,” Quinn said equably. “Now some of your fellow industry folk…” she said, as she rolled her eyes.
“You really don’t like people in the business, do you?” Xandy asked. she’d picked it up from a few of Quinn’s comments.
“No.”
“But didn’t I hear you’re dating a movie star?”
“Heard that, did you?” Quinn said, narrowing her eyes at the younger girl.
“It’s the business. Even I’m not immune to gossip,” Xandy replied.
“Ah-ha… Well, yeah, I am currently dating a movie star.”
“But you don’t like movie stars?”
“I don’t even like her sometimes,” Quinn answered honestly.
“Oh, that’s not good,” Xandy said, grimacing.
“That’s why I have my own place.”
“Much to her annoyance?”
“Oh yeah. If she could, she’d have me stuffed and installed in her home permanently.”
“Stuffed?” Xandy queried horrified.
“Shellacked, mounted, framed, hung…” Quinn listed, teasing.
“Oh my…” Xandy said, widening her eyes. “She’s that much in love with you?”
“I wouldn’t call it love.”
“What would you call it?”
“Obsessed, possessive, gotta have what no one else has…” Quinn said, not sounding too impressed.
“But you don’t think she loves you?” Xandy asked, unable to understand the logic.
“I’m not sure she even knows what love is. She’s about acquiring things. I’m just one of the things she’s acquired.”
“That’s terrible, people aren’t possessions,” she said with such vehemence Quinn caught the implication.
“Is that what happened to you?” Quinn asked gently.
Xandy paused, surprised by the question. She looked like she was thinking about it, but then she nodded her head. “In a way. Tommy thought I was going to be his ticket.”
“To everything?”
“Pretty much, but I didn’t make enough money for him to get everything he wanted.”
Once again, Quinn detected an undertone to what Xandy was saying. “So…”
Xandy pressed her lips together in a frown. “He decided a sex tape would be just the ticket.”
“Are you fecking kiddin’ me?” Quinn exclaimed, shocked.
“I wish I was,” Xandy said sourly.
“Manky blackguard,” Quinn muttered.
“A what?” Xandy asked, unable to keep from smiling at the utter contempt written all over Quinn’s face.
“Suffice it to say I think he’s a dirty son of a bitch.”
“Well, that’s true.”
“Is that why you divorced him?”
“That was definitely the final straw, yeah,” Xandy said, nodding.
Quinn nodded too.
“Fecking?” Xandy asked.
Quinn curled her lips in a grin. “What we say to keep from getting a beatin’ from ma.”
“Awww.”
A short while later Xandy was once again asleep, and Quinn found that it was rather endearing that the girl seemed so comfortable in the arms of a butch lesbian. Quinn imagined that Xandy hadn’t had a lot of exposure to gays, at least not of the female side. Gay men were all over the industry, always accepted for their flair and style. Lesbians tended to be in the background, except in cases like Ellen DeGeneres or Ellen Page or most recently Holland Taylor, which Quinn put firmly as a win in the lesbian column. Someone like Xandy, however, would rarely be around someone like her and Quinn found it a testament to the girl’s character that she adjusted to Quinn as quickly as she had.
Quinn had no way of knowing that Xandy hadn’t made many friends in Hollywood. Her Midwest values and general naiveté, and her refusal to let those go, made her the odd woman out in most circles. Sadly, the people she’d trusted had betrayed her at every turn. While Quinn was indeed an unknown quantity to Xandy, she was also someone Xandy felt she could safely admire for her accomplishments and willingness to be who she was. In two short days, Quinn had shown her more thoughtful and gallant graces than most people had shown her in years. It was something, and Xandy appreciated the rarity of it.
The night passed into morning and Quinn woke to the feeling of a hand on her arm. She chuckled even as she opened her eyes to look down at Xandy.
“Always got yer hands all over me,” Quinn said, a smile telling Xandy that she was kidding.
Xandy grinned, biting her lip in guilt. “I admit it. I was covetous of your arms.”
“Oh-ho…” Quinn said, widening her eyes dramatically. “You diabolical git.”
“I’m a what?”
“A diabolical git.”
“An evil... thing?” Xandy guessed.
“A very terrible horrible person,” Quinn translated.
“All that?” Xandy replied, mocking horror.
“Indeed.” Quinn grinned.
“Okay. Really though, I was looking at these,” she said, touching all the tattoos on Quinn’s left arm, ending up on the ones on her forearm.
Quinn touched her forearm, running over the tattooed words as she pronounced them. “This is ‘An làmb a bheir, ‘s i a gheibh.’ It means the hand that gives is the hand that gets.”
“Gaelic.”
“Right.”
“And this?” Xandy asked, touching the tattoo on the lower part of Quinn’s upper arm.
Quinn couldn’t help but grin, the girl’s curiosity was boundless. “It’s the symbol for the Northern Ireland National football team.”
“Soccer.”
“Football,” Quinn said, narrowing her eyes.
“Okay…” Xandy said, grinning and then looking more closely at the symbol.
“And this,” Xandy said, tapping the tattoo on the upper part of Quinn’s upper arm. “I’ve seen this one a million times, but I don’t really know what it means.”
“It’s called the Triquetra. Most people think that it came from that show Charmed where the symbol appeared on their ‘
book of shadows’ but it has truly nothing to do with witchcraft. It’s also known as the Trinity Knot.”
“And what does it mean?” Xandy asked, sensing that Quinn didn’t like that it had become such a common symbol, watering down her culture.
“The Celts believed that everything in life came in threes; past, present and future; three stages of life; and the three domains, earth, sea, and sky. The Triquetra represents the three in an endless line, no beginning, no end.”
“I like that.”
Quinn smiled at her in response, she liked that the girl seemed to take everything in and appreciate it for what it was.
“It’s really rare for someone as young as you to be so open to things,” Quinn said, thinking back to her thoughts the night before.
Xandy looked surprised by the comment, then shrugged. “I guess I just like to learn.”
Quinn narrowed her eyes, sensing that Xandy was sidestepping the compliment, but not wanting to call her on it. Quinn’s phone rang at that point, reaching over to the nightstand she picked up her phone, looking at it.
“’Lo,” she answered, then smiled. “Ray Ray, yeah, what’s up?”
Xandy watched as Quinn talked on the phone, moving to sit up and stretching as she did. Quinn found herself distracted by the movement, and then realized she was watching her charge in fascination. The girl was very definitely beautiful, and she certainly had a body on her.
Knock it off, her mind warned her.
Quinn immediately averted her eyes, moving to sit up to continue her conversation with her friend.
“Yeah, I should be up for that,” Quinn said as she got off the bed. “Gotta fine tune her though, she was running rough last week.”
She listened for another minute, glancing over at Xandy who was still sitting on the bed, watching her talk on the phone. The girl did that kind of thing a lot. Quinn wondered if Xandy just couldn’t adjust to the way she looked or what. That thought had her looking in the mirror and running her hand through her red hair smoothing it.
“Got it, I’ll call you later to confirm,” Quinn said. She hung up the phone and turned to Xandy. “Got a favor to ask.”
“Sure, what is it?”
“I need a ride over to my place, I need to pick up my bike.”
“Bike?” Xandy repeated, thinking a bicycle didn’t match Quinn at all.
“Harley,” Quinn clarified, seeing the confusion clearly on Xandy’s face.
“Oh. That makes way more sense. Of course.”
An hour later they were at Quinn’s apartment in Santa Monica; Xandy was surprised that it was on the beach. The apartment itself was small, but certainly a good enough size for one person. It was very upscale, and Xandy could only imagine how much it cost to live right on the beach. The apartment itself was nicely apportioned and seemed very much to be the Quinn she’d been getting to know. The furniture in the living room was black leather and the walls were a sea blue color. There were a few framed photographs on the walls, one of which caught Xandy’s eye. Walking over to the photograph she looked more closely at it. It was a picture of a ruined castle, up on a cliff with the ocean below and the sky going to shade of blue and purple with the sunset.
“That’s Dunluce castle,” Quinn said from behind her.
“It’s amazing,” Xandy said, her voice nearly breathless.
Quinn smiled, then pointed another photograph. “That’s Carrickfergus castle.”
“The one you played at?” Xandy asked as she moved to the other photograph.
The castle seemed to rise out of the calm bay that it guarded, and it was reflected in the water of the picture. The sky was so blue it as almost unreal.
“That’s so cool…” Xandy said, shaking her head, then she turned looking at Quinn, and gestured around her. “This place, it’s very you.”
“Yeah, I like it, when I’m here…”
“When you’re not guarding some pop princess?”
“Or at Val’s,” Quinn said, her tone indicating how she felt about that.
“Does she come here?”
“To Santa Monica?” Quinn asked in mock horror.
Xandy grimaced “I guess not.”
“No.”
Xandy shook her head. She liked the Santa Monica area. Who wouldn’t like an area with a Ferris wheel?
Quinn fished around in a blue and green glass bowl, on her kitchen counter, and plucked out a set of keys.
“Got ’em,” she said, gesturing toward the door. “Let’s go.”
Xandy nodded, taking another quick look around. They walked out of the lobby of the apartments and back to the garage area of the complex.
“Two car garage?” Xandy asked, surprised. They were fairly hard to come by.
“Oh trust me, I pay extra for this,” Quinn assured her, as she unlocked the pad lock and lifted the garage door.
The garage was another surprise to Xandy. To say that it was organized was an understatement. The floor was covered in textured tiles in greys and blacks. The back wall of the garage was lined with black and silver cabinets including a rolling tool container. There was a lift in one corner, and a couple of rolling cabinets tucked into another corner.
Parked on one side of the garage was a beautifully sleek Dodge Charger. It was painted a dark blue with the letters RT on the side in red. The chrome wheels sparkled; all the chrome on the vehicle sparkled. It was obvious that Quinn took very good care of her car.
Stepping into the garage Xandy could smell the mixture of gasoline and exhaust, and found that she really liked it. It had a kind of old school muscle feel to it that she found very striking, in a pleasant way.
“So you have two muscle cars?” Xandy asked, running her hand reverently over the fender of the Charger.
“This one’s new. In fact this is my fee for your protection detail.”
“Your fee is a car?”
“Well, the amount I paid for it was the fee, but this was what I told BJ I wanted the fee for.”
“Sounds about right,” Xandy said, winking at her.
Quinn grinned, then moved toward the motorcycle parked at the other side of the garage. Xandy followed her. The tank and frame of the bike was matte army green. It certainly wasn’t a fussy bike, it seemed like it was all business. Xandy thought that it was just like Quinn, no-nonsense.
Quinn walked over to the cabinets, pulled out a backpack and started putting tools in it. Before long she returned to where Xandy stood and glanced over at her as she reached for her helmet. Looping it on the handlebars, she leveled the bike, pushed the kickstand back and nodded toward the outside. They walked out of the garage with Quinn pushing the bike. Once outside, Quinn put the kickstand down and walked over to close the garage door and secure the lock.
Walking back over to the bike, Quinn climbed onto it, starting it with the legendary Harley rumble. Xandy felt herself shiver. There was something about that sound and the very sight of this woman sitting on it that sent a visceral reaction through her.
“So you gonna follow me back,” Quinn told her as she reached for her helmet, taking the leather riding gloves out of it and pulling the helmet on. Her helmet was the same matte army green as the bike.
“Yeah,” Xandy replied.
“You want a ride to your car?” Quinn asked, grinning as she pulled on her leather riding gloves.
“Sure,” Xandy said, her blue eyes sparkling with enthusiasm.
Quinn held her hand out to Xandy, Xandy took it, climbing carefully onto the back of the bike. Behind Quinn, she moved her hands to Quinn’s shoulders to steady herself. Quinn reached around her, pointing to the spare helmet on the back of the bike.
“Put that on.”
Xandy pulled the helmet on, securing it easily.
It was a simple half helmet, not like the full face one Quinn wore, but it would work for the short trip.
“Now, hold on,” Quinn said, revving the powerful engine.
The ride was a short one, but Xandy loved it. She had he
r arms wrapped around Quinn’s waist, hands grasping the leather of Quinn’s jacket. She pressed her face to Quinn’s back, and inhaled the smell of leather; it was a wonderful, if short, experience.
Climbing off the bike at her car, Xandy smiled brightly. “That was so cool! Thank you,” she said, putting her hand on Quinn’s gloved hand.
Quinn nodded, smiling.
“I’ll see you back at your place, stay close,” Quinn told her, then she reached up and put down the helmet’s face shield.
The drive back to Brentwood didn’t take long. Driving behind Quinn in her little blue Lexus SUV, Xandy did find her eyes constantly drawn to the figure of Quinn on her motorcycle. She knew she was far too fascinated with her bodyguard, but there was something drawing her to this woman. She wasn’t sure if it was Quinn’s overt gentility when it came to her, or if she just had no real experience with a woman of Quinn’s ‘type’ before. As they drove down a two lane stretch of road, Xandy noticed another motorcycle coming down the other side of the road toward them. As the other motorcycle came close, Xandy saw Quinn drop a gloved hand and held it out slightly in kind of a ‘low five’ position. The motorcyclist on the other bike did the same.
Xandy waited for Quinn to walk the still-running bike backwards to get it parked where she wanted it in Xandy’s garage. When Quinn cut the engine and took her helmet off, she could see that the girl had another question. She grinned in amusement.
“Wot?” Quinn queried, stripping off her gloves and taking her jacket off.
“What was that thing you did when that other motorcycle passed you back there?” Xandy asked.
Quinn looked back at her for a moment, at first trying to figure out what she was talking about, and then realized what she meant.
“Oh… just kind of a salute to a fellow rider,” she said, shrugging.
“And he knew to do it back?” Xandy queried.
“It’s pretty common among riders.”
“Very cool,” Xandy said, grinning.
Quinn just chuckled, the girl found the most inane things, fascinating. Setting down the backpack she’d brought with her, she began rummaging for the tools she wanted. Kneeling down she began working on removing the air box cover for the carburetor.
Break in the Storm (WeHo Book 2) Page 4