Her refusal to believe she’s capable of doing this is almost pathological. If I, the biggest non-believer of all time, can buy into it, why the hell can’t she? “Dreaming you had a conversation with your father about life insurance and waking to discover he actually acted on it is a once-in-a-lifetime,” I tell her. “Dreaming your neighbor has been murdered and that the dog followed you when you went to save her—and being right? Another once-in-a-lifetime. So how many other times did you dream something that came true? Don’t just reflexively argue with me. Think about it.”
She folds her arms over her chest, and I see the temptation to argue written all over her face. But she doesn’t. And after a moment her shoulders sag, as if she’s finally admitting the truth to herself. Another second passes, and then her eyes go wide and she gasps. “Oh shit.”
I look behind me, expecting to see Jeff or Meg or my boss. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s possible.”
She looks so shell-shocked I reach across the table and grab her hand. “I didn’t expect you to come around to my viewpoint so quickly. What’s the matter?”
She takes a single deep breath and a controlled exhale, her eyes wide. “I just remembered something that happened. It was so weird at the time that I didn’t even tell my parents about it and then I lied so they wouldn’t know.” She looks up at me in shock. “I think I might have shot a kid out of a tree.”
I had no idea what she might say but it wasn’t that. “You shot a kid?”
“With a slingshot,” she amends. “This little asshole, Robby Harding. He used to sit in this tree, shooting birds with his BB gun. And one day he threw the dead birds at my back as I ran home, trying to get away from him. I fell and was all scraped up afterward, bad enough my mom thought I might need stitches. But that night I dreamed…” She flushes, looking anywhere in the room but me. “I don’t know. It will sound ridiculous.”
“Tell me,” I urge. “You dreamed what?”
“I dreamed that I waited in a tree behind him and shot him with my slingshot, and he fell. When I woke in the morning, all my cuts had healed. It was as if they’d never happened. I wore pants for a week just so my parents wouldn’t ask how I could have healed overnight like that. And Robby…” She flinches. “Robby was in the hospital with a broken leg, because he’d fallen out of a tree the day before. He told everyone he got hit by something. I thought it was karma. But maybe it was just me.”
I laugh. Maybe it’s wrong, but the idea of little Quinn shooting a kid out of a tree is so damn cute. “You’re not going to start telling me about all the people you wished dead who died the next day, right?”
She squeezes her eyes shut. “Don’t even joke about it. I mean, what if I did?”
I grab her hand beneath the table. “You aren’t a murderer.”
“I may have shot a kid out of a tree,” she argues. “He could have broken his neck. But if it’s true, if I’m really doing this,” she says, “why can’t I do it when I’m awake?”
The question is a relief. I’ve been convinced for weeks that she is time traveling, but I needed her to actually believe it before I could push her toward the next step. “Have you tried to do it when you’re awake?”
She looks at me blankly. “Of course I haven’t.”
I lean in and tighten my hands around hers. “Then maybe it’s time you did.”
10
QUINN
That night, and into the following morning, I’m still thinking about what Nick said. About Robby and the life insurance and all the other bizarre incidents in my childhood. Maybe it should be enough to convince me I can time travel, but it really isn’t. There have been a thousand things in my life I’d have changed if I could. If I really had the ability, it would be more than some shadowy thing that occurs when I’m asleep. Nick is pushing this because he needs something to believe in. I suppose I need that too. But it’s not going to be this.
The next day I go to campus to fill out some last-minute forms. I’ve always loved the Georgetown campus. Half of it is deliciously old and reminds me more of Hogwarts than anyplace else I’ve ever been, although I suppose that’s no longer true if you count London.
Nick meets me when I’m done, bringing us lunch from the hospital deli, and we sit under a tree, hidden from passersby and the blinding August sun. When we’re done eating, we lie side-by-side while I geek out over the courses I’m signed up for and he tries to get me to admit to shooting children other than Robby.
“Just give me a number,” he says. “Approximately how many kids do you think you’ve shot?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “One, at best.”
He bites his lip, trying hard to keep a straight face. “Okay, maybe I’m being too specific. How many kids have you injured, stabbed, maimed, decapitated, or otherwise wished ill upon?”
I roll my eyes. “Wished ill upon is a ridiculously broad term. I’m guessing I wished ill upon plenty.”
“In ways that led to their deaths?” he asks with a cheeky grin and I swat him with the folder I got from Admissions.
“You’re a terrible human being.”
His smile fades. “Speaking of terrible human beings, have you heard from Jeff?”
I wish he hadn’t brought it up. Discussing Jeff is definitely not how I want to spend the only time I’ll be with Nick until this evening. “He showed up at Caroline’s this morning on his way out of town. Building security finally asked him to leave.”
His jaw grinds. I know he hates the idea of me being confronted by Jeff without him, but the alternative—me with him—is so much worse. Jeff would love to find someone to blame for what’s gone wrong. “When are you picking up your stuff?” he asks with a heavy sigh.
“Tomorrow,” I reply. “He has a meeting in Harrisonburg every Wednesday, so I know he won’t be home.”
His frown deepens. “Wait til I get off work and I’ll go with you. I don’t want you over there without someone, and besides, you’ll need help carrying stuff, right?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think I will and the absolute last thing I need is for him to see you involved in any way. Besides,” I add with a grin, “at least he doesn’t sit around accusing me of killing children.”
He gently pushes me to my back, looking around before he leans down and bites my lower lip. “That’s for comparing me unfavorably to Jeff. And I’m joking about the kid thing, but have you given anymore thought to it?”
“Killing a child?”
He laughs. “No. Time travel. Just try it.”
I squint up at him in the sunlight. “Kiss me again nicely and I’ll consider it.”
I hear his small hum of satisfaction as he leans back to me, pressing his sun-warmed mouth to mine, which opens and begs for him to sink farther, do more. “Please try,” he whispers.
He pulls away, leaving my body thrumming with a desire to skip this time-travel nonsense and yank him back to me. Except if I skip it, we probably have no future. “I have no idea how.”
“Rose said something about fastening on a memory, right? So try that. Lock onto a memory and see if you can move toward it.”
I desperately wish he’d drop it. I probably won’t succeed, and if I do, there’s so much that could go wrong. “What if I wind up somewhere naked?”
“Good point,” he says, his thumb brushing my lip. “Go somewhere you can land naked safely. Like the dock last weekend.”
The sun flickers through the trees overhead and his hair glints gold, his eyes a dusky blue I could never replicate. There are moments, like this one, where I wonder if he can even be real. “Landing on your dock naked seems like the most dangerous thing I could do.”
His mouth curves upward. “True. I promise to behave,” he says with so little sincerity that I’m chuckling as I shut my eyes.
“Fine. If I succeed, do you have any special requests? I was going to offer to go meet you back in the treehouse until I realized how creepy it would be, given that I’m now 28.”
&n
bsp; His eyes light up. “I assure you, 16-year-old me would be willing to overlook that fact,” he says. “But if it’s off the table, go buy stock in Apple and Microsoft.”
I arch a brow. “That seems slightly…I don’t know…unethical?”
“Please don’t let your ethics get in the way of us owning a Caribbean island once it’s all figured out,” he says. “But I’d rather just find you on my dock. Naked is preferable. That bikini was easy to remove, so that’s also an acceptable option.”
“Your erection is making it hard for me to think about time travel,” I reply.
He laughs. “I’m not thinking about time travel so much at the moment either.”
I picture that weekend anyway. It feels safe here, with him beside me. I picture him shirtless, those navy swim trunks hanging low. I picture the perfection of his stomach, the small trail of hair just below his belly button that I wanted to trace with my tongue.
My eyes open. He’s watching my face, his eyes dark with want. “It’s not working,” I tell him.
“What were you just picturing?” he asks. He knows. Maybe not the specifics but I can tell just by the look on his face, the twitch of his lips, that he knows where my mind went.
“You in your bathing suit. You have this tiny little trail of hair right here,” I reply, running my finger just above his belt. “I was imagining tracing it. With my tongue.”
“Fuck,” he whispers. “I shouldn’t have asked.” His eyes are hazy as he leans down to kiss me. My hands slide into his hair, tugging at it, and with a low groan, his mouth opens, pressing mine to do the same. My fingers slide over his warm skin and land at his waistband before I even realize what I’m doing. I flinch and break the connection, feeling the hum of his skittering heartbeat pressed to mine. We move in together next weekend. I hope I learn a little more restraint before then, or we are really going to be in trouble.
11
NICK
After lunch, I get back to the office and call my mother. I don’t even fully admit to myself why I’m calling because it’s insane that I’m already thinking the things I am with Quinn.
My mother, as always, sounds both relieved and irritated when she answers. I try to be decent about calling home, but it’s never enough—especially the past month. I should have been better about it. If things were different, she’d have two sons and possibly a few grandkids. I’m sure her retirement is a lot less full than she imagined. “I haven’t heard from you in ages,” she says. “You’re avoiding us.”
I can’t deny it. Her questions always seem to focus on my personal life, and for the better part of the past month I wasn’t sure how I’d answer. “I texted.”
“That’s not the same. When you don’t call it’s because there’s something you don’t want me to know. So go ahead and give me the bad news.”
I laugh wearily. “There’s no bad news. I just had a question. I was wondering if you or Dad might have inherited a ring from Grandma Reilly or Grandma Sawyer?”
“What kind of ring?”
I feel idiotic even bringing it up. But Quinn hasn’t been wrong once. “An engagement ring.”
“Engagement?” she asks, her voice kicking up an octave or two. “Finally! If you need money for a ring you know we’re happy to help, although with as much as you make I can’t imagine you need it. Does Meg have any idea? I thought this day would never come.”
I sigh, rubbing the back of my neck. How could I have forgotten what a big deal this will be to my mother? She’s had her hopes pinned on Meg for a long time, no matter how many times I told her to unpin them. “I broke up with Meg.”
“What?” she cries. “No! Meg was perfect for you.”
I lean back in my chair and close my eyes. “You never thought she was perfect for me, Mom. You just thought she was good enough to provide you with a grandchild someday.”
She exhales heavily. “At the rate you’re going I might as well stop hoping for that at all. What happened? I thought everything was going so well.”
“I met someone,” I admit. “Before you jump all over me, I didn’t cheat. I didn’t even think she was a possibility…but meeting her just confirmed I didn’t feel the right way about Meg.”
“So you’re already with someone else and you want to propose?”
Yes. I’d marry Quinn tomorrow if I thought she’d say yes, if it wouldn’t be so fucking insane to ask when we haven’t even been together for two weeks. I don’t expect my mother to understand this, and while I’m slightly embarrassed by how irrational it must seem, I’m not embarrassed enough to drop it. Quinn will want that ring and no other. I’m sure of it.
“It’s kind of complicated, but…it’s something I can see happening.”
“Nicholas, I cannot believe you’re this serious with someone and you never even mentioned her to us.”
Part of me wants to keep Quinn a secret and part of me wants to tell everyone I meet that she is mine. I opt for the middle road with my mother. “Like I said, it’s been…complicated. Her name is Quinn. She—”
“Quinn?” my mother demands. Her voice is sharp, startled.
I sit bolt upright in my chair. “Yes. Why?”
She is silent for a moment. “No reason.”
She’s lying. She wouldn’t have cut me off like that if it was really nothing. “Mom,” I plead, “is there something you’re not telling me? Did you already know about her somehow?”
“No,” she replies. “I just…I have dreams occasionally, about you and Ryan, fighting over a girl.”
I inhale deeply. Somewhere inside, my mom holds memories of Quinn too. There’s not a doubt in my mind that Ryan and I would have fought over her. We fought over everything. “And the girl’s name is Quinn?”
There’s a long moment of silence. “Yes,” she finally says. “I’m sure it’s nothing. It’s just an unusual name so it’s kind of odd.”
“What happens in these dreams?”
She hesitates again, reluctant to say it aloud. “They’re just a combination of make believe and real life, like all dreams are. You and Ryan are younger at first and you’re in this fistfight over her, and then all of a sudden Ryan is older and getting in that truck with Tyler, but I know it’s because of her. I always just figured she was kind of symbolic.”
“Symbolic how?”
“You and Ryan were at each other’s throats once you hit adolescence. I never knew what exactly you were competing for, if it was recognition from us or from your peers or something else. But I thought maybe she was the symbol of whatever it is you both wanted.”
Fuck. It’s a gut punch, those words. Because I think maybe Quinn was more than a symbol. I think of the immediate spark of rage I felt when she first mentioned dreaming about Ryan at the homecoming dance, before I knew anything else about it. Was our belligerence in this life just some remnant from another one, with Quinn at its core?
My mother begins to cry. “It’s my fault. I should have found a way to make it stop.”
“Mom,” I say softly, “no one could have stopped us. It wouldn’t have made a difference anyway.”
“You don’t know that. If you’d just gotten along…” She trails off but I already know what she thinks. If Ryan and I had been getting along I’d have gone to that party with him. I’d have carted his drunk ass home before he got in Tyler’s truck. I know what she thinks, and what’s worse is I agree.
After a moment she coughs, clears her throat. “So when do we meet this new girl? We’re leaving for Brazil this weekend but maybe we could drive up when we get home?”
“Sure,” I reply. “And you’re positive there’s no ring? Something in the family?”
“Nick, are you having money issues?” she asks. “We’re going to have a long talk about finances if you’re outspending that salary.”
“No. I just think Quinn would prefer a family heirloom over something new. That’s all.”
“Well, my mother’s still alive and they never found your father’s mother
after she disappeared, so I assume that means they didn’t find a ring either.”
There’s a chill at the base of my spine. My grandmother died long before I was born, when my dad was small. But I never heard she’d disappeared. “I thought she drowned.”
“No one ever knew for sure. They never found a body… Everyone’s best guess is that she drowned in the river.”
I’m struck silent by the admission. I think of Grosbaum telling us about his missing wife. Is it a coincidence my grandmother disappeared too?
* * *
“You’re where?” Quinn asks.
I push my way past the crowd heading to baggage claim. Given I left straight from the office with nothing but my gym bag, I won’t be needing to join them. “Florida. Sorry…I tried to call on the way to the airport, but I got your voicemail.”
“I heard your message but I just don’t understand. You left town just because your grandmother disappeared decades ago?” she asks.
I expected her to be as excited as I am, because this is our first real lead since Rose. She very clearly is not. “Quinn, she disappeared. Think about it. Your aunt disappeared too, right? And Grosbaum’s wife? Disappearing isn’t a standard way for people to die. And if she was a time traveler then my grandfather might know something. Or at least he might know someone who can help us.”
She sighs. “Okay. I’m just…well it’s stupid but I’m just disappointed. I was really looking forward to seeing you tonight.”
“I was too,” I tell her. “You have no idea how much. But we don’t have time to waste. Any information we get could be the piece we need.” And I really hope to God I find that piece here.
* * *
It’s dark by the time I arrive at my grandparents’ house. In the moonlight, I see the banks of the small inlet where my grandfather took me and Ryan fishing when we were kids. It’s easy enough to imagine how someone might disappear around here. Between all the water and the gators, I’m certain my grandmother isn’t the only person in town who just never made it home.
Intersect: The Parallel Duet, Book 2 Page 9