Total pages in book: 180
Estimated words: 176012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 176012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
My gaze falters, but I nod to hide it. If she had a crush, like she said she did that night on my bed, then wouldn’t she like to be where I am? I’m in her damn house, for Christ’s sake.
“It’s okay,” I say instead. “I could use the drive.”
She tosses a cloth into the laundry bag. “Thanks.”
Walking back out the door, I head for the driver’s side while she locks up.
Climbing into the passenger’s seat, she buckles up. Her scent fills her brother’s car, and I can’t help but look at her.
“Don’t tell me I look tired, okay?” she says, meeting my eyes.
I tear my gaze away, starting the car. “You look content.”
Backing out of the alley, I head to Weston and roll down the windows. She tilts her head back, her eyes turned outside, watching the houses and businesses give way to trees.
Her hair blows across her neck, and I keep glancing at how pretty she looks.
“So,” I say, trying to think about anything else. “Did you know Farrow Kelly bought my house?”
Her gaze flashes to mine, and I see the amusement on her face. “You thought I bought it.”
“And you let me think it.”
She squeezes her eyes shut, laughing. “It bought me time,” she muses. “I did think about it. For a few seconds. But I needed space. Real space.”
“Yeah, I know.” I concede. “You don’t have to explain.”
I get it. Her family will show up in Weston uninvited and unexpected just as much as they would in the Falls, but it’s not about getting away from them. It’s about finding something new. An unfamiliar environment is what everyone needs.
Before all they want is to come back home.
Quinn opens the glove compartment, finding some tissues, but I watch a string of condoms spill out.
I widen my eyes.
She holds them up, and I debate for a second.
This is Jared’s car. He wouldn’t still be using condoms with his wife, would he? Why does he have them in here?
She smirks, stuffing them back in the glove compartment. “I think Hawke used the car last,” she jokes. “I’m told he lost his virginity in here, actually.”
“Good.”
She casts her surprised eyes on me.
“I just didn’t want you to think they were mine,” I admit.
She breathes out a laugh and stares at her clasped hands in her lap. The wheels in her head turn.
“You know, I used to have a crush on you,” she says in a low voice. “Did you know that?”
“Well, yeah.” I swallow. “You said you were going to marry me when you were eight.”
I grin, remembering her always being around me.
But then she replies, “I don’t mean when I was eight. I mean, I did then, but also later too.”
I don’t look at her now. The lines on the road rush underneath my car, one after the other.
“When I was thirteen and you left,” she tells me, “and still at fifteen and sixteen.”
We cross the bridge, and I watch her pull out a penny and let her arm whip out into the night, tossing the coin over the side.
I guess I should’ve known about the crush, but I just thought she was a bit lonely, like me.
She fills her lungs with fresh air and exhales. “I shouldn’t have put pressure on you to be here, or to be someone I imagined as a kid.” Her eyes soften. “It was unfair.”
It’s not.
I want to matter to her.
“Friends?” she says.
I can’t look at her, the ceiling of the car seeming to come down on my head. I want to be who she imagined. Exactly who she imagined.
It’s like she’s woken up from a dream to the disappointment of reality.
My eyelids flutter, searching for something to say. “Unless your favorite movie is still The Shawshank Redemption,” I grumble over the needles in my throat.
“Oh, okay, Fast & Furious,” she teases.
“The Matrix, thank you.”
We smile at each other as she points for me to take the hill, and we cruise through Weston, bypassing Green Street down the road on the right.
Yes, her film preferences are a little more sophisticated than mine, but her choices produce far too many emotions for me to go through more than once a year. I guess my taste was shaped by her brothers. Jax raised me on Mission Impossible. Jared loved martial arts films. And Madoc loved old school action.
“In fact,” I tell her, “You need to see both franchises again. Got a TV yet?”
She directs me right and points to the house on the left. “Yes.”
I park, looking up at one of the many massive brownstone townhouses of Knock Hill. I drove around this town many times in college, but I didn’t think anyone lived here anymore. Three stories, worn wooden door, ornate stairwell up to the front door.
It must’ve been beautiful back in the day.
I follow her up to the house. “I’m going to log you into my streaming accounts.”