Chapter 10
Quinn
"You're welcome, by the way," Rick said.
“For what?”
“For what. For Naomi. For the referral. I practically gift-wrapped her.” He had that particular delight of a man who thought he’d engineered something. “So? You called her. You went out to the house. How’d it go?”
“It was a good house,” I said. “Needs work. She knows what she’s doing.”
“That’s not what I asked and you know it’s not what I asked.”
I stood at the counter of my penthouse with the phone against my ear, looking out at the last of the light going down over the city, and said nothing, which with Rick was its own kind of answer.
“Ha.” He pounced. “I knew it. I knew it. Sandra owes me twenty dollars.”
“You bet on this.”
He just shrugged. “Just go easy, all right? She’s had a rough go. The divorce, the whole…you know. She’s put herself back together nice, but…”
“I know,” I said. And then, because he’d earned it: “I’m taking her to dinner Friday.”
I left out the part where it was to practice being a couple for the upcoming wedding.
There was a silence on the line that I would later understand was Rick being genuinely, briefly speechless.
“Well,” he said finally, his voice gone soft in a way that surprised us both. “Good. That’s — good. Don’t screw it up.”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
“And don’t tell Sandra I told you about the bet. And put in a nice word for her, will ya? She really wants Naomi to fix our living room situation.”
I hung up and stood a while longer at the counter, feeling that restless warmth spread through my ribs, like my body already knew something my mind hadn’t caught up to.
I got to the restaurant early.
I’d chosen it carefully — not the showy place downtown where you went to be seen, but the small one on the water, the one with good bread and no scene, where the waiters left you alone and the tables were far enough apart to hear each other.
I wanted her comfortable. I wanted, if I was honest, for her to have a good time so badly that I’d had to talk myself out of overthinking every part of it.
I didn’t overthink things. That was the thing about this. I was a man who bought crumbling houses on instinct and slept fine at night. And I’d spent the better part of the afternoon deciding whether to wear the gray shirt or the other gray shirt.
She came right on time, and I stood up before I’d decided to.
She had her hair up off the nape of her neck, and it suited her — made her look like a woman who’d made up her mind about something.
She was scanning the room for me and hadn’t found me yet, and for one unguarded second I got to watch her the way you watch someone who doesn’t know they’re being watched: the set of her shoulders, the small brace she carried like armor, and underneath it something bright and unruined that all of it was protecting.
My whole body reacted before I could think — a pull in my chest, a tightening in my hands, the simple, undeniable urge to go to her. Then she found me, and smiled, and the brilliance coming all the way up to her eyes.
“You’re early,” she said, sitting.
“I’m always early. It drives everyone insane.”
“It doesn’t drive me insane.”
“Give it time.”
She was guarded at first, a little more careful, testing the water, and I wondered if she was thinking about this like a real date, or just practice for the wedding. To me, it was so much more. But I let her work it out on her own.
Somewhere over the bread she relaxed.
“So what have you been up to since college,” she said, “I feel like I see you in the periphery, but we’ve never actually.”
"There isn't much of a story. I bought a building I couldn't afford, clean it up—nothing like what you do, I just fix the floor and cover up the grime with white paint— and sold it for more than it was worth.
" I shrugged. "I've been doing it ever since.
Old things, mostly. Places everyone's given up on. "
“Like the house from the other day?
“Kind of. Except I’m actually thinking of keeping that one and renting it out.”
It went like that the rest of the night — long, and unhurried, and better than I’d let myself hope. We realized that besides houses, we had a lot more in common.
On paper we shouldn't have. She'd grown up with money — the real, quiet kind, the kind that doesn't announce itself — and I'd grown up hanging drywall for men who had it.
But somewhere along the way we arrived at the same place from opposite ends.
We both loved checking out small towns, especially the small mom and pops stores.
We ordered the same coffee — black. We both loved old music, the real old stuff you had to go looking for, and when I told her about a record store two towns over that was closing, she filed it away like I'd handed her a treasure map.
Every time her knee brushed mine under the table, even lightly, it sent a quiet shock through me — not desire, just the startling awareness of her nearness.
By the end of the night, I couldn’t wait to see her again.
I was falling, was the plain fact of it. I knew she wasn’t ready for anything serious yet, and that was fine. I was a patient man. I’d waited this long without even knowing what I was waiting for.
I followed her home to make sure she got there — she rolled her eyes at me for it and let me do it anyway — and walked her up the path to her door, the porch light throwing a small warm circle over the two of us.
“This is me,” she said, unnecessary, because we both knew it was her, and stopped with her back near the door and her keys in her hand and didn’t go in.
“This is you.”
Neither of us moved.
“Thank you for dinner,” she said.
The way she said it was so honest, so real, and for a moment I was hopeful that she’d forgotten all this was just practice to look like a couple in a few weeks. Then she burst my bubble.
“I think we might need a few more dates to make it look real. To really sell it.”
“Of course. I never do anything halfway. How’s next weekend?”
“Sounds good.”
“Our kisses need to look real.” My words were low and raspy.
“Yes, they do.” Hers were almost a hiss.
I closed the distance between us, drawn by the quiet invitation of her parted lips.
The first press of my mouth to hers was just as exquisite as I’d always imagined.
Soft, deliberate, like testing the surface of still water before sinking in.
She exhaled against me, warm and unsteady, and her fingers curled into the fabric of my shirt, anchoring herself to me.
I felt the exact second her hesitation melted, her body leaning into mine like a flower turning toward sunlight.
Her thumb shifted just slightly, a small unconscious movement, and the warmth of it through my shirt felt like it went straight to my throat.
I pulled back before she did. On purpose. Let her have the last inch.
“Goodnight, Naomi.”
“Goodnight,” she said, a little dazed, and let herself in, and the porch light clicked off behind her.
I stood in the dark a moment longer, then walked back to my car, feeling the ghost of her hand on my chest with every step, like a touch that stayed even after she was gone.