Chapter 6 #2
The damp cardboard against my chest had me simultaneously grabbing the box to hold it away from me and shaking my head. I’d already removed an entire shelf of books for him and dusted the desk. “Actually, I really have to get to university. I’ve got a column to look over and some studying for—”
Quinn blinked, resembling a live human for a moment. Sort of. “Dude,” he said, “it’s the crack of dawn.”
“Not really. Technically, dawn would be—”
He reached out and pinched my lips shut with his thumb and forefinger. The pads of his fingers weren’t very soft or smooth but rather calloused. His fingertip tickled my lip in a way that gave me the shivers. “It’s eight on a freaking Sunday. Ten o’clock would still be dawn to me.”
My grip tightened on the weighty box. What was in here? Bricks?
“Be that as it may,” I tried to say around his fingers, but it came out more a vibration than anything. My voice must have tunneled over Quinn’s hand because he jerked his hand back. Suddenly he looked like someone had poured ice water over him.
“Is this work urgent?” he asked.
“The deadline is Tuesday, but—”
“Tuesday. Right. Then this is how it’s going to work, Liam. You’re going to suffer through a quick move for maybe an hour or so, and then I will take us all out for brunch to say thanks, man. After that, you can go to uni and type to your heart’s content, okay?”
I shifted, changing my grip to the underside of the box. “I’m not a fan of moving. It really bores me.”
Quinn veered around me and held open the study door for me. “You’re not the only one.”
I trudged into the room and lowered the box to the floor. Quinn had a point—if I’d been the one moving in, I guess I’d have appreciated the help. “What do you want me to do? Keep in mind, I’m allergic to power tools.”
Well, not allergic per se, but I couldn’t use one without hurting myself or getting shocked, so allergic seemed an appropriate description.
“Not keen on them myself. But don’t worry”—he pointed to the box—“I thought you could help me with my books.”
I snapped to attention, already nodding and moving toward some empty shelves in the bookcase. “Now that I can handle.”
The chuckle Quinn left me with bubbled around the room, and a sudden burst of sunlight escaped a gap in the clouds and flowed into the study.
I soaked in it a moment before busying myself with Quinn’s . . . comic books. They held a familiar weight. I leafed through a couple as I did with the Scribe. They were in pristine condition, no dog-eared corners, no coffee stains, no sticky pages.
Fanning a few dozen, I organized the issues before carefully stacking them onto the shelf.
Each new comic conjured more images of The Raven. Inky blue, graceful, face shadowed by his hood . . . part of my desire to go to the university today was to find more names of people who had seen or heard about The Raven.
Hearing Quinn in the background, I stilled, my fingers splayed over a series of Superman issues. What did Quinn know about the vigilante? I hadn’t forgotten the night after the hospital, how he’d stiffened at the mention of someone saving me . . .
Hunter rolled into the back of my legs and yanked me down onto his lap. A comic book flew out of my grasp and clattered against the shelf before slumping to the floor.
“What was that for?” I asked, trying to pull myself off him and reach the comic before it bent for good. His grip tightened around my waist.
“Don’t mess with the hummingbirds, man,” he said with a grin and a flex of his arms. “They’ll win. Look, you have to help me.”
Over my shoulder, I asked, “With what?”
“Mitch, of course. He’s . . . he’s a dream, and I want it to come true.”
“How am I supposed to help?”
“I told him you work for Scribe and that you wanted him to come say hi sometime.”
“Why?”
“Look, Mitch is . . . a bit unsure about this.” Hunter tapped the arms of the chair and then prodded my back. “I want you to figure out what part bothers him.”
“Why don’t you just ask yourself?”
“Because I don’t want to scare him off or make him uncomfortable. And I think it’s the same for him. He might be worried he’ll say the wrong thing or . . . ” He sighed. “Sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone else about it, you know?”
“I’m sure he has friends he’s doing that with—”
“Yeah.” The distinct sound of a smile lingered in his voice and a quick glance proved it to be true. “But I’m all about making my luck, aren’t I? For that, I need to get inside his head, and you”—he gently pushed me off him—“are my mole.”
“And what if the answer’s not something you want to hear?”
When I faced him, he shrugged. “And what if it is?”
Quinn and Shannon stumbled in, struggling with the base of Quinn’s bed. They dropped it with a heavy thunk in the middle of the room.
Hunter, holding my gaze, rolled out of the room. “I’ve got to get to basketball. Shan, are you good to get home on your own?”
Shannon smiled. “No problem, Travis. Do you want me to come with you? I could—”
Hunter raised his hand. “Sis, just don’t. I can handle it.”
Hunter left and for a few moments the aftertaste of awkwardness lingered in the air. Swiveling from box to bookcase, I concentrated on stacking the DC comic books below the Marvel ones.
Shannon and Quinn ducked out again, but they returned with large trash bags filled with clothes and sheets. Shannon plunked her load onto the floor. “That’s the last of it.”
Quinn cheered, took out his phone and played some music. His croaky singing voice sounded like murder—the murder of crows squawking in a summer breeze. He swung his hips to his ill-timed chorus singing, and I forgot about the comics for a moment and enjoyed the show.
“This is really awesome of you, Liam.” Shannon startled me out of my Quinn-induced reverie. I nodded, taking out the hundredth comic from the box and arranging it by issue. She added, “I couldn’t have stood the guy a day longer.”
Quinn’s singing halted. He pulled a pillow out of a box and tossed it at her. “Hey! You know you love me at your place.”
“Nuh-uh. You promised no Pringles in bed.”
“I was grieving. Besides, I didn’t do it while you were in there.”
“Yeah,” Shannon drawled. “That makes it so much better.”
Quinn leaped over his thick gray blankets and a bunch of clothes to engulf Shannon in a hug that made her burst into a shriek.
She twisted in his grip and pushed him until suddenly Quinn was flat on his back, lying on his blankets.
She pinned him down, and the guy roared in an uncensored laughter that seemed to make the rain on the windows glow with silver light.
As if his laugh were magic, the true meaning of a silver lining.
“I am gonna miss your hugs,” she said as she clambered off him. “Guess Liam will be the one getting most of them now.”
Quinn sat up and pushed to his feet, glancing over my way and grinning. “Yeah, and he really needs them too.”
“Me?” I fervently shook my head. “I don’t—”
Damp arms curled around me and the air left my lungs as—in one bound—Quinn crushed me to his warm chest.
“Yeah, you do,” he whispered in my ear.
The unfamiliar sensation froze me for a second. I pulled against Quinn, but then his warmth molded against me, supportive and comfortable.
Slowly, he released his grip, pulling back to shrug at me. “If you really hate it, I won’t, of course.”
I didn’t really hate it. “There are worse roommates out there than ones that hug.” I bent to pick up another comic with a slight tremble in my fingers. “Now when you said you had books, I thought you meant real ones.”
“Uh-oh,” Shannon said, an evil grin quirking her lip, “I wouldn’t insult his comic stuff. He’s quite the sensitive man-boy when it comes to them.”
“Comic stuff, Shannon? Really?” Quinn folded him arms and pouted.
“See what I mean?” she said, brushing a blue strand of hair from her eyes.
I looked from Quinn to Shannon. They were such good friends and so . . . close. If I’d focused on finding friends instead of working non-stop, would I have had a friendship like this by now? Would it have made me a better writer for the party page? Would I have known Jack and Jill were such dicks?
Quinn said, “Our Liam here is thinking, Shan. You can tell by the clicking.”
I dropped the pen I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding, and drew my hand out of my pocket.
“What are you thinking about?” Shannon asked, and before I could stumble over an answer, she moved out of the room carrying a potted Aloe Vera.
If I hadn’t peeked at Quinn, I might not have had to answer at all. But his not-so-subtle eyebrow raise forced me to answer.
“I . . .” I grabbed another comic and slipped it onto the correct shelf. “Who’s your favorite character?” I asked him.
“I like Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent. I like them most without their costumes on.”
“That’s a bit too much information.”
Quinn flushed. “I meant their superhero costumes. I like them with their clothes on.”
I nodded and pushed up my glasses. “It’s okay, Quinn. I’m not going to freak out, remember?” I picked up a comic and flipped through it. “I’ve never read comics much, but maybe I could take one to look at?”
“You can take as many as you like. Even”—Quinn plucked out a comic sealed in a Ziploc bag—“my most prized.” He held it out, but when I reached for it, he pulled it back a fraction. “Just, please, no food or drink around it.”
I jerked my head up. “Ohh, I like you.”
Quinn’s brow rose, and his gaze sparkled with a repressed laugh. “That’s the reason you like me?”
“Books should never be disrespected.”
A comic featuring Booster Gold caught my eye. “This guy sort of looks like you. I think I have to read this one too.”
“He gets shirtless in that issue quite a bit.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder and said, just before he pushed away to find Shannon, “You’ll like it. There’s a lot to . . . observe.”