Chapter 6 #2
I peer closer, studying the headboard. There’s a crack in the wall behind it.
I remove the photo again and hurry back down the hallway, dipping inside the bedroom with Aro’s lipstick.
I flash my phone behind her and Hawke’s bed, darting my eyes between the break in the wall and the one in the photograph. Sweat dampens my body.
This photo was taken here.
Different bed, but same room.
Who is this girl? How old is this photo? “M” isn’t Kade, Hunter, Hawke, Dylan, or Aro. It’s not Noah or Farrow. Who—
My phone rings, making me jump.
I clear my throat as I glance at the screen.
Lucas.
Then someone bellows, “Quinn!”
I spin around, running back to the hideout kitchen and slipping the picture between the pages of the book.
Leaving the journal on the counter, I return down the hall.
Lucas stands in my shop, his black track pants and white T-shirt soaked and dripping on my floor.
He was clearly at the gym and ran here in the rain. Shit, I shouldn’t have called him.
He looks around. “Quinn!”
Turning back and forth, he holds his phone to his ear. Patches of his wet hair look almost brown as he runs a hand through it, droplets of rain glimmering across his face. My cell vibrates in my hand, and I scramble to ignore the call before it rings. Then, I mute it.
He can’t see me.
I ball my fists, feeling nerves fire underneath my skin because he’s six feet away, and…
He can’t see me.
I bite my bottom lip to keep the smile at bay.
Letting my eyes fall down the T-shirt that sticks to his taut stomach, I imagine my hands running over the dips and muscles. What does his waist feel like? His arms?
It’s nice to just look at him.
Without being caught.
“Quinn!” someone else shouts.
I flit my eyes to the left, seeing Madoc push through the kitchen door.
He’s dressed in sweats and a hoodie. They must’ve been working out together.
I turn off the flashlight on my phone.
“She didn’t leave a message?” Madoc asks Lucas.
He shakes his head. “No.” Then he disappears to the left and I hear a knock as he checks the bathroom.
“Well, her phone’s here.” My brother clicks away on his. “Somewhere…”
I tighten my fist around my cell. I forgot we can all track each other.
Lucas appears again, rubbing the back of his neck. I memorize the veins in his hands, the cords in arms, his long, tan neck…
He leaves tomorrow night, and I drink him in one last time.
“Her bike is still outside,” he tells my brother.
It only takes Madoc two seconds to heave a sigh. “Fuck, she went jogging,” he states. “Probably got caught in the rain. And without her goddamn phone.”
Because I make irresponsible decisions all the time, right, Madoc?
My brother starts to leave. “I’m gonna jump in the car and go pick her up.”
“Wait,” Lucas barks. “I’ll stay in case she shows up, but leave me the key in case you don’t come back.”
If Madoc finds me, he’ll just take me straight home. Lucas will have to lock my shop up.
Madoc hands my key to Lucas before heading back through the kitchen. After about fifteen seconds, I see my brother’s silver Audi cruise down High Street.
I watch Lucas, every inch of my body coursing with heat as sweat cools my neck.
This reminds me of that day hiding in the attic at the summer camp.
There’s something about watching people.
We might be afraid of what we’ll see, but it’s also the only way to find out what they’re so desperate to protect you from.
Lucas approaches the mirror, and a breath lodges in my throat as he stares inside. I freeze as he stops inches from me, and I look up, only one step from his mouth.
He fixes his hair. Brushing wet locks back off his forehead, he breathes hard before lifting up his shirt and wiping down his face. My mouth falls open, gaping at his stomach, his chest...
I touch my fingertips to the glass, inching my body closer as if I’ll feel his skin.
“Lucas…” I whisper.
He backs away, and so do I. My family stood here and watched each other and me just like I’m watching him now. All the times I thought I was alone, I might not have been. It’s not right.
But maybe now I understand why Hawke and Dylan kept this a secret. There’s power in this. To being right under people’s noses.
They were worried I’d stop it.
I unlock my phone and call.
Lucas’s phone rings a short distance away, and he glances at the screen, answering immediately.
“Quinn?” His voice sounds panicked, and I watch his eyebrows pinch together in worry. “You okay?”
What am I doing? Why did I call him?
But I know why. I needed to see what he looks like when he’s alone and thinking of me.
I can’t come out until he leaves. I don’t think I want Madoc, Jared, or Jax to know about this hideout yet, and he would tell them.
“Yeah,” I reply, keeping my voice low in case he can hear me through the mirror. “I’m okay.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m safe.”
He digs in his brow, his jaw flexing. “Where are you?”
His tone is harder, suspicious.
Does he think I’m with someone I’m not supposed to be?
I smile to myself. “I don’t want to tell you.”
“You don’t want to tell me?”
His chin rises, his shoulders squaring. “Tell me where you are,” he orders. “I’m coming to pick you up.”
I know what will happen if he picks me up. He’ll take me home. I’ll sleep. Then, I’ll get up in the morning for another day, and he’ll leave town.
I’m not ready to go home yet.
“No need,” I say in a light voice. “I’m having fun.”
He paces, turning around, and I see the ridges of his back muscles through his soaked shirt. The picture of the girl in the journal sits in my head. She looked like the remains of a love that was too passionate. Too consuming.
It doesn’t sound at all healthy, and I want it.
“Games were cute when you were a kid,” Lucas chides.
But I simply say, “I don’t play the same games I did as a kid.”
He stops in his tracks, inhaling and exhaling for a moment. He’s turned to the side, so I can’t see his face until he pulls out one of my chairs and drops down. “I’m not enjoying this.”
He sounds tired. Breathless.
“Quinn?” he presses when I don’t say anything.
I study him. I don’t want to talk about my family or Dubai or learning to drive or keeping away from the wrong boys. He’s been talking to me like I’m still a child.
“What do you enjoy?” I ask.
He lowers his eyes, his chest rising and falling. I’m not a kid anymore, and I don’t want him shielding me from his life or sugar-coating anything. I want to talk.
“Do you remember Ava, your college girlfriend?” I ask him, but I don’t wait for an answer.
He had a lot of girlfriends, and I don’t care if he remembers her, because I do.
“Madoc and his family were out of town, and you were supposed to come over to water the plants and feed the fish, but you brought her one night and got her naked in my brother’s pool. ”
I lean into the mirror, taking my eyes off him only long enough to blink.
“I had seen your car pass and made you some pizza,” I explain. “I rode my bike over with it so you could take it back to your dorm.”
His gaze stays down on the table, his body barely moving.
He never knew I saw them. No one did. It’s not like sex was a secret to me, even at that age.
I’d walked in on Jax and Juliet in Madoc’s liquor storage.
Jared constantly had his hands on Tate, and Madoc didn’t hide anything, boasting that practice was the best part of baby-making.
However, as soon as I saw what was happening, I hightailed it out of there, only happy when they broke up.
Until the next one came along, that is.
“Boys get to have all the fun, don’t they?” I challenge.
A small smile finally curls his lips as he picks a little flower out of the vase on the table. “I think Ava had fun.”
Prick.
“And how old was she?” I argue. “About the same age as I am now?”
Maybe even a year or two younger?
I narrow my eyes. “What did you do to her that night?”
“I get where you’re going with this,” he bites out. “I know you’re ready to feel things. And it’s normal.”
“How do you know I haven’t already?”
He cocks a brow. “Have you?”
Amusement pulls at my mouth. “I’m twenty-one.”
He curls his fist, crushing the flower.
I laugh to myself.
Oh, I like watching people. They don’t always tell you who they are, but they show you.
Why would he assume I’m a virgin? I went to a Catholic university with a hell of a lot of people who grew up in Catholic schools before that. When sex is such a taboo subject, the allure and mystery surrounding it only make everyone sex-obsessed when they get away from home.
I mean, I am a virgin, but it’s a leap for him to assume I didn’t have one night of poor judgment away at school.
“I’m going fall in love with someone here,” I tell him.
“It won’t be one of them.”
“Like you had plans to marry Ava when you had sex with her,” I try to reason. “Why can’t I—”
“Because you matter more than she did!”
I halt, the words on my lips fading away. What did he say?
It’s like sparklers are fizzing and popping under my skin, up my chest, and down my arms.
He closes his eyes, and I’m afraid to move. To speak.
“I didn’t mean that,” he whispers. “Of course, she mattered.”
But I matter more? I still matter to him?
His Adam’s apple slides down his throat. “Quinn, I don’t remember a lot from when I was a kid, but I remember you,” he explains. “I grew up, knowing what it was to care for a girl—someone’s sister, someone’s daughter. It made me a better man.”
His mouth opens, then closes, his eyes looking conflicted.
“At least, I thought it did,” he murmurs.