Chapter 13 Quinn - Three Weeks Later
Quinn - Three Weeks Later
The coffee shop is loud, which usually helps give me the focus I need, but for whatever reason, since coming back home, I’ve needed silence to write.
That’s a lie.
It’s not for whatever reason. I know the exact reason.
I stare at the cursor blinking at me like it’s mocking me, and jump when I hear Mariella’s voice.
“You haven’t written a single word,” Mariella says, as she slides the chair out across from me. It makes a terrible screech across the floor. She drops her purse with a loud thud, and then she’s stirring her iced latte with more aggression than necessary.
“Why are you so loud?”
She pauses her spoon, and her lips twitch. “Need quiet now, do ya?”
I narrow my eyes on her. “Anyway, I wrote a few words last night. I’ve been busy.”
“With what? Waiting for your phone to ring?”
I sigh and close the laptop. “It’s complicated.”
Mariella raises a perfectly shaped brow. “No, Quinn. Breakups are complicated. College midterms are complicated. You falling for a hot mountain man, fucking him out of–”
“Mari!”
“—his emotional unavailability and then running away because you got scared? That’s just dumb.” She sits back and crosses her arms. “I told you not to fall in love with the mountain man, and you went ahead and did it anyway.”
“Thanks for the pep talk.”
“I’m serious.” She leans in now. “You left the city to get your head on straight, and then you come back swearing you're fine, but all you’ve done is mope around, ignore writing your own love story, and replay nights in a cabin like it’s a damn Hallmark movie on a loop.”
“It wasn’t just nights.”
“Exactly!” She points her spoon at me like a weapon.
“That’s why this isn’t nothing. You told me about the way he touched you, like he was memorizing you.
About how he made you breakfast and listened to you ramble about plot arcs like it was foreplay.
You named your next best seller after him.
You don’t get that and walk away, leaving it behind. ”
I scoff. “Best seller? I only have the title.” I sigh and slump in my chair. “It wasn’t supposed to be anything. I was just supposed to regroup. Heal.”
“And you did. But now you’re hiding behind that. You need real life for this book to happen. Stop playing it safe and risk something. Let yourself feel something. Be the main character in your own damn story for once.”
I spin my coffee cup on the table. “What if I go back and he’s moved on? What if it was all one-sided? What if he does this with every single woman who goes to those cabins?”
Mariella softens, just a little. “Then at least you’ll know.
And you can write the story anyway and kill him off.
” We snicker together. “But you don’t write stories with maybe happy endings, Quinn.
You write them with final choices. So, choose him, choose the book, choose to live a little.
Either way, you need to write the story of how you romanced the damn mountain man. ”
I laugh, despite myself. “God, you make it sound so easy.”
“It’s not easy. But it’s worth it.” She reaches over and nudges my laptop back toward me. “Now, write the first chapter, then jump in your car, and drive up that mountain.”
Mariella badgered me for another half hour before she had to run back to work.
I answered a few more emails, ordered another coffee, and fought with myself about what to do next.
And while I was talking over the pros and cons in my head, the story I named on a whim, while in the cabin with my very own happy ending, began to come to life.
I always said I’d run only if something was chasing me. Zombies, ghosts, wolves. And if either of those were hot on my heels, I was already doomed.
But this time, I knew I needed a change. So instead of waiting to be chased, I chased after more. I ran toward something.
I didn’t expect my time in the mountains to hold any kind of answer for me. And I certainly didn’t expect him.
He wasn’t in the plan.
But sometimes, the best plans are the ones we dreamed of writing but never got around to. Maybe we just needed the right time, the right place to finally stop running and get it all down on paper.
I’m interrupted when the chair is slid out again, and just when I’m about to chastise whoever it is, I look up and exclaim, “Luke!” All I can do is stare, my heart racing in my chest.
He smiles, a little uncertain, but those eyes I got lost in so quickly lock onto mine like no time has passed. “Hey, Quinn.”
All of a sudden, all the noise around me stops, and he is the only thing I hear. I close my laptop and ask, “What are you doing here?”
“I figured if I waited any longer, you’d write me into a tragic second act.” His lips curl, and his tone is teasing.
I cross my arms, thinking that sounds familiar. “Mariella called Peak Performance, didn't she?”
He nods. “Yes, Audrey received a pretty weird call. And when she explained it to me, about a woman asking for the mountain man and never taking a breath in between sentences, I knew she had to know you somehow.”
I close my eyes and shake my head. “I can’t believe her.”
“I’m glad she called,” he says quietly, almost like he’s testing it out, seeing how it feels to say it and waiting for my response.
“You are?” He nods, and I let out a shaky breath. It’s now or never, Quinn. Tell him how you feel. “I didn’t think you wanted me to stay.”
“I didn’t think I should ask,” he says. “You had this whole world waiting for you here. Books to write, new clients. You said you had all the work you’ve been hoping for waiting for you here.”
I did say all that. But I thought he’d know I could do that anywhere. “Wait. You’re here, in the city. You said you’d never come back.”
“Guess I needed a good reason to venture out of the mountains.”
I soften at his words and hear Mariella’s echo in my head. Take the risk. “Luke, I can have this world anywhere. It doesn’t have to be here in the city. I just need something real.” I swallow hard. “I just need you.”
He leans forward, resting his arms on the table, and intertwines his fingers with mine. “Then let me say it now. Stay. Come back. Or I can come here. Just don’t shut the door all the way on us.”
My heart races. “You would move here?”
His eyes flick around the coffee shop. “Um, well…”
I laugh and squeeze his hand. “I wouldn’t do that to you. It’s a big enough gesture that you’re even here right now.”
We lean in together, and he gives me a sweet kiss. My heart is racing, and tears dare to fall from my eyes. I just can’t believe he’s here. “I was so afraid I’d never see you again.”
He nods slowly. “Me, too.”
And then I chuckle. “You really came all this way to make sure I wasn’t killing you off?”
He stands, putting his hand out, encouraging me to take it while grabbing my laptop with his other. “Well, that and I kind of want to write another sex scene with you.”
I curl into his side. “I’ll let you write every damn chapter for the rest of my life.”