Chapter 8
Alex was busily wrapping presents for Zara’s teacher and teaching assistant the next day.
Heavy snow was forecast for the rest of the week and Alex wondered if the school would just close early for the holidays, in which case the presents would have to go today.
Problem was she was making a terrible mess of it.
She was a wreck. She hadn’t slept a wink of sleep all night, part of her remembering the most incredible kiss of her life and part of her squirming over turning Quinn down.
He had offered her everything she wanted and she was an idiot for walking away from that.
She didn’t know how things were going to be between them today.
How could they continue being friends after that kiss and that conversation?
Would he even come today or would he avoid her?
In a way she kind of hoped for the latter; meeting him was going to be awkward as hell.
She heard a knocking on the kitchen door and knew it would be him.
She looked up as he let himself in and her heart slammed against her chest. Her desire and need for him after that explosive kiss were still there and seemingly were for him too from the way he was looking at her.
Would a one-night stand have changed this sexual tension that crackled in the air between them or would it have made it a million times worse?
‘Hi,’ he said, softly.
‘I wasn’t sure you’d come.’
‘I will always be here for Zara. But I won’t be around the studio today.’
‘You promised it wouldn’t change anything between us.’
‘And it won’t. I just need some time to process this and work out how to be around you without wanting to pin you to the nearest hard surface and make love to you.’
Her eyes widened in shock. ‘You know I want that too.’
‘I know, which makes it all the more difficult.’
She stared at him, desperate to kiss him again. But with Quinn it was all or nothing and she wasn’t sure she could do all.
‘I’m going to cancel my date with Pip.’
‘No, I don’t want you to do that.’
‘You want me to go out with another man?’ she asked.
He pushed his hand through his hair. ‘If and when we start dating, I want to know you’re all in, no doubts, no regrets.’
She sighed. She wasn’t sure she could ever give him that. ‘These fears are not just going to go away overnight.’
He moved closer, stroking her face. ‘I know, we can take it as slow as you need. We don’t have to rush into anything.’
‘I’m just not ready for something big and life-changing.’
And she wasn’t ready to tell him the truth about the night Liam died and then lose him forever.
He took a step back from her and she knew she had hurt him.
Just then Zara came running down the stairs. Quinn stared at her as they heard Zara putting on her coat and boots in the hallway and, a few moments later, Zara arrived in the kitchen. She hadn’t waited for her gory threat today, and Alex had a good one. She’d have to save it for tomorrow.
‘Hey Rocket,’ Quinn said.
‘Hey.’ Zara gave him a hug. ‘Are you heading into town again to collect some metal?’ she said, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl and taking a bite.
‘Yes, so I’ll walk with you if you want.’
Zara nodded. ‘You know, it might be more efficient if you were to pick up all the metal you needed once a week.’
Alex watched Quinn suppress a smile. ‘But I never know how much I’ll need. Sometimes an idea will come to me and I end up using a lot more than I planned.’
Zara seemed to accept this answer, coming over to give Alex a hug goodbye. ‘Don’t forget I’m at Harley’s tonight after school,’ Zara said, as if she was the mum in this relationship. ‘I won’t be back till late.’
Ordinarily, Alex wouldn’t let her daughter stay out late on a school night but all they seemed to be doing these last few days of school was watching films and making various Christmas decorations and cakes.
‘I hadn’t forgotten,’ Alex said, giving her daughter a kiss on the forehead. ‘Take the presents for your teachers.’
Zara pulled back, grabbed the presents and put them in her school bag then joined Quinn at the door.
Zara gave her a wave and then stepped outside.
There had been a light dusting of snow overnight; sadly not enough to make a snowman or have a snowball fight, but enough to make her daughter look around in wonder.
Quinn gave her a little wave too but didn’t say anything else as he stepped outside. The door closed behind them and Alex sank down at the table with her head in her hands.
Quinn was walking down Cherry Lane, the main high street, a while later, trying to get his thoughts in order.
How could he and Alex go back to being just friends after that earth-shattering kiss, especially knowing they both had feelings for each other?
And what could he do to get her to take that step with him?
If she didn’t have feelings for him it would be so much easier to walk away but knowing she had quite possibly been in love with him for four years made it so much harder.
He looked around at the beautifully decorated shops, some displaying their wares among fairy lights, baubles and Christmas ornaments, others having a kind of theme going on with whole scenes in the windows.
At the end of Cherry Lane was an ice skating rink and people were gliding gracefully around it.
He planned to take Alex and Zara skating in a few days.
He’d promised Alex nothing would change their friendship and he had to make sure he didn’t break that promise.
He thought about getting a doughnut from Donut Park to cheer himself up.
He didn’t really have a sweet tooth but their crème br?lée doughnuts were amazing.
Although shopping at Donut Park was highly contentious in Lovegrove Bay.
With its little independent shops and cafés, a big global chain like Donut Park had never been wanted.
For some, the US spelling was the thing they were most offended by.
And while he was always happy to support local shops rather than commercial chains, he had walked past there one day and had been tempted in by the crème br?lée doughnuts and despite the glares he got for shopping there, the doughnut more than made up for it.
Today felt like the kind of day one of their doughnuts was needed, even if he had to face the wrath of the locals to get one.
Quinn passed a café and thought about popping in to have some lunch before he got a doughnut.
He walked up to the window to look at the menu and couldn’t help noticing two people, a man and a woman, sitting on the other side of the window, seemingly trying to hide from him behind their menu.
He peered closer. The sunlight was on the window so it was difficult to see but he was pretty sure that the woman was his mum.
Although without seeing her face he couldn’t confirm it.
He tapped the window to try to get her attention and the woman buried her face even deeper inside the menu, the man opposite her doing the same, their faces buried so deep in the pages they couldn’t possibly be able to read it.
He was just about to go in and see for himself when he heard a voice calling out to him.
‘Quinn!’
He turned round to see Immy beckoning him from the entrance to her sweet shop on the opposite side of the street.
Giving the window one last confused look, he went over to Immy wondering if he was going to get some kind of lecture from her.
Alex was bound to have told Immy what happened, they told each other everything.
He’d never really had that kind of relationship with Liam.
He’d adored his little brother and they used to play well together as children but with a gap of four years between them the gap seemed bigger somehow when they hit their teenage years.
Quinn had been interested in girls and Liam had still been playing on his game console.
As they’d grown up, it had felt like they were very different people.
Quinn always wondered whether, if he’d taken more of an interest in Liam’s life, made more of an effort, he could have helped him more when he needed it.
As he approached he realised Immy was looking annoyed.
He’d always liked Immy and he knew how much Alex loved her and relied on her.
When the four of them – him, Alex, Immy and Zara – went out together, he’d always got on well with her but they’d never spent any alone time together for him to get to know her really well.
She seemed nice. Although his cousin, Xander, who owned the chocolate shop opposite Immy’s, always said she was the bane of his life, though Quinn was never sure why.
‘Hey,’ Quinn said. ‘You alright?’
Immy held the shop door open for him and he stepped inside and then, to his surprise, she locked the door and turned the open sign to closed.
‘We need to talk,’ Immy said.
‘Right…’
‘What’s going on between you and Alex?’
Quinn wasn’t going to tell her anything she didn’t know, so he’d wait to find out how much she did know first before saying anything incriminating.
‘Well I’m sure you know.’ He folded his arms across his chest to try and signify that this was none of her business. Clearly she was not a master of reading body language, because she carried on regardless.
‘I know you both are crazy for each other, I know you kissed – well it was a lot more than a kiss – and I know she offered you a night of passion last night which you turned down.’
OK, so she did know everything.
‘I’d like to know why you turned her down.’ Immy said.
Surely turning Alex down showed more respect for Alex, why would Immy be annoyed with that? Sleeping with her and moving on felt like a dick move.
‘Honestly, I’ve been asking myself the same question,’ Quinn said. ‘But I can’t do just one night with her and then go back to being friends again. What then? I’m just meant to watch her go off with someone else, once she’d got me out of her system?’
‘You are everything to her. She has wanted to be with you for years. I guarantee if you spend the night with her, she’d be back again the next night and the night after that.’
‘How is that any better? I sleep with her three or four times then that’s it, it’s over?’
Immy rolled her eyes. ‘Or maybe she comes back to you every night.’
He stared at her in confusion before the penny dropped. ‘Have a year of one-night stands?’
‘Or whatever it takes. She’s not said the words to me but I’m pretty sure she’s in love with you and you’re in love with her.
But she is terrified of history repeating itself.
I don’t think anyone, least of all her, thinks you would go the same way that Liam went – I’ve never even seen you drink, let alone get drunk – but she was happy with Liam and overnight she lost him.
What she feels for you is huge, maybe even more than what she felt for Liam.
She’s scared of falling even further in love with you, marrying you and then losing you too.
She is over the moon that you have feelings for her, she never saw that coming at all, you’re the man of her dreams. But you’ve told her you can only do something serious, probably because you think a commitment from you is what she’s looking for, and it’s freaking her out. ’
‘I told her this morning that we could take it as slow as she wants. I know she needs time, I don’t want to rush her into something.’
‘So why not tone it down?’ Immy suggested. ‘A lot.’
‘Offer her something casual instead?’
Immy nodded. ‘Yes, exactly.’
Quinn thought about it for a moment. ‘Exclusively casual.’
‘I don’t think you have anything to worry about there. She doesn’t want anyone else but you. She doesn’t even want to go out on this date with Pip tonight now.’
Quinn groaned. ‘I told her to go on it, I told her not to cancel.’
‘I did too.’
He frowned. ‘Yet you’re here fighting my corner.’
‘I want this to work more than anything. I think you’ll be the best thing that ever happens to her and maybe she needs a little nudge in the wrong direction for her to realise it.’
Just then there was a knock on the door and Quinn looked round to see his cousin Xander standing there at the shop door, looking angry.
‘Oh for god’s sake, what does he want?’ Immy said but Quinn was surprised to see her cheeks flush as if… she was attracted to him. He’d thought they hated each other, which always made things awkward on Christmas Day when they were both at his mum’s for the Big Christmas Day Lunch.
Immy moved over to the door and opened it a crack. ‘Yes?’ she snapped.
‘What’s going on in there?’ Xander said.
‘None of your business,’ Immy said. She went to slam the door but Xander stuck his foot in the doorway and pushed it open. Moving into the shop he glared at Quinn.
‘Quinn.’
Quinn had no idea what was going on here and why Xander was so mad. He’d always got on with very well with his cousins.
He frowned in confusion. ‘Xander.’
Xander turned his attention back to Immy. They glared at each other and Quinn wasn’t sure if they wanted to kill each other or rip each other’s clothes off and make love to each other right here on the floor of the sweet shop.
‘You have no right to care what I do and who I do it with,’ Immy hissed to Xander, clearly forgetting Quinn was even in the room with them. Was something going on between them? Maybe there was a fine line between love and hate. Had they stumbled across it?
‘I might not have any right, but I still care,’ Xander said, quietly, stepping closer to her.
Quinn watched Immy’s breath catch in her throat, her eyes dipping to Xander’s lips.
‘Umm… should I go?’ Quinn said.
‘Yes!’ they both said together.
Quinn didn’t need telling twice. He quickly left and a few seconds later Xander locked the door behind him.
Well that was something Quinn hadn’t seen coming. Now he just had to sort out his own love life.