31. Quinn
31
QUINN
T he light that floods into the kitchen of the apartment is one of my favorite things.
It looks over Main Street, so the view is pretty average.
I mean, as I crack the egg into a jug, I can see the giant outline of a molar in the window of the dentist I’ve visited my entire life.
But the early-morning sunlight touches everything.
And it matches my mood.
I slept like a baby in my own bed last night.
This morning, I woke up wrapped in the arms of my lover.
Which, who knew the word lover could cause such a ripple of excitement down my spine that I find it hard not to run back to my room and jump him?
What we did last night was everything.
But there were too many things racing around in my head to enjoy lying next to him this morning.
So, I did what I always do when I feel that way.
I got up to spew my thoughts down onto paper.
Big ideas. Small ideas.
A to-do list in absolutely no priority order.
Just an emptying of my brain, so I can find the peace to then go through all the details and figure out what to do first.
And on that, I have decided.
I’m going to speak to my father about making the apartment and bakery legally mine.
If he wants to be a dick about it, I’ll find a way to buy him out.
But I’m hoping that he’ll do the right thing, for once, and just agree that after all this time of keeping the business afloat, it should be mine.
I’ve just finished cracking the eggs and reach for the whisk when Smoke walks into the kitchen.
As usual, he’s wearing only his jeans.
Also, as usual, they’re unzipped.
He puts both his hands up on the door frame, and there’s just too much to look at.
The taut muscles in his arms. The ink across his pecs.
The way his six-pack looks even more pronounced.
Or the deep V-muscles that lead to the dark thatch of hair above his zipper.
“You’re too attractive,” I admit.
He grins at that, and his smile is the very best thing about him.
“That might be the thing that saves you from getting your butt spanked for leaving me alone in that goddamn uncomfortable bed. When I wake up, I expect you to still be wrapped around me.”
“Do you?”
He releases the door frame and saunters over to me.
“I do, sugar. When I wake up with a boner, I want somewhere to put it, and I can’t think of anywhere better than your pussy while I kiss those fat lips of yours.” He uses his thumb and drags it along my lip.
“I missed you.” His lips meet mine in a deeply connected kiss.
It puts all the broken pieces of my heart together until I feel like I’m dancing in the sunlight.
A knock at the apartment’s exterior front door makes him groan.
“I’ll go get rid of whoever the fuck that is.”
I shake my head.
“It’s probably Kinsey. I told her we were staying here last night so it didn’t surprise her when she opened up. I’ll go see her.”
Reluctantly, he lets me go, and I practically bounce down the stairs.
I didn’t tell him that Kinsey sent me a long text message, begging for details and genuinely super-excited for me, and that I was excited to share the news that yes, indeed, I do have a boyfriend.
I open the door, expecting the long swish of her dark hair, but I’m met by a blown-out balayage and eyes that match my own.
Grabbing for the wall so I don’t fall over, I gasp.
“Melody?”
“Hey, Quinn,” she says with a coolness that stills my heart.
All the heat that Smoke churned up in my body drains out, and in a poetic moment, a cloud skitters over the sun, bleaching the sidewalk of its color.
We’re strangers. But I throw myself at her anyway.
“Oh my God, Melody. You’re here.” She feels unfamiliar.
I can’t even remember the shape of her when we used to hug.
I was so much shorter than her back then.
“We’re almost the same height now. What happened? Oh my God. Come in.”
Melody looks up at the door frame, then steps back to look up at the apartment above.
“You still live here?” she asks.
It’s an obvious question given I just answered the front door.
I glance up and down the street.
For what, I’m not sure.
Maybe it’s because I think I’m getting punked.
Maybe it’s because I’m hoping there’s someone with her, helping her through this moment.
“I do. I have a thousand questions I want to ask you. Come in. I’ll make coffee.” My stomach flips a little at the thought Smoke is upstairs.
“We could go into the bakery.”
She remains on the curb, uncertainty on her face.
She makes no move to come inside or to answer, and I’m compelled to fill the silence.
Like I’m the one who should be much more prepared for this moment.
“I don’t know how you’re here or why,” I say, trying to tame my excitement at seeing her.
“Or care that it’s been all this time. This is your home, Mel. Come in. Everything else can wait. We can talk. Or we can pretend nothing happened and you can tease me for not liking melon, and always wanting blue slushies, and for borrowing your clothes. I don’t care. Just…come in. And I’m sorry if I’m rambling. I’ll try to be quiet.”
She’s dressed nicely.
A blue-and-cream-print dress with puff sleeves and a cream jacket draped over her shoulders.
Gold earrings, the kind you always see in those magazine lists of classic jewelry staples, sit at her ears.
And on her wrist is a slender gold watch.
Confusion sneaks in around the edges.
Because I always imagined that if she was found, she’d be returned to us in a police car.
Or we’d ride somewhere and meet her and there’d be social workers and psychologists because they’d rescued her from some basement dungeon where she’d been kept against her will for years.
I imagined she’d be traumatized, gaunt, unkempt.
But she seems…healthy.
Well. Polished. Not starved.
Definitely alone.
“Mel?” I ask.
“Is Mom or Dad here?” The words are blunt, cool, even.
I need to remember we’ve been apart for a long time.
We need to get to know each other as we are now.
Patience. Patience. Patience.
I’ve read a lot about the reunification of families after things such as this.
The missing child often has strong feelings of anger.
Like the family didn’t look hard enough.
Or for long enough. And no matter how much survivor’s guilt we carry, our suffering is nowhere near as great as theirs.
So, I meet her with as much kindness as I can find.
“Sadly, no. I have contact details for Dad, though. In fact, we could take a trip. I’ll take you to him.” Because I want to be there for what I hope will be the starting point of healing us as a family.
And I have no idea if she’s ever been on a plane.
I can’t tell her about Mom yet.
It’s a complicated piece of the problem that’s nuanced and too heavy to share on the doorstep.
“Could I get his number?” she asks.
“I really need it.”
“Of course. It’s on my cellphone upstairs. He changed numbers recently, so I don’t know it off the top of my head anymore. I accidentally dialed his old number a few weeks ago and got some college kid who runs a lawn mowing service.”
I step back to let Melody through, and she appears cautious.
As if all this is new to her.
I’ve thought about this moment a million times.
In some visualizations, Melody was so happy to see us, she’d throw her arms around us and we’d all weep and cry.
In others, she’d hate us, want nothing to do with us, but we’d persevere to build a relationship with her.
But the feelings in my chest are threatening to burst. I want to scream at Mom for giving up, for letting the idea of never seeing Melody again overtake her.
I can’t imagine how I’m going to explain this to Melody when the time is right.
And I panic at the thought that she chose this morning to come and knock on the door.
What if she had come yesterday when I wasn’t here?
We could have missed each other.
I wonder if she still has her key.
Would she have let herself in?
Would she have stayed until she heard the bakery open and come down to investigate?
Melody walks up the stairs slowly.
I should probably warn her that Smoke is up there, but I’m scared it will stop her forward progress.
After all, this place has been a monument to her return for all these years.
When she reaches the landing, I step ahead of her to open the door.
Another door, another pause, as Melody doesn’t follow me in.
“You get rid of whoever that was, sugar?” Smoke shouts.
Melody doesn’t immediately recognize the voice, and I’m relieved.
“It’s okay. We can work everything out together,” I remind her.
Maybe I’m reminding myself.
I reach for her hand to squeeze it like I used to do when we were kids.
But she snatches her hand away, and I realize I don’t have the first clue of what she’s been through.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. This isn’t really a social, get-to-know-you visit anyhow.”
The words hit me like a punch to the stomach, but I work to keep the smile on my face.
I’m sure Melody can tell it’s fake.
“You okay, Quinn?” Smoke asks, appearing in the hallway while wiping his hand on a dish towel.
Then, he stops…mouth open.
He recognizes her as quickly as I did.
“Holy fuck. Mel?”
Mel doesn’t immediately realize it’s Smoke, but I’m grateful he took a moment while I went downstairs to zip up his jeans and add a T-shirt.
The lines she used to get across the bridge of her nose when she was confused appear.
And then, I see it. The moment she recognizes exactly who she’s standing in front of.
Then, she looks at me.
And she laughs for the very first time.
“Did I throw the two of you together? Because that would be really weird. You’re how many years older than her?”
Discomfort settles in my bones.
There’s a snark and derision in her tone.
And she’s looking at the two of us with disgust. Like what we have is somehow wrong and dirty.
“Eight years,” I say quietly.
“And no. This is new.”
Smoke puts his arm over my shoulder and tugs me to his side, as if he senses my sudden discomfort.
“It’s good to see you, Mel. Real fucking good. But don’t come into Quinn’s house and start shitting on us when you’ve got no clue about us.”
I think of all the preparation and reading I’ve done.
And everything I’ve thought since I first saw Melody is true.
Patience.
But Smoke’s defense of me is…
special. I have an ally.
A man on my side. And it doesn’t even matter that he was Mel’s first, because he’s always been destined to be mine.
And without being asked, he showed me where his heart lies.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“That was uncalled for. I’m…nervous.”
“Come and sit down,” I say, gesturing to the living room.
Mel steps into the living room ahead of us and takes a seat on the armchair.
The one she always used to sit in and curl her feet up beneath her to watch television.
“Where have you been, Mel?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
“I’m not here to talk about that. I need your help.”
I look to Smoke, briefly.
I don’t see a hint of attachment or affection in Smoke’s eyes.
There isn’t even any relief.
From the wrinkle of his brow and the slight frown, I’d guess he’s as perplexed as I am.
I sit on the sofa, and Smoke sits down next to me.
The warmth of his leg next to mine is a reassuring anchor.
“I don’t know what the fuck happened to you, Mel. But this is a lot,” Smoke says.
“You disappear for fourteen years, then just walk back in, wanting help, and then what? You just leave again with no explanation? Who the fuck does that? Tell Quinn what happened. She’s needs closure too.”
“It’s okay.” I put my palm on his chest, even though I know nothing about this is okay.
“Just a simple explanation of what happened to you will suffice.”
Mel sighs.
“Life happened. Hated this small town. Hated sharing this tiny apartment. There’s a whole fucking world outside that window, Quinn. You should go see it sometime.”
And just like that, everything I thought I knew about her disappearance unravels.