Chapter 21
You Can Do That Virtually Too?
One week later, Sarah hummed along at nearly back-to-normal speed.
Quinn still wouldn’t let her do anything beyond lifting a fork to feed herself, and he was positively militant about enforcing it, a polar opposite to his easier-going side.
She found it sorta sexy in an alpha I’m-the-boss-of-you kind of way.
Not usually a masculine style she cozied up to, but he had a way of getting behind her defenses. Probably those damn dimples.
Quinn was currently engrossed in an episode of Engineering Disasters. “So what do you think, Sunshine? Did the engineer call out the wrong rebar?”
Sarah squinted at the screen. “Sorry. I tuned out the show.” She glanced between him and her computer screen several times. “How big are you?”
His head whipped toward her. “What, now?”
“How big are you?” she repeated.
A slow, sexy smile spread over his face. “Why don’t you slide on over here and find out?”
“Oh, for fuck’s—I’m talking about your height and weight. I already know about your …” Oh shit. Did I really almost just say that? By the look on his face, he was finding what she had to say way more interesting than the twisted metal carnage on TV.
“My what?”
She stared at her laptop, wondering if she could be absorbed into it. “Nothing.”
He shifted so that he faced her, and he leaned in, his voice low and melty and hypnotic. “What were you about to say?”
Eyes still glued to her computer, she blurted, “I heard some of your groupies talking about your … a certain part of your anatomy in the bathroom the night of the team dinner.”
In her peripheral vision, his spine went ramrod straight. “What?”
She flapped a dismissive hand at him. “Don’t worry. It was complimentary. Your ego would have inflated at least another two dress-shirt sizes.”
“What did these supposed groupies look like?”
She turned and met his gaze. “Like the ones you usually go for. Blond, heavy in the boob department, slut—er, slinky. I think one of them was a repeat lube-and-tune customer.”
He gave her a look that broadcast he was processing the information—in overload mode. “What, uh, exactly did they say?” he coughed.
“Really? I don’t want to repeat it. It’s embarrassing.”
“I find it difficult to believe you could be embarrassed by anything, Sunshine. But this is important. Did you catch any names?”
The tone of his voice set a few alarm bells ringing. “Why? Did you lose her number?”
He threw himself back against the couch and dragged his hand through his hair and over his face. “You are so frustrating sometimes!”
“Me? I thought you missed my witty repartee. And jeez, I had no clue you were so desperate for a blow-by-blow—literally—about your dick. Maybe you should shoot video of yourself and watch it. That way—”
“Jesus Fucking Christ on a cracker, don’t even go there,” he snapped.
The back of his head rested against the couch, and his eyes were closed, giving him a relaxed appearance.
But the rest of him totally contradicted his calm affect.
His hands were laced across his stomach, and his thumbs circled one another like accelerating propellers.
One leg was bouncing to some ridiculously fast and out-of-sync rhythm.
“You have no clue how not funny that is, toots.”
Whoa! This sounded serious. Gage had had some unpleasant experiences with “overzealous” fans, and while he’d never shared the deets of what had happened, he’d often taken Sarah to events as his plus-one for protection—before he met Lily, of course. “Hey, Sparks, what’s going on?”
“First tell me what they said. Please.”
She put the computer aside and wiggled in her seat.
“Well, it went something like, ‘He’s soooo cute. I get why you screwed him in his truck,’” she said in a high-pitched voice.
When she looked over at him, Quinn’s eyes were shuttered, and he had a pained expression on his face.
He made a rolling motion with his hand, indicating she should go on.
Talk about uncomfortable! “Um, there was more discussion about your dimples and hair and how funny you were. Then the one … Her name was—” Sarah snapped her fingers.
“What’s the name of that fish in Finding Nemo? ”
He groaned. Not a good kind of groan. “Dory.”
“That’s it! Dory. Well, Dory squeezed her tits and told her friend how much you liked them.”
Another long, low groan. “I can’t believe women talk about that shit.” Another hand drag over his face. “Fuck me.”
“Wasn’t that the whole idea?”
He rolled his head toward her and opened his eyes. “Would you just …?” he gritted out before looking away again.
“Okay. But consider yourself warned. There’s more, and it doesn’t get any less graphic.” She paused a beat and continued cheerfully. “But you might actually enjoy this part. I think most guys would like hearing how, uh, well-endowed a woman thinks they are.”
“Sunshine!” he yelled. “What. Did. She. Say?”
A few weeks ago, her sadistic side would have enjoyed toying with Quinn Hadley the way a cat toyed with its prey, but that was before she’d gotten a glimpse of the other Quinn Hadley—the one who was fun to talk to and who cared about his mom.
The one who’d sat with Sarah and nursed her through her sickness without complaint.
The one who took Archer for walks. The one who was giving his swear jar money away.
So despite her misgivings about him, it was with no joy and a whole lot of cringing that she sped through her narrative.
“She said you were so big she choked when she went down on you and that she wasn’t putting out in the backseat anymore and that you needed to either take her to your house or a nice hotel with room service because she wasn’t a slut. ”
Deafening silence hung in the air between them.
At last, he let out an extended, strangled breath. “Shit. Fuck. Goddamn.”
“Yep. Those would be the top three I’d go with too.”
He turned his head back to her and smiled. Not his full-on, dimpled smile, but one that was achingly lovely because it seemed so special and genuine and … private. “Thank you,” he said. “I know that wasn’t easy—even for a sassy potty mouth like you—and I’m sorry you had to hear it and repeat it.”
“Is she giving you a bad time?”
He shook his head. “Not really. I bumped into her the other day when Arch and I were out for a walk, and it was awkward as hell. But that’s what I get for being an idiot and hanging with her in the first place.”
Hanging? Yeah, that’s one way to put it. The thought of Quinn and the buxom blond made Sarah a little queasy. “Do you want to hook up with her again?”
Despite his fidgets, he gave her a swift, emphatic reply that calmed her a fraction. “Hell no. That was a mistake I wish I could do over.”
“What would you do if you could?”
“Run the other way.”
“Is everyone here?”
A chorus of feminine yeses sounded through Sarah’s laptop as she relaxed against her pillow-packed headboard and fisted a bourbon and Coke.
After last night’s epically embarrassing conversation with Quinn, she was stoked for her first ever virtual Girls’ Night Out.
Lily, Natalie, Paige, and Paige’s assistant, Katie, raised their adult beverages in a toast, and Sarah joined them.
“Here’s to Paige’s Pussycats,” Natalie chortled.
“I can’t drink to that,” Paige scoffed.
“Just drink, Paige. It’ll get better. I promise,” Katie urged.
Sarah was already on the verge of laughter.
“How about Paige’s Pixies?” Lily suggested, but she was shot down immediately.
“No,” declared Katie. “That’s Beckett’s exclusive moniker for his wife.”
“Why do we have to be Paige’s anything?” Paige protested. “Couldn’t we be the A-Team?”
“The P-Team!” someone shouted, and they all had another drink.
Then the names started to fly, accompanied, of course, by more toasting and drinking. No surprise, the names got sillier by the turn.
“Paige’s Pants!”
“Paige’s Peaches!”
“Paige’s Page-turners!”
“What the hell’s a page-turner?”
“Who cares? It’s a suggestion, so we drink!”
From there, the conversation segued to what the women were doing during quarantine—working, naturally—what their husbands or boyfriends were doing during quarantine—getting in the way, coaxing the women into the bedroom more than usual, naturally—and how happy they’d be when the men got out of the house—naturally.
Sarah listened to their hilarious stories, an outsider, though not on the outside.
Finally, Lily said, “How’s life with Quinn Charming, Sarah?”
“Different than I expected, especially after I got sick.”
“How so?”
“He’s a regular mother hen, clucking over me.” After Lily’s loud laugh, Sarah added, “I know, right?”
“Sarah,” Katie interjected, “you should totally do Quinn.”
Sarah spluttered. “Why?”
Katie raised her glass and batted her lashes. “Because he’s hot, that’s why. Can you imagine tugging on that hair like a set of reins while you’re riding him?”
“Katie!” the other women sang in a chorus.
“You’ve got a boyfriend,” Lily reminded her.
“What? I don’t actually want Quinn. But Sarah could tell us what all the fuss is about.”
“There’s fuss?” Sarah was suddenly uncomfortable, reminded—again—how Quinn attracted women like sharks to blood. Moreover, why did this bother her?
Katie’s eyebrows bounced. “There’s always fuss over a guy like him.”
“You mean a player who’s fucked half the women in the northern hemisphere?” Sarah scoffed.
“He’s not that bad,” Lily chimed in. “Is he?”
“Puck bunnies on speed dial.” Then Sarah told them about the call she’d taken on Quinn’s special phone.
“But Quinn’s so nice,” Lily protested.
“Which is why he’s fucked half the women in the northern hemisphere!” Natalie declared triumphantly.
A knock sounded on Sarah’s door, and the women all went silent. “Uh, hello?” Sarah said to the door.
“You decent?” came Quinn’s voice. Over her laptop’s speakers, the women could be heard laughing.