Chapter 9
Quinn
O kay, so this may not have been one of my better ideas. I halt at the front entrance of what must be the twenty-third convenience store we’ve delivered to this morning.
Fuck. This is actually harder than I thought it would be.
It’s dark and cold outside, and my breath leaves a white puff in the chilly morning air. My gloved hands are buried in the pockets of my coat, and my beanie is pulled so low on my head it nearly covers my eyes.
“Don’t just stand there,” Cassie says, breathing hard. She’s decked out in a baggy sweatshirt, white sneakers and spandex pants that go to her knees. Her ponytail flops around her shoulders as she hurries toward me. “We’ve only got two more stops to make and then we’re done for the day.”
“ Two more?” I whine. “You said that three deliveries ago. I’m starting to get the feeling I’m being taken advantage of here, Alabama. You wouldn’t even let me drive the van. Do you know how emasculating that is?”
“Oh my god, you haven’t stopped complaining since we left the depot. Suck it up, Tanner. Let’s go. I’ve got a ten o’clock class to get to after this.”
Lugging a bundle of newspapers tied with string through the front doors of a Quick-Pick on East Houston Street, I suddenly have a new appreciation for delivery drivers, and how hard they work. Cassie has barely broken a sweat, and yet here I am struggling to pull air into my lungs.
Man, I really need to hit the gym more often. Lifting weights is one thing, but my cardio is severely lacking.
“These things are heavy,” I grunt, hauling another bundle of newspapers up onto the metal stand that’s situated just inside the door. “How the fuck do you do this by yourself?”
I cut the string with a blade, and then hand the cashier the docket, just like Cassie showed me to do.
Our gazes lock, and a frown mars her lips. “I don’t have a choice, Quinn. Come on, let’s go.” She waves to the guy behind the resister, telling him she’ll see him again tomorrow morning, and then gestures toward the door. “This time we really do only have two more stops to make, I promise.”
“Do we still have time for coffee?”
“Yep, it’s a date. ”
Let’s pretend I don’t overthink those words as I climb into the passenger side of the delivery van and we head to the next stop.
An hour later we’re sitting at a corner table in a coffeehouse in Washington Square Park. Not surprisingly, the place is busy at this time of the morning, and I’m startled when several people waiting in line nod or say hello to me. I don’t know any of them, but they know me. That concept still spins me out sometimes. I smile awkwardly and nod back, then pretend to be really into my coffee because I don’t want to get drawn into a conversation with a stranger.
The only person I’m interested in having a conversation with right now is Cassie—who ordered some weird skim milk, half strength caramel latte concoction—and now she’s moaning softly as she takes her first sip. My cock reacts accordingly.
I ordered a black coffee, no sugar. Like a man. “So, Alabama, tell me again why you willingly haul ass all over the city at the crack of dawn. Because what we just did, that shit right there…” I wave my hand toward the bustling street. “That sucks… big time.”
“I love the way you think I do it willingly . It’s called work for a reason, Quinn. I have to work, that’s all there is to it. If you don’t have to work hard for something, how can you ever truly feel like you’ve achieved anything? You should know that better than anyone else.”
“You’re right.” I nod slowly, taking a sip of my coffee. “We’ve definitely worked our asses off to get to where we are today. It wasn’t always like this, ya know? It wasn’t always fame and fortune, quite the opposite in fact. In the early days, Reed and I wondered if we’d ever really make something of ourselves. We played some shitty gigs, man, they were shitty. But we never stopped striving for more. We never stopped showing up. We never stopped trying to get our name out there. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”
“Uh-huh,” she nods, but I can tell she’s distracted, as if her thoughts are a million miles away.
“You’re gonna make it, Cassie.”
“I’m not so sure about that sometimes.” She sounds defensive. “I’m broken, and sometimes I just can’t see a way out from all the brokenness.”
My heart squeezes a little. I don’t respond straight away because I’m not sure what to say.
But broken knows broken.
And maybe that’s why the next words out of my mouth are so monumental, and maybe that’s why my voice is raspy as hell as I blurt out, “Did you know, when I was thirteen years old, I was a victim of an armed holdup at a convenience store.”
Cassie’s head snaps up in shock. “What?” She practically spits her poor excuse for a coffee across the table. She clears her throat and shakes her head, but she remains silent, waiting for me to go on.
Not many people know what happened to me. I mean, it’s not like I go around advertising the fact that I watched a woman die that day, or that the gunman went on to put a bullet through his own head not three feet from where I was lying on the floor .
Cassie visibly swallows, and then twists in the seat so she’s facing me head on. “Can you tell me about it?”
I grip the coffee mug tighter between my fingers. I almost don’t keep going, but knowing everything Cassie’s been through in the past, I can’t hold back. I need her to know she’s not the only one to have experienced that kind of pain, fear and desperation.
“Okay. Well, it wasn’t just me. I was with Reed at the time. His mom owned a convenience store on Parker Street. We used to go in there to help her out after school. We’d work on unpacking boxes, sweeping the floor, taking out the trash, that sort of thing. She used to pay us with chocolate doughnuts and sodas.”
“Sounds perfect.”
“Yeah, it was until it wasn’t. You see, this one day, we’d just arrived at the store, just walked through the door, and not two seconds later a tall guy dressed in black, with a hoodie covering his face, comes barreling into the store behind us. He was screaming some shit about revenge and retribution, and the whole time he’s waving a silver pistol around.”
Horror spirals through her expression. “Oh my god, that must have been terrifying. Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack.”
“What happened next?”
My gaze switches back and forth between Cassie and my coffee mug. “Reed’s mom must have figured out what was happening long before we did, because next thing I know, she’s running toward us and yelling for us to get down . Then she threw herself on top of us, right before gunshots rang out. I don’t know if it was the force of Reed’s mom knocking me to the ground, or if it was the sound of the bullet ricocheting off a nearby rack that startled me, but I hit my head really hard on the concrete floor. I think maybe I blacked out for a bit, too, because the next thing I know more gunshots are being fired. I looked up, confused and in pain and I watched the gunman kill the girl working the front counter, and then he killed himself.”
Cassie’s fingers are warm as she reaches across the table, placing her fingers over mine. “Oh, Quinn, that’s horrendous.”
I squeeze her fingers, needing a physical distraction from the atrocious memory.
Cassie gives me a weak smile, but I can see the trepidation hidden behind it. “Were you hurt?”
“At the time, no. Reed and I were checked out by the paramedics and kept overnight in hospital for observation. I needed a couple of stitches in my forehead, but other than that, we were both fine.”
“You just said at the time you weren’t hurt. What does that mean?”
“Oh, I…uh—”
Shit.
I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I don’t want her to know about everything that was unleashed upon my life after that day. I don’t need Cassie knowing about any of that. I trust Cassie, I have faith she won’t blab about any of this to anyone, but sometimes unspoken words speak the loudest.
“Did I mention how pretty you look today, Alabama?”
Her cheeks take on the cutest shade of pink, and I see her fighting a smile. But it’s a wonder the poor girl doesn’t get whiplash with how quick I just changed the subject.
“You want the bottom half of my muffin?” I ask her. “I only ever eat the top half.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the most delicious part of all.”
A laugh pops out of her mouth. She looks at me with humor. And heat. I’m definitely noticing a spark of heat in her eyes. And for the tiniest of seconds, that heated look almost brings me undone.
Aw, hell. Yep, I’m definitely going to hell.