Chapter 44
Quinn
T he morning sun shines through the blinds. I sit up in bed and gingerly touch my face. Shit. My left eye is swollen shut. And I’ve got another splitting headache. Was I drinking again last night? My tongue feels like sandpaper. I’m so thirsty.
Going in search of water, I slide out of the massive king-size bed and walk across the room just as the bedroom door swings open, and Reed marches in like he owns the fucking place.
Oh, wait.
That might be because he actually does own the place.
The thought registers in my head as I look around at the expensive furniture, the magnificent view, and the fact that Brinley is traipsing into the bedroom behind him.
Why did I sleep the night at Reed’s apartment ?
Brinley’s got one hand covering her eyes, the other waving about in the air in front of her. “If you’ve woken up with a morning chub, please tell me now before my corneas are scarred forever.”
“Jesus, Tink,” Reed huffs, nudging her with his hip. “You don’t have a fucking filter, do you? He’s fine.”
She peeks at me from between her fingers, only to find me standing in front of her fully clothed in the same gear I was wearing yesterday.
No wood. No chub.
“Oh,” she says, with what looks like sheer relief. “Whoa, dude, what happened to your eye?”
Staggering to the closet, I open the door and study my face in the mirror behind it. My eye is dark purple, touching on black, and the events of the day before coming rushing back to me.
Cassie finding out about the letter. Her not returning any of my phone calls. Or the text messages I sent. Or the voicemails I left.
So fucking many.
An embarrassing amount.
I couldn’t stand to be home alone, sulking and worrying, so I came over to Reed’s apartment, and we…shit, there was definitely whiskey involved. Half a bottle, if memory serves me correctly. I drank, and then I told him everything about what had happened with Jeremy and the letter.
Reed drank, and then he asked me to repeat myself because what I just told him made no fucking sense.
I only got halfway through retelling the story when I tripped on the edge of the rug, falling face first onto the coffee table, and…well, black eye.
Patting down my jeans, I search around for my phone. I can’t find it anywhere, and I start panicking that maybe I’ve missed a call from Cassie.
“Have either of you seen my phone?”
“I confiscated it,” says Brinley, standing a little taller. Which isn’t really that tall at all, on account of her being barely five-foot-three in heels.
Stifling a sigh, I ask, “And why would you do that?”
“Because if I’m not mistaken, Cassie asked you to give her time to think. Am I right?” She doesn’t wait for me to reply. I give her a weird look. She’s seriously like one of those annoying little wind-up toys when she gets going. “And you blowing up her phone every five seconds is not giving her what she asked for. Also, you were drinking, and drunk texting is a disaster waiting to happen. You would have ended up making an even bigger mess of things than you already have.”
“Tink,” Reed warns.
“No, I’m serious. See, Quinn here…” She points a finger hard into the middle of my chest. “He has no willpower. He’s forcing her to talk to him when she’s not ready and that my friends will get a man nowhere.”
“Things were going great between us. We both knew what we wanted, where we were heading, and… I fucked it all up. Again. What the hell is wrong with me? We finally didn’t have to hide our feelings and now this. She hates me.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.
“She wouldn’t even look at me. ”
“Give her time to calm down. Think about how hard this must be for her. She’s upset and confused, and you bombarding her with text messages and never-ending phone calls is only going to push her away even more.”
I grunt out a response, and mutter the word fuck a couple of times under my breath as I follow Brinley and Reed down the hallway into the living room.
Brinley’s right. I hate that she’s right. But I have to admit what she said does actually make sense.
She makes us all some coffee, and we sit in silence for a while. After a few sips of coffee, I stand and then head for the door.
“I’m going home.” I slip my arms into my jacket. “Thanks for last night. And thanks for the coffee.”
Brinley puts her mug down on the kitchen counter, reaching into her back pocket for my phone as she walks toward the door. When she holds out her hand, I attempt to take it from her, but she moves it aside quickly. “Promise me, Quinn?”
I reach for it again, but she’s fast for someone so tiny. She moves like a fucking ninja. “Give me my phone back, Brinley.”
“No good will come of pressuring her.”
“Phone,” I demand.
Reluctantly, she places my phone into my hand, and then she does the most surprising thing of all. She lifts up onto her toes and kisses my cheek. “Things will work out, Quinn. She loves you. And you love her. Give it time.”
And then she turns and walks away.
Her words linger in the air around me, making the light at the end of the tunnel seem just that little bit brighter .
My heart? Nah, my heart remains in the darkness. It remains destroyed right now. It feels like it’s been stomped on or run over by a truck. It physically hurts, like every time I take a breath, it causes me actual physical pain. And that pain spirals inside me as the elevator glides effortlessly to the ground floor, and I walk out onto the sidewalk.