Chapter 7
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Quinn
“How was your massage?” Camden asks as he plops down on my couch, a beer in one hand and plate of chicken wings in the other.
“Fine.”
He glances over, searching my arms.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Looking for the scratches,” he teases. Though, I suppose he could be serious.
It’s not a secret Charli and I usually go a few rounds under normal circumstances, so I can see where he might be a little worried about me being so vulnerable, while being practically naked on a massage table in front of the one woman who’d claw my eyes out.
“She was a complete professional,” I tell him, trying not to think about the feel of her hands on my body. The last thing I want to do is get hard—again—especially while sitting in the same room as my oldest friend, who’s also her brother.
“I’m proud of her,” Camden announces. “Maybe she’s finally growing up.”
I laugh. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, friend. Just because she managed to give me a massage doesn’t mean she won’t throw a wrench at me next time we’re in your garage.”
Camden chuckles. “Again. She won’t throw a wrench at you again.”
Absently, I rub the side of my head, remembering the shock and pain of that damn wrench knocking me upside the head. She’s lucky I didn’t have a concussion. Or a brain bleed. Not that she would have cared. She probably would have just thrown another one and called me a baby.
“Again,” I repeat, kicking my legs up on the coffee table and dipping a barbecued chicken wing into the ranch dressing. “Anyway, how’s everything going?”
“Fine” he says, wiping his fingers on a thick napkin and taking a drink of his beer. “Thinking about asking Laura out again.”
“Laura Fischer? The woman from the bank who started planning your wedding after the first date?”
Camden laughs. “Yeah, well, she was nice.”
“She told you she wanted you in a navy suit for your wedding,” I reply, deadpanned.
“At least she was on board with you being my best man,” he jokes, taking another drink of beer before diving into the wing.
“Well, that’s a given,” I reply, tossing my bone into the bowl sitting between us and wiping my hands on the napkin. “Bros before, well, you know the saying.”
He holds out his knuckles for a fist bump. “Absolutely.”
“You just remember that. Collin and Cade have each other, so that leaves you and me,” I tell him, diving into another wing. “So, are you serious about Laura?”
He shrugs. “She’s nice. Maybe I judged her a little too quickly last time.”
I turn and stare at my best friend until he looks my way. “She started using your last name.”
He shakes his head. “That was a joke.”
“If you say so,” I mutter, not sure I’m convinced, but whatever. Laura is a nice woman and they seemed to have a good time when they went out. So much so it spilled over into her bedroom and lasted until the next morning, if you know what I mean.
“Anyway, let’s find you a date.”
I groan, and not because of the spicy barbecue sauce burning my lips. “I don’t need a date.”
“You do,” he insists. “It’s gotta be pretty old playing with your own dick.”
I roll my eyes and focus on the baseball game. I have no idea what’s happening there, but I maintain my vision on the screen as if I were truly following along. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” he replies. “It’s time to, you know…move on.”
“I have.” Lies. I’m still as hung up on Charli Miller as I was years ago.
“Don’t lie to me,” he insists, tossing a bone in the bowl and wiping off his hands.
I scoff, but I don’t say a word. Anything I say he’ll use against me or as fuel for an argument.
After several seconds of silence, he asks, “You know it’s not gonna happen, right? I’m not trying to be mean, but…maybe it’s time to move on. She doesn’t look at you like that, and I just hate for you to not live your life because you’re crushing on the wrong woman.”
I know what he’s referring to. Camden knows all about my adoration for his older sister. He’s well aware of my crush that’s spanned more years than not. He gives me shit for it, but he’s never come out and said it.
“I’m good, man. Promise.”
He sets his beer down on the end table and turns to face me. “I don’t want to get all up in your feels, but, like, what is your game plan? I mean, what do you want for your life?”
I open my mouth, ready to let a little sarcasm fly, but that’s not what comes out.
“You’d think that with my parents being, well, the way they were, I’d steer clear of any sort of relationship, but honestly, that’s not what I want.
I didn’t have the best examples growing up, but I saw your parents.
They worked hard at it, and even though I’m sure it wasn’t all sunshine and roses, they make it look easy, you know? ”
“Yeah, I know,” Camden replies. “Have you seen either of them lately? Your parents, not mine.”
“Ran into my dad at the grocery store a few weeks ago. It was…weird.”
“I bet it was,” my friend replies. He’s the only one who really knows the crap I lived with when I was younger. Well, him and his parents. “He still with…?” He leaves his question open.
“Oh, yeah. He talked about her nonstop,” I confirm.
Dear ol’ dad is on wife number five. That’s right, five wives including my mom.
Staci, the latest one, was a classmate of mine in high school.
You heard that right, someone I went to school with.
She’s twenty-five, doesn’t work, and lost custody of her two kids because of the lifestyle she used to live.
Her mom has her two kids, though Staci gets weekly visitation.
However, even though she seems to have kicked the drug habit she once had, thanks to rehab and maybe even because she married my dad, she seems content to just live her life and let her mom care for her kids full time.
Story of my life, if I’m being honest. I wasn’t a priority either.
Between my mom being wife number one and Staci at number five, there were three others with various lengths of time ranging from one year to four.
The woman he left my mom for—wife number two, Rosa—was the shortest marriage of them all, thanks to him cheating on her after their first wedding anniversary and getting what was about to become wife number three pregnant.
Somewhere I have a brother, who’d be about ten years old.
His name is Brennan, but sadly, I barely know him.
After he was born, my dad realized the whole parenting thing wasn’t any better a second time around, so when he left Vicky and Brennan for greener grasses, she moved back to Pennsylvania, where she was from.
That leaves us with wife number four, who is—so far—his second longest marriage after my mom.
Claudia was a widow about ten years older than him.
I honestly think she was just lonely and enjoyed his company.
From what I could see, they got along well, though I admit I didn’t see them very regularly.
I actually thought he might stick around for that one, but alas, four years after they said I do, he was caught naked at Buckman’s pond with an equally naked Staci Jones.
It was the scandal of the summer two years ago, and a month after their divorce was final, he jumped on a plane with Staci and tied the knot.
And this is only half of my DNA…
“So weird,” he mutters, having the same opinion of my dad marrying someone half his age as me. He gives me a look full of concern and hesitation as he asks, “And your mom? How’s she doing?”
I sigh and grab another chicken wing. “Still chasing love.” There’s a bite to my words, because as much as I hate to admit it, my mom is just like my dad. Except they couldn’t live together—or, as it’s proving to be true, with anyone else for that matter.
He doesn’t say anything for a while, and our attention returns to the TV. There’s something about talking about my parents that just wrings every ounce of energy from my body. I feel tired, weighted down by the heaviness of my past.
It wasn’t your typical case of abuse, not like what you see in the news.
My parents fought like cats and dogs with each other, never with me.
They barely noticed me. They were too enthralled in their own drama to pay any attention to what I needed as a young child.
I heard the fights, listened to them spit vile, terrible things at each other, all while being completely oblivious to me within earshot.
And when the fighting stopped?
They still had no clue what their roles were as parents, and I suffered because of it.
Thank God for the Millers.
“How about you?”
“How about me what?” he asks, getting up and moving to the kitchen to wash his hands.
I wait until he returns to the living room, two fresh bottles of beer in his hand as he sits back down on the couch. “What do you see for your future? Surely Laura Fischer isn’t in that picture, right?”
Cam snorts a laugh and hands over one of the beers. “I don’t know, man. It would make me a dick if I said she’s more of a right-now kinda girl, but…yeah.”
I see a flash of hurt in his eyes he covers up before it can linger too long.
It’s not my story to tell, but Cam was in love once.
Hard. The kind of love we teased him about at the time, yet knew it was forever.
However, after high school, everything changed.
We don’t talk about it, about the woman who took his heart with her when she left town that summer after graduation.
“I date. That’s all I need for now,” he finally says, and I’m certain that’s exactly how he feels. It’s been nearly seven years since she left, and while his facade shows a carefree, charismatic guy who’s moved on, I know differently.
“Fair enough,” I reply, watching a bit more of the baseball game.