Chapter 36 #2
Scrabble was just like his momma. His grumpiness faded away as I fed him more treats.
He had orangey amber eyes, with gray hair around his faded nose.
He had to be an older dog, judging by the stiffness to his back legs and the discoloration through his coat.
Eventually, Scrabble found the tug toy in my pocket and tried to grab it through his muzzle.
I gently shoved his head away and ruffled his ears, pleased to see him relaxing.
If only that were the same for his hawk-eyed mother. I could feel her staring down at us, arms wrapped tightly around her middle.
“You must be Quinntessa.”
I looked up as Amanda entered the room. She raised her brows at me, her gaze fluttering to Scrabble before she even attempted to introduce herself to his momma.
“Why don’t we get started evaluating Scrabble?” Amanda offered, motioning Quinntessa to training room three.
I followed along, holding Scrabble’s leash. He wouldn’t go too far from Quinntessa yet, but that was okay. I was assuming he was here for more than just an evaluation.
Training room three was one of the biggest training areas.
It was long and surrounded by thick, white brick walls.
One wall had a one-way window into the observation tank for families.
It was usually where they could stay and observe a training session without running into their dog when it was encouraged they kept their distance.
“I see you’ve met Quinn.” Amanda smiled. “She’s going to help me here with Scrabble.”
She was watching Quinntessa’s behavior just as much as she was observing Scrabble.
“Oh, yeah.” Quinntessa motioned to me with a weak hand. Her eyes scanned me quickly before shooting away. “We go to school together . . .”
“Styxton High,” I confirmed when she looked back in my direction. I figured she was searching for help.
Amanda hummed and returned her attention to Scrabble as the dog cautiously investigated the large room.
I brushed down my shirt and watched Scrabble wander around as the three of us stood here in a tension-filled silence.
Amanda scratched at her chin as she watched the dog stumble back from the mirror on the far wall, growling at himself.
It didn’t seem like Quinntessa noticed Scrabble’s startled state.
I looked to see where her head was when she didn’t respond and found myself smirking when her attention was stuck sliding over my tattooed hands.
Our eyes met, and I arched a brow.
“Quinntessa’s an impressive student.” I tilted my head back slightly and smirked. “Much better than me.”
Amanda laughed and winked at me.
“You could be better,” she reminded me. Of course, we’d had this conversation plenty of times before. She did have to have conversations with my probation officer. “So, Quinntessa. Have you filled out our visitor paperwork yet?”
“Oh, uh.” Quinntessa rubbed her elbow shyly and shook her head. “I don’t believe so.”
Amanda shot me a look and stepped back to grab the clipboard off the wall. It was the entire reason I was supposed to meet Quinntessa up front. At least this time, I could genuinely say I was more distracted by the dog than the hot girl who walked through the doors.
She was more of an addiction at this point.
“If you don’t mind filling this out and giving me your driver’s license, I can put it on file for Scrabble’s approved visitor,” Amanda explained.
Quinntessa stared at her for a short moment. She inhaled deeply and nodded, fishing her wallet from her back pocket and balancing the clipboard in her hands.
“S-Sorry.” She visibly winced as her wallet spilled open and Polaroids and cards fell to the floor. “My wallet’s old, and I need to fix it.”
“That’s okay.” Amanda waved off the girl’s anxiety.
I had already bent down and started picking up a few photographs that flew in my directions.
I moved slowly as Scrabble made a loud, unsure noise and trotted to defend his mother.
I was careful not to make eye contact with him as he sniffed the Polaroids and rubbed himself against Quinntessa’s legs.
I picked up one photo and took a quick glance out of curiosity. My eyes moved away then shot back in a second. I’d seen pictures of Quinntessa before from her garage, as well as her father, but not of her this young. Not of Sebastian at this age, with what I assumed was his natural hair color.
This wasn’t right. I had to be mistaken.
My eyes rocketed up to Quinntessa, meeting her gaze for a second before shooting back down to the picture. I held my breath and tried to think hard about where I had seen a photo of this man before.
Not in my house. Not in the Dawson’s garage.
No, no, no, I had seen him at the dinner table, in the living room when Christian and Leo argued over watching a horror flick or a musical.
I had sat at my desk and watched my dopey boyfriend talk about this man during hero’s day.
This stupid fucking man in this photo could not look any more like the photo beside my ex-boyfriend’s bed.
There’s a framed picture of Sargent Rome hanging above his urn—the urn his ashes were supposed to be in was in Christian’s living room with the flag when he died overseas in combat. Christian told me his mother cried over that flag on the anniversary of his death. He . . . he . . . died.
Slowly, my eyes stopped squinting at the smiling photo of Sebastian looking down at his darling daughter in a Valentine’s Day crown. I looked up at Quinntessa as she stuffed pictures back in her wallet.
Her kind brown eyes. Her soft cheeks. Those pouty lips. Quinntessa couldn’t be related to him, right? She couldn’t. This was all a big misunderstanding, and Sebastian just looked like the army photo of Christian’s father, Chris Rome Senior.
I sorted through the pictures in front of me and gulped when each photo with Sebastian involved a change in his appearance. Quinntessa looked close to the same in each one, besides her obvious growth. Her hair may have been curlier in one. Her freckles were more defined in another.
In one photo, she didn’t look like Christian at all.
Quinntessa looked like she could be Erica’s sibling well before Christian’s—her big, honey-brown eyes and her velvety, beautifully tanned skin under all those gorgeous freckles.
It was obvious she had been in the sun a lot when she was younger.
Just because their dad looked a little similar didn’t mean anything. It was just a bad, bad coincidence.
“Is this you?” I asked as I stood from the ground. I wanted to ask her more about her father, but I had to be careful. For all I knew, she was playing me like a fiddle.
Quinntessa shuffled close, and I suddenly realized Amanda was gone.
“Yeah.” She pointed a red and white nail to the third picture with the crown. “That’s from my first birthday.”
Valentine’s Day.
Qupid’s B-Day. Like my calendar said.
My father wanted Quinntessa to die on her birthday. I almost forgot about that nasty detail.
“I know. Ugly kid.” Quinntessa chewed the inside of her cheek as my attention returned to her nervous eyes.
I cleared my throat, not wanting her to worry about what was going through my head.
“You were a very pretty kid,” I said, handing two of the photos back to Quinntessa. I needed one to compare to Christian’s father, and the football picture happened to be my favorite. “Too cute to give up on that football helmet picture.”
“Are you serious?” She rolled her eyes.
“Dead.” I smirked.
I loved toying with her. Quinntessa’s attitude gave me a thrill.
“What are you even going to do with that?” she asked, clearly annoyed. “Hang it in your locker?”
Or on my wall.
“You know . . .” I grinned mischievously and thought about taping her up on my bookshelf. My father would have a fit if he saw it, though. “I just might.”
“You’re an a-hole,” Quinntessa whined.
She was adorable.
“Asshole, baby.” I winked, heart fluttering at Quinntessa’s pouty lip. “I’m an asshole.”
“No, you’re a donkey,” she muttered, bending to pet Scrabble’s back.
“That’s a jackass, sweetheart.” I watched them both with a soft smile, exhaling as Quinntessa hugged her dog to avoid looking at me for much longer.
“Shut up!” Quinntessa hissed, though I could see Scrabble’s ear covering a tiny smile.
As the door to training room three opened, Quinntessa stood back up and released the leash. Scrabble moved around again and let it drag behind him, sniffing us curiously.
Amanda jumped straight into talking about Scrabble with Quinntessa. I tried my best to listen and pay attention to Scrabble’s body language, as well as Quinntessa’s overall state. It wasn’t a surprise to me when she broke down halfway through before the official evaluation began.
It wasn’t until Quinntessa became more bothered by Amanda’s slip ups than her questions that I could fully pay attention. She had to fall into a state of true curiosity for it to pull her attention away from Scrabble to stare at my mentor.
“Chris told me you picked him out,” Amanda casually said, not seeing anything wrong with her words.
Quinntessa did.