Chapter 20 – QUINN #2
I had a close friend. She was three years older than I was, but we trained and made the Olympic team together.
She had already competed in the previous games and had won silver.
In her preliminaries, she wiped out on two of her three runs, with her last run being mediocre, knocking her off the podium before even getting to finals.
When I nailed all three of mine and subsequently won gold, she went to the tabloids and the Olympic committee and told them that I cheated.
That I blood-doped to manage the altitude and tampered with her board.
It was a fucking lie, and even though they awarded me gold, it took months for the committee to sort it out and declare me innocent.
Now there are no searchable online postings about cheating, thanks to my hacker friend Vander and his father, my uncle Lenox, who’s one of my father’s best friends. But still, it wrecked me.
It made me quit competitive boarding. It had me fading away from the limelight and going straight to Boston College for school.
So the fact that this reporter is digging into my past as she tries to stir up bullshit drama doesn’t sit well with me. I may not be a quitter, but that doesn’t mean I like people poking at my world.
I pull into the garage down the street from my building and coast through it until I find a good spot. The streets are dark and quiet, fall biting at the seams of summer, threatening to tear it open and take us straight into colder weather.
My house is on my left, and just up the street is Rhett’s. I won’t lie and say that every time I leave my house, I don’t cast a glance toward his. I wish he didn’t live right here.
I go into my house and immediately head upstairs.
It’s after midnight, and I need a shower, but it’ll have to wait till after my run in the morning.
I brush my teeth and slip on a comfortable thong.
My bed beckons, and I do all that I can to push aside the annoyance of tonight as I climb in.
I have a hip replacement at ten-thirty a.m., and I have to be on my game for it.
Just as my eyes close and my body relaxes, my phone vibrates from my nightstand where it’s plugged in. My eyes pop open, and for a long minute, I debate picking it up. When it vibrates again, I groan, roll over, and snatch it from its holder.
Rhett: Why was he hugging and kissing you?
Rhett: You don’t have to respond. Maybe it’s better if you don’t.
My heart takes flight. I roll onto my back and take my phone with me, holding it over my face as I respond, and it makes me smile despite the conversation topic. I’ve missed texting with him. It’s what I used to do in this same place in this same position during those months.
Me: It’s not supposed to matter to you.
Rhett: But it does so tell me. Are you still in love with him? Are you two dating again? He doesn’t tell me anything, before you start with that. He hardly talks to me outside of work, and even then, it’s only about work.
My heart aches for him. I can’t imagine not talking to my parents. Russel has no clue how good he has it with his father. How lucky he is to have him.
Me: We’re not dating, and I haven’t talked to him, let alone hugged him, until tonight. He ambushed me and asked if we could be friends. That’s what that was. I don’t know if he knew the cameras would see us or not.
Rhett: I’m sitting on my front steps, desperately talking myself out of walking the few houses down to your door.
My heart picks up beats until it’s pounding like a drum.
Me: Don’t. You shouldn’t.
Rhett: Why not? Because you might answer?
Me: Yes.
Rhett: Fuck. That’s all it took for me. That’s how close I was. If you hear a knock, don’t open your door.
Me: If I let you in, what happens next?
Rhett: I don’t stop. I prove to you whose fucking girl you are. Who you belong to. And it’s sick, Quinn. It’s so wrong. But I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. Or watching you all the goddamn time. I don’t understand it. How do I make it stop?
My eyes close, and I release a shaky breath.
He didn’t look at me again tonight. Not once after Russel hugged me, and it annoyed me all night. I love his eyes on me. I live for the moments when I surreptitiously catch him watching me. He’s going to ruin me, and I’m letting it happen. Hell, I’m doing nothing to stop it.
If he knocked right now, I’d run down those stairs and throw myself at him. I hate that. I hate that I feel so tethered to a man I had one night, followed by only a text world with. It feels weak and pathetic, but it’s also the most real thing I’ve ever had.
Rhett: I’m not going to knock. But do one thing for me?
Me: What’s that?
Rhett: Come to your window. Just for a minute. I want to see your face. The street is empty.
I bite into my lip but climb out of bed anyway.
I reach my window and finger the edge of the shade.
It’s more than my face he’ll see. I wonder if he remembers what I like to sleep in—or not sleep in, as the case may be.
After a long moment of half-assed deliberation, I pull up the shade and stand before my window in nothing but a thong.
My heart races and my skin tingles, especially as I glance down and find him standing at the base of the sidewalk with his phone in his hand and a worn expression on his face.
His hand meets the top of his head, and I can see his ragged breathing from here with the rise and fall of his shoulders. He jerks toward my door only to stop himself. His struggle is such a turn-on, but I can’t play this game.
I’ll fall for him. I will. And then what?
Apprehension takes hold, and I shake my head at him before I lower the shade.
I crawl back into my bed and take my phone in my hand.
Me: Go home. Show’s over.
Rhett: Yet you live rent-free in my head, and tonight is just another image adding fuel to my never-ceasing fire.