Chapter 18
N ow that he and Delilah were officially a thing, Quinn wanted to show her a good time—not only so she’d want to keep seeing him, but also, if all went well, to get her hooked on Cambria itself. He figured he had a better chance of getting her to stay around past January first if he could sell her on the town’s charms as well as his own.
Fortunately, Hospitality Night was coming up, and that seemed to him like just what he needed.
“What’s Hospitality Night?” she asked when he called to invite her to go with him.
“Well, I’m sure you’ve noticed that everything tends to close up early around here,” he said. It was an understatement. Most of the restaurants were only open for breakfast and lunch, and the boutiques tended to shut down at five p.m.—earlier if business was slow.
“Yes. I have noticed.”
“Every year for one night in December, everybody stays open late and puts out drinks, snacks. There’s music, everybody’s out on the sidewalks. It’s like a party,” he told her.
“That does sound fun. I’ll see if I can get a babysitter.”
“No, don’t.” He said this last part on impulse. “The whole thing’s kid friendly. Santa’s gonna be there. The boys will love it. Bring them.”
“Really? Are you sure you don’t mind?”
He thought he detected a hint of excitement in her voice.
“You bet. I can take you all out to eat first. Let’s make a night of it.”
Delilah hesitated. “Oh, but … the boys …”
He knew what she was getting at, and he jumped on it before it could become an issue. “I remember what you said—they can’t know we’re dating. So we won’t kiss or hold hands or declare our undying love for each other in front of them. We’ll just be friends hanging out.”
“Just friends hanging out,” she repeated.
“Sure. Except that I’ll be imagining you naked.”
She giggled, and he knew he was in—at least for the date, if not for the naked part.
They started at the Main Street Grill for burgers, because burgers seemed kid-friendly. They sat out on the patio, because the evening was mild, and they shared a basket of fries as big as a hubcap.
As they ate, the boys excitedly told Quinn about everything that was going on in their lives—how Jesse had enjoyed a phone call with his best friend from home, how Gavin had done a video call with his grandmother, and how both of them were missing school to be in Cambria.
“Yours doesn’t matter, though,” Jesse told Gavin. “It’s only preschool. It’s not even school. I’m missing kindergarten.”
“Preschool is school,” Gavin said around a mouthful of burger. “It’s in the name, even.”
“Honey, don’t talk with your mouth full,” Delilah admonished him gently. “And yes, Jesse, preschool is school.”
“That’s kind of a shame, missing kindergarten,” Quinn remarked.
“Yeah, well,” Delilah said. “Jesse was going to have to change schools anyway. Now that the house is sold, and with the divorce, we’re not going to be staying in the same school district. In Connecticut they let you skip kindergarten with a waiver, so …”
“So you’re going to go straight into first grade?” Quinn asked Jesse. “Dude, that’s cool. Kindergarten’s kid stuff anyway, right?”
“I can already read,” Jesse said. “And I know my numbers and I can add and stuff. So I don’t need kindergarten.”
“He misses his friends, though. And his teacher.” Delilah’s eyes started to well up, and she blinked quickly so the boys wouldn’t see. Quinn saw, though. “And,” she went on, more brightly, “he won’t miss the whole rest of the school year. Once we get settled somewhere, he can do the last semester.”
“I don’t need to,” Jesse insisted. “I don’t. Mom—”
“You do need to.” Delilah rested her hand on Jesse’s head for a moment, then changed the subject. “Quinn, tell us more about Hospitality Night.”
Delilah hadn’t wanted to get into it about Jesse and Gavin’s schooling or how unsettled they were as a family, but it was hard to avoid the topic once the kids started talking about friends and family and school.
And now that Delilah and Quinn were dating—however covertly—it seemed like a delicate subject to talk about what the Ballard family might be doing next.
The topic of Hospitality Night was a handy diversion. The more Quinn talked about the Christmas cookies and cider, the carolers, and the events that were planned, the more excited the boys got.
“And, of course, we’ll have to swing by and see Santa,” Quinn said.
Gavin’s eyes widened. “Santa?”
Quinn waved a hand dismissively. “Are you kidding? Of course Santa’s going to be there. It wouldn’t be much of a celebration without him, would it?”
“Santa’s not real, dummy,” Jesse told Gavin.
“Of course he is,” Delilah said.
“If you don’t believe, you don’t receive,” Quinn said. “We’ll see who’s the dummy come Christmas morning.”
Jesse looked doubtful. “You mean I won’t get any presents if I don’t believe in Santa?” he asked Delilah.
“Well, you’ll get gifts from me, of course. And your grandparents and Aunt Roxanne have sent some things, so you’ll get those. But Santa …” She gave him a rueful look. “I’m afraid I can’t guarantee anything.”
Jesse spent the rest of the meal looking worried.
After dinner, they started walking along Main Street and visiting boutiques, most of which had tables of cookies and cupcakes along with carafes of coffee, cocoa, and hot apple cider.
The boys wanted to grab the first cookies they saw, but Delilah cautioned them. “You’re going to have to choose two cookies each, because I don’t want you two making yourselves sick. So, you’d better take your time and choose carefully.”
“Your mom’s right, guys,” Quinn added. “Plus, last year, one of the shops did s’mores. You wouldn’t want to miss that because you’re already filled up on substandard grocery store cookies.”
Jesse and Gavin both perked up at the mention of s’mores, and they contented themselves with paper cups of hot cocoa for the time being as they walked from store to store looking at locally made crafts, Cambria souvenirs, paintings of the local coastline, and even a selection of plush sea creatures like sea lions and the occasional narwhal.
The mood was festive as Quinn called out to people he knew, making small talk and introducing them to the Ballards.
“This is Delilah, and this is Jesse and Gavin,” Quinn told one of the shopkeepers who’d greeted Quinn enthusiastically.
The shopkeeper was wearing a Santa hat, its tip flopping down around the man’s left shoulder. “You boys having a good time?” he asked.
“Yeah. This is really cool,” Jesse said, and Gavin nodded, his thumb in his mouth.
They listened to carolers, watched a group of people perform a choreographed dance in the street to the tune of “Jingle Bell Rock,” and had their pictures taken with Santa at the Cambria Historical Museum on Center Street. Then they found the s’mores station, and Delilah finally gave the okay for the boys to indulge.
A guy manning an outdoor gas grill browned two marshmallows, assembled the s’mores, and handed them to Jesse and Gavin. Within minutes, both of the boys were a mess of chocolate and marshmallow fluff.
Delilah wanted to maintain her emotional distance, wanted to keep the reality of her situation firmly in her mind. But before she knew it, she was caught up in the festivity of the event. She found herself smiling, and for a while, it was possible to think she was actually happy.
When Quinn stole a kiss while the boys were looking the other way, she didn’t try to stop him. She just savored it, not knowing when she might have something that simple and perfect again.
Quinn had never really understood why people had kids. Someone to take care of you in your old age? Sure, that made sense. Someone to carry on the genetic line? Okay, if you were into that sort of thing.
But hanging out with Jesse and Gavin made him see the point of it. The two of them were kind of a kick. Their excitement over Hospitality Night—and over Christmas itself—made the whole thing seem a lot more fun.
Hell, if he could have kids like these two, he wouldn’t mind a bit. It might even be pretty cool to be a father. One day. Eventually. If he met the right woman.
The thing was, he was starting to think he’d already met the right woman.
He told himself to slow his roll as they walked amid the crowd on Main Street, enjoying the holiday decorations and the overall sense of community fun.
Delilah had barely agreed to date him, and she was planning to move to the other side of the country after New Year’s. The thing to do was to have fun. Spend some enjoyable time with an intriguing woman, and not make more of it than it was.
That was all.
Hell, he didn’t want anyone messing up his lifestyle, anyway. He liked his lifestyle. He’d tailored it specifically to his own preferences. If you got serious about someone, you had to start considering their preferences, too. You had to compromise. And if there were kids involved? Well, he could only imagine that the kids’ needs crowded out everything else.
Who wanted that?
He thought about all of it as they went through their evening together. But all of his best intentions—all of the ways in which he cautioned himself—were overwhelmed by one simple fact.
Here, with Delilah and her boys, he felt happier than he had in some time. Maybe ever. He felt so happy that he could imagine, for one fleeting moment, that all of his problems had simply vanished in the wake of this perfect sense of contentment.
That was an illusion, of course.
But it was a pretty damned powerful one.