Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Quinton
By the time I made it home, I was running on fumes and spite.
Fitz: Hire a skywriter.
Fitz: Get him really drunk first.
Fitz: Fake your own death and move to Argentina.
Fitz: Tell him via interpretive dance.
I blocked his number around message thirty-two.
Now I was home, showered, and approximately three seconds away from collapsing face-first into bed when there was a knock at my door.
I didn’t think. I should have thought. I should have looked through the peephole, assessed the threat level, and made an informed decision about whether or not to engage.
Instead, I opened the door.
Fitz, Gabriel, Nathan, and Hayden stood in my hallway, all four of them grinning like they’d just won the lottery.
“No,” I said immediately.
“Quinton!” Fitz said too damn brightly. “So lovely to see you! We brought beer.”
“No.”
“And snacks,” Gabriel added, holding up a bag of chips.
“Absolutely not.”
“And moral support,” Nathan said.
“Get out.”
I tried to shut the door, but Fitz’s foot shot out, blocking it. “Now, now, old chap,” he said, pushing the door back open with alarming ease. “Is that any way to treat your best friends?”
“You’re not my best friends. You’re vultures.”
“Vultures who brought beer,” Nathan corrected, holding up a six-pack.
“I don’t want beer. I want to sleep. I want peace. I want—”
“Details,” Fitz interrupted, pushing past me into the apartment. “We want details.”
Gabriel followed, then Nathan, and finally Hayden, who at least had the decency to look apologetic. “I tried to stop them,” Hayden said.
“You drove,” Nathan pointed out.
“Only because you wouldn’t tell me why we were coming here. I thought it was an intervention.”
“It is an intervention,” Fitz called from the kitchen, already helping himself to my fridge. “An intervention for Quinton’s complete and utter lack of judgment.”
I closed the door and seriously considered jumping out the window. It was only the fourth floor. Probably survivable. Definitely preferable to whatever fresh hell this was about to become.
“Make yourselves at home,” I said flatly, watching Nathan sprawl across my couch while Gabriel claimed the armchair.
“Already did!” Fitz emerged from the kitchen with five beers, passing them around like we were at a goddamn party.
Hayden took his beer and sat on the other end of the couch, looking confused. “Okay, does someone want to tell me what’s going on? Why are we ambushing Quinton at”—he checked his watch—“11:30 on a Wednesday night?”
“Oh, this is going to be good,” Nathan said, grinning.
I groaned and collapsed into the remaining chair, accepting my beer with the resignation of a man facing his own execution.
“Quinton,” Fitz said, perching on the arm of the couch like some kind of deranged game show host, “would you like to tell Hayden, or should we?”
“I would like you all to leave.”
“Not an option.”
“I’d like to go back in time and make better life choices.”
“Also not an option.”
“I’d like to—”
“He shagged Vivian,” Fitz announced all too happily.
The room went silent.
Hayden’s beer stopped halfway to his mouth.
He stared at Fitz.
Then at me.
Then back at Fitz.
“I’m sorry,” Hayden said slowly. “Did you just say—”
“He shagged Vivian Darcy,” Fitz repeated, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. “Julien’s sister. Our Vivian. The woman who works at our clinic and who is related to our best friend, the neurosurgeon. The most uptight, straitlaced doctor at the clinic.”
Hayden’s face went through several expressions in rapid succession: confusion, disbelief, shock, horror, and then he started laughing.
Not a chuckle. Not a polite laugh. Full-body, uncontrollable, tears-streaming-down-his-face howling.
“Oh my God,” he gasped between fits of laughter.
“Oh my God. You—you actually—” He couldn’t even finish the sentence.
He just kept laughing, clutching his beer like it was the only thing keeping him upright.
“It’s not that funny,” I muttered.
“It’s hilarious,” Hayden wheezed. “You. The man who swore off dating. Who gave us an entire speech about the marriage trap, and you slept with JULIEN’S SISTER?”
“When you say it like that.”
“How else should I say it?” Hayden wiped his eyes. “Quinton, you’re a dead man. You’re a dead man walking. Julien is going to remove your organs with a scalpel and use them for teaching demonstrations, with spreadsheets, diagrams, and color coding.”
“That’s what I said!” Nathan crowed.
“This is the best thing that’s happened all year,” Hayden continued, still laughing. “No. All DECADE. This is... oh God, I need to sit down.”
“You are sitting down,” Gabriel pointed out.
“I need to sit down more.”
Fitz raised his beer. “To Quinton Wesley: brilliant doctor, loyal friend, and absolute moron.”
“Hear, hear,” Nathan and Hayden chorused, clinking bottles.
I took a long drink of my beer and contemplated my life choices.
“Okay,” Gabriel said, ever the voice of reason. “Let’s focus. Quinton, when did this happen?”
“Last night.”
“And Julien doesn’t know?”
“Not unless someone told him,” I said, glaring at Fitz.
“I didn’t tell Julien,” Fitz said innocently. “I told Nathan. And Gabriel. And apparently the information spread from there.”
“You told half the hospital!”
“I told two people. It’s not my fault they have big mouths.”
Nathan raised his hand. “I didn’t tell anyone.”
“You told me I had to come because tonight was going to be epic,” Hayden said. “In the car. You said, and I quote, ‘We’re going to Quinton’s because he did something monumentally stupid and we need to help him not die.’”
“See? I was being helpful.”
“You were being a gossip.”
“Those two things are not mutually exclusive.”
I dropped my head into my hands. “I’m going to die.”
“Probably,” Fitz agreed cheerfully. “But let’s focus on the important question: Was she worth it?”
I looked up as four pairs of eyes stared at me expectantly.
“I’m not answering that.”
“That’s a yes,” Gabriel said.
“Definitely a yes,” Nathan added.
“Oh, it’s absolutely a yes,” Hayden said, grinning. “Look at his face. He’s got that ‘I made a terrible decision, but I’d do it again’ expression.”
“I hate all of you.”
“You love us,” Fitz corrected. “Now. Let’s talk strategy. How is he going to tell Julien without getting himself murdered?”
“I’m not.”
“You have to.”
“I’m going to fake my death and move to Argentina.”
“I suggested that earlier,” Fitz said. “It’s not practical.”
“Neither is telling Julien that I slept with his sister!”
“Fair point,” Hayden conceded.
Gabriel leaned forward, his expression serious. “Quinton, you can’t avoid this. Julien’s going to find out eventually. Better it comes from you than from—”
“The hospital grapevine?” I finished bitterly. “Yeah, I’m aware.”
“So what’s the plan?” Fitz asked.
“There is no plan. There’s only death and suffering.”
“Okay, but what if,” Nathan said slowly, “you framed it as a medical emergency?”
We all stared at him.
“Explain,” Fitz said.
“Well, you’re a doctor, right? So you tell Julien that Vivian was experiencing... I don’t know... acute loneliness? And you had to administer emergency companionship?”
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” I said.
“I’m workshopping!”
“Workshop harder.”
“What if you got him drunk first?” Hayden suggested. “Really drunk. Like, ‘I can’t remember my own name’ drunk.”
“Julien doesn’t drink,” Gabriel said.
“He does now. Have you seen his life? Triplets and a Wiccan wife? The man seriously needs alcohol.”
“Still not helpful,” I muttered.
“Okay, okay,” Fitz said, standing up and pacing like he was trying to solve a complex medical case. “What if you told him in a public place? Somewhere he can’t murder you without witnesses?”
“Like where?”
“The clinic?”
“Absolutely not.”
“A restaurant?”
“He’d stab me with a fork.”
“A church?”
“I’m not religious, and neither is he.”
“A police station?”
I stared at him. “You want me to confess to sleeping with Vivian at a police station?”
“They have holding cells. Very safe. Lots of witnesses.”
“I’m not confessing to a crime, Fitz. I’m confessing to dating his sister.”
“Same thing in Julien’s eyes,” Nathan said.
Hayden raised his beer. “What if you just... didn’t tell him?”
“That’s not an option.”
“Why not?”
“Because I—” I stopped. Because I what? Because I cared about Vivian?
Because I wanted to actually date her, not just hide in the shadows like some kind of guilty secret?
Because the thought of sneaking around behind Julien’s back made me feel like a complete asshole?
“Because it’s the right thing to do,” I finished lamely.
“Aww,” Fitz cooed. “He loves her.”
“I don’t—”
“You absolutely do,” Gabriel said gently. “Quinton, you’ve been spending every weekend with her for weeks. You invited her to your apartment. You slept with her. You’re not the kind of guy who does that casually.”
“Maybe I’ve changed.”
“You haven’t changed,” Nathan said. “You’re just in denial.”
“I’m not in denial.”
“You’re absolutely in denial.”
“I’m—” I stopped, took a breath, and tried again. “Look. Even if... hypothetically, I had feelings for Vivian, which I’m not confirming, it doesn’t change the fact that Julien is going to kill me.”
“True,” Hayden said.
“So, we need a plan.”
“Also true.”
“A plan that doesn’t involve my death, public humiliation, or fleeing the country.”
“That’s a tall order,” Fitz said.
“I’m aware.”
We sat in silence for a moment, drinking our beers and contemplating the impossible task ahead.
Finally, Gabriel spoke. “What if you just... told him the truth?”
I looked at him. “The truth.”
“Yeah. Sit him down, man to man, and tell him you have feelings for Vivian. That you’ve been seeing her. That you care about her and you want to do this the right way.”
“He’ll kill me.”
“Maybe,” Gabriel admitted. “But at least you’ll die with honor.”
“I don’t want to die with honor. I want to not die.”
“Then you should’ve thought of that before you shagged his sister,” Fitz said cheerfully.
Nathan raised his beer. “To Quinton: a man who made his bed and now has to lie in it. Possibly in a coffin.”