Chapter 9
Naomi
The call came from a number I didn't have saved.
"Naomi. It's Quinn Holland." A pause, easy, unhurried. "I hope this isn't a bad time. I asked Rick Henderson for your number — I hope that's all right. He's been telling half the county about And After."
Quinn Holland? Didn’t he flip houses for a living? His job was literally the opposite of what And After did; he made homes plain, boring, sellable. What did he want to me?
"Quinn," I said. "It's fine. What did Rick promise you I could do?"
I knew why Rick was doing this. He was trying to get on my good side on his wife’s behalf.
At first, Sandra had been upset that I’d used her a party to serve Aaron his papers, until I told her I knew she’d known about the affair.
Then she flip-flopped and started apologizing.
Now, she wanted me to give the And After treatment to her living room, but I refused.
"Magic, apparently. His word. Sandra says the Petersons' place looked incredible.
" I could hear the smile in it. "I've got a house. One I plan to keep, maybe to rent out. Or maybe I'll live in it one day, I haven't decided. Either way it needs a face lift. And I’m humble enough to recognize when that’s not my forte. I’m used to renovating for a quick sale. This time, I want to make it more colorful, more inviting.”
"I’m good for colorful."
"So I hear." Another pause, and then, "Would you come take a look? At your rate, obviously. I'd rather have the person Rick won't stop talking about than settle for someone I found on the internet."
"Send me the address," I said. "I'll come out this week."
"I appreciate it, Naomi."
The house was on the north side, up in the older hills where the lots got big and the trees got serious. It was a good house — mid-century, low and long, all clean lines and disgraceful potential. Whoever had lived in it last had loved it in 1974 and not touched it since.
Quinn was already there when I pulled up, leaning against a porch post with a set of keys, and I had the brief, absurd sensation of seeing someone I'd looked at a hundred times for the very first time.
"Naomi," he said. Just that. Like my name was a complete sentence.
"Quinn. Nice house."
"It's a wreck. Unless you have a thing for fifty-year-old shag carpet and mismatched wall paper."
"It's a wreck with good bones. I can fix that." I climbed the steps.
Something moved across his face — amusement? "Say that again in about an hour and I might believe you."
He unlocked the door and stood back to let me in first, and we went inside.
Quinn walked the empty rooms beside me, hands in his pockets, and when I started to explain what I was seeing — how the whole back of the house was starving for the light that was right there on the other side of those bad heavy drapes, how the dark paneling swallowed every room whole — he didn't nod along politely and wait for his turn to talk.
He asked questions. Real ones.
We went room to room and it stopped feeling like a walk-through and started feeling like a conversation.
He was funny in a low, dry way you had to be paying attention to catch.
He knew things — about the house, about the men who'd built houses like it, about a dozen other things that came up sideways and got followed down.
And he was easy to be around in a way I'd stopped expecting men to be.
At one point I made him laugh — a real laugh, caught off guard — and I felt a small, ridiculous flush of pleasure that startled me. I was enjoying myself. I noticed it the way you notice you've been warm for a while: all at once, and a little surprised, and reluctant to move for fear of losing it.
Somewhere between the kitchen and the back of the house, the walk-through stopped being a walk-through.
I'd meant to be professional about it — clipboard voice, good ideas, a follow-up email.
But he kept turning my questions sideways into other questions, and the other questions stopped being about the house at all.
At some point we were just standing in the front room talking — about the neighborhood, about a restaurant that had closed, about a trip he'd taken and cut short because he got bored being somewhere beautiful with nothing to do.
Not one word of it was about drapes. I had a client in front of me and I was, without any question, being courted, and the strange thing was how little I minded.
Careful, something in me said. It didn't say it very loudly. I noticed I was enjoying myself, and it surprised me — that warm, all-at-once way you notice you've been warm for a while and don't want to move.
We ended up in the back room, the one with the bad drapes and the good light fighting to get in, and he pulled one of the panels aside to show me the view — the whole valley dropping away, gold in the late afternoon.
It was beautiful. And I was very aware of how close Quinn was standing. My heart sped up, and I had to remind myself that this was just a walkthrough. And also, I wasn’t sure I was ready for anything romantic…or serious, ever.
“Still think you can fix this house?” he asked.
“Yup,” I said, mostly to the window. “Still has good bones.”
We were walking back out to the porch when I thought about Tia and how she tried for years to catch Quinn’s attention and failed. Wouldn’t it be just delightfully petty of I showed up at Keith and Jillian’s wedding as Quinn’s date. She’d be livid.
I’d love to say I was beyond that, but I was only human. And after everything that happened, I was allowed to be little petty. She was supposed to be my best friend and instead she’d slept with my husband. If anything, I wasn’t petty enough.
Then there was Aaron. He’d always been jealous of Quinn and his achievements. Always saying things like he just got lucky and didn’t really deserve it. This would be a double whammy.
I worked through the words in my head, framing the casual line about heading to the wedding together since we were both invited anyway. It surprised me, the wanting to. But there it was. For the first time in longer than I wanted to count, I was the one ready to make the move.
“Say,” I began. “You don’t happen to have a date for Keith and Jillian’s wedding, do you?”
“Not yet.” A spark lit in his eyes. “Did you need one? You can be mine.”
“I think they’ve got us at the same table anyway—the singles table.”
He grinned. “That would mess up the whole ‘single’ thing, wouldn’t it?”
“Sure does.” And then, because I wanted to be completely honest, I told him the truth. “I don’t think I’m ready for anything serious. But I do need a date so I’m not alone.”
He hesitated. “What they did to you was horrible. You shouldn’t have to be alone. I’ll be there.” He met my gaze. “And I can play the part of a dotting, enamored new beau if that’s what you want to sell. You deserve a win, and I don’t mind helping you get one.”
That was what I wanted to sell. It was like he’d read my mind and I didn’t even need to ask.
“What’s the catch?” I asked. Because there was always a catch.
The valley went gold behind him. Somewhere down the hill a dog was barking at nothing.
“Go on a few dates with me first. Nothing serious, just fun. So we look like a real couple for the wedding. We have to sell it.” He reach out to touch my hand. “I don’t Aaron to brush it off as a pity date, because it’s not.”
I nodded, my pulse quickening under his touch. I answered before I gave myself enough time to think. “Yes. Let’s do it. We can do to the wedding together, fool them into think we are a real couple.”
Quinn’s next grin was nothing short of panty dropping. Full on dimples and sexy energy.
"For out first practice date, have dinner with me," he said. “How’s next Friday?”
I nodded, suddenly too giddy for words.
He walked me to my car, promising to contact me with the details. And soon, I was driving down out of the hills with the sunset in my mirrors, two pages of notes on the seat beside me, and thinking about Quinn Holland’s warm honey voice and broad shoulders.