Three
QUINN
A curtain of fairy lights cascaded down the walls of the function room at the Valentine Cove Resort Mum had booked for my thirtieth.
I told her that I would’ve been happy with a dinner at Bruno’s Trattoria with the family and a couple of friends.
I’d celebrated enough birthdays there that it should’ve been a given.
She insisted, though, claiming that because I’d never been married or had a big birthday celebration in my adult life, that I needed to celebrate thirty in style.
While many of my classmates had big eighteenth birthdays, I was pregnant.
And as much as I love Max, I was thankful no other kids came out of the relationship I had with his dad.
The whole toxic on-again, off-again relationship finally ended by the time I was twenty-two, and I’d been hesitant to do more than dip my toe in the dating pool ever since.
Mum was adamant that my great love was just around the corner.
She’d been certain of that for years. It was just so hard to open my heart to it, though, between the demolition job my ex did to my self- esteem and the little fact that I’m in love with my best friend.
Until I can push that aside, no man really stood a chance.
It took me years to realise I was in love with Wade, but as soon as I did, it felt like a bomb had gone off, leaving me feeling hollow because it was the very definition of unrequited love.
For years my ex, Dean, tried to get me to cut contact with Wade, insisting that I didn’t need a male best friend.
That he was the only man I needed in my life other than my dad and brother.
He’d told me the only reason Wade even stayed in touch with me was because his accidental rise to fame through Max with the videos he used to make for him as a toddler.
Dean told me to give up on being Wade’s friend because Wade would never want me as more than a friend, and that I should just settle for him instead.
I easily settled for Dean, because at the time, I hadn’t realised that I wanted to be more than friends with Wade, anyway.
Dean was right about the fame, though. Wade’s stage name was, literally, an accident. He only meant to set up a YouTube channel to make it easier to send me videos that he made “Formax”. He was at uni studying accounting and playing in a terrible garage band on the side when fame found him.
I didn’t blame all the people who flocked to his channel.
Here was this devastatingly handsome man singing kids’ songs.
Not just singing them, but performing. Who could resist a man who was not only great with kids, but could dance and sing?
Not me, but I didn’t even admit that to myself until well after Dean had left me to work in the mines in Queensland.
Dean’s voice lived rent-free in my head, though, very loudly telling me that Wade could never be attracted to someone like me—not with all the women who were constantly throwing themselves at him online.
And probably in real life. Women who looked perfect and slim, like they were generated by some AI engine that was asked to create the ideal woman.
I forced that thought to the back of my head most times, though, because at the end of the day, Wade was one of the constants in my life.
I had my family, I had my work, and I had Wade.
It didn’t matter if Wade found me attractive, because he was just my friend.
People started filling the room, and I greeted each of them. I silently told myself to thank Mum later for organising the party. As each guest walked in, I remembered just how full my life was. There were some amazing people at the party, and I had to get my mind off Wade.
“You can’t go empty-handed on your big night.” Zoe, one of my fellow stylists from Steele Cut, handed me a glass of sparkling wine. She’d only been in Hartwood Bay for six months, but we’d become fast friends over a shared love of 2000s indie rock music and a shared history of toxic exes.
“Thank you. I have a feeling I might need more of this.” I raised my glass before taking a sip.
“I wish my mum had organised a lavish event to celebrate me,” Zoe said as she took in the scene.
“But I thought she planned that huge engagement party before you left Melbourne?” I questioned, certain that Zoe had told me about the extravagant plans her family had made.
“She was, but that was all about showing off my now ex to my family and trying to outdo his family,” Zoe groaned.
“Cheers to not having to put up with narcissistic exes anymore!”
The feel of the room shifted, and my eyes automatically moved toward the door.
Wade walked through with a light blue, button-up shirt open at the collar, fitted so closely to his body that had to have been tailored to him.
The smile on his face when he spotted me lit me from the inside out.
I really should tell my body to behave, but as long as I didn’t tell anyone how I secretly felt about my best friend, what was the harm?
“Happy birthday, beautiful,” Wade whispered into my ear as he pulled me in for a hug. “I can’t believe we’re thirty!”
“You’re not there yet,” I joked back. His birthday was two days after mine. “Enjoy your twenties while you still have time.”
“Actually, I’m rather keen to make a start of my thirties.” Wade winked at me. “I’m going to grab a drink and catch up with Owen Cross. I haven’t seen him for years. Don’t leave without chatting to me, okay?”
“Umm, it’s my party, I’m not going anywhere…” I called out after him as he strode over to the other side of the room to chat to Owen, who had been a couple of years behind us in school.
“Ugh, if my ex looked at me like Wade looks at you, I wouldn’t have fled Melbourne like I did,” Zoe commented as I watched Wade disappear into the crowd, pretending that I wasn’t watching how his pants hugged his ass.
“Wade has been my bestie forever,” I protested.
“And Wade has looked at you the same way forever,” Audrey, Zoe’s cousin and another stylist at Steele Cut, added as she joined us. She waved over another one of our colleagues as she walked in the door.
“What are we talking about?” Paige asked as she gave me a hug. “And happy birthday, too, I just need to catch up on the gossip; this maternity leave thing is like living in a vortex. I don’t know what’s happening in the world outside of Willow."
“The way Wade looks at Quinn like she’s the last slice of Tim Tam cheesecake at The Bean and Bushel.” Zoe filled Paige in.
“He looks at me like someone who has been my best friend since we were kids…” I sounded defeated even to my own ears.
“That’s not a bestie look that’s shining out of his eyes,” Paige argued.
“Ugh, you guys are impossible,” I grumbled.
“I’m going to greet my guests.” Leaving my work friends grumbling about how they were in fact also guests, Bella walked in with her fiancé, Noah, and his brother, Damien.
I welcomed the distraction of introducing Damien’s daughter, Mariah, to Max.
Mariah would be starting at Max’s school in a few weeks, and it would be handy for her to know a friendly face when she arrived.
My friends’ jibes sat in the back of my mind, though. I wasn’t sure if it was just the wish of that little kid inside me, the one who still believed in happily-ever-afters, but part of me felt like maybe there was a grain of truth to their jokes.