Chapter 11 Sadie #2
She opened the creaky cabinet and scanned the neatly lined spice jars until her fingers closed around the bright red paprika.
“Where’s your grandmother from?” she asked, handing him the spice.
“Spain,” Quentin replied as he sprinkled the paprika into the pan. “My mom’s side of the family is from Madrid. My grandparents immigrated here fifty years ago, bought a ranch just a few hours away from here.”
It hit her how little she actually knew about him. Here was this person she’d been avoiding for so long, standing right in front of her making his grandmother’s recipe. It was strange to think about all the layers of his life that she’d never even considered.
“Wait, really?” she asked, surprised. “I didn’t realize you grew up in Montana.”
“Yeah,” he said with a small smile. “I grew up ranching. Riding horses, fixing fences, taking care of the animals. It’s part of the reason I got this job. Maybe the only reason.” He shrugged.
"Why do you say that?" Sadie asked, furrowing her brow, her curiosity piqued.
Quentin sighed, his shoulders tensing slightly as he continued to stir the sauce.
“Well, I know I’m not a serious actor like Tessa. People don’t take me seriously, and without the experience with horses, I don’t think they would have considered me for the role.”
“Well,” she said, more gently than she meant to, “you’re wrong. You’re really good. I’m not just saying that because you’re feeding me.”
Quentin flicked his gaze to the streak of dried blood on her cheek. “You’re also really good. Fake blood, scars. I believed you were dying.”
“High praise,” she said. “I strive to unsettle.”
A few minutes later, he brought over plates of tapas, laying them on the wood dining table. The aroma was intoxicating, the rich, spicy scent of the patatas bravas hitting her senses all at once. She wasted no time, diving in, and after her first bite, her eyes widened.
"Holy crap, this is so good," Sadie said, her words muffled as she chewed. Quentin let out a pleased laugh.
“I’m sure my Abuelita would be thrilled to hear that,” Quentin said with a grin, leaning back in his chair.
“Same with my sisters. They tried to teach me to cook but didn’t take.
I was more the ‘chop wood, haul water, fix the fence’ type.
They handled the part where we didn’t all die of food poisoning. ”
Sadie raised an eyebrow, intrigued. “Now I have to know. Tell me about them.”
Quentin’s grin softened into something gentler. “Well, there’s Carmen, my older sister. Total tyrant. But she’s got nothing on my mom. And neither of them come close to my Abuelita. That woman ran the whole show. Still does.”
He paused, his gaze drifting. When he spoke again, it was quieter. “I had two sisters. Delores—Delly—passed away five years ago.”
Sadie’s teasing expression softened. Her voice lowered. “I’m really sorry, Quentin.”
She didn’t need to reach far to understand that kind of loss. It lived in her bones. Rebecca had been her best friend since they were kids, her partner in crime, her sister in everything but blood. Waking up in a world without her had felt like waking up missing a limb.
And that was the cruelest part. One day, Rebecca was there: laughing, making some absurd joke about the universe being out to get them, stealing Sadie’s fries when she wasn’t looking. And the next, she was gone.
It had happened so fast. One minute, she was invincible, the way all young people think they are. Then she collapsed during a cross-country meet. Her heart just gave out. No warning. No time to brace.
Sadie had found out the next morning. Rebecca didn’t make it. That was all they said. No buildup. No goodbye. Just a brutal finality that left her gasping. For months, she floated through senior year like a ghost. Her days felt muted without Rebecca’s voice to fill them.
Even now, sometimes, she still heard her laugh—bright, sharp, alive. Still caught herself reaching for her phone to send a meme, a thought, anything. The silence that followed was the hardest part.
She realized that Quentin knew it too. That silence. That hollow place that never quite healed.
“Thanks,” he said quietly. His voice was steady, but there was something beneath it, something raw. “She had cystic fibrosis. We always knew it was coming, but it still happened a lot sooner than any of us expected. It was… hard.”
Sadie nodded. “Yeah. Losing someone who feels like part of you. It messes with your sense of gravity.”
Quentin looked at her then. He didn’t offer a cliché or force a platitude—just that quiet, steady recognition that said he understood.
“I lost my best friend Rebecca,” Sadie added after a pause. “Might as well have been my sister.”
Quentin nodded slowly, his expression thoughtful. “She must’ve been something special.”
Sadie let out a breath of a laugh, the sound bittersweet. “Yeah. She really was.”
She could still see it all: Rebecca’s terrible impressions, the constant humming of some song, the way she could pull light into the darkest corners. Talking about her kept her real, like she wasn’t just frozen in the past. It made her want to know more about Delly, too.
“What was Delly like?” she asked gently.
Quentin paused like he hadn’t expected the question. Then he smiled, small but real. “She could boss my Abuelita around and that’s saying something.”
Sadie chuckled. “Sounds like you grew up in a matriarchy.”
“Oh yeah,” he said, nodding. “Wall-to-wall tough women. My mom, Carmen, Delly… it was their world. I was just hauling groceries in it.”
“So you were the only guy?” Sadie grinned. “That explains a lot.”
“Oh, they never let me forget it,” he said, laughing. “I was outnumbered at all times.”
His smile softened, voice lowering a bit. “Delly was the fiercest of them all. Stubborn as hell. She could argue her way through a hurricane. But underneath all that fire? She had the biggest heart. Always the first to help a neighbor, or defend a friend when no one else would.”
He paused, eyes distant for a moment before meeting Sadie’s gaze. “She loved loud music, cheap beer, and was the queen of bad jokes. If you needed someone to get you out of trouble, or into it, Delly was your go-to.”
Sadie’s smile softened. “She sounded incredible.”
“She was. She really was.” Quentin looked down briefly, then back up, pride shining in his eyes.
She could feel the love there, the way he spoke about her, the way his voice softened when he said Delly’s name. Just like hers did when she talked about Rebecca.
Grief didn’t always come crashing in, it lived in the small things. In a name. A laugh. The pause before a memory.
"Well, my brother was the bossy one in my house," Sadie said with a light laugh, leaning back in her chair. "Still is. Ronan was, and still is, the biggest stick in the mud."
Quentin raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like the oldest child thing?"
“Oh yeah. Ronan’s favorite hobbies include ruining fun and being correct about everything. It was like growing up with a third parent.”
He laughed. “That explains you.”
“Rude,” she said, but smiled anyway.
A beat passed.
“What about your dad?” she asked, surprising herself. She wasn’t sure why she wanted to know—only that she did.
“Divorced,” he said easily. “Left after Delly was born. Her health stuff was too much for him, I think.”
“Oh,” Sadie said softly.
He shrugged. “We do the Christmas check-in. Awkward hugs. Polite updates. He wasn’t great at the whole dad thing. It’s fine. I had plenty of love elsewhere.”
Sadie studied him, clocking the way he made it sound casual while very clearly not being casual. He’d cracked the door open—just enough to let something real slip through. And for reasons she absolutely refused to unpack, she wanted to keep pushing.
“Do you think your dad leaving messed with how you see love?”
Quentin scoffed. “Wow. We’re really skipping the appetizers and going straight for emotional surgery, huh?”
She smiled, unapologetic. “I like efficiency.”
He leaned back, eyeing her. “Why do you care?”
“Because,” she said, tracing the rim of her glass, “my parents are still together. Painfully in love. Like, share-a-toothbrush, finish-each-other’s-sentences, make-everyone-uncomfortable in love. And somehow, that completely ruined dating for me.”
“Okay, but how does that mess you up?”
She sighed. “It sets the bar in the stratosphere. They’ve been together since high school. No drama. Just… solid. So every time I date someone, I’m like, Cool, but would you survive thirty-five years and a busted water heater together? And shockingly, the answer is always no.”
“That does sound exhausting.”
“It is,” she said. “I don’t want a fantasy. I just want something real. But sometimes it feels like that version of real doesn’t exist anymore. Or maybe it does, and I’m just bad at finding it.”
He was quiet for a second, then nodded. “I get that.”
She looked up.
“People think love has to look one way,” he said. “Big moments. Perfect timing. Grand gestures. But real love? It’s messy. It’s unfinished. It’s showing up even when you’re tired or scared or wildly unprepared.”
He shrugged. “My parents didn’t work out. But my mom? She built something solid anyway. She showed up every day. That was real love too.”
Sadie felt that land somewhere deep in her chest.
“Love isn’t always romantic,” he added gently, “Sometimes it’s just staying.”
She swallowed, suddenly very aware of how warm the space between them felt.
“You’re not at all what I thought you’d be,” Sadie said as she took her final bite of food. Her eyes flicked up to meet his.
Quentin arched a brow, swirling the last sip of his drink in his glass. “That sounds loaded. Good or bad?”
“Good,” she said quickly. Then, because honesty was apparently happening tonight, added, “Unexpectedly good.”
Something shifted in his expression. The teasing eased, replaced by something quieter, more intent. “You’re exactly what I thought you’d be.”
Her stomach flipped. “Okay, now that feels ominous. Good or bad?”