Chapter 25 #2
I pressed my lips together and pummeled him with a single French fry. He laughed, obviously unable to contain himself, and my face flamed.
“You know what I mean.” I didn’t look at him; rather, I stared at my basket of Italian beef and seasoned fries.
He stopped laughing but not all at once; he allowed it to taper off gradually. I glanced at him through my eyelashes; a huge smile still asserted itself over his features, and he was looking at me with a sanguine, untroubled expression.
He looked happy.
My heart fluttered; yes, it fluttered uncontrollably. The flutter morphed into a flapping monsoon as I watched his smile fade from broad to slight and his gaze darken, intensify, and scorch.
“You’re so beautiful.” It was said on a sigh, as though he had said and thought the sentiment at the same time and hadn’t quite realized the words had been spoken aloud.
I felt the compliment acutely, but in a slightly scary and thrilling way. I lifted my head and blinked at him, my mouth slightly agape. His eyes traveled over my lips, hair, neck, then lower. I noticed he was holding his napkin as though someone might be inclined to steal it.
He also seemed to be greedy for details.
I tucked my hair behind my ears and rubbed my neck. Everywhere his eyes moved itched and tingled.
I cleared my throat. “You too.”
He met my gaze and studied me; his smile was still slight. “It’s different with you; it’s not just the way you look.”
In a surprising turn of events, the comment on my inner beauty made me squirm to a much greater degree than the compliment aimed at my physical features.
I wasn’t so sure that inner Janie was at all a beautiful person.
Jem’s words from last night; the apparent callous disinterestedness with which I regarded the end of my relationship with Jon, my unwillingness to help my sister in her time of need, had me doubting whether I was anything other than a selfish and vapid replica of my mother.
“Are you admitting your beauty is only skin deep?” I tilted my head to the side, wanting to tease him rather than dwell on how high, on a scale from one to ten, I would rank on the vapid meter.
Quinn breathed in through his nose, his eyebrows lifted, and his attention shifted to his hands; he loosened his grip on the napkin and began twisting it between his thumb and forefinger.
He didn’t respond. I took his silence as confirmation.
“I think you’re wrong.”
He continued to twist the napkin wordlessly until it resembled a short length of rope.
I considered him at length. There was still a lot I didn’t know about Quinn, and therefore, I deliberated the possibility that he was right. He could be a virtually empty shell of a person with a stunning facade, impressive intellect, and a foil wit.
Then, I frowned because the prospect felt dissonant with reality.
“No, you are a good guy.” I tilted my head to the side and allowed my gaze to move over his lips, hair, neck, then lower to where his heart was beating. “We see the strengths and faults in others that we do not or cannot recognize in ourselves.”
“Janie.” His small smile, more of a grimace, struck me as brittle when our eyes finally met.
“Are you trying to scare me off?”
He nodded his head, but on a sigh, he replied, “No.”
“Do you have any current nefarious plans? Are you plying me with Italian beef as part of an evil plot?” I motioned between us and asked, “Is this an elaborate lie? Are you planning to lure me into a false sense of security, have your way with me, light me up, and then toss me aside like a match or a Christmas tree?”
His face was serious. “No.”
“Then why do you believe that you lack internal beauty?”
“Because I only do things for selfish reasons.”
“Like dating me?”
“Dating you is completely selfish.”
The comment struck me mute, but I recovered. “If…if you were being selfish, then you’d still be a Wendell and I’d be a slamp.”
He shook his head. “If you were a slamp, then we wouldn’t be exclusive, and you could be with other people.”
“And that makes you selfish?”
“That makes me selfish.” His eyes pierced me, and his voice was low and sandpapery.
I took the opportunity to munch on a French fry, now cold, and deliberated his words.
“I will say this.” Quinn held me with his eyes, his expression increasing in severity as though hovering on the precipice of a meaningful confession. “You make me want to be less of an asshole.”
My lashes flapped at him. “Really? Wow.” I gulped.
It was a confession of sorts, but it was the type of confession that encouraged my sarcasm rather than my appreciation. The statement struck me as the epitome of noncommittal, pseudo-subtle, self-deprecation; I was amazed by its definitive tepidness.
“That’s so poetic. You should write greeting cards: Dear Dad, thank you for helping me become not as big of a jerk as you are. I’m still a jerk, just not a big jerk like you.”
Quinn laughed again, but this time with complete abandon; it was a deep, rumbly belly laugh, which, since I was within earshot of the blast radius, was extremely infectious, and I felt it acutely like a touch rather than a sound.
He held his hand over his chest and my attention loitered on the spot.
Even as I laughed I felt a twist of discomfort emanating from a mirrored location in my own chest.
I ached. I wanted to be close to him. I wanted to know everything about him.
The suddenness of the pain caught me by surprise, and I closed my eyes against it, breathing out slowly, collecting myself so I wouldn’t give in to my desire to climb over the desk and tackle him where he sat, Italian beef sandwich on his lap, napkin in his hand.
“Janie.”
My eyes remained closed but I gave him a slight, evasive, closed mouth smile.
“What are you thinking?”
I swallowed but didn’t answer. My heart was racing.
I wanted to tell him I was thinking about the fiber content in stain-resistant carpet, but that would have been a lie.
Even if I wanted to, and I did want to, I couldn’t seem to distract myself from the reality of being with him and all the irrepressible terror and hunger that accompanied it.
“Why are you so afraid?”
“Because I’m not thinking about the fiber content in stain-resistant carpet.” My eyes remained stubbornly shut.
“What does that mean?”
“It means…” I lifted my lids and found him surveying me with simple curiosity.
I swallowed a new thickness in my throat, knowing that I needed to tell him the truth.
“It means my brain finds you more interesting than all the really interesting trivial facts I could be contemplating or researching at present.”
His answering smile was leisurely and measured. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
I returned his smile even though I felt suddenly sober; my eyes were inexplicably watery. “Quinn…” I took a deep, steadying breath. “Quinn, you need to be a good guy. I need you to be a good guy.”
He nodded, his expression reacting to and echoing my sudden seriousness. “I know. I want to be.” Quinn licked his lips as his eyes moved to my mouth. “I will be for you.”