Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Have you shown this to him? Have you asked him about it?”
I shook my head and chewed on my thumbnail, staring over Elizabeth’s shoulder at nothing in particular.
We were in the Starbucks four blocks away from my building. As soon as I found the email, I used the dratted cell phone to call her and beg her to meet me for lunch. As it turned out, I woke her up at home, and she immediately left to meet me for coffee. Thus, she was dressed in pajamas and boots.
“I have to be honest, Janie. I don’t speak lawyer gibberish, so I’m not really sure what this says. But,” Elizabeth reached for and held my hand, drawing my attention to her. “I think you should ask him about it before you jump to any conclusions.”
I swallowed. “I know. I will.”
Elizabeth’s frown deepened. “How did you get a copy of this? Did they accidentally email it to you?”
“No, it was with my memos on my desk. Someone must’ve…” I blinked, my eyes losing focus again, and then I shuttered my lids.
Of course.
“What? What is it?”
“Olivia.” Blood drained from my face even as heat spread up my neck. “I found Olivia, Carlos’s assistant, in my office yesterday morning. She must have left it there.”
“The one who gives you dirty looks at work? Any chance it’s fake, then?”
“I don’t think so.” I debated the theory for a moment but dismissed the possibility. “It’s real. She wanted me to find it.”
Elizabeth rolled her lips into her mouth and between her teeth, surveying me. Finally, she said, “After everything you’ve told me about him, about Quinn, I seriously doubt he wants to fire you.”
I nodded and was surprised to find that I agreed with Elizabeth’s assessment. “I don’t believe it either.”
She smiled a wry hopeful smile. “So, does that mean, despite this strange email and its indecipherable but damning contents, you trust Quinn?”
I nodded again without thinking and spoke my thoughts aloud. “It does. I do.” I met her clear blue eyes. “I do trust him. I think there has to be a perfectly reasonable explanation.”
“Yay!” Elizabeth’s smile was full and immediate; she squeezed my hand. “Although I don’t advocate love as a rule, I can honestly say yay for you and Quinn!”
My head tilted to the side in a very Quinn-like gesture before I could stop the movement. “What are you talking about?”
“You and Quinn.” Elizabeth sipped at her black coffee. “You are in love, Janie.”
“I’m not in love! I’m in lust, I’m in deep infatuation, I’m in—in—in definite a lot of like with Quinn, but I’m not…”
Was I in love?
Though I loathed to admit it, that was a distinct possibility.
I loved being around Quinn. I loved talking to him.
I loved his laugh and, at times, his bossiness.
I loved his self-doubt and I loved his determination.
I loved that he seemed to be changing, wanted to change, even as I was changing.
I loved that we were growing into something new, together.
I loved trusting him. I loved making love to him—really loved making love to him.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and loves like a duck…
Well, Thor!
My ears were suddenly ringing.
Elizabeth wiggled in her seat and wagged her eyebrows. “You l-o-o-o-o-o-ve him.”
“You don’t even believe in love.” I leveled her with a severe glare, hoping to quell the unexpected dawn of realization. If I could just think about it a little more without Elizabeth’s wagging eyebrows, I might be able to analyze the situation with the pragmatism it deserved.
She shook her head and averted her gaze from mine. “You know that’s not true. I believe in one love, first love.”
I knew not to press her on this point or to dissuade her from this belief, especially in relation to herself. I knew Elizabeth’s history, and I didn’t want to make her hash through a topic that was so painful for her.
I tried to make my argument relevant only to the present situation. “What about Jon? I loved Jon.”
“No, you didn’t. You tolerated Jon in much the same way that tolerance is taught in the workplace or at school.” Her mouth curved downward as though she tasted something unpleasant. “I think you loved him as a fellow human being, but you never felt more than tolerance for him.”
“But Quinn wants—he’s my boss, and now he’s my boyfriend. And then there is that apartment in his building. I promised him I would take you to see it.”
She shrugged. “We’ll go tomorrow afternoon before you meet Quinn for your date.” She was wagging her eyebrows again.
I held my breath for a moment then sighed. My forehead landed in my palm and I directed my question to the table. “What am I going to do?”
Elizabeth cleared her throat then brushed her fingertips against my wrist. “Well, you are going to go back to work and not let Ms. Olivia Von Evilpants think she made any impact on your relationship with Quinn. Tonight, you’ll tutor down on the South Side.
Tomorrow, we’ll go look at the swanky apartment.
Then, afterward, when you go on a date with the man you love—aka Quinn Sullivan, aka Sir McHotpants—you’ll ask him about the email. ”
She made it sound so simple, so reasonable, and so possible.
I could only nod, agree, and hope she was right.
It all went according to plan, until it didn’t.
I did go back to work. I did ignore Olivia even though she seemed overly eager to throw herself in my path and speak to me for the rest of the day.
I did go to tutoring that night, and I successfully avoided thinking about being in love with Quinn until he messaged me his nightly text, which had turned somewhat math-mushy recently:
If I were a function, you would be my asymptote. I always tend toward you.
He followed it with I miss you.
I allowed myself to enjoy it and wonder that I may have fallen into the pit of love with this man. For it was, truly, a pit. It was dark and unknown. It was scary, and I was surrounded on all sides by it.
Therefore, in an effort to avoid dark and definitely frightening pits, I made up my mind to make up my mind about the in-love question when I saw him next.
The next morning I was feeling better about the lawyer-speak email. I was feeling calmer and more certain. By mid-afternoon, I was actually looking forward to taking Elizabeth to see the apartment, and by the time I met her at the building, I was trying to contain my pre-Quinn-date excitement.
It all went wrong when I inserted the key into the apartment door. Before I could turn it, the door adjacent to it opened, and Quinn bolted out of it, his expression thunderous, and his chest bare.
That’s right. He wasn’t wearing a shirt.
Elizabeth and I took a startled step backward as he, also startled, rocked backward on his feet, his expression instantly mirroring ours.
“Janie.” He said my name in a breathless whoosh as his hand reached behind him and he grabbed for the door he’d just exited.
My eyes moved to his naked chest, then lower to his jeans. I lifted my gaze to his again, and I could sense Elizabeth shifting sideways behind me as she tried to peer into the apartment behind him.
“What are you doing here?” Quinn asked the question without malice or accusation; he sounded genuinely astonished.
“I’m…you made me promise to show Elizabeth the apartment.”
His attention shifted from me and flickered to where Elizabeth was standing. He blinked at her.
“So, Quinn…” Elizabeth’s voice sounded at my shoulder, and didn’t lack malice or accusation. “Who is in there with you, why the hell don’t you have a shirt on, and what the hell is that on your neck?”
Quinn visibly flinched, either surprised by Elizabeth’s words or the harsh tenor of her tone.
Before he could respond, Elizabeth stepped forward and pointed to a mark on his neck. “Is that a bite mark?”
His hand automatically lifted to his neck.
Elizabeth turned to me, her voice rising. “Did you give that to him?”
I shook my head. Everything was happening so fast; there were too many data points, and I couldn’t absorb any of them. They were scattered on the floor and running away from me like legless teeth. I could only look mutely between Quinn and Elizabeth, and the door he was trying to close.
Elizabeth turned back to him and pointed to another mark in the middle of his chest. “And that is a cigarette burn; what the hell?” She was shrieking. “I know Janie didn’t give you that.”
His eyes found mine and I saw fear. “Listen—listen for a minute; you both need to leave. You shouldn’t even be here; where the hell are your guards?” Quinn seemed to be trying to collect his wits, and his voice was laced with firm yet panicked urgency.
The door behind him swung all the way open and, in that moment, my brain and heart stopped.
Jem was behind him dressed in her bra and jeans, smoking a cigarette, a hard smile curving her lips.
“Hey, big sister.”
Quinn glanced over his shoulder distractedly then almost jumped into the hall. “What the hell?”
My mouth opened and I heard something break, a small snapping noise, in the back of my mind followed by an intense rush of physical pain starting behind my eyes and in my chest. I couldn’t breathe. Quinn, Elizabeth, and Jem were all talking at once, but I heard nothing.
I heard nothing.
In retrospect, when I dwelled on the next several minutes in hindsight, all I remembered was blurriness.
Somehow, Elizabeth pulled me out of the hallway and out of the building.
She shoved me into a taxi. At some point, I recognized that my face was wet, and I thought that I must be crying.
We made it to the apartment and I followed behind her; she held my hand.
Once inside she steered me to the couch and left me there for a moment, coming back almost immediately with the last of our tequila.
After setting it on the table, Elizabeth shook my shoulders. “Janie! Janie, listen to me.” Her voice sounded very far away.