Chapter 12 #2
The devil on my shoulder is back, whispering filthy things about the way she watched me when I got out of the pool.
The spark of heat in her eyes and the way her sweet, pink tongue peeked out to swipe across her full bottom lip.
She isn’t completely unaffected. If me being the one to touch her is an option, I don’t want to give her space for anyone else.
My hand closes around a leg of her stool and I tug it an inch closer to mine. I lean forward, catching her gaze. Her eyes flick down to my lips, and I go molten.
“And who exactly,” I say, my voice dropping to an octave I didn’t know I could produce, “do you plan to scratch the itch with this summer?”
Quinn’s eyes go wide, then she twirls to the table, grabbing the second glass in her tasting row and throwing it back like the first. She coughs a couple times like some of the liquid went down the wrong pipe. “I’ll figure it out. Maybe Tomasso can introduce me to someone.”
My stomach drops. What the fuck am I doing? If she was interested in me, even physically, she wouldn’t be trying to set me up with half of Boston.
“Good idea,” I say, clearing my throat as I shift my stool away. “He introduced me to someone a few years ago.”
“Oh, yeah?” she squeaks out.
“Yeah, it was a perfect setup. Exactly what I wanted.”
A breath gusts out of her. “Great.”
“Great,” I parrot back.
Fuck. I’m being an asshole. I have no right to be upset about who she does or doesn’t scratch her itch with.
The man from before claps his hands, drawing everyone’s attention again as the next course of our lunch comes out, along with another set of wines to taste. Quinn chugs the last of our first round drinks before the waiter can sweep it away, giving me an awkward smile.
When he finishes his next round of explanations about these wines and why they’re paired with these dishes, Quinn turns back to me. “I’m sorry. I made it weird with all the dating stuff.”
“I’m sorry, too,” I say. “Your concern is sweet, but I don’t want a relationship.”
Her eyes are serious and maybe a bit sad. “I hope you reconsider that, because you have so much to offer someone.”
I hear the message underneath. She wants me to find someone to be happy with, but it won’t be her. If I want to keep the most important relationship in my life, I need to accept that. So instead of moping, I turn my attention to having as much fun with my best friend as I can.
Three wineries later, we stumble back to our AirBnB.
Quinn’s singing an old Giusy Ferreri song that was on the radio constantly when we studied here.
It had poured out of every restaurant and shop for months.
I haven’t thought about it in years, but hearing her sing it hurtles me back to those precious days with Quinn.
She tries to pull off a spin on the dramatic chorus, but gets tripped up at the last second.
I grab her biceps, yanking her back against my front as I stumble myself, my body losing all sense of control after the influence of so much wine.
Quinn drops her head against my chest before tilting it to look up at me.
“My savior,” she says.
So fucking beautiful.
“Thank you,” she giggles, and I realize I said those words out loud.
Her cheeks are flushed from the wine and her eyes are back to their full brilliance, and holy shit, I love this woman more than anything in this world.
I sway toward her on instinct. Or maybe that’s the wine, because we both stumble forward, my arms wrapped around her waist as we devolve into laughter again.
When we reach the door, Quinn has to bend down and put her face inches from the keypad to type in the code, just like the winery tour guide joked we’d need to.
“This is ridiculous,” I say through my laughter.
The keypad finally flashes green, and Quinn yells, “Vittoria!”
Inez is reading a book in the living room when we come in, and Quinn’s laughter abruptly cuts off.
“How was your visit with your friend?” Quinn asks, something tight in her voice.
Inez smiles, but it looks more like a wince. “It was amazing.”
Quinn lets out an almost manic laugh. “That’s awesome! So exciting! Hey, why don’t we break into one of these bottles, yeah?”
She twirls toward the kitchen before either of us can respond. I raise a brow at Inez, but she shrugs and follows after Quinn, talking to her in a low voice.
The rest of the night’s a blur of more wine and probably not enough charcuterie for our dinner. After a whole day of drinking, Quinn and I are both ready to pass out by ten, but when I finally settle into bed, I can’t shut off my brain.
Things have shifted between us, and I don’t know if it’s a good thing or not.
We’ve both grown and changed since college, but I still love her as much as I did when she dropped me off at the airport ten years ago.
More, even. And the idea of losing her presence in my life still guts me.
Of course I want her, but I’d take a lifetime of her friendship over a few hours of something physical.
I’m staring at the ceiling when there is a light knock on my door.
“Yeah?” I call, pushing myself to lean back against the wooden headboard. The door cracks open, revealing Quinn.
“Can I come in?” she asks with a quiver in her voice.
“Of course,” I say, and she scrambles onto the other side of the full bed, laying her head on the pillow facing me. I mirror her position. “Finally ready to talk to me?”
Her lips quirk up, but her eyes stay sad. “I was kind of a buzzkill today, wasn’t I?”
“You’re never a buzzkill.”
“It’s sweet when you lie to me,” she says, her smile growing.
“Fine, you were a bit of a buzzkill.” I laugh, and she reaches out to poke my dimple. “But only because I was worried about you. What happened?”
Quinn chews on her lip. “Inez wasn’t visiting a friend today. She was meeting with Leonardo da Vinci.”
I suck in a breath through my teeth. “Is it safe to assume you mean the school and not that one of the greatest minds of all time has been reanimated?”
Quinn laughs and flops onto her back, the first full smile I’ve seen all day stretching her mouth wide. “You’re the worst.”
“Thank you,” I say, and she turns back to me, the smile fading to something softer. “Was she meeting about a job?”
Quinn nods. “She’s tired of all the tension on campus and is considering other options.”
I watch Quinn closely, the way she constantly rolls her lips together like she’s actively fighting whatever words are trying to escape and how her gaze looks past me to the little window like she can’t handle sustained eye contact or risk breaking.
“And you’re scared about what happens if she takes it?”
She blinks quickly. “Of course I am. We’ve been together for a decade. First in graduate school, and then both starting at Billings right after graduation.”
“The nice thing about living in the twenty-first century is we’ve got great technology.”
“I know, but what if we lose touch with her across an ocean?”
“You didn’t lose touch with me,” I say.
Her eyes snap back to mine. “Yeah, but you’re you.”
A warmth unfurls in my chest. I’ve always been happy that Quinn found Inez, but there’s a little part of me that will always feel a bit jealous that she has someone else who fills a similar role to me.
Hearing that I’m different is a confirmation that she feels all the same big emotions that have always swirled around our friendship.
“Why am I any different?” I ask, partially to challenge the belief that she’d lose Inez and partially because I want to hear it.
She shrugs and starts tracing the pattern of the quilt between us. “I don’t know. You just are. You’re my person.”
I reach out to capture her hand, twining our fingers together, fighting off the urge to pull her closer and wrap my arms around her.
“Do you know why I kept in touch with you all those years? Why I planned dinners and travel and dates around our call schedule?” I ask, and she shakes her head, her beautiful brown eyes wide.
“Because you’re more than my best friend.
You’re light and joy, mixed up with just enough sarcasm to keep it interesting.
You believe in your people and fight for them, and you love with everything you are.
Inez knows this just as much as I do, and if she does leave Boston, she’ll fight for your friendship just like I did.
Once someone’s been on the receiving end of your love, it’s impossible to walk away. ”
“More people I’ve loved have left than stayed,” she whispers. She’s crying softly, and I reached out to wipe a tear away.
I hate her family. Hate that they made her question the people who do love her. “I think we can both agree that Inez has more quality in her pinky finger then the whole Riley clan combined.”
Quinn laughs through the tears, and I move close enough to press a hard kiss to her forehead before settling back on my own pillow.
She turns her face slightly into the pillow. “I love you.”
Quinn has told me she loves me hundreds of times over our friendship. It doesn’t matter that it isn’t new, my heart still shoots around my chest. “I love you, too.”
“I’m just going to close my eyes for a minute,” she says, her body relaxing into the mattress.
I chuckle. “Sure, Chaos.”
When I open my eyes in the morning, she’s still there, my hand clutched in hers like she couldn’t bring herself to let go even in sleep.