Rent a Mob Boss (Renting Love #5)

1. Quinn

QUINN

There aren’t many things in my apartment that work the way they’re supposed to, but my phone is one of them.

It buzzes across the counter like it’s trying to escape. Honestly, same. I’m standing in front of the world’s saddest toaster, waiting on a bagel that’s been in there long enough to file for citizenship. The word Mom lights up the screen.

This can’t be good. If she wanted to tell me something normal, she would’ve texted.

One of those messages with the weird capitalization and a random emoji at the end that has nothing to do with the message itself.

Sometimes when she texts, it’s like she’s picking up halfway through a conversation we’re not actually having, and I’ve been turned into Indiana Jones or something.

Like I’m trying to translate ancient hieroglyphics.

But a phone call? That’s an event. Either somebody died, somebody got engaged… or I’m about to hear something I’m not going to like.

I already know which one it is. My sister got engaged three months ago, and ever since, my entire family has been treating it like a second moon landing. I answer because I’m weak, and I know this will only escalate if I let the call go to voicemail. “Hi, Mom.”

“Quinn! Sweetheart. Were you sleeping?”

“It’s eight in the morning.”

“You’re in college. That’s practically dawn.”

I put her on speaker and set the phone on the counter so I can rescue the bagel. It looks like it spent too long in a tanning bed. “I have class starting at eight on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I work every other day. So… not too much sleeping in around here.”

“I know, I know.” She says it the way she always does. Like my job is a phase I’ll grow out of. “Listen. I’m calling you about the party.”

And there it is. My stomach does a slow, ugly roll. “Party?”

“Quinn!”

Like I insulted her or something. “You know I’m kidding.”

“Alyssa and Grant’s engagement party is next Saturday at the Whitmore.” She pauses, and I swear I can hear the disapproval in that pause. “It’s six o’clock, cocktail attire. Which means you cannot wear the black dress you wore to Nana’s birthday.”

“That’s a nice dress,” I remind her.

“It’s a funeral dress.”

“So, it’s versatile.”

“Six o’clock,” she repeats. “Your dad wants everyone there by five-thirty for pictures, so let’s say five-fifteen. We both know you’ll be late otherwise.”

Gotta love the faith she has in me.

I lower my head against the counter and close my eyes, barely holding back a sigh.

Next Saturday. Eight days until I have to stand under the chandelier in a room full of my parents’ friends and pretend I’m a fully realized adult person.

Meanwhile, my sister will glow in the middle of it like she was assembled in a lab just for this moment.

That part, I could survive. It’s annoying, but I can deal with annoying.

“Is Dad inviting the Whitakers?” I ask, because that part? That part wouldn’t be so easy to handle.

There’s the tiniest pause on the other end. She’s a terrible liar—and worse, she knows it. That’s why she doesn’t bother trying. “Well, Ted is his business partner, sweetheart. Not to mention his best friend. Of course they’ll be there.”

“All of them?”

“Quinn.”

“I’m only asking who’s on the list. It’s a normal question. People ask questions like that all the time.”

“Aaron will be there,” she says. “With his parents and his brother. I want you to know that if you’d like me to seat you on the other side of the room, I will absolutely do that, and it will look like an accident.”

The horrible thing is she means it. My mom would commit low-grade seating fraud for me. “It’s fine,” I decide.

“It’s not fine.”

“It’s fine, Mom. We dated for, like, four months. A year ago. I’m over it.”

And I am. That’s the part nobody believes when I say it, because there’s a script for this, and my line is supposed to be that I’m still hurting.

I’m not. It took me maybe eleven minutes to get over Aaron Whitaker after I found out he was sleeping with the girl from his office, and that was that.

I went from crying to furious in eleven minutes.

I’m not sad about Aaron. I’m not even angry about Aaron, most days.

But I am humiliated, and that’s a totally different animal.

Sadness fades, but humiliation just sort of hangs around.

It sits in your chest with its hands folded, very patient, and waits for a time like this when you’re going to be in a room with a bunch of people who are, of course, going to compare you to your sister and all of her success.

Aaron didn’t just cheat, which I could’ve handled.

No, he sat across from me at a coffee shop, looking like he was the injured party and explained to me that this was really a communication issue.

That a man has needs. That if I hadn’t been so hung up on waiting, he never would’ve had to go looking.

He said it like that. Like he had to. Like I sent him out to cheat on me.

And then, because the universe has a sense of humor, he told his friends first. So by the time I understood what had happened, half of my parents’ social circle already knew there was something frigid about the Thomas girl.

“Sweetheart?” Mom says. “Are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“So…” Here we go. Because that wasn’t enough. I can hear her building up to something. “I’m doing the final headcount for the caterer, and I need to ask a question, and I want you to know there is no wrong answer.”

“That might be the most terrifying thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Will you be bringing a plus one?”

And there we have it, folks. The actual reason for her call.

I stare out the window over my sink. The view is a parking lot and a dumpster.

It’s not exactly what I need to look at while I imagine walking into the Whitmore, much less alone.

Alone in the funeral dress. Past the ice sculpture, because of course there’s going to be an ice sculpture.

Past Aaron and his date, because he will absolutely be bringing someone with him.

I see it so clearly, it’s like I’m looking at a memory.

My aunts tilting their heads. Somebody asking in front of everyone whether I’m seeing anybody.

When they find out I’m not, they’ll say oh, that’s fine, you’re so young in the tone people usually save for people with a terminal diagnosis.

And the whole time, Aaron will be standing across the room with his hand on some other girl’s lower back.

He’ll catch my eye and give me the sad little nod.

The one that says no hard feelings—even though I should be the one giving him that. I’m the wronged party.

Eight days until this entire joke takes place.

“Can I call you back?” I ask, instead of answering either way.

“Quinn—”

“I have to get to work, and I want to think about it. I’ll call you back tonight. I promise.”

“You had better,” she warns. “The caterer needs the number.”

“I swear.”

“All right. I love you. Wear something that isn’t black.” She hangs up before I can argue anymore about the dress.

All I can do is stand for a second in my dead-quiet kitchen, staring down at a bagel that’s probably inedible.

Forget it. I toss the bagel in the trash, glare at the toaster I really need to replace, then go get dressed.

There’s exactly one part of my day that doesn’t make me want to lie down on the floor, and I don’t want to be late for it.

Ilike my job more than I like most people.

Everybody at school figures it’s just a placeholder.

Something I’m doing until I find the real thing I want to do.

Even my friends call it babysitting, which is like calling a surgeon somebody who’s good with knives.

Mom refers to it exclusively as your little job.

She doesn’t exactly pat me on the head when she says it, but somehow, I still feel the pressure of her hand.

The second I turn out of my complex, something loosens in me.

My heart doesn’t just beat because it has to keep me alive.

It picks up because I’m looking forward to something now.

Every single day, I take this twenty-five minutes of highway, then the exit.

Somewhere in there, the road stops having sidewalks. Then the road stops having neighbors.

The houses out here get farther apart until they stop pretending to be houses. Stone walls. Long driveways that curve so you can’t see the end of them. Trees that were planted a hundred years ago by people who knew they’d never see them grow tall.

Then there’s the Moretti place. It’s not a house.

It’s a compound. I still haven’t come up with a better word for it.

There’s a stone wall around the whole property.

It runs along the road for probably about a quarter of a mile before it turns and disappears into the trees.

There’s a gate of black iron, with a guardhouse and everything.

It’s always staffed, too, by a person sitting on a chair, wearing an earpiece.

Today it’s Marco. He lifts a hand when he sees my car pull up. “Morning, Miss Thomas.”

“You could just say Quinn,” I remind him. “It’s been like six months.”

“Morning, Miss Thomas,” he says again, and the gate rolls open. Okay, then.

I’m pretty sure the driveway is longer than the road I grew up on.

It starts as gravel, but turns to paving stones, curving up through the lawn past the fountain I have never once seen a leaf float in.

There are cameras on the light posts. Two more sit at the front door.

There’s another over the garage, too. A guy named Paul walks the east side of the property in the morning with a dog named Buttercup.

I don’t know if the name was meant to be ironic or not, since Buttercup is around the size of a loveseat.