11. Clear Moon
Clear Moon
A s the girls and I posted our best selfies, there was a knock on the bedroom door. I answered it to find Quinn leaning against the wall, that heart-stopping smirk ablaze on her face.
“Are you all ready there, sweetness?”
“Yep! We were just taking some pictures of our outfits.”
“Oh? Any you immediately moved to a hidden folder for me to see?” Quinn winked.
I shook my head, chuckling. “Do you ever stop flirting?”
“With you?” Quinn turned that freaking smolder of hers to the max. “Never.”
I felt my face heat, and I think Quinn noticed my blush underneath my makeup somehow because her smirk grew to display her perfect white teeth.
I really wasn’t going to make it away from this woman alive .
Quinn’s eyes flickered above my head with her eyebrow raised. I turned around to see what she was seeing, and I just caught Simone and Maisie before they peaked back into the bathroom. I could hear their fit of giggles from here. I shook my head, but I couldn’t stop smiling.
“The boys are ready in the car, and Nat is almost ready. So, I figured I would come up to personally get you three.”
“Oh, cool! Let me and the girls put our shoes on! Are we going to have to take separate cars?”
Quinn gave me a look. “Did you forget we are rich and can order custom-built cars that fit all of us?”
I chuckled. “Just seeing if we need to bring our bags or if we are going to come back?—”
“Sorry, Quinn!” Simone came out of the bathroom now in some Converses with a light sweater she stole from my closet tied around her waist. “Byrdie is a planner and is allergic to spontaneity.”
“Hey! I am not! I just like to know what’s going on so I can act accordingly.”
“Yeah, Simone, you slightly missed the mark.” Maisie came out, now with both hers and Simone’s bags floating magically behind her. “Byrd is less someone who hates surprises and more like a Soccer Mom who likes to know where her kids are and where they are headed next so she can have snacks and juice boxes prepared in advance.”
“You did not just call me a Soccer Mom.”
“You do have a Soccer Mom Car,” Maise shrugged.
“For the last time, it’s an off-roading SUV !”
“Yeah, but you keep fruit snacks and cracker sandwiches in the backseat, babe,” Simone pointed out.
“I came here to have a good time, and I feel so attacked right now,” I said, shaking my head before turning to Quinn, who was trying and failing to stifle her laughter.
She cleared her throat to fix her face. She still failed. “You can leave your bags here. I will have someone put it in your car. We will go get some brunch, come back here so you girls can get Byrd’s SUV , and you all head back home.”
“We love a plan of action! Now, let’s go, ladies,” I said.
“Sure thing, mother .”
I popped Maisie on her arm as she and Simone walked out. I went to follow, with Quinn behind me. As we went down the stairs, Quinn whispered into my ear, my body hyper-aware of the warmth of her proximity, “Personally, I love a girl who stays ready for anything.”
I gripped the railing to avoid falling as I missed a stair.
Out the front doors, we found a huge sage green Chevy Suburban parked with the triplets already in the third row backseat. Showing her manners, Quinn opened the back door so that Simone and Maisie could get into the second row seat. I was about to join them when Quinn stopped me and motioned to the front passenger seat. I smiled.
There was something about seeing her opening doors for me and in the driver’s seat of such a big vehicle that definitely did things for me.
We weren’t waiting long before Nat opened the door and got into the backseat. She wore ankle boots, jeans, and a fancy sweater and sunglasses that screamed designer. Her hair was in a ponytail but was curled to perfection, along with her bangs. While I knew the smell of the Fenty makeup on her face, her perfume smelled too posh for me to identify. Her whole vibe just screamed celebrity until you got to what was in her hand, along with the Hermes purse at her elbow.
“It is eleven o’clock in the morning, after you just spent the night drinking hard liquor, and you have a White Claw in your hand. Is this a cry for help?” Quinn asked, staring at her through the rearview mirror.
Nat took a sip from the can before flipping off her cousin. “Bite me. I already know that Cody has a flask. I’m just classy about my alcoholism and prefer to do it in the car on the way there rather than in public.”
“You both truly bring honor to this family,” Cooper said in his monotone voice.
Quinn pulled around the circular driveway and we set off toward the restaurant. Before we even got off the property, Cody and Nat started arguing over what music to play, with Nat wanting Nicki Minaj radio and Cody wanting Fall Out Boy. When they started cursing each other out, Quinn wordlessly played a playlist of her own. Once she turned up the volume, we all started singing along to “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X. I thought she was going to return her hand to the steering wheel. But instead, Quinn reached over and rested her hand on my knee—the one with the ripped hole in it—so her ring and pinkie finger were resting on the exposed skin and her middle finger toyed with the frayed denim. I immediately stopped singing as I felt that same electricity I always did course through my body at her warm, rough hand touching me. My breath caught in my throat, while my knee lifted up toward her hand all on its own. I glanced over at her, and she winked at me with that heated gaze of hers. Then she squeezed my knee.
That something shifted in my chest all of a sudden at this incredibly simple gesture.
Brydgette Fallon Pierce, you need to stay fucking strong, bitch. Remember your promise. She can hurt you. You just met this girl. You always fall too hard and too fast with the idea and then have to grieve what could have been. Don’t do that. I heard the chanting in my head like a siren at the highest possible volume. It should have been all I heard.
And yet, that hand on my knee like that …
The drive to the restaurant was shortish, being less than fifteen minutes away, but somehow it felt longer. Especially as I put my hand over hers, the warmth seeping into my hand and knee. I didn’t want to admit how much I liked it.
Soon, Quinn pulled into a space in front of a long old-timey silver building shining in the morning sunlight. The neon light strips around the building and the sign for Marie’s Diner let me know how it shined at night, too. The building looked like something out of the fifties, but the smell told me I was going to immediately fall in love with this place. Quinn came around the Suburban to open my door and take my hand.
Entering, a bell chimed over the glass door. The inside of the restaurant, oddly, was more like an old Italian family-style restaurant rather than a diner. There was a long Formica counter in front of us with red vinyl barstools and a display case of desserts at the far end, but those were the only things that would make someone think this was a diner. The matching red vinyl booths against the walls and windows had backs scalloped like clams. Dingy stained glass chandeliers hung over each booth, and the ceiling was detailed with swirls that screamed eighties and nineties. The restaurant smelled like sweet desserts and greasy savory goodness, the perfect hangover cure joint.
“Oh, hey, you crazy kids. I knew y’all were on your way in soon,” a older lady behind the hostess stand with penciled eyebrows greeted. “Y’all want your usual spot? The girls should be able to still fit, and I already have it set up.”
“Yes, ma’am, Mrs. Debbie,” Quinn confirmed.
Mrs. Debbie grunted before grabbing three additional menus and silverware. Quinn squeezed my hand and led us to follow behind her.
Mrs. Debbie stopped in front of a half-circle booth encircling a large table. There were already five menus with five wrapped bundles of silverware next to them. The hostess moved the settings around to fit the three additional ones. As she leaned away, I could tell immediately that it was going to be a tight fit. I raised my eyebrows.
“Your server will be over in a bit, kids.” Mrs. Debbie returned to her stand.
Cody practically leaped into the middle of the booth, patting the place next to him for Maisie to join him. She rolled her eyes but squished beside him. Simone went in next to Maisie, with Cole close by. Cooper went to sit on the other side of Cody, and Nat finished out the end of the left side. Quinn led us to the right side where she went in beside Cole and pulled me in next to her.
My guess was very right. It was ridiculously tight in the booth, and I was practically sitting in Quinn’s lap to stay in the seat, the booth’s vinyl unforgiving to my plus-size curves, thick thighs, and hefty hips along with Quinn’s thickly muscled frame. Quinn put her right arm behind me to rest her hand across her shoulders to give us a bit more space, something that Cole and Cody did as well for Simone and Maisie. But I still had to lean into Quinn, still had to be enveloped in sweet and smoky scent and her heat literally radiating off her body in hot waves even through all the layers of our clothes.
Something I both craved and wished I could avoid.
Gods, she smelled so good. I would pay over twenty dollars for a candle of her scent.
“Are you comfortable? I know there’s not a whole lot of room,” Quinn asked, turning toward me. Her face was just inches from mine, and I could smell her breath this close. Even her breath smelled amazing. Why was I supposed to put distance between us? Why did I need to slow this all down? Why couldn’t I just kiss her right here, right now? Why couldn’t I just be obsessed with these feelings, this woman, this… this ?
“Sweetness? Did you hear me?”
“I’m so sorry. What was that?” I realized I had actually been staring at her lips this whole time, remembering their coolness, feeling, and taste from earlier. I moved my eyes back to hers and found no reprieve as her stunning caramel brown watched me with a glint of something I couldn’t identify.
“Are you cozy enough?”
“Definitely,” I said without hesitation.
Quinn smiled warmly. “Good, I’m glad.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. What can I get you to drink?”
I turned and saw a young black girl with a patient smile. I had to blink a few times to remember that, yes, we’re indeed at a restaurant where people order drinks to sip and food to eat.
“O-oh, I-I will just have an o-orange juice, please.”
“Coming right up!” She left to get our drink orders, and I picked up the menu to actually figure out what I was going to order and ignore the warm, sexy body I was leaning against. The spiral-bound menu was as big as the table and eight pages long, front and back. There were three pages dedicated to breakfast alone. My Libraness was coming in strong, with my indecision at the wealth of options.
“What are you thinking?” Quinn whispered in my ear, her breath a light breeze against my locs.
I have no idea how I managed to summon any level of coherence. “I have no idea, honestly. I’m a little overwhelmed.”
“Are you a huge breakfast person?”
“It’s both the most important meal of the day and—more importantly—my literal favorite meal of the day.”
Quinn chuckled. “Well, I would suggest Marie’s Special. It gives you a little bit of everything to try. Her French Toast is stellar, and she makes the breakfast sausage in-house and gets the bacon fresh from the butcher every day. I can’t recommend it enough. Plus, you ordered the orange juice which is freshly squeezed, so with all of that, you will be golden.”
“That sounds perfect! I trust you!” I closed my menu. “You really seem to know this place. How long have y’all been coming here after your parties?”
“Probably since Cody started having these. We have been coming to Marie’s since we were little kids and moved here from Texas. So, maybe since I was like four or five? We come here so much, we got to meet Marie and her kids who run the place now. Marie still comes in sometimes, but her kids come to our parties from time to time, so I know all their secrets.”
“Wow, I love all of that.”
The waitress soon arrived with our drinks all hoisted on a tray. She gave everyone a cup of water. Then she placed a cup of orange juice in front of me and a Bloody Mary in front of Nat, dressed with a celery stalk and a skewer of olives and jalape?os on top. The waitress sat down a mug in front of Cooper, Cody, Maisie, Cole, and Quinn along with two carafes of hot coffee. She gave everyone a straw while giving me and Nat a second straw for our other drinks.
“All right! Does everyone know what they want to eat?”
After we all nodded, the waitress went around the booth and took our orders. When it got to me and Quinn, Quinn ordered hers and mine at once: two Marie’s Specials with French Toast and scrambled eggs with their three-cheese blend of monterey cheddar, gouda, and onion jack. She squeezed my shoulder using the hand draped there. Once we passed our menus to the waitress and she went to put our orders in, everyone opened their straws or started to fix their coffees. Quinn glanced over at me while she opened some creamer packets.
“I hope that was okay? That I ordered for you?” she asked, suddenly sheepish, with all her sexy dominance replaced by something sweeter and more gentle. It was a shift that made my heart squeeze.
“O-of course. You know this place, so I don’t mind at all. Besides, I kind of—” I shrugged with one shoulder, “—like it.”
Quinn’s smile was slow, but it was worth the wait.
“Q, look over at Cody, dude,” Cole whispered and tapped Quinn on her other shoulder to get her attention. Quinn and I both looked over at Cody as he poured whiskey from his flask into his coffee.
“Our family really needs therapy,” Cole said out loud for everyone to hear with a shake of his head before sipping his coffee. Cody raised his glass like he was about to give a toast before he took a sip of his own.
“Speaking of family, how are you all related? I know you are cousins, but how so?” Simone asked.
“Our moms are sisters. They have always been close, so they raised all of us like a commune, honestly,” Cole answered.
“Wait,” I questioned. “I thought the real estate business was a family business?”
“It is,” Quinn replied, sipping her coffee, but tensing beside me for some reason.
“But it’s run by your dad right now, right? Is it passed down through your mom’s side or your dad’s?”
“A bit of both, honestly. Both my mom’s and dad’s family have been in the ‘business’ for generations, but my mom’s business was bigger when they met and got married. So, my dad just brought his skills along, my mom’s business merged with his, and he ended up taking over the company.”
“So, why didn’t one of your moms take it over instead?” I asked.
“Oh, because as much as we loved Grandma Jane, she was a misogynist at heart who thought the business should be run by a ‘big strong man.’” Nat rolled her eyes before drinking from her Bloody Mary.
“Natassa,” Cooper said with a look before turning his uncomfortable stare on me, making me feel like bacteria in a microscope. “Our Grandmother had three daughters: our Aunt Tess, who is the oldest, Aunt Adrienne, who is Quinn’s mom, and our mom, Carol-Kay, the youngest. They all grew up in the business, worked in it, and continue working in it. Aunt Adrienne and our mother even married folks in the business, who were so good at it, our grandmother decided to pass the family business down to one of them, our Uncle Diego.”
“Wow, this is a lot for a real estate business,” Maisie noticed.
“It’s a multi- billion dollar family business that our ancestors brought over from their home countries that dates back generations . It’s not just a real estate business. Never has been. It’s our family ,” Cooper said, leveling Maisie with a gravity I wasn’t prepared for. I could see she was even taken aback. Who knew this was so serious?
I swallowed, trying to diffuse some of the tension. “So, uh, why your Uncle Diego? That’s Quinn’s dad, right? Why not yours or something?”
Cooper gave a sneer that made my stomach turn. “Grandma January died when all of us were young. Quinn remembers her the most, and she was six when she died. But when she died, my father had proven himself too ‘incompetent’ to run the business. So, Uncle Diego became the patriarch of the family, per her will. Now, Quinn is next in line to take over the business.”
Quinn loudly set her mug down a little too hard, causing me to look at her. Her golden hazel eyes were molten as she glared at Cooper. Her jaw was set with a sternness to it that gave her features a harder edge. Her body was coiled taut, like a predator ready to pounce and rip its prey’s throat out.
Quinn matched Cooper’s unnerving stare tit for tat, some kind of wordless dispute happening between them like a protagonist and antagonist in a Shonen anime. The table fell into a painful silence as these two held their unspoken battle. Maisie and Simone looked between the pair, just as shocked and confused as me. Cole’s lips were pursed and set into a line. Nat and Cody sipped their drinks, very much trying to disassociate from what was happening in front of them.
I reached my hand up to lace my fingers with Quinn’s hand resting on my shoulder. There was another jolt of electricity, albeit softer like a light caress. But it was enough to make Quinn blink and relax a little. I squeezed my fingers around hers. Finally, Quinn turned her eyes to me. Immediately, the fire there cooled as she looked at me.
Oh. I liked this power.
I cleared my throat. “I’m so sorry to hear about your dad dying and about y’all’s grandmother. Even if one was long before you. How old were you when you lost your dad?”
Cooper’s eyes were calculating again as he glanced between me, Quinn, and our interlaced fingers. Eventually, his eyes locked with mine, and he strained to answer my question. “I was eleven when my father was murdered by a monster .”
“Oh.” Gods, this man was fucking wild . Who just says shit like that? And in public ? Like not even a supernatural safe haven, but a human restaurant. Thankfully, he was vague enough with the “monster” comment that I only knew what he meant by his sneer and glance at Simone and Maisie. It was clearly targeted, though. I suddenly felt very, very awkward and uncomfortable, which meant it was naturally time for me to have a case of word vomit.
“I’m really, really sorry to hear that happened to you. I empathize with you completely. I lost my mom and dad both when I was a teenager. They were both murdered, too. And they never found who did it. So, I know it’s not the same—trauma can never be fully compared or anything like that—but I know what it’s like to lose a parent violently. It’s… hard, ridiculously hard. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, even if I thought they absolutely deserved it.”
Quinn readjusted our hands to better grip them tighter and harder. She started, “B-Byrd, I’m so sorry. I could not imagine…”
The hard edge to Cooper’s ocean eyes softened at my words, too. “I’m sorry that you experienced that. No one should have to?—”
“Ugh! Okay, enough!” Cody shouted, slamming his cup down and pulling everyone’s attention onto him except for Nat, who just rolled her eyes and mumbled something about theatrics. Notably, he didn’t spill any coffee in his mug since it was empty. “Can we stop all this pity bullshit? This isn’t fun! It’s fucking lame.”
“Oh, my fucking god, Cody. You are so embarrassing,” Nat said.
“What? Cooper is the one who made this all sad and shit. I just want to have fun ! I don’t want to talk about sob stories and fucking work, of all things.”
“Gods, does everyone here hate working in real estate?” Maisie raised an eyebrow.
“Hate is a strong word,” Cole shrugged, sipping his coffee. “It does pay the bills and give us nice things.”
“Well, then, Cody, you want to have fun or whatever?” Maisie turned to him. “What did you have in mind?”