Five #2
“The board wants to sell The Wild Rue.” A familiar throb pulses in her left temple, a telltale sign of an oncoming migraine.
“Heartbeat Care, an established anti-choice organization, wants to buy it and turn it into a crisis pregnancy center, which is gross on an entirely different level. But unless I find a way to raise a lot of money by May, we’ll have to close. ”
Wes regards her, his mouth pulled down at the corners. “Rogers, that’s…” He puffs out a breath. “That sucks. I’m sorry.”
Surprise ripples through her at his genuine concern. “Thank you,” she says quietly.
“I know how much that place means to you.”
Charlie presses her lips together, ignoring the faint thrill at his words. At him knowing something she cares about so deeply.
“It’s not just me, Quinn.” She rests her cheek on her palm, maintaining steady pressure on her temple, hoping to ease the ache. “We provide important, necessary care to hundreds of people. Care they often can’t get anywhere else because of cost or lack of resources or…”
Jessie’s face flashes through her mind, her bright smile and her confession about feeling human at the clinic sending another spike of frustration through her.
Dozens of other familiar faces pass through her memory in a blur, patients she’s come to know as more than just a list of medical procedures.
She looks at Wes. “Or prejudice. It’s cruel to shut it down.”
He taps his fingers on the table. “Why do you have to fix it?”
“Because I offered.”
He puffs out a laugh. “Of course you did. On top of your already overflowing schedule.”
Charlie straightens, bristling. “I already took the LSAT, and I’m taking a year off before applying to law school, so why not? It’s not like I have anything left to lose.”
The moment she says it, she realizes it’s true. She has nothing to lose by trying to save The Wild Rue. She has to.
Wes raises a brow. “Right.” A slow smile spreads across his face. “And what did you score?”
Charlie holds his gaze, counting to five in her head, and then finally surrenders.
“One seventy-eight.”
His grin slips, his eyes widening, and her satisfaction at rendering him mute makes telling him worth it.
Running a hand down his face, he starts laughing.
Charlie frowns. “I’m not sure what’s so—”
“Christ,” he says, and her heart patters at the fondness in his tone, his breathtaking grin. “You never do anything by halves, do you?”
Ignoring his remark and how irritatingly attractive he is even when he’s being the biggest pain in her ass, she opens her laptop again, a clear indication that this conversation is over.
“Well, now you know. So if you’ll please leave—”
“Oh, Rogers.” He shakes his head. “We haven’t even gotten started.”
She suppresses a shiver at the way he says her name, the way he’s always said it when he knows she’s being stubborn. “Quinn, I swear to god—”
“I need help.”
“You’re just figuring that out now?”
He makes a face. “Hilarious. I need help with the LSAT.”
“Great.” She starts typing random words in the hopes that he’ll take the hint that she has better things to do than listen to his problems. “Have Daddy pay for a tutor.”
“Keep saying it like that, and I’m going to suspect you have a daddy kink—”
“Fuck off, Quinn.”
“I want you to tutor me.”
She freezes, blinking at her screen. That is not what she expected him to say.
“Why?”
He leans forward on his elbows. “I’d have thought that was obvious. You’re top of the class, you got an outrageous score, and we used to be friends.”
“Don’t play that card,” she snaps.
He scoffs. “Fine. I still stand by the first two.”
“I don’t understand why you want me,” she continues. “Just hire someone to tutor you.”
He tilts his head, considering. “Is that what it will take? Do you want me to pay you?”
Charlie’s stomach roils, and she scowls. “Absolutely not. As you just said, I have an overflowing schedule. Why would I add tutoring you?”
He grins, and the familiar dimple appears in his left cheek.
She hates that dimple.
“Because I’m outrageously sexy and charismatic?”
She huffs out a laugh, ignoring the fizz on her skin at his overt flirtatiousness. “God, you’re fucking something, that’s for sure. Just study hard, and I’m sure you’ll do perfectly fine. I doubt you need that high of a score with Daddy helping you get in—”
“Rogers,” he presses. His expression turns serious, and she’s struck momentarily mute by the intensity in his gaze. “Come on—”
“I said no, Quinn. Final answer.”
His mouth falls open in surprise at the ferocity of her words. Frankly, she’s surprised herself, too, but she can’t admit that the real reason she refuses to tutor him is that she can’t be around him for a prolonged period of time.
She promised herself three years ago she wouldn’t do that ever again.
The fact is, Wesley Quinn is a distraction.
A clever, interesting, attractive distraction.
Charlie knows with absolute certainty that if she spends time with him, she will inevitably remember how funny and intelligent he is, and then she will become preoccupied with how his mouth moves and how he gesticulates with his hands, and she will once again imagine what those hands would feel like on her skin, what his mouth would feel like on her body.
Charlie has not excised all her feelings for Wesley Quinn only to be distracted yet again by this boy whom she once unknowingly gave the power to break her heart.
She refuses to put herself through that again.
Wes opens his mouth, about to argue, but his cell phone rings. Tugging it out of a front pocket in his bag, he lifts it to his ear. His gaze remains fixed on Charlie.
“Yeah.” A beat passes as he listens. He closes his eyes, releasing a heavy sigh of resignation. “Shit, sorry. I’ll be right there. Just—yeah.” He scowls. “I know I need to make you a key, but you’re fucking early for the first time ever, and I’m in the middle of something. Just—just hold on.”
He hangs up, glaring at his phone like it has personally wronged him.
“Hot date?” Charlie mutters.
“Theo, actually.” He meets her eye. “Fox. He’s visiting from New York, and he’s early. He’s never early.”
Charlie nods, but she couldn’t care less about Theo Fox, an attractive social media influencer, occasional TV and film actor, and part-time model who hosts a popular weekly dating and relationship podcast called Male Perspective. Like the world needs another man’s take on sex and dating.
He also happens to be Wes’s friend.
Charlie hates that she knows these details, gleaned from spending time with him in the past.
She returns her attention to her laptop. “He here to hide out after the fallout from his manosphere comment?”
Wes scoffs. “He was trying to make a joke.”
“Ah, yes. Everyone loves a joke about women only being able to orgasm with a man.”
“It came out wrong.”
Charlie looks at him, deadpan. “Sure it did.”
“He’s not a woman-hating incel.”
“I never said he was,” she replies.
“But you implied it.” He gestures to her. “With your face.”
She shoots him a glare. “Weren’t you leaving?”
Wes sighs, pushing himself to his feet. When he doesn’t leave, Charlie glances at him. He watches her, unsmiling, a wrinkle between his brows.
“Something to share with the class?” she drawls.
“Are you ever going to tell me the real reason why you told Hudson we slept together?”