Chapter 29
EVERETT
Quinn twirls, sending tulle billowing around her.
I admire her smile through the elongated mirror bolted to the closet door.
We spent the last hour raiding every drawer and shelf in this house to pull together a decent tablescape—the one thing Summer put us in charge of for the evening—before heading upstairs to change.
“You look like a princess,” I tell her.
“I wuv it!” she exclaims, brushing her hands down the sparkly pink bodice and patting them on the skirt of her dress.
“And how do I look?” I stand from bended knee, straightening the braided leather around my neck. Dark denim, boots, and a sport coat were the best I could pull together from the wardrobe I brought home with me.
“Dood!” Quinn clasps her hands in front of her chest and jumps up and down.
“Good, huh?” I swoop her up, spinning her in my arms.
Let’s hope Summer thinks so too.
I admit, I’m nervous. I haven’t felt this jittery for a date in a long time.
I can’t separate how much of those feelings are a result of knowing I get to see Summer in that little black dress again or the conversation we need to have later this evening.
She knows that I have two days left here before things will change.
We haven’t talked about what that means for us yet.
“Ready for dinner?”
“Weh-ee!” Quinn replies.
I can’t pass the guest bedroom anymore without a giddy feeling taking over my stomach. It’s become my favorite room in this house, and I hate knowing it will sit empty soon.
Quinn bounds down the stairs in front of me.
Excited is an understatement. Whenever I imagined taking Summer on our first date, I pictured us at a five-star restaurant on a rooftop terrace, alone.
Seeing Quinn light up over an invitation to a fancy dinner at home with the two of us replaced that vision with a better one.
Knowing it was Summer’s idea to include my daughter solidified the question I plan to ask her after Quinn goes to bed.
“Hey, Google, play ‘Today’s Top Hits’ on Spotify.” The device on the windowsill repeats my request, and music streams through the speaker. With the table set, I don’t know what else to do to keep busy. Every nerve in my body is a live wire, anticipating Summer’s entrance with rapt attention.
“Summa, wook!” Quinn capitalizes on her arrival with a pirouette.
The moment she’s visible through the opening to the living room, I can’t take my eyes off her. The last time she put on that dress, she was thinking of someone else. Tonight she’s wearing it for me.
“You look so beautiful!” Summer gasps, holding Quinn’s hand to help her twirl a second time.
“Fank you. I wuv yuh dess.” Quinn swishes her palm over the tight black fabric stretched across Summer’s stomach.
Fuck, I love your dress too. Now I’m secretly wishing this was the first date I had envisioned for us. It’s going to be impossible to remain a gentleman while Quinn is around.
“Thank you!” Summer giggles.
“Tum see! Tum see!” Quinn drags her by the hand toward the table where I’m standing—and still staring—waiting for them. When our eyes meet, we share a heated look that’s nothing like a first date glance. Maybe because the comfortability feels nothing like a first anything with her.
“Wook!” Quinn exclaims, holding up a gold fork we found in my grandmother’s china collection.
“Pretty!” Summer’s attention bounces from me to the silverware, back to me, and then to the corner of the pale-blue tablecloth that Quinn’s now waving around.
“I love it all! You’ve outdone yourselves.” An orange ember glows in her eyes as she praises our candlestick centerpiece. “Now, who’s ready for their cooking lesson?”
Quinn jumps up and down with her hand raised. “Me!”
Summer skirts past me for the Target bag on the island. She parachutes the plastic as a resealable pouch lands with a plop on the countertop. “In case you ever run out of cereal.”
Quinn squeals at the sight of the Krusteaz label.
“Finally. Someone with good taste in pancake brands.” As a middle-aged man, I should probably feel embarrassed that she thinks I need to learn how to make them, but all I feel is appreciation.
The only mornings Quinn has had hot breakfast, Summer made it.
There’s a chance it will all be up to me again soon.
I try not to think about that as I slip off my sport coat and roll up the sleeves of my dress shirt. “Where do we start?”
Summer rips open the seal and glances behind me with an entertained smirk.
“With that.” She points to a yellow bowl being carried by the teeth of my resourceful toddler.
Quinn’s scooting a stool with both hands across the hardwood floor at the same time.
We jump apart before she can ram it into one of our ankles, and then she climbs on top of it and dumps her contribution on the counter. “Hew ya doe.”
“Never a dull moment around here,” I say.
Neither is ten seconds later when Quinn knocks over the bag of mix, coating her hair. Flour-like powder wafts through the air and settles against her scalp like dandruff.
“I can’t take you anywhere.”
“Sowee.”
“Here.” Summer releases the clasp on her barrette, sending long golden waves tumbling down her back. She gathers Quinn’s curls in a fist, twists them up, and fastens them in her sparkly clip. “There. All better.”
“I see?” Quinn feels for the barrette.
I pull out my phone and capture a picture of her new updo.
A gasp flees her mouth when I show her the screen.
“I want you to have it,” Summer says and a sudden grunt punches from her lungs as Quinn launches at her waist.
“I think she loves it,” Summer whispers to me.
“I think she loves you,” I whisper back, fighting the urge not to say those same words for myself.
Somewhere in the last week I’ve been teetering on a ledge I never thought I’d get close to again.
Wondering if I let myself fall, whether I’d fly or die.
I don’t get to wonder right now when I startle from her gasp.
The intimacy of the moment snaps as the music jumps five notches with her command.
The chorus of “Pink Pony Club” by Chappell Roan belts from the speaker, and Summer drags Quinn by the hand to the middle of the room.
I lean against the counter, taking in the entertaining view of shaking hips as Quinn flips around and shows off something closely resembling a twerk.
“Did she learn that from you?” Summer tips her head back with her laugh, and I snap another picture. I want to remember this moment when I’m missing home on tour.
“How do I know she hasn’t learned that from you? You’re the one spending the most time with her.”
“Maybe she has.” Summer toes me in the shin and feeds me a smile. Then she’s grabbing me by my bolo tie and pulling me into the middle of the kitchen with them. “Now, come dance with us.”
It’s close to eight o’clock by the time I get Quinn to bed.
After pancakes for dinner, a dance party, and a bath, reading books was no longer part of our date.
She let out a happy little sigh right before passing out on my shoulder as I carried her upstairs.
There was a time not long ago when I hoped for a moment like that.
A connection with her like her mom had. Now that I do, I can’t imagine leaving her.
“You look incredible tonight,” I whisper as I sit beside Summer lounging next to the fireplace and press a kiss to her bare shoulder.
Her fingers slip down the corded leather around my neck and clutch the metal clasp. “You look pretty good yourself.”
“Good enough for a first date kiss?”
“I think I can make an exception.” She tugs me closer and presses her lips to mine.
The hesitancy that once lingered between us is gone now, replaced with urgency whenever we’re alone.
A promise to sink into each other’s touch.
A sign that I need to pull back if I still want to get this off my chest.
I tip my forehead against hers. “Wait, I need to talk to you about Quinn.”
When I pull back, she’s cataloguing my body language. Trying to guess what I’m about to say even before I do.
“I’m scared to leave her. She’s been through so much change in the last nine months. I don’t want to upend her routine. I don’t want her to feel alone.”
“Quinn’s strong. She’ll be okay. And she won’t be alone. She’ll have Caroline, right?”
“I want her to have you. To wake up to you like she’s used to. Will you stay with her while I’m gone? At least until Sunday after Caroline’s bunco?”
I can tell by the look on her face she imagined tomorrow to be her last day with us. She didn’t expect this. Maybe she didn’t want it either when the first word out of her mouth isn’t yes.
“I don’t know if I’m the best choi—”
“I trust you,” I cut her off. If this is about what she said at the school earlier, I’m not worried about her failing to show up.
She may have walked away from obligations in her past, but she hasn’t once done that with us.
Summer stays for the people she cares about.
She’ll stay for Quinn because she loves her.
I saw it in her eyes when she gave away her barrette tonight.
It takes a minute for the crease between her eyebrows to soften. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” she says.
A rush of relief follows her answer. Okay. Now for the hard part of the conversation. I reach for her hands, as if touching her will make this easier to get out.
“Summer… when I get back we’re—”
“I know.” She forces a weak smile. “It was always the plan, right? Five weeks and then move back to Nashville?”
“Yes, but—”
“You don’t need to worry about me. I’m going to be fine.”
After struggling to trust herself, I should be proud of her confidence.
Instead, it stings to hear her sound so sure of herself.
It reiterates my worst fear where she’s concerned: I need her more than she needs me.
Vulnerability is still so new to me, but I won’t hold back if it means I might lose her.