Chapter 7
Liv
Now
Liv wished she could skip the keynote, if she was being honest. She’d had a restless night, and they’d picked her last choice of their options.
He wasn’t bad, per se. As a tech guy, he fit in with the conference theme, Innovation Through Excellence, which her father had chosen to encourage his teams to embrace an entrepreneurial spirit while maintaining the company’s high standards. Still, his delivery was a bit cheesy.
Of course, it was possible that maybe Liv just wasn’t in the right headspace to listen to his ra ra speech…
She was plainly aware that somewhere in this room was Quinn.
There weren’t many sessions that the speakers were required to be at, but attending the keynote was part of the contract, so this was among the few times she would know for certain that they were in the same room: the speakers and sponsors dinner, the keynote, and, of course, the workshop Quinn was leading, though she could admit it may be best to skip that last one.
She just didn’t want to, was the thing.
Liv knew that seeing Quinn again after all this time was going to bring up a lot of feelings, but one of the most consistent thoughts running through her mind was how much Liv missed her friendship .
Because Quinn was a kind person. She didn’t even wait until the next day to apologize for hurting her feelings, and that was after ten years of not talking, after everything that had gone down between them .
And okay, maybe it wasn’t fair for her to be shocked that Quinn thought she was married. Because she had been . But it was complicated, and how in the world would Quinn know that?
She had followed the exact plan, to a T. Less than six months after graduation, she was working at J I don’t even remember the last time I saw him. We separated like…eight years ago.”
Liv could tell that Quinn’s mind was reeling. She wanted to talk to her more, truly she did, and she wanted to do a whole lot more than talk, but the next session was starting in ten minutes, and Liv had committed to being there.
“I don’t have time to give you all the nitty-gritty details right now,” Liv told her. “But maybe we could get coffee sometime this week?
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Quinn said, sounding far away. After a second, she seemed to snap back into her body. “I need to focus on work this week. Mel very specifically asked me to get my head out of my ass.”
Quinn flinched at her own words, as if she couldn’t believe that she had actually said that out loud.
“If you find some time,” Liv replied sadly. “I’ve missed you.”
“Yeah. I’ve missed you, too.”
That was all Quinn said before she walked away again. Liv stood there, allowing herself to spiral for just a few seconds, hating how her traitorous mind flashed back to the terrible presentation. Well, at least now she had a practical idea of how fast failure worked in her real life.