Chapter 9
Quinn
Now
Quinn was doing very well, if she did say so herself, not completely dismantling after her conversation with Liv that morning.
She’d gone to a breakout session in the morning and collected a handful of business cards.
Then, after grabbing sandwiches at a shop around the corner, she’d gone up to Mel’s room so that they could check in and track the leads she had so far.
She could do this. She could be professional, and she could not think about the fact that Liv, her Liv , was in this building, emphatically not married.
Quinn wasn’t going to spiral at all about that, about how Liv had looked at her with pouty lips and soft eyes and asked her to go to coffee.
Quinn wasn’t thinking about Liv telling her that she’d missed her, not at all.
It was fine. Quinn was here to work, and even if that hadn’t been the case, there were about a million reasons for them to not get pulled into each other’s orbit again, not the least of which was that, the last time, Quinn had been left a putrid shell of herself.
“Are you good?” Mel asked, as they tucked away the cards they’d received so far behind the ‘Monday’ tab of the holder they’d brought for this very purpose, the cards in order of how solid the lead felt. It was an entirely subjective system, but it worked for them.
“I’m fine,” Quinn assured her. “Head fully removed from ass. ”
Mel wasn’t going to accept that as the full answer. “What did she say this morning?”
Quinn shrugged. “I thought you wanted me to focus on work.”
“I do,” Mel assured, though it was clear her curiosity was getting the better of her. “I was just, you know. Wondering if she told you anything that might help us out?”
“Mmhmm,” Quinn replied, rolling her eyes, before remembering that Liv had said something important to their business. “Oh, actually. She specifically said that we should meet her dad. Said he’s seen our video, and he’s a fan.”
“I get it, I’m so charismatic,” Mel responded, glowing with confidence. “What else did she say?”
Quinn’s eyes dropped. She didn’t want to talk about it, but she was a messy mix of confused and excited, and it was probably a good idea to just tell Mel. “She made it very clear that she’s not, in fact, married, and I don’t know what to do with that.”
“Whoa,” Mel replied, before smirking at Quinn and adding, “I think you know what she wants you to do with that.”
“You’re giving me mixed messages,” Quinn muttered.
“I’m a real enigma,” Mel said.
“You’re thinking about hooking up with the woman from the Phoenix office,” Quinn assumed. “And you don’t want to be a hypocrite?”
“She put a little heart by her name when she gave me her business card,” Mel replied, her voice almost wistful.
“Clearly meant to be.” Quinn’s phone pinged, and she saw that Emma had texted her a picture of her daughter. “Paisley photo update!”
“Is Emma in this picture?” Mel asked slyly.
“No,” Quinn said, but she held up the picture for her anyway.
Emma’s kid, Quinn’s goddaughter, was the cutest little mini me of her mommy, with her red hair, freckles, and round cheeks.
She held a special place in Quinn’s heart, the first little one to call her Aunt Q, and even though they only saw each other about once a month, Emma tried to send pictures every few days.
In this one, she was wrapped in a blanket, passed out, her rosy cheeks making her look like a doll.
“She’s precious,” Mel said, trying to maintain her cool facade, though Quinn didn’t think it was possible to not melt at that adorable face.
“She’s the sweetest,” Quinn agreed.
A minute later, a text came through.
Emma: also…have you stolen her from her husband yet??
When Quinn showed Mel the message, her friend laughed. “Are you going to tell her?”
“How long do we have until we have to get to our next sessions?” Quinn asked. When Mel checked her watch and answered that they had some time, Quinn wrote back.
Quinn: Funny story…
Her phone was ringing within thirty seconds, a video call.
“We have exactly five minutes before we have to leave for our next meetings,” Quinn said, as a greeting. Emma was calling from her porch, her lovely green eyes shining in the sun.
“Did you ride in on a horse and steal her away? Please tell me there was a horse involved,” Emma replied, sounding dreamy.
“You are such a cheesy romantic,” Quinn said.
“I’m an old married lady. I have to live my romance fantasies through someone,” Emma said.
“There have been no horses involved in our Chicago excursion,” Quinn assured. “I think you got the wrong impression from my text.”
“How so?”
“She doesn’t have a husband,” Mel said, squeezing her head into the frame.
“Ooh, ask her for some tips on how to get rid of one,” Emma said, and before either of them could check in on her, she continued, “Mel Hayes, you look absolutely gorgeous. Your makeup is immaculate .”
No one made Mel blush like Emma. “Thank you, beautiful.”
“Don’t call me that,” Emma huffed. In Quinn’s eyes, and in Mel’s, in a different, much more pointed way, Emma was a knockout.
Her body had changed, though, in the time since they’d graduated.
She’d stopped competitively swimming, and lived an entire decade, one that included birthing a whole human.
Emma was still learning to accept the differences. “Is she acting the fool?”
“Which she?” Mel asked.
“Do I need to be here for this conversation?” Quinn said.
Emma shrugged. “Probably not. I was talking about you, though. I guess if y’all aren’t fucking yet, you’re both being dumb.”
Mel gasped, leaning into the melodrama. “You want them to hook up? I assumed that we all were supposed to hate this woman?”
“I don’t hate her at all. I love her,” Emma said. “I mean, she broke my heart, but…yeah. Feel free to tell that bitch she still owes me a phone call.”
Mel raised her eyebrows. “She broke your heart? I’m confused.”
“In a friendly way, don’t get jealous,” she replied, winking at Mel. “Am I finally free to talk about this, Q?”
“Absolutely not,” Quinn answered. “We have to go.”
“She’s right, we should head back downstairs,” Mel said with a sigh.
“Will you keep me updated? Mel, I mean you, Quinn is not going to do it.”
“Of course,” Mel replied, before adding, eyebrows wiggling, “I need to fill you in on my recent exploits as well. ”
“Sounds fun,” Emma said, her cheeks taking on a faint hint of pink.
Pretty much the entirety of their friendship, as soon as Quinn had introduced them, had been harmless flirting and Mel’s sexy stories.
Quinn was sure that Emma knew even more about that part of Mel’s life that she did. “Q, I love you.”
“Love you too, buddy,” Quinn replied. “Give my Paisley Mae a hug for me.”
There were two afternoon breakouts, and Quinn and Mel once again took a divide-and-conquer approach, attending separate sessions to interact with as many people as possible.
They met up again before the mixer, taking a few quick minutes to debrief before heading back to the ballroom for the event.
Quinn was anxious to get it over with, in part because she knew they were supposed to meet Liv’s dad, but mostly because she was hoping to get away quickly to get some laps in the pool.
They showed up fashionably late, the room teeming with people by the time they’d walked in.
The chairs that had been set in rows that morning were gone.
There were bars set up at each end of the room, pub tables for folks to stand around sprinkled throughout the space, and a DJ playing music, loud enough to set a tone, but quiet enough to not be distracting.
After waiting in line to grab drinks, Mel led Quinn to a group of people that she’d met that afternoon, introducing Quinn and explaining that this team worked in the marketing department at different offices across the country, and this was the one week in the year that they were all in the same place.
They took a few minutes to chat with this group before circulating around the room, this time working as a team so that they could be sure to meet Mr. Palmer together.
The whole time, Quinn kept her head on a swivel, on the lookout for Liv, though she didn’t see her anywhere.
“Hey, Prism Group,” Quinn heard someone say, and she turned to find Audrey approaching them.
“Hi friend,” Mel greeted her, reminding Audrey of their names before she even had the chance to ask .
“Oh, I remember,” Audrey replied, eyes gleaming. “How’s your week going so far?”
Mel turned to Quinn, allowing her to answer. “Day one was great. First impressions, y’all put on a terrific event.”
“Aw, thank you,” Audrey said, and though she said it lightly, her gratitude appeared genuine. “Is there anyone specifically you’re hoping to talk to tonight?”
Mel pulled a face, trying to give the impression that they hadn’t thought much about it. “We’re just doing the rounds right now. If we get the chance to meet Mr. Palmer and thank him for having us, that would be cool. If not, we’ll try to connect later this week.”
“I think I might be able to make that happen.” She led them towards a table in the back corner, where her uncle was standing surrounded by a group of people.
“Uncle Scotty,” Audrey said after making her way through the crowd. When he turned to them, he grinned.
“Ah, the Do It Badly girls! I loved your video,” Mr. Palmer said, approaching them with his hand out to shake.
While Quinn didn’t love being referred to as a girl, given she was over thirty, she was still surprised Mr. Palmer had seen their viral clip, that it had resonated with him, so much so that she didn’t call him out for the comment. “I’m Scott, it’s so nice to meet you.”
“Thank you, sir,” Quinn said before sharing their names. She tried her best to mask how strange it was to meet him. “We’re grateful for the opportunity to be here with J&P this week. It’s been great so far.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” he replied. “You’re based out of Detroit, is that correct? It’s been a while since I checked in on our operations there. I should make that happen sooner rather than later.”
“We flew in from Detroit, yes, but we’re about forty-five minutes outside of the city,” Mel answered.
“We work with businesses across the mitten, but Prism is based between Detroit and Lansing, not too far from Ann Arbor. We’re building a pretty sizeable client base in Grand Rapids, too, just about two hours from us. ”
“Sounds like a great location,” he replied. “A lot of clients in automotive?”
“Some,” Mel said. “Manufacturing in general is going well. Plus, we’ve gotten a few bigger clients in healthcare.”
“It’s good to diversify,” Mr. Palmer said, almost sounding like he was proud of them.
He was known for supporting small businesses—it was a point Quinn had highlighted when she sold Mel on pitching the conference—so maybe that wasn’t completely off base.
“Michigan is a great place to start a business, especially with something like you have, where you work with different sectors. It’s smart strategy. ”
“Thank you, Mr. Palmer,” Quinn replied, overwhelmed by his praise.
“Call me Scott, please. You know, my Olivia went to school in Michigan.” Quinn couldn’t decide if she wanted to focus on his searching eyes or Mel’s smug face, because she could see that her friend was already plotting her ‘I told you so.’ “Are you familiar with the Brighton area? She went to Livingston State University.”
“Huh,” Mel said. “You know, Mr. Palmer, we? are ?familiar with that school.”
Quinn wanted to shove her. “Mel and I actually met there, in the MBA program, about eight or nine years ago.”
“What a coincidence,” he replied. Mel could hardly keep in her laughter, and Quinn felt like she was literally watching the wheels turn in Audrey’s mind. “You would have just missed her, though. She graduated ten years ago this year.”
“That is? wild ,” Mel replied, her acting performance subpar at best. Quinn’s eyes locked onto her friend’s, trying to telepathically communicate to her that, while she understood her promise of torture, maybe it would be in her best interest if she shut the fuck up.
Unfortunately, that didn’t work. Mel continued, “You know, I only did grad school there, a bit after that, but my good buddy here did undergrad at Livingston, too. The years sound right. Maybe they had some overlap.”
“Were you at their school of business?” he asked, his full attention on Quinn.
“My bachelor’s is in psychology,” she answered quickly.
“I see. Well, maybe you had a class or a club in common,” he suggested.
“I swam all four years. It took up most of my time,” Quinn replied.
“Ah, well. Even still, you’ll have to find her sometime this week,” he continued. “She’s not feeling well tonight, so she skipped this, but she loved her time there. I’m sure she’d appreciate the walk down memory lane.”
Quinn didn’t want to make any assumptions, but her first reaction to hearing that Liv had skipped the event was to worry that it was because of her, that she’d done something to hurt her or make her feel like she couldn’t be in the same room.
She was making a mess of things, and it didn’t need to be this complicated.
“Certainly, I would love to have a nice long talk with her about it,” Mel replied, and Quinn knew that she probably didn’t actually sound menacing, but that’s all she could hear.
“Perfect,” he said. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to mingle. But it was nice meeting you, and I look forward to your workshop later this week.”
Mr. Palmer, Scott , shook their hands again before making his way to another group that had slowly built nearby, waiting for their chance to snag the CEO. Quinn was struck again by how nice he was, how different from her expectations.
“Thank you,” Mel said, turning back to Audrey. Liv’s cousin had been so quiet that Quinn had almost forgotten she was there, but now she took her in, watching as Audrey looked curiously back and forth between Quinn and Mel. Something about her expression made Quinn nervous .
“Yeah, we appreciate it,” Quinn told her, trying to hold her gaze with confidence, before turning back to Mel. “I’m going to head out. Do you need anything before I go?”
“No, but maybe Audrey here can introduce me to a few more people?” Mel raised her eyebrows tentatively at Audrey, who considered the suggestion before nodding her agreement. “Excellent. Enjoy your swim.”
“I didn’t say I was going to swim,” Quinn replied.
“I know you,” Mel responded, promising to text her when she finished up.
And yes, Quinn immediately went to change into her swimsuit, her mind spinning.
It had been a good day. They were accomplishing exactly what they wanted for the business, but everything from her talk with Mel that morning to finding out that Liv wasn’t married and spending time with Liv’s dad and cousin that night… it was overwhelming.
Quinn hoped her time in the pool would allow her to turn her mind off. She wanted just a touch of calm before the chaos started again the next day.