It was only when I stepped back, when I cleared my throat and knocked on the door that either of them seemed to know I’d stopped by. As predicted, the second I walked into the room, Quinn closed his sketch book and adopted that evasive, disconnected attitude he seemed to reserve for anyone who wasn’t Rhea.
“So what are you guys up to?” I’d asked, wondering if Quinn would let me get a better look at the sketch, but he hurried to excuse himself from the room, giving me the time with Rhea I’d wanted without even a frown over his shoulder in my direction, even though I had protested that I was only there to drop off the comic book.
It was then I got it: Quinn O’Malley didn’t want anyone to see him being sweet, because that meant he would be vulnerable. Instead, he expressed himself, his feelings in that sketch book, I’d seen that much in the brief glances I’d stolen in his room. His point of view was in every line, every curve of his pencil and he hid them all away from the world, away from anyone who might disagree with him. Anyone who might judge him. Rhea wouldn’t do that. She was still a kid. She hadn’t learned about judging others. She hadn’t learned about differences. To her, we were all the same and everything was worthy of friendship.
It was then I resolved to understand Quinn better. I wanted to know what he saw. I wanted to know what he’d shown my little cousin. I wanted a glimpse into the world he hid from everyone else.
The day before, I’d been convinced Quinn was putting on an act. I’d been convinced that what he showed the world was a mask—the disguise he wore because he didn’t want anyone to see the real him beneath it. That’s where my thoughts had gone when I left Rhea’s room. That’s what occupied them as I made my way to the parking garage, huddling against the late October wind as it whipped across my face. It was Quinn and the façade he wore that kept me distracted so that I didn’t pay attention to the footsteps that echoed behind me as I walked up to my car.
It wasn’t until I was unlocking my Jetta that I heard a low breath right behind me. Defensively, my elbow went up and out, and Quinn, who had slipped up way too close sucked in a breath, leaning against my car, holding his stomach.
“Sodding bollocks,” he’d said, groaning as I stepped back. He rested his forehead on his arm, breath rough, labored as he moved his head to bring his gaze to me. “What the fecking hell…”
“Don’t you know better than to sneak up on someone in a damn parking garage?”
“I bleeding well do now.”
I gave him the pause he needed, but still kept my keys in my hand. I’d seen a glimpse at his softer side. That didn’t mean I’d let my guard down around him.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I wanted…” he grunted, clearing his throat as he straightened, as though the pain in his stomach still smarted. Damn. Didn’t realize how bony my elbows were. “I wanted to know,” he said again, “what the hell you were doing lurking in the hallway.” He stepped forward, that ever-present glare making him look less and less like he’d just got jabbed in the gut. “What are you on about?”
It would have been easy to goad him, to lie because he expected it. But I had convinced myself that I wanted answers. If I could get them from him, then there’d be no need for me to go snooping again. I knew that would probably be like expecting to win the Lotto without even buying a ticket, but I still gave it a shot.
Quinn stood in front of me, his back and shoulders rigid and straight. He looked very much like he expected a fight. He didn’t move his body when I stepped forward, when I tilted my head, narrowing my gaze to really look at his face, examine those highborn features. He remained cool and didn’t flinch until I spoke.
“I don’t buy the bullshit, not like everyone else does.”
There wasn’t surprise, exactly, on his face, but his eyebrow did lift even as his frown relaxed. “You’ve no bleeding clue about me. None of you.” Quinn laughed, once, bitter. “You lot think you know me, but you don’t, do you? None of you…”
“You’re good to Rhea.” That quieted him, but it also made him nervous, had him taking a step away from me. “You’re sweet to her. You speak to her with a kindness that no one else gets. Why is that?”
“No one else deserves it.”
I licked my lips, continuing to look at him, see how close to the edge I could take him before he walked away. That seemed to be Quinn’s M.O. He jetted when things got to be too much. Still, I went for it anyway, my curiosity greater than my worry that he’d turn his back on me. “You relate to her, I get that.”
He dropped his arms, letting them hang at his side. “What?”
Several cars passed us; their taillights blinking colors over Quinn’s face. Still he remained motionless, shocked, but unflinching. “I… I know about your childhood. I know that you…”
In a second his calm fractured and for the first time, I saw something real from Quinn O’Malley. Two quick steps and we were nearly nose to nose. “Fraser and his woman need to keep their fecking mouths shut.” I suppose he thought his height, the reach of his shoulders would somehow intimidate me. It didn’t. I’d grown up around rugby players my entire life. I was small, but I wasn’t skittish.
“They didn’t tell me,” I lie. “I… I found out… another way.” He glares at me, opened his mouth as though there was another insult queuing up to level at me. I stopped it before it came. “It doesn’t matter. You know what Rhea’s going through. You know what it’s like to be stuck in a hospital, to be poked and prodded.” Quinn worked his jaw, teeth grinding together and the anger brimmed close to the surface, pulling the muscles of his face tight. His nostrils flared and the top of his cheek twitched, but still, I continued, now too curious with what my accusations would force him to say. “You understand what she’s going through and so you are nice to her, but why just her, Quinn? Why not everyone?”
“Because…” his voice was rough, as though the rage bubbling in his gut threatened to burst free. “Because she’s the only one…”
“Everyone is struggling with something, Quinn.” He stepped back, but I grabbed his arm, pulling him toward me. “Every single one of us.”
“Bollocks.” Quinn jerked from my touch, but didn’t leave. “You’re full of shite, the lot of you…”
“You have no reason to be angry.” He stepped closer. “You lost your parents…”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Autumn, Declan, they both lost their moms.”
That brimming anger surfaced, and he slammed his fist onto the trunk of my car. “They bloody well have each other; they have all of you…”
“You could too.” My voice carried, lifted above the noise of engines and braking cars and the thump of his fist against my car. Quinn looked at me as though he didn’t quite catch what I had said. Eyes blinking, his mouth opened, slowly. I took the advantage, wondering what he’d do if I kept at him, wondering if he’d show me a small peek of what Rhea saw every day. “We aren’t hard people to get along with. We aren’t closed off, none of us. You open up to us a little and maybe you won’t be so miserable.”
“I don’t need anyone. Not a fecking soul.”
“Is that how you get through the day? Lying to yourself?” When his top lip curled, I shook my head. “How’s that working out for you?”
That barb hit the target. Quinn’s frustration turned to rage, and he grunted, a loud, desperate sound I’d never expected him to make. Before I could react, he charged forward, and grabbing me by the shoulders, backed me up against the concrete column I had parked next to.
His fingers dug into my shoulders. I expected him to shout. I expected him to get right in my face and make threats. I expected him to curse at me, rail against me, say things I’d likely never be able to repeat to any of my friends.
I did not expect Quinn O’Malley to grab my chin.
I did not expect for him to stare down at me, gaze on my mouth, his tongue wetting his lips.
I did not expect him to kiss me.
And I damn well didn’t expect to like it.
There was so much anger in his touch. Fingers gripping tight, breath fanning from his nostrils, warming my cheek; his angry, desperate movement against my body—it should have insulted me. It should have hurt. But Quinn’s angry kiss changed when I didn’t struggle, when I took what he gave me, when I welcomed it with a return of my lips against his, my fingernails running up his scalp, pulling him forward.
I forgot who I was, who was touching me. Quinn’s anger turned into something that ebbed against the cool temperatures around us. He warmed me, lit me up from the inside with his tongue intruding, commanding inside my mouth, with his teeth against my bottom lip and his fingers tightening against my hip, pulling me toward him.
It only lasted a moment, but it was a moment that stretched, one that seemed to slow into forever until I suddenly remembered who had hold of my mouth. It was a realization that Quinn seemed to have at the same time and he pushed away from me, grunting again before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as though my taste insulted him.
I barely noticed when he walked away. The shock that came into me then, wasn’t from the sting on my lips left by Quinn’s kiss. It wasn’t the anger that left me speechless. It was the fact that I had liked it. His kiss has set something loose in my brain, and, various other tantalized body parts. And as his footsteps clicked against the concrete as he retreated, a singular agenda pulsed in my brain like a neon sign: Get him to do it again.