Waiting for the long line of students to file out the door after algebra, my phone started ringing. I pulled it out and saw Pippa’s face on the screen. Her eyes were crossed, and her tongue was poking out. Smiling at the picture, I hit answer. “Wassup?”
“Not much, lady. I’m just grabbing some dinner from the cafeteria. Want something?”
I moved forward and squeezed past a couple talking heatedly by the door. “Sick of the new microwave in the common room already?”
She scoffed. “You bet your tiny ass, I am. So what’ll it be?”
Heading down the hall of the math building, I stepped outside. “Just grab me some mac and cheese. I’ll pay you back when you get in.”
“Don’t bother, you can buy next time.”
After reaching around to tuck my phone in my backpack, I swung back around and almost collided with a huge chest. Large hands landed on my shoulders. Looking up, my eyes met hazel ones. Quinn. “Sorry.”
He gave me a small smile. “You should watch where you’re going. Isn’t that what the glasses are for?”
Without thinking, I made a face and pushed them farther up my nose. He chuckled, and I watched in fascination as the tiny lines near his eyes crinkled, wondering how deep they’d get as the years rolled by. I knew the years would be kind to him, and my chest hurt when I remembered I wouldn’t be around to witness that for myself.
The warmth of his skin started seeping through the thin cotton of my orange sweater, and I glanced away as he realized and dropped his hands, putting them in the pockets of his jeans.
“What are you doing over here?” We started walking down the pink and red rock path that led to the quad. I half expected him to say something about the last time we saw each other at the diner a few days ago, but half of me was glad he hadn’t.
“I have calculus here on Tuesdays. I didn’t show this week and needed to grab some notes. Gillard loves to spring pop quizzes on you when you least expect it.”
“You’d probably ace it without the notes.” He’d always been good at any kind of math. It came naturally to him, just like sports. I remembered him struggling with reading and writing when we were little kids. Our moms were teachers, though, so he’d caught up with everyone else by fourth grade.
He guffawed. “Doubtful. I swear, she makes it her mission to find everything you don’t know, so she can throw it at you.”
“Yeah, remind me not to take any of her classes next year.”
Chuckling a bit, he said, “Noted. Though I guess that’s why we’re here. To learn and all.”
“It’s easy to forget that sometimes,” I admitted.
He hummed. “So you’ve already picked your major?”
“Yep.” I shifted my bag higher over my shoulder as we rounded the corner and neared the quad. The fountain was off today, and it looked smaller, duller without the rushing water. The color that normally bled from the gardens around it not as luminous.
“Fine arts,” he said with a short jerk of his head.
Smiling up at him, I let my eyes soak in the way the last rays of sunshine skimmed over the deep cut of his cheekbones, highlighting his almost dimples.
I remembered the way I used to tease him, asking how it was possible to end up with two sets of half dimples. He’d laugh and say it was better than having one before poking me in the cheek.
Lashes bobbing, he shifted his eyes from my cheek to meet mine, and the universe seemed to shrink in size.
He cleared his throat, and it expanded once again. “Well, I’ll see you.”
“Bye,” I whispered, watching him walk back the way we’d come.
I was going to kill Pippa.
Okay, maybe killing was a little dramatic. I’d simply mess up her lingerie drawer. Maybe even put some of her nice dresses in her pajama and comfort clothes drawer.
I was such a rebel. And a total pussy because, as annoyed as I was, I probably wouldn’t do it.
Staring across the fire, I tried to ignore the burning in my gut, the flames of jealousy that grew higher until I thought they might come out of my mouth in a giant scream of rage.
It wasn’t enough that I had to watch them just days ago. No, now I had to watch her put her hands on him again. I needed to look away but couldn’t. He had a look on his face that seemed to say he was unaccustomed to her being so touchy-feely, but she kept doing it anyway. Up his chest, fingers skimming over his jaw, her lithe body folding into the side of his giant one as she sat on his lap. Alexis looked like a panther curling up to a lion. I wished he’d bite her head off and be done with her.
“Beer?” Toby offered, holding one in front of my face.
Quinn’s eyes connected with mine, and I looked away, up at Toby. “Why not?” My tone was dry, and he chuckled, taking a seat beside Pippa. She was the reason I was here, at another party, much sooner than I’d anticipated. Toby had asked her to come. No wonder she’d wanted to buy me dinner.
Staring into the fire burning in the center of the small residential backyard, I idly wondered if one of the neighbors would call the fire department or the cops. Then I figured the neighbors were probably college students too and took a sip of beer.
When Toby got up, I leaned into Pippa. “You didn’t say he’d be here.”
“He?” she asked, a pointed brow raised. “Or she?” Squinting at her, I sagged back in my chair as she laughed. “Chill, we’ll go soon. I’m not down for being ignored anyway.”
I glanced over at Toby, who was talking to one of the guys I recognized from the last party we attended. “He’s being social.”
“Don’t defend him.”
“Don’t make me endure this torture then.” I said it like I was joking, but she didn’t get it. It really was fucking torture, and it took gulping down the rest of my beer to keep me seated.
Hearing the music come on inside, Alexis and one of her friends got up and swayed their hips as they wandered in through the back doors.
Pippa moved down a few seats and started chatting with someone from her biology class, and I relaxed back into my chair, breathing a little easier. As long as I kept my eyes away, I could probably wait Pippa out.
But then he just had to sit next to me. “You probably shouldn’t do that,” I murmured, beer and annoyance giving me courage to speak my mind.
“What? Sit next to you?” The plastic chair groaned as his body dropped onto it.
“Yeah.” I watched the door, just waiting for Alexis to come back outside and see what he was doing.
Warmth hit my hand, which was resting on the arm of the chair, or more like holding it in a death grip. Quinn gently pried my fingers off the plastic. “You’re tense.”
“Uh-huh.”
He knew why, but his fingers didn’t let go. Instead, he wrapped his hand around mine between our chairs. I glanced at him, horrified and elated. “Quinn.”
“Mmm?” He was studying our hands, turning mine over to lay flush against his palm.
“How much have you had to drink?”
He met my gaze and grinned. “Not too much.”
He was lying. Maybe he wasn’t drunk, but he definitely wasn’t anywhere near sober.
Not my problem.
But it wasn’t like him, and I couldn’t help but wonder what had him doing something he usually wouldn’t.
He had questions of his own, though. “Dais, I need to know something.”
I was still a little stunned and captivated by his hand touching mine. “What?”
“Why’d you change your number?”
My heart stopped, then started racing. “Quinn.” I struggled with words. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“It does.” His voice was surprisingly hard. “Tell me why. Was it something I said? Or did? Did I—”
“It just got too hard, okay?” I spewed out, my chest heaving. I tried to calm my breathing. “I… I got really upset and angry.”
Looking kind of shocked, he asked, “You mean when you got your phone back? And you thought I didn’t care because I didn’t call enough?”
“I know it sounds petulant. It was, and I regret it, so let’s please just drop it.” I slumped sullenly, trying to pull my hand from his. He wouldn’t let me.
“You know,” he said after a minute. “The moon and stars look different out here.” Staring at him, I didn’t know what to say as I swam in the sea of his eyes. “They’re not as clear, and it gets murky. Things block them, intruding on the view.”
“Oh? I hadn’t noticed.” I swallowed, my beer almost slipping out of my sweaty hand.
He leaned in until I could smell him and the beer on his breath. “Liar. I miss you.”
“Quinn, you’re drunk.”
His head shook, blond strands sprinkling onto his forehead. “I’m not, but I just can’t stop looking. The sky. You.” His tongue darted out, wetting his bottom lip. “Why can’t I ever stop looking?”
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to that,” I whispered, knowing I should lean away from him yet not able to make myself move.
“Say you miss me, too.” He said it like it was so simple. As if it was nothing to bare even more of myself than I already had. I’d exposed enough.
My throat tightened, wanting to lock my words inside. “You already know I do.”
Heartbeats felt like minutes as he stared at me. “I’m sorry. It’s just … confusing. Hard.”
“Oh, you think it’s hard?”
The clenching of his jaw drew my gaze. “I know. I know you think it’s easy for me, but it’s not. It’s anything but. I feel fucking terrible. Constantly torn.”
“You do?” I tried to infuse my tone with ire, but I failed.
“You know I do. And as fucked up as it is, I can’t help but think, no, I know, that things should’ve been different.”
I felt sick. Like I’d drank ten beers instead of half of one. “Maybe in another life, Quinn.” Giving him a weak smile, one I didn’t feel like he deserved, I got up, dropping my beer and his hand.
“Dais,” he called, but I ignored him and headed for the side gate, wanting to avoid the crowd inside. Without looking back, I pulled the gate shut behind me, but then it was tugged back open. I spun around and Quinn stepped into me, the gate closing with a click behind him.
“Don’t do that.” His chest was noticeably rising and falling, his breath clouding the air between us.
“Do what?” I went to take a step back, needing to breathe without inhaling him, and almost tripped over the garden ledge.
Hands grabbed my waist, and I was once again too damn close. “Don’t just walk away from me.”
I didn’t know what to do. His hands held my hips firmly; his thumbs shifting over the material of my dress made my stomach spasm violently. Feeling a bit lightheaded, I went to move his hands off me when one of them lifted to my cheek, palming it gently.
Meeting his gaze, I barely had two seconds to catch a much-needed breath before his lips descended, crashing into mine.
I forgot what we were talking about, or what we should be doing. But it was most definitely not this. Everything fell away. It was only the firm press of his lips on mine, the hand that drifted to the back of my head, tilting it as his tongue separated my lips, invading my mouth and every one of my taste buds.
He tasted like beer but also just like I remembered. My hands clenched at his shirt, my tongue melting into his as my heartbeat echoed in the far-off distance, and my lungs screamed for air. I’d go without it. I didn’t need air. I just needed this.
“Daisy? You out here?”
The world returned, and I pulled away, almost stumbling into the garden again before Quinn caught me. I let go of him, keeping my gaze fixed on the ground as I tried to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. My feet felt heavy as I walked to the front of the house.
Pippa was just about to close the door and head back inside when I managed to say, “Hey, ready to go?”
Her bewildered look would’ve made me laugh if I weren’t still trying to breathe properly.
She closed the door and met me in the driveway. “What are you doing out here?”
Quickly, I looked back toward the side of the house, but Quinn had already disappeared into the shadows. “I didn’t feel like walking through the house, so I just came through the side.”
We walked down the street, the lights from campus glowing in the near distance. “What did Quinn say? He looked a little drunk.”
My heart thumped, my hands itching to reach up to my lips, which felt as though they were burning. I was still struggling to comprehend what just happened. “Not much. I don’t really want to talk about it.”
Yawning, she said, “Fair enough.”
“Toby?” I asked, kicking a stray rock on the sidewalk.
“Don’t really want to talk about it.”
We both snickered and made the walk home in thoughtful silence.