There’s a quiet tapping on my door the next night. I roll over, looking at the clock on the nightstand between my bed and Fisher’s.

Just after two a.m.

Giving Elder Fisher a quick glance to make sure he’s still asleep—pointless maybe, but I do it anyway—I get out of bed and make my way to the door. Placing my ear against it, just like the night before, I wait for any sign that whoever is out there might be here to murder me.

“Barker,” a soft voice says from the other side of the door, as if he can sense my presence.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about this all day. I hoped Quinn might show up at my door tonight. After last night, all I could think about was if he was okay. If today was better for him. And, yeah, the feel of his lips against my skin.

I smile as I press my forehead to the door, hoping this means he’s been thinking about me, too.

I step out into the hall, quickly pulling the door shut behind me. Quinn stands there, looking much better than he did last night but still a little worse for the wear.

He gives me a lopsided smile. “Hey,” he says, his voice gravelly with exhaustion.

“Hey. You just get off work?”

“Yeah,” he says, running his hand through his hair. “Work blows when you’re nursing the hangover from hell.”

I smile. “I can imagine.” When he lifts an eyebrow in question, I laugh. “Okay, maybe I can’t. But I’m sure it wasn’t fun.”

He chuckles softly. “No, no fun at all. You never think about that when the alcohol is going down. Seems like the best idea in the world at the time. But the next day? You hate the person who ever invented distilleries.”

His comment causes a laugh to burst from my lips and makes me wish I knew who invented distilleries, so I could impress him. But, funnily enough, that topic never came up in schools in Utah. Go figure.

“Well, you sure seemed to be enjoying yourself last night. Care to tell me what you were doing out here, in my hall, in the middle of the night?”

A faint pink tinge colors his cheeks, and it somehow makes him even more attractive.

“Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to wake you. I really thought I was up one more floor. And, dude, I told you guys there were rats in this building. I was trying to corner one right over there when you interrupted,” he says, pointing to the corner of the hallway where I found him last night.

“I’m impressed you remember. I thought for sure you wouldn’t remember anything.”

He waves a hand. “Nah, I was drunk. But I wasn’t blackout drunk. Unfortunately for me, it takes more than half a bottle of Jack to get me there. I remember everything.”

The last three words have a certain pointedness to them, causing the pink flush he was sporting moments ago to crawl up my face instead.

My eyes fall to the floor at my feet, shyness overtaking me now that he’s referred to what transpired in his apartment last night.

Quinn takes a step toward me, placing a finger under my chin and lifting my face until my gaze meets his. “I meant what I said last night, Barker. I like you.”

My face heats, the feel of his finger on my chin causing a jolt of electricity to shoot down my spine. “I like you, too.”

The corner of his mouth curls up in the same smile I saw the first day on the street and so many times since then. The smile that makes my knees go weak. The smile that makes me question everything.

“I thought you might,” he simply says.

I want to make some offhand comment about his overconfidence, but I’m unable to make my lips move. Besides, there’s no sense in arguing. Quinn must have been aware of my attraction to him from day one. I just needed time to admit it to myself.

“I also meant it when I said that I wanted you to come out with me sometime.”

This causes the haze that washed over me the moment I stepped out into the hall to evaporate.

“Quinn, you know I can’t do that. Fisher would never go along with it. He’d turn me in.”

Quinn blows out an exasperated breath. “I’m getting real tired of Fishy standing in our way.”

I attempt to shrug, as if it didn’t bother me every bit as much as it does him. “But there’s nothing we can do about it. This is what I signed on for. So, this is what I’ve got to do.”

“Well, you signed on for a bunch of bullshit.”

His harsh tone stings a little, and even though I’ve been questioning everything I was taught, his words still cause my hackles to rise. Until the last few months, I lived and breathed for this. Having him dismiss it so easily hurts. It’s as if, by dismissing my calling, he’s dismissing me right along with it, as stupid as that sounds after all this.

Quinn must see the sadness etched on my face because he immediately recants. “I’m sorry, Barker. I didn’t mean that. I know this is important to you. I know you love your church. I just wish there were another way. I wish there were a way I could get to know you.”

I nod, his sincere tone washing away a bit of the ache his earlier words left behind. “Yeah. It’d be so much easier if it were like back home. If I was interested in someone, all I had to do was pick up the phone and send a text.”

“So, you’re interested in me?” he asks, that familiar smile returning to his face, erasing the last of my lingering disappointment.

I pull my bottom lip in between my teeth before looking up at him. I nod.

His face lights up like a kid on Christmas morning. “Good. That’s good, Barker. Because I’m definitely interested in you.”

“But it’s impossible. There’s no way we can do anything about it. You don’t know me. I don’t know you. We might be attracted to each other, but that’s all there is. That’s all there can ever be.”

Quinn’s face falls. “So, that’s it? You admit you like me and that, under different circumstances, you’d possibly be interested in pursuing this further, but now, you’re not even willing to try?”

My gaze falls back to the floor. “You don’t understand. My family would be so disappointed if I was sent home, dishonored. I can’t risk it. I can’t risk everyone I love for someone I don’t even know.”

I can tell my words cut him deep, but that doesn’t make them any less true. I’m attracted to Quinn. I can’t stop thinking about him. And, yes, if things were different, I’d jump at the chance to attempt a relationship. But you can’t build a relationship on nothing. He doesn’t even know my first name, for heck’s sake.

I say as much to him, trying to explain that I meant no offense to him, but he can’t deny that we don’t know much about each other.

“What’s your first name?” he asks when I’m done.

After all that, that’s all he can say?

“Jaden,” I say, my voice barely more than a whisper.

“Jaden.” His tone echoes mine, his fingers reaching out and brushing against mine. “Jaden. It’s perfect. The perfect name for the perfect man.”

I laugh. “Once again, you don’t even know me. So, how can you say that?”

He gives me a lazy smile. “You’re right. We don’t know each other well enough. But I think I have an idea on how to change that. And you don’t even have to worry about Fisher or your family.”

His words surprise me, my brows shooting up to my hairline.

“And how exactly do you propose we do that?”

“Just like you said earlier. By picking up the phone and sending a text.”

Apparently, he’s lost his mind.

“Quinn, you’re forgetting one very important detail. I don’t have a phone. I’m not even allowed to call home, for crying out loud.”

He shrugs. “They have prepaid phones for sale pretty much everywhere. If you can sneak away from your babysitter for ten minutes, you can buy one, and then we can text. That way, you don’t have to worry about Fisher finding you out in the hallway with me. And we won’t have to try to sneak glances and touches when he’s not looking. Yeah, I know you meant to do that the other day, brushing your foot up against my leg. Don’t you want to get past that? Don’t you want to know if what you’re feeling is real?”

I shake my head. “You’re crazy. I’d never get away with it. Fisher would see me with it, and then it’d be just as bad as if he did actually catch me out here in the hallway.”

“If you didn’t want him to see it, I have no doubt you’d be able to keep it from him. Keep it in your sock during the day. It’s not like he pats you down every morning, is it?” Quinn pauses, shooting me a questioning look, as if it just occurred to him that Fisher very well could do that very thing.

“No, he doesn’t frisk me every day,” I say with a laugh.

“Good. Otherwise, I’d have to junk-punch him. So, you get the phone. Text me the number. Carry it in your sock during the day and keep it under your pillow at night. When Fishy is asleep, you can pull it out and text me. We can talk freely. We can get to know each other.”

I want to argue. I want to tell him how insane this idea is and how it’ll never work in a million years. But, instead, I find myself saying, “I’ll think about it.”