Chapter 3

Quinn stared up at the dark ceiling above him. Nothing like the flotation tank from earlier; his pain was front and center as he lay in his bed, covers pulled tight over his chest. He’d been lying here for hours, and not a single second of sleep had grabbed him.

Lifting his arm, he looked down at the first tattoo he’d ever gotten, when he was twenty-one. It was a series of flames wrapping around his entire biceps. It started small and dark—an intensity even in its new kindling. As it flickered and moved, it grew in both size and brightness until it disappeared under his arm.

Kane had teased him relentlessly for it when he’d realized what it meant when Quin had gotten it the morning after his first night with Kiera. Everyone had seemed to know before he did that Kiera was everything to him, but even when he had finally figured it out, he had waited. She was three years younger than him, and hell, he hadn’t even meant for anything to happen that night—she’d been eighteen for only less than a day.

But she’d wanted him. She’d told him that, showed him that, and his heart had felt fuller than he’d ever thought possible.

The girl he’d loved his whole life…loved him back.

Quinn’s mind flashed to the tangle of sheets—her soft, supple eighteen-year-old body beneath him as his lips explored every inch of her. Her strawberry-blond hair splayed across the pillow, and then sliding between his fingers. The way her back had bowed off the bed when his hand slid over her core, or how she clung to his biceps and her light blue eyes told him she trusted him, she loved him. She’d begged him on as he entered her for the first time—her first time—and it was the biggest gift she could have ever given him.

When he’d met resistance, he’d stopped, afraid to hurt her. “Kiera, should I stop?”

“Please, Quinn, I want this.” The words left her lips in a slow sigh. “I want you. I want you to have this part of me forever.”

Torment churned through Quinn at the idea of causing the girl he loved pain, but his heart was splayed open and pulverized. He wanted this part of her, and he wanted to give her every piece of himself along with it.

“Okay,” he agreed. “I love you, Keeks.”

Her moans muffled it, but he heard her. He knew he heard her. “I love you, too, Q,” she’d said.

When the pain had passed, he made sure the rest of the night was entirely about her pleasure. By the time he’d scrambled out her bedroom window before her mother woke up, her face was a sleepy smile and his heart was forever tied to hers.

Quinn swallowed hard as he turned on his side, pulling the covers over his shoulder. The memories didn’t stop, not of their night together or the next day.

“You’re young, Quinn—you just turned twenty-one,” Kane said. “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Do you really want this girl to be it? To be forever? Because Kiera isn’t just some chick. Our mothers are best friends—we grew up with Kiera. You go down this road, and you better be prepared for the long haul.”

He and Kane had been sitting on their parents’ couch, waiting for Rory to get home so they could head out to the pub together to celebrate Rory’s latest endorsement deal at the height of his career.

“I haven’t decided anything,” Quinn had sworn, crossing his arms over his chest, the bandage covering the fresh ink on his forearm clearly on display.

Kane nodded his head toward it. “Since when do you get tattoos?”

Quinn glanced down. “Today, actually. I’m twenty-one, so why not?”

Kane looked at him, his eyes squinty and surveying. “Is this about last night? About Kiera? This is your version of a notch on a bedpost?”

“No!” Heat seeped into Quinn’s face, and he pulled his sleeve down to cover the bandage. “I’ve just always wanted one, maybe more. That’s all.”

“Shit, Q. What the hell are you doing going out with us?” Kane asked, not buying his reasoning. “If you like this girl enough to brand her memory on your skin, get the fuck over to her house and tell her that.”

“But Rory’s celebration—”

Kane stood and pointed toward the front door. “Go get the girl you’ve been chasing for years, Q. Tell her everything, tell her what last night meant to you—tell her you love her.”

“I don’t—” Quinn paused. He glanced back up at his brother as he stepped toward the door. “I mean, I love her, but I’m not in love with her. Am I?”

Kane had nodded like it was obvious. “You are. Now go tell her that.”

He’d gone to find her, flowers in one hand, and a small gift he’d made himself in the other. Her mother answered the door, pity in her eyes as she told him Kiera had already left for Seattle a few hours ago.

She hadn’t even left a note, a phone call, a text. Nothing. She had gotten what she wanted from him and moved on with her life the very next morning. He’d been left with nothing—his heart still held captive in her hands.

Kiera was his forever—she always had been. He just hadn’t been hers.

Quinn closed his eyes and willed sleep to come. Willed silence and darkness and nothingness to overtake the pain he felt just at the memories.

Seeing her today…it made everything fresh, new, now more devastating.

She was as gorgeous as he remembered, more so, since she had lost her childish lilt and grown tall and strong—a woman he admired. But the way she’d looked at him as if she was seeing an old friend, the way she still refused to cuss, or the way she rambled nervously…it was like nothing had changed.

It was like she was his Keeks again.

Closing his eyes tighter, Quinn pushed all thoughts of the gorgeous strawberry blonde out of his mind. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, dwell on her a moment longer. That door was closed. She’d closed it. He needed it closed, because he couldn’t survive if he pried it back open only for her to slam it shut again.

They were over. Every part of it. The friendship. The night of passion. Any possibility of a future together. Done. The walk down memory lane had been surprising, and even nice, but this was part of his past. She was his past, and she had been for a while.

He was moving on, even if it was six years too late.