With Every Heartbeat

“Man, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Ten spun Noel to face him. I guess Quinn must’ve gotten a hold of him too. “How is killing douche-bag Belcher going to solve anything?”



“Because it’d make me feel better,” Noel roared.



“Yeah, and then it’d get you kicked off the team, and then out of school completely, where your woman will be exposed to the world, and then ruin the futures of your brothers and sister.”



“Damn it.” Noel squeezed his eyes shut and bowed his head. Easing my grip on Quinn’s shirt, I watched Caroline’s brother lose his cool. “How can I just let that fucker get away with doing that to her?” When his voice cracked, I swallowed, feeling awful for him. His face twisted with despair right before he fisted his hands, roared out his frustrations and pounded his fist down onto the trunk of the nearest car.



I jumped and Quinn tightened his hold on me, shifting until I was more securely behind him.



“I want to kill him. I want to kill him so bad.”



“I know. I know, buddy. And I’m sure you can. Someday. Just not today.”



Noel clenched his teeth hard. “But I want to kill him today.”



As Ten wrapped his arm around Noel’s shoulder and kept talking to him as he walked them away, Quinn eased his grip on me.



“Are you okay?” He turned to catch my chin, and force me to look up at him.



“I think so.” Staring into his bottomless blue eyes made me shudder from a different kind of fear, a fear that I’d never feel this way when I looked into anyone else’s eyes again.



He nodded. “He wouldn’t have hurt you. Noel can bluster, and he can go off the deep end when he’s mad enough, but he’d never physically hurt a girl.”



“Okay,” I said, but I still felt as rattled as a toy in a baby’s hand.



“You’re shaking.” He began to rub his hands up and down my arms as if I was cold. It didn’t even occur to me to stop him.



“Zoey!” I heard a shout. When Quinn and I looked over, we found Caroline racing our way. “There you are. I just got your text. What happened? Where’s Noel?”



Quinn dropped his hands from my arms. “Ten took him away. I think he’s settled down for now. But who knows what he could do tomorrow or the next day, now that he has Belcher’s name.”



“Well, who the hell told him?”



I paled and opened my mouth, but I just couldn’t put Cora’s head on the chopping block. I was about to confess that I’d told Noel the name when Quinn murmured, “Cora. Cora told him.”



He looked at me and I lifted my eyes to him. “I saw the text she sent you to meet her after class. And I forgot to tell her not to give Noel Belcher’s name.” He gripped the front of his hair and closed his eyes. “It’s my own fault. I should’ve said something to her to keep her quiet.”



Caroline patted his arm. “It’s okay. It doesn’t really matter, anyway. As determined as he was, Noel was going to find out one way or another.”



Shaking his head as if he didn’t want to be forgiven, he turned his attention to me. “Thank you. Thank you so much for calling, and for slowing him down. You just...you prevented a complete disaster.”



“Oh, I didn’t—”



He grabbed my hand and squeezed warmly. “Yeah. You did.” He glanced at Caroline. “I’m going to go make sure Ten’s keeping Noel calm.”



“What?” Caroline shook her head in surprise. “I didn’t know Oren was capable of anything but pissing people off.”



Another week passed. When Cora returned from her mystery weekend with Quinn, she gave me no details about it whatsoever, and he never mentioned it once in art class.



The next Saturday, his football team played their first home game. I didn’t go; I went with Cora instead to her dialysis appointment.



Meanwhile, Noel Gamble didn’t kill anyone, his girlfriend wasn’t exposed, and Quinn didn’t have a reason to touch me again, not the way he’d so protectively pulled me behind him in the parking lot when I’d had a showdown with Noel. He did show up on Wednesday evening to pick Cora up for a date, but I made sure I was safely stowed away in my bedroom until they were gone.



He surprised me the next morning when I left my bedroom to freshen up in the bathroom at the same time he was leaving Cora’s room to head home. We both drew up short and stared at each other, until he said, “Morning,” in a nervous, breathless kind of voice.



“Good morning.” Ducking my face, I crossed my arms over my chest because I wasn’t wearing a bra under my nightshirt.