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“But it’s only now,” Quinn said, her voice a little husky now as the night wore on, “Seeing you again, that’s made me realize how much of a positive effect that had on me.”
Emily mentally gasped. What?
“I was going through a breakup,” Quinn said with a bit of a sigh. “Things ended badly. She… Anyway, I had no self-esteem. But I knew that if I glanced in your direction, you’d be looking back at me as if…” Quinn searched for the right words. “I don’t know. I was the only woman you’d ever wanted. And at that point in my life? It saved me.”
All the air left Emily’s lungs. Her heart pounded in her chest, a thousand questions racing through her mind at once. She felt like everything she thought she knew about Quinn was suddenly thrown out the window and replaced with this new truth: Quinn had dated a woman.
She knew that Emily had a massive crush on her back then.
And she didn’t mind it?
“See?” Quinn said with almost a grimace. “That sounded strange. I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable.”
Emily struggled to calm her racing mind. “No.” She cleared her throat. “No. Not at all. I’m just…” She smiled. “I wasn’t aware of how obvious I was.” She took another drink before leaving her glass on the coffee table. “I would apologize except for what you just said.”
“Please don’t. I mean it. I don’t know what that says about me though. That I was happy to have a student looking at me like she wanted to undress me,” Quinn said with a wry shake of her head.
“Was I that obvious?” Emily could feel the heat back in her cheeks again, but she couldn’t stop herself from smiling. There was an odd sense of relief in having her attraction to this woman out there now.
“Yes.” Quinn delivered that one word so seriously, that Emily didn’t doubt it.
“Wow.” Emily wasn’t sure what to say to that. “I had no idea you could feel so embarrassed about something that happened twelve years ago.”
“Don’t be embarrassed. I’m sure I was like that with a lecturer or a boss when I was younger.”
“If you don’t remember it, I doubt you were,” Emily challenged her with another shake of her head. “See, by the time I was in your class…”
“What?”
Emily exhaled. “I’d seen you around campus in the years before that.”
“Oh,” Quinn said with a curve of her lips. “Okay. So, it wasn’t my teaching skills that had you intrigued?”
Emily bit back a smile. “By the time I was listening to your lectures, I was already hopelessly smitten.”
Quinn’s smile spread across her face. “It’s a good thing my morals were never in question.”
“You would never have crossed that line?”
“Never,” Quinn said matter-of-factly. “I’m glad that I never had to turn you down.”
Emily’s pulse tripped. They were really having this conversation. “And now?” she asked, although it came out barely above a whisper.
“Now, what?”
“Would you turn me down?” Emily asked, her throat suddenly tight.
16
Quinn’s eyes lowered to Emily’s lips, her words still in the air between them.
‘Would you turn me down?’
Quinn was in a daze. Had it really only been a week since she’d met Emily at the coffee shop?
Because it felt like so much more time had passed. They’d spent practically the whole day together. Her birthday of all days.
And more than once Quinn had found her gaze lingering on Emily.
