He exited the text, as if a crowd of people surrounded him and might see him looking at something so inappropriate.
What a way to make an apology.
If that was even what it was.
Who said I miss you and then sent you a dick pic?
Guys like Dougie. Guys like Noah wouldn’t do such a thing.
He considered typing back. Maybe saying don’t text me again. An eye roll emoji, perhaps. Or just block his number.
These thoughts left his mind as quickly as they entered. He would say nothing, and hope that it would go away. It was something Quinn always did.
His eyes drifted to the counter at the window, lingering on a drawer.
Yes. Everything goes away if you just ignore it.
I’ll ignore this.
But could he ignore his trousers? Quinn observed them, complimented by Noah, adored by Ivy. Perhaps they weren’t so bad, after all. He’d keep them on. He considered himself calm enough to spend an evening with Ivy. He didn’t want to be sitting with her flustered over Dougie and his texts. No, he would put this out of his mind and that would be that. Dougie was horny. He didn’t miss him. That was all.
Another message.
Remember this in you?
Quinn ignored the text and left for the pub.
ChapterFive
It was a winter’s evening, and Quinn and Ivy found themselves in the Rose & Crown on Broad Street. With flagstone floors, brown beams, and a fire crackling in the fireplace, it oozed traditional British pub. They sat in a window seat on a cushioned bench where they could feel the warmth of the fire. A waiter handed them their third gin and tonic each, garnished with blackberries and an orange peel, and a pint of lemonade to Ivy, before heading back to the busy bar to take more orders.
Quinn, still sitting in his tie-dye trousers, much to Ivy’s appreciation, stirred his g&t, the ice clinking against the glass.
‘Come on, smile for me,’ Ivy pleaded. ‘It’s not fair to see you so low.’
Quinn forced a smile, but inside he wanted to cry. This morning, he had woken up excited about the day ahead. He couldn’t wait to mingle with friends, enjoy the winter literary event, and then go back to work the next day as the festival entered its last weekend. He’d been looking forward to the rush that would happen at his shop, something that came every festival season.
Instead, he found himself as flat as Ivy’s lemonade.
‘I just keep replaying it in my mind.’
‘Oh, stop,’ Ivy said. ‘It wasn’tthatbad!’
‘But it was!’
Quinn hadn’t told Ivy about the graveyard because it was too humiliating, and the more he thought about it, the more he was sure it never happened. Weird things transpired in graveyards, and being compared to a parachute by a romance novelist was apparently one of them.
‘You know what I like to do in these situations? I like to break them down.’ She stirred her gin and tonic. ‘So, let’s do that. Some champagne spilled on you. It looked like you wet yourself, I’ll admit. But that was, what, a minute of your day?’
‘And?’
‘So, the day has twenty-four hours in it, and you’re allowing yourself to feel low over one minute of it?’ Ivy asked. ‘Look around this room.’
Quinn did as he was told, memories of being in school and being told off by a teacher coming to him. His eyes drifted over the bar, where people gathered, waiting for orders. Every single table in the place was full, with people eating, drinking, socialising. He couldn’t recall the last time he saw the Rose & Crown so busy. It was like summer in Hay again. Only a light snowfall had begun outside.
‘Notice anything?’
‘People.’
