A soft little noise came from her. Not quite a gasp, but not a laugh either. It was an appreciative sound. “Who’s turn is it again?” she asked, her voice slightly breathy.
I liked that I affected her. I liked even more that I seemed to be able to read her easily enough. “I think it’s yours,” I murmured.
“Hmm…” She drew the sound out for a while, her leg tapping against mine as she thought. After a moment, she blew out a breath. “Pass. I need a minute to think.”
“You okay?” I asked, worry stirring in my chest.
“I’m fine,” she giggled. “I just think the alcohol is kicking in a bit and I—well, let’s just say you’re distracting me.”
I chuckled, reaching for my drink. My fingers brushed against the other I’d ordered. “What do you mean I’m distracting you?”
“Ugh, are you really gonna make me say it?” she groaned.
“Say what?” One of my brows quirked upward.
“Look—” Her tone turned more assertive. “You’re really, really hot, and between me being a bit buzzed and your stupid, teasing touches…well, you’re distracting me.”
A smile stretched across my face, a sense of satisfaction bubbling within me. When was the last time I’d felt this good? It’d been a long time, that's for damn sure.
“How are you buzzin’ off a fuckin’ milkshake?” I huffed.
“It’s strong, okay?”
“Sure it is.” My words dripped with sarcasm.
Her answering laughter set my heart fluttering like hummingbird wings. I liked making her laugh. It warmed something in my soul—the dark, ugly, cold piece of me that had taken root after my accident.
“Alright,” I said, steering the conversation back to the game. “What made you want to do event planning?”
“My mom passing away, actually.”
“Really?” I remembered her mentioning something about her mom passing away when she was a teen. I wondered how that inspired her.
“Yeah. So, my dad was, like, atotalwreck after my mom died, which, I mean, understandable. And my grandparents are, like, super, super old. They couldn’t take on planning an event like that. With most of our family in Northern California, I just kinda took it upon myself to get everything done.” A soft laugh spanned the brief silence where her last sentence ended and a new one started. “It was actually really…cathartic. On the day of her celebration of life, everyone kept saying how I’d done such a great job capturing my mom’s essence. They felt like I’d brought a piece of her back to life. And well—” A pause “—that’s when I realized I wanted to do this for a living.”
I nodded and finished off the last of my whiskey on the rocks, draining it easily. “I like that. It’s not easy lookin’ at a shitty situation and findin’ something positive in it.” Fuck, I was still trying to do that myself. Then there was this girl who'd done it as a teenager. She might be younger than me, but she was a hell of a lot wiser.
“Exactly. So that’s one of my big goals with planning events. It’s so much more than that. It’s a piece of someone. Whether it’s as simple as a luncheon or a charity event, a first birthday or a memorial. I don’t want to just plan events, I want to breathe life into them.”
Something cracked in me.
I want to breathe life into them.That should be her catch phrase or something.
If I believed anyone could do that, it was her.
But Quinn’s next words turned the warmth in my soul to ice. “What about you? Have you always been a ranch hand?”
I blew out a breath. “I grew up on a ranch, so it’s always been in my blood…” And I don’t know if it was the whiskey kicking in or the fact that she’d been so goddamn open with me, but I found myself saying, “There was a good amount of time, though, that I was pretty big into rodeoin’.”
“Really?” Intrigue and wonder filled her voice, and I instantly regretted the decision to say anything.
Fuck. No amount of alcohol loosened me up enough to want to talk about this. It still hurt too damn much nearly three years later. I still felt the loss. Like a fucking phantom limb or something. That part of me was gone, but the pain from it all still remained.
Sometimes…on really bad days, I almost wished that I’d died. But I’d always been a prideful, stubborn sonofabitch and giving up just wasn’t really in my blood.
“Is that…is that how you had your accident?” I didn’t miss the trepidation and hesitance in her tone.
I bit the inside of my cheek, frustration mixing with the whiskey in my veins. A deadly combo. I went to reach for one of my drinks but they were all empty.Fuck.
