“Well, shit man. I’m sorry.” A clap to my shoulder, starling the hell out of me.Really? I could do without that this morning. “Here, I’ll feed for ya.”
I shrugged off his hand and shook my head. I didn’t need handouts, especially when I’d done nothing to earn it. “It’s fine.”
“Dude, you look like death. Go grab a cup of coffee, some Advil, and take a damn shower, old man. Leave the hard work for us young ones.”
I know I gave Travis shit all the time, but he was a pretty top-notch dude. Oblivious sometimes, but good-hearted. I huffed a laugh and waved him off. “This new girl fuck the lazy outta you? That’s twice now you’ve offered to help me.”
Travis’ obnoxious laughter followed me as I slowly made my way to the bunkhouse, but even that couldn’t drown out the thought of Quinn.
Chapter nineteen
In The End
Quinn
I’d hoped that maybesome sleep would miraculously fix all of my feelings from the night before, but the next day I still felt just as shitty. I think the biggest issue I had with this all waswhy.Why the sudden change in Hux? Why was the thought of me leaving in a month now a problem when it hadn’t even been a topic of conversation either of us had brought up at this point?
It couldn’t be just that. I doubt he’d admit it, but I’m sure it had, at least,somethingto do with the fact that my dad was marrying that god awful woman and Hux would have to be around her now and then if he pursued me. I didn’t really blame him if that was the case. I wouldn’t want to come around and subject myself to her ignorance if I were him.
I glanced at my phone, which I’d forgotten to put on the charger last night, and bolted upright. 9:45 AM.Shit. Whit hada flight home in, like, a couple hours, which meant we needed to get our asses in gear to get her back into San Antonio on time.
I pulled up her name on my call log and listened to it ring until it went to voicemail, then proceeded to send her a text telling her to get her ass back here.
All I got back was an:on my way.
Which was annoying and vague and told me absolutely not enough details. Where was she on her way from? The bedroom across the hall? The bunkhouse? A different place entirely? How long until she was here? Did I need to get her things ready? Speaking of getting ready, I needed to get myself ready.
So after asking her how long she’d be, I hopped in the shower, trying to wash away all of the feelings of the night before. Surprise, surprise, it didn’t work, and I hated the fact that I was being mopey and sad and letting this affect me so much.
Hux was just a guy. One guy—a guy who managed to make me feel more wanted in a day than Devin had made me feel in the entirety of our relationship. One who was kind, and honest, and hot as hell, and really, really,reallyknew how to make a girl swoon—
Oh my god, stop. You’re being ridiculous.
I could just imagine myself telling any of my friends back home about this and they’d probably all roll their eyes and tell me it was just an infatuation. That Hux was just a crush and these feelings couldn’t possibly be real.
Why did it feel so real then? This was the problem with feeling things so strongly. It wass hard to decide what was actually something big or small when every emotion pouring out of me feltsobig. Mom always said it was a gift, Dad saw too much emotion as weakness though. So, as a result, I was constantly at odds with myself. Trying to feel my feels and temper my emotions all at the same time. It was exhausting.
By the time I got out of the shower and changed, Whit was in my room, packing up the last of her things into her carryon backpack.
“You know, when you sent me that panickywhere are youtext, I assumed you’d be ready when I got here,” she said, turning to look at me. The grin she wore on her face fell the moment she took me in. “You okay?”
I shrugged, a shitty idea coming to mind. Walking over to my suitcase and tossing everything into it, I said, “I’m fine.”
“Why are you packing?” Whit asked.
I refused to look at her as I retrieved my book off the nightstand and my charger.
“Quinn, what’s going on?”
I sighed and turned to look at her, fighting back the sting of tears in my eyes. “I wanna go home. I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to plan my dad’s stupid wedding. I don’t want to run into Hux every day and see him and be reminded that I royally fucked things up.”
Whit was in front of me in an instant, wiping tears from my cheeks. “What the hell happened when I was gone? Why didn’t you text me? Do I need to kick Hux’s ass?”
I laughed through the traitorous tears that trickled down my cheeks and sniffled. “Please don’t. It’s not his fault.”
“Why didn’t you call me or text me? I’d have come back home last night.”
I broke away from her and finished grabbing the last of my things. “At least one of us deserved to have a good night. I was okay. Iamokay.”
