Page 18 of What We Got Wrong

“You’re making fun of me.”

Quinn shook her head, though she was clearly amused. “Of course not. We debriefed about my date today, and now I’m asking you about your boyfriends. This is entry level girl talk, my friend.”

Liv tried to relax. This was good. This whole conversation, really, serving as a reminder of all the reasons that she shouldn’t be thinking about Quinn’s arms. “They’re not my boyfriends, to be clear. But I mean…Conner is nice enough. And he’s the one I lost my virginity to, so that’s a nice full circle narrative there, right?”

Quinn’s eyes went wide, and Liv realized again that she might have gone too far. “Whoa, I also never would have never expected you to say that. I thought you were so innocent!”

“I said I was sheltered, not that I grew up in a convent,” Liv replied with an eye roll, though she was blushing.

“What’s he like?” Quinn asked, her tone slightly off as if, maybe, she was feeling a bit awkward as well.

“Honestly? He’s really not that bad,” was all she offered as an answer, though she did pull out a picture to show Quinn.

“Ah, true love,” her roommate deadpanned, and Liv pushed her shoulder.

“I just mean, he’s nice enough, and he’s pretty decent, as far as…”

“As far as rich white guys go,” Quinn offered, knowing exactly where she was headed.

“I mean, yes," Liv admitted. “Our dads are business partners, so he’s always sort of been around. And we have a sort of…unspoken agreement, I guess. When we’re around each other, we’re sort of together? But we don’t talk much when we’re in different zip codes. It works for us.”

“That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard,” Quinn teased, pretending to wipe away a tear. Her phone pinged, and when she grabbed for it, her face lit up. “Scarlet. She confirmed for Tuesday.”

And this, too, was good, Liv told herself, as she finally pushed play on the movie. It was for the best that they both focus on other things, other people. It wouldn’t do her any good to get completely wrapped up in Quinn, because she knew if she did, she’d never want to let go.

Chapter 7

Liv

Now

Liv wished she could skip the keynote, if she was being honest. She’d had a restless night, and they’d picked her last choice of their options. He wasn’t bad, per se. As a tech guy, he fit in with the conference theme, Innovation Through Excellence, which her father had chosen to encourage his teams to embrace an entrepreneurial spirit while maintaining the company’s high standards. Still, his delivery was a bit cheesy.

Of course, it was possible that maybe Liv just wasn’t in the right headspace to listen to his ra ra speech…

She was plainly aware that somewhere in this room was Quinn. There weren’t many sessions that the speakers were required to be at, but attending the keynote was part of the contract, so this was among the few times she would know for certain that they were in the same room: the speakers and sponsors dinner, the keynote, and, of course, the workshop Quinn was leading, though she could admit it may be best to skip that last one.

She just didn’t want to, was the thing.

Liv knew that seeing Quinn again after all this time was going to bring up a lot of feelings, but one of the most consistent thoughts running through her mind was how much Liv missed her friendship. Because Quinn was a kind person. She didn’t even wait until the next day to apologize for hurting her feelings, and that was after ten years of not talking, after everything that had gone down between them.

And okay, maybe it wasn’t fair for her to be shocked that Quinn thought she was married. Because she had been. But it was complicated, and how in the world would Quinn know that?

She had followed the exact plan, to a T. Less than six months after graduation, she was working at J&P and engaged to Conner Jamison (yes, that Jamison, the J in J&P, along with fifty or sixty other companies his dad had splashed their name across). And she was miserable.

She and Conner had always gotten along, and he was perfectly fine as a husband. Exactly as she’d always known he would be.

But she’d been caught up in everything she’d lost…

She needed to think of a way to explain what happened to Quinn, ideally as soon as she saw her. Hopefully, one that didn’t make her sound like a depressed mess who’d been waiting around, all kinds of thirsty, for a decade. That said, it would be all kinds of obvious when Quinn saw who she’d booked to interview for her big session the next day…

Jesus, Liv felt like such an idiot.

She looked at the guy on stage, his toothy grin making her cringe. He was talking about fast failure and psychological safety, and absolutely no, she was not going to use this cheeseball’s speech as motivation.

“That was kind of tacky,” Audrey whispered to her when the presentation was finally over.

“Right,” Liv replied. But as they watched, several people approached the speaker, and they seemed to have connected with what he said. What did Liv know about anything, really?