Page 35 of What We Got Wrong

“Of course,” Liv said, before carefully adding, “Conner was in Austin for the summer, though.”

Ah, so not subtle at all, then. “Remind me… Is Austin in the same zip code as Chicago?”

“You’re a bit of a dork,” Liv said, but there was pure affection in her tone. “Did you take your sisters to the aquarium like you promised?”

“That’s not how I remember the conversation going,” Quinn replied.

Early in the summer, they’d been on a call, and Quinn’s sisters had crashed downstairs, demanding her attention. She didn’t want to hang up with Liv, so she’d asked if they could switch to a video call, and they all sat on the phone for an hour, Juliette and Everlee giving Liv updates about their lives. This became a weekly event, and the last one, Juliette had begged for an end-of-summer trip to her favorite place. The twins had pulled Liv into the argument, and they all ganged up on Quinn, but against the three of them she didn’t stand a chance.

“I did take them, though,” Quinn continued.

Liv smiled at her. “And? Did you see the stingrays? The octopuses?”

“We did,” Quinn replied with a dramatic shudder.

“Are we still afraid?” Liv asked.

“We are not afraid,” Quinn responded, puffing out her chest. “We are cautiously respectful. From a distance.”

“Uh huh,” Liv replied, and Quinn didn’t care that she was being laughed at, because Liv was absolutely beaming at her.

They walked closely together, Quinn’s arm brushing against Liv’s. She knew she couldn’t, that it was insane to even think it, but she wanted to reach out and take her hand. It was like a magnet, like she’d forgotten how drawn she was to her, but now that they were together again, her body was feeling the full blast of the attraction.

When they got to the dorm, overtaken already with Quinn’s stuff, because of course it was, Quinn set Liv’s bags on her bed.

“Thank you,” Liv said.

“Of course, you know, I’m such a gentleman,” Quinn joked, a hint of flirtation in her tone. For reasons that Quinn didn’t understand at all, that made Liv blush. And, oh, Quinn knew it was fun to tease Liv, but her pretty pink face was such a lovely reward. “Are you hungry? Emma asked earlier if we wanted to meet her for dinner.”

“That sounds great,” Liv replied. “I’m going to change out of my plane clothes, and then we can go?”

Quinn turned, attempting to give her some semblance of privacy. “Sounds good.”

“Have you seen Scarlet yet?” Liv asked.

And something about this moment, standing in the room that they shared, while Liv was undressing and Quinn was desperately focused on trying not to think about that fact… It didn’t feel like the right time to disclose how truly pathetic Quinn was, that even someone mean-spirited like Scarlet didn’t think she was worth her time, so…she hedged. “She’ll be around next week.”

Once Liv was ready, they walked to the cafeteria, meeting Emma outside. Liv and Emma squealed when they saw each other, long-lost friends, and Quinn just laughed at their antics. The three of them walked inside together, moving through the long queue to grab their respective meals.

“Okay, so I want to talk about making an adjustment to Sunday movie night,” Emma said as soon as they sat down to eat. She’d started joining at the end of the previous year, happily trashing their taste in films. “I understand that I’m the interloper here, and you are amazing people, but you both have truly terrible taste in movies, so I would like to request some semblance of input on what we watch.”

“You’re lucky we let you join us,” Quinn replied, handily shooting her down.

“You should probably invite Scarlet, too,” Liv added, attempting diplomacy, and the way she said it made Quinn think that she’d been thinking about it for a while. Emma’s eyebrows shot to the top of her forehead, and she turned to Quinn, waiting for her to offer the correction. When she didn’t say anything, Emma just shook her head, altogether indiscreetly, Quinn thought. Before Liv noticed that, though, she stood from where she’d been sitting. “Oh, I forgot a drink. Can I get anyone anything?”

Both Quinn and Emma declined, so Liv scampered off, back toward the line of people, Quinn watching her the whole time, though she could feel Emma’s eyes like laser beams on the side of her face.

“You. Are. So. Dumb,” was all Emma said, under her breath.

And yeah. Quinn was fully aware of that, thank you.

Chapter 13

Quinn

Now

Quinn had probably overdone it in the pool the previous night, swimming laps until her mind calmed, until she was exhausted enough that she’d be able to get some rest, but the soreness in her muscles felt good, grounding her in her body in a way that she appreciated. She was determined, again, to make the best of the day, and, as her best days tended to start with movement, she made sure that she was up and going early enough that she could take a quick walk around the block before it was time to meet up with Mel for the first session of the day.