Page 36 of What We Got Wrong

“How did it go after I left last night?” Quinn asked, handing her friend a coffee and sitting next to her at one of the small tables in the pre-conference area of the hotel. There were a few other people milling about, but they had some time before the crowd started rolling in.

“Pretty well,” Mel replied. “I updated the list of leads last night in the shared file, if you want to check it out. And…Audrey is kind of fun?”

Quinn huffed. “Did you hook up with her already, or is she on your to do list?”

“We’ve been friends for a long time, and I still don’t know how you manage to be this much of a nerd while looking like you do,” Mel responded, laughing. “I didn’t sleep with her yet. But I might.”

“Uh huh, and this is somehow different than my whole thing with Liv?”

“Oh, it is absolutely different,” Mel said, laughing even harder. “You don’t see how me hooking up with a woman I just met, someone who identifies as straight, but did give me her number and tell me she just ‘might be up for some fun,’ is different from whatever sad sack lovesick thing you have going on here?”

“First of all, rude,” Quinn replied. “And second of all, she actually said that to you? What even is your life, dude?”

“I’m blessed,” Mel responded, her hand on her chest, her tone wistful, like she was talking about something much deeper than her ability to bed beautiful women.

Quinn rolled her eyes. “What’s the agenda today?”

They pulled up the schedule to review which sessions they’d each planned to take. They aligned on their assignments for the day, which included one longer breakout in the morning—Quinn assigned to cover one on leading global teams, and Mel attending the “Leveraging Tech in Support Functions” session—before a lunch break, and two shorter breakouts each in the afternoon that mostly revolved around data security. It wasn’t their area of interest or expertise, but it was still a good chance to interact with folks from different teams across the J&P organization.

The last meeting of the day was the interview that Liv was scheduled to lead, and Quinn was pretty sure the best option for her was to skip it. Seeing Liv again was bringing up so much from her past, sure, but the truth was that they were strangers. She’d spent much more of her life without Liv than with her, both before and after they met, and she just needed to get through the next three days without sinking into that hole again. Then, she could fold the idea of Liv back into a little box in the back of her mind.

Quinn almost believed it herself.

Her phone went off then, a notification sound that she wasn’t familiar with, but she didn’t check it right away. Mel flipped hers over, though, as it had also sounded, and after reading whatever had popped across her screen, Quinn watched as her friend’s jaw dropped.

“That’s…interesting,” was all Mel said at first. She jutted her chin towards Quinn’s phone, and then just stared at her, waiting.

When Quinn turned her own cell over to check the announcement, her heart stuttered.

J&P Industries is happy to announce that the final session today will be a conversation with Rhea Stewart, 3-time US Olympian…

Quinn didn’t need to click on the message to read the rest of her biography.

“Holy shit,” Quinn said, ever eloquent. She turned from her phone back to Mel, who was watching her with a strange expression on her face.

Rhea Stewart.

Rhea Freaking Stewart?

But also…that tracked. Because they had been friends, first, and Quinn had immediately been taken with Liv’s sweetness. The times she’d been incredibly kind to Quinn, to Emma, to Quinn’s family, cycled through Quinn’s mind, and she was quiet for several moments.

Quinn remembered the first time she’d seen Rhea Stewart in person. She was eight years old, and Rhea was doing a tour for her first book, the one she’d written after her second trip to the Olympics. Quinn had begged her mom to take her to the closest location, so they’d driven all the way to Ann Arbor from her hometown and waited in line to see her. When they’d gotten to the front of the queue, Quinn’s mom had explained that they were there because Quinn had wanted to come. That she was a swimmer, and she had charted Rhea’s medals in the previous summer Olympics.

Quinn remembered exactly how it felt in that moment when Rhea turned her full attention to her. Maybe it was that she was her hero, or maybe it was simply the first time that an adult had treated her with that kind of respect, but it was burned into Quinn’s brain. The way she’d trained her eyes on Quinn; the way she’d asked her about her swim team; the way she’d come around the table to give Quinn a big hug and taken several pictures with her. She’d shaken Quinn’s hand, and Quinn vividly remembered feeling like electricity had shot up her arm when Rhea had squeezed it.

Quinn’s mom liked to tell people that was the day she realized that Quinn was gay. She said Quinn left the bookstore with hearts in her eyes.

And the idea of seeing Rhea now, when Quinn was already in such a strange place, was messing with her emotions.

“I’m kind of impressed with her game right now,” Mel admitted, breaking the silence.

Quinn rolled her eyes, not loving the implication. “Let’s not talk about it?”

“Okay,” Mel replied, nodding along as she spoke. “Same plan?”

“Same plan,” Quinn confirmed, before adding in. “I know we have a lot going on this week, but do you want to go out tonight? I need to be around queer people.”

Mel’s face lit up. “My dearest Quinn, I will happily escort you to a gay club. There is actually a girl bar a few blocks from here.”