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Hearing Quinn in the background, I stilled, my fingers splayed over a series of Superman issues. What did Quinn know about the vigilante? I hadn’t forgotten the night after the hospital, how he’d stiffened at the mention of someone saving me . . .
Hunter rolled into the back of my legs and yanked me down onto his lap. A comic book flew out of my grasp and clattered against the shelf before slumping to the floor.
“What was that for?” I asked, trying to pull myself off him and reach the comic before it bent for good. His grip tightened around my waist.
“Don’t mess with the hummingbirds, man,” he said with a grin and a flex of his arms. “They’ll win. Look, you have to help me.”
Over my shoulder, I asked, “With what?”
“Mitch, of course. He’s . . . he’s a dream, and I want it to come true.”
“How am I supposed to help?”
“I told him you work for Scribe and that you wanted him to come say hi sometime.”
“Why?”
“Look, Mitch is . . . a bit unsure about this.” Hunter tapped the arms of the chair and then prodded my back. “I want you to figure out what part bothers him.”
“Why don’t you just ask yourself?”
“Because I don’t want to scare him off or make him uncomfortable. And I think it’s the same for him. He might be worried he’ll say the wrong thing or . . . ” He sighed. “Sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone else about it, you know?”
“I’m sure he has friends he’s doing that with—”
“Yeah.” The distinct sound of a smile lingered in his voice and a quick glance proved it to be true. “But I’m all about making my luck, aren’t I? For that, I need to get inside his head, and you”—he gently pushed me off him—“are my mole.”
“And what if the answer’s not something you want to hear?”
When I faced him, he shrugged. “And what if it is?”
Quinn and Shannon stumbled in, struggling with the base of Quinn’s bed. They dropped it with a heavy thunk in the middle of the room.
Hunter, holding my gaze, rolled out of the room. “I’ve got to get to basketball. Shan, are you good to get home on your own?”
Shannon smiled. “No problem, Travis. Do you want me to come with you? I could—”
Hunter raised his hand. “Sis, just don’t. I can handle it.”
Hunter left and for a few moments the aftertaste of awkwardness lingered in the air. Swiveling from box to bookcase, I concentrated on stacking the DC comic books below the Marvel ones.
Shannon and Quinn ducked out again, but they returned with large trash bags filled with clothes and sheets. Shannon plunked her load onto the floor. “That’s the last of it.”
Quinn cheered, took out his phone and played some music. His croaky singing voice sounded like murder—the murder of crows squawking in a summer breeze. He swung his hips to his ill-timed chorus singing, and I forgot about the comics for a moment and enjoyed the show.
“This is really awesome of you, Liam.” Shannon startled me out of my Quinn-induced reverie. I nodded, taking out the hundredth comic from the box and arranging it by issue. She added, “I couldn’t have stood the guy a day longer.”
Quinn’s singing halted. He pulled a pillow out of a box and tossed it at her. “Hey! You know you love me at your place.”
“Nuh-uh. You promised no Pringles in bed.”
“I was grieving. Besides, I didn’t do it while you were in there.”
“Yeah,” Shannon drawled. “That makes it so much better.”
Quinn leaped over his thick gray blankets and a bunch of clothes to engulf Shannon in a hug that made her burst into a shriek. She twisted in his grip and pushed him until suddenly Quinn was flat on his back, lying on his blankets. She pinned him down, and the guy roared in an uncensored laughter that seemed to make the rain on the windows glow with silver light. As if his laugh were magic, the true meaning of a silver lining.
“I am gonna miss your hugs,” she said as she clambered off him. “Guess Liam will be the one getting most of them now.”
Quinn sat up and pushed to his feet, glancing over my way and grinning. “Yeah, and he really needs them too.”
“Me?” I fervently shook my head. “I don’t—”
Damp arms curled around me and the air left my lungs as—in one bound—Quinn crushed me to his warm chest.
“Yeah, you do,” he whispered in my ear.
The unfamiliar sensation froze me for a second. I pulled against Quinn, but then his warmth molded against me, supportive and comfortable.
Slowly, he released his grip, pulling back to shrug at me. “If you really hate it, I won’t, of course.”
I didn’t really hate it. “There are worse roommates out there than ones that hug.” I bent to pick up another comic with a slight tremble in my fingers. “Now when you said you had books, I thought you meant real ones.”
