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“Your Zombie ran off,” I said, trying to push my glasses up but only prodding the lens. “You should chase after him. Don’t worry about me, I’m actually feeling really confident.” I gestured to the punch bowl. “It’s like magic. No Krueger can scare me now.”
Even as I said it a wave of dizziness clouded my mind. It didn’t help my glasses were smudged. I took them off, but I had no good material on me for wiping them. The shirt I wore was not cotton like Quinn’s looked to be . . .
“Tell me, Liam,” Quinn said, his voice coaxing and soft as it brushed against the side of my face. “Why do you care so much about me and the zombie?” He lifted his hand and his fingers drew across my jaw and under my chin. “I know you’ve been watching me as much as I’ve been watching you most of the evening.”
“I spent just as much time focusing on Hunter and my column, thank you.”
“You don’t deny it, then?”
Why would I? “Of course I was watching you with the zombie. I was trying to figure out what the protocol was. Whether I should let you go home first to give you guys some time in the apartment alone. Whether in the morning if the zombie comes out of your room hungry, I should offer him breakfast or shoo him out for you. I’ve never really been in this situation before, and quite frankly, I’m lost.”
Quinn dropped his fingers, and cool air kissed my skin in their place. I focused on my smudgy glasses between us as the room started a slow spin. Get your glasses back on!
I reached out and tugged on Quinn’s shirt, scraping my knuckles over his stomach as I used his T-shirt material to wipe my lenses. He startled and his tiny gasp tugged on a few strands of my hair. “Christ, how much have you had to drink?”
I pulled back a bit too fast and stumbled. Quinn’s large warm hands gripped my shoulders and kept me from toppling over. “A bit too much, it seems,” I answered him.
“Come on,” Quinn said, looping an arm around mine and leading me toward the balcony. “Let’s get you some fresh air.”
The air helped a little, but it didn’t stop the feeling of being suffocated by thick haziness. The warm night air made me want to spill all my words into it, liberate all the trapped words that weighed me down and pleaded for escape.
A part of me wanted to cry, but for no reason whatsoever.
Quinn stood next to me, bent over the railing with his arms folded against it. I tried doing the same but the jasmine tangled me. Quinn laughed and straightened, tugging me closer to him and away from the trellis.
Hot in my helmet, I yanked it off and tossed it to Quinn. He caught it and set it down next to his in the balcony corner.
“How are you feeling?” he asked as he leaned back.
My mouth felt heavier than usual, like it couldn’t be bothered to form words longer than a syllable. But I forced the words out. “Unusually good.”
He gave me his signature raise of the brow.
“And,” I continued, “I’m relieved that zombie guy is not an issue anymore.”
Quinn bit his lip and faced the cathedral in the distance. “See, it’s when you say things like that, I just . . .” He sighed. “Never mind, it’s pointless talking about this now.”
I touched Quinn’s arm. Firmly as I could, I turned him toward me. “I’m not oblivious, you know.”
“To what?”
“You, hinting at my undiscovered sexual orientation. You’re not that subtle.”
“So it’s already discovered then?”
I hiccupped and half-shrugged. “Kiss me and we’ll find out.”
Quinn darted his tongue across his bottom lip. “Kiss you?” he repeated.
“Yes. It’s quite simple. We touch lips, our tongues lock for a bit . . . I see if I feel anything and we settle this.”
He laughed and shook his head, quickly moving toward our helmets and picking them up. “You’re drunk. The only thing that’s going to be settled tonight is you. In your bed.”
I stepped away from him, raising a hand to stop him from dragging me home. “I can’t go back yet. Jack and Jill are here, and I’m going to party.”
“Jack and Jill. Yeah,” Quinn drawled, rubbing on his ear. “I don’t even know what to say to that.”
“They work with me. They . . . they think I’m a loser who never should have scored the party page. They are probably right, but they are annoying enough I want to prove otherwise.”
Quinn narrowed his eyes toward the double doors leading back inside. “Jack and Jill, you say?”
“That’s why I need to stay. So how about a compromise?”
He gave a small, snorted chuckle. “Guess if you can still use big words, you can’t be too far gone.”
