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He clears his throat. “But hey, maybe this means he’s finally growing out of all that shit. Hell, what elsecouldit mean? There aren’t any games left to play between you, right? So maybe you’re the one to finally straighten him out. Whatever it is, I’m just glad you guys found each other again. And the rest is water under the bridge?” Patrick steps in and gives me a hug as my hands hang limp at my sides. “And George, I don’t want the guy to be pissed at me. You mind not mentioning I came by?”
I absently nod my agreement as he leaves, my mind still reeling from having my every fear, anxiety and deepest dread from the last seven years dredged up with a few careless words. Anapology.
I feel sick. Abused.
Angry and hurt.
Humiliated.Again. Because if what Patrick says is true, then I’ve been letting Quinn play me all over again. I’veinvitedit by serving myself up as the girl who stupidly thinks she has the upper hand… making myself the challenge he couldn’t resist.
I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.
How could I do it? How could I let it happen again?
I think about Quinn. About how relentlessly he pursued me, how single-minded he was.
It can’t be true.
About those months before I let him in, and the moments when his player facade would slip and I’d see glimpses of the man making himself vulnerable to me again and again.
It couldn’t have been an act.
I think about lipstick kiss marks from stranded grandmas and kids squealing with delight as Quinn skated with them. About heart-shaped picture frames and team testimonials. About all the ways that Quinn O’Brian shows people how much he cares with actions above words. I think about talking with him into the night and those times when we said nothing at all. I think about how hard I fought him and what it took for me to put my trust in him again.
And how once I did… Iknewit was right. Real.
I think about the man I let myself love, and I realize with soul-deep certainty that he would never do the things Patrick claimed.
Never.
Oh, God. Pain grips my belly, doubling me over.
How could I have believed Patrick, even for a minute? How could I have listened?
Quinn deserves more. He deserves more than a brother who’s a liar of the very worst kind, and a girlfriend who’s barely better. Because now I see it with sickening clarity. All this time I’ve been so scared to trust again, so selfishly worried about protectingmyself… when I should have considered what my lies would do to Quinn. How betrayed he’s going to feel.
An hour later, I’m still standing in the same spot when Ross and Eli come in, stomping their feet and getting snow all over the floor, one shoving the other until they notice me.
“Shit, George. You don’t look so hot,” Ross comments, ducking out of Eli’s headlock.
I nod. Shake my head. Give up and shrug. I haven’t stopped thinking about what to say to Quinn since his brother left. How I can explain, because suddenly all those justifications and rationalizations I’ve been hanging on to for the last few months seem like a coward’s weak excuses.
He could hate me after this.
Another concerned look passes between my brothers before Eli walks over and feels my head. “You sick or something?”
That I can answer clearly. “Yes.”
“Go on upstairs then. Take a nap or a shower or something. I’ll handle the shop.”
Ross adds, “Put a bucket by your bed.”
I walk through my shop, through the work area and around into the back hall and up the stairs to our apartment and back to my room where I open my phone with shaking hands and bring up the pug on the Roomba.
Quinn has so much heart. He has to understand.
* * *
Quinn
