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It sort of did. It was so like Quinn to be practical about taking her degree and using it, at the same time finding a rewarding way to fulfill her dreams. He envied her. She’d even made working all the time sound balanced and fulfilling. The one thing he’d never been able to achieve.
He shoved his hands into his hair and looked up at the starry night. His mind was a beehive of activity and the one thing he’d hoped to calm it wasn’t working. He could smell her perfume drifting to him each time the breeze shifted in his direction. If he rolled over, he could touch her, they were sitting so close on the blanket. But she wanted to talk.
And talking was making it worse, reminding him of all he’d chosen to walk away from. Would he be a different man if they’d stayed together? Duh, right? But would he be any happier? Frankly, in his mind—
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“Just about if you would have made my life better or if I would have ruined yours had we stayed together,” he said, honestly.
“Logan, don’t do that. We aren’t the kind of couple who are meant for anything but competing. We’re really good at putting together the best debate and then trouncing each other. Or making everything into a game... you know it and I know it.”
“I do. It’s just when you talk, I’m tempted to let myself believe I could be a better man.”
“You’re a good man,” she said. “This isn’t like you. Why do you think you need to be better?”
“No reason,” he said. “Just the thing with Nick and Dad is throwing me.”
Yeah, right, his conscience jeered. Like he hadn’t spent the last few months plotting to dismantle everything Nick Williams had built over the last few years. As if he wasn’t a vindictive man who had lost one too many times, so he’d gone for the jugular and now...now he knew that when what he’d done to take Nick down came out, his father’s extramarital affair was going to pale in comparison.
“You okay?” she asked. “When I said talk and drink, I thought we could do something fun.”
“Like what?” he asked.
“Find out what we’d been up to since the last time we chatted,” she said.
“Like a girl’s brunch?”
She punched him in the shoulder, and it was harder than he’d expected.
“No, asshole. Like two friends catching up.”
He reached over and squeezed her hand. “I’d like that. Tell me about the videos you make. How did that start?”
She groaned.
“What?”
“You won’t like the answer,” she warned him.
“It’s my night for not liking things,” he said. Honestly, there wasn’t anything she could say that would hurt more than knowing he was going to drive a wedge in his family that would make welcoming his new half brother impossible.
“It started after you and I broke up. I took a job on one of those catamaran cruise tours and worked my way around the Caribbean.”
“Why wouldn’t I like that?” he asked.
“Because I went with Cruz,” she said.
She was right. He didn’t like it. Cruz and he had competed for everything in college, including Quinn. Of course the other man would have made a play for her when they’d broken up. “We weren’t together anymore.”
“I know. That’s why I went with him,” she said. “Not my best moment. But Cruz guessed that’s why I’d said yes. He actually is a really decent guy. We had fun and he suggested I do travel videos.”
“It was a good suggestion. I’m glad something came out of our breakup.”
“Me too. Mainly, that’s why I’m afraid to hook up now,” she said. “It wasn’t easy getting over you, Logan.”
“You broke up with me,” he reminded her.
“Only because I knew you’d never stop competing with me. I know it sounds silly but that morning you suggested we see who could get their Starbucks order first was it. Then when we got back, you were trying to tell me that our latest exam results, which were the same, weren’t really and you had done a longer essay so essentially you’d won. Well, I realized it would never be enough for you to tie with me. You have to be number one,” she said.
