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She nodded jerkily. “Sure. You?”
I jammed my hands in my pockets, scuffing my toe lightly across the tiled floor. “Yeah, fine.”
She began to turn away again, and I reached for her reflexively. The moment my fingers landed on her elbow, I could feel the reverberation of that touch through my entire system. It was just her elbow, for fuck’s sake. I dropped my hand swiftly, as if it had been burned.
“I don’t want things to be weird with us,” I said.
“They’re not weird,” she insisted.
Despite my own tension and near constant state of uncertainty around her every time our paths crossed, or I even thought about her, irritation pricked me. I didn’t like that she was trying to pretend nothing happened. Becausesomethinghad, something important. I knew I wasn’t alone in how I felt. Maybe I didn’t know what the hell to do, but I suddenly felt as if I wasn’t worth it to her.
It wasn’t something I voiced aloud, but, for whatever reason, I tended to feel like the left-out sibling in our family. Rhys was the CEO. Fuck no, I didn’t want that job. It was far more responsibility than I cared to deal with. Blake headed up the brewery and winery production. He knew his place. He was made for that. Adam was the numbers guy. He fucking loved being the CFO.
With McKenna being our PR person and Griffin and Wyatt content as hotshot firefighters who stared risk in the face as part of their job, they had a place. No one bothered to consider what I wanted. Yet if they asked, I wouldn’t have been able to answer. I was the filler-in when someone needed to step up and do something no one else knew what to do with.
Apparently, even the woman who’d become my closest friend over the past few years didn’t think I was worth the trouble.
“Don’t try to pretend,” I said, my voice coming out low and laced with a hint of my simmering frustration.
Quinn turned to face me fully, her eyes coasting over my face before holding my gaze. Her look was direct, perceptive, and assessing.
“I’m not pretending,” she finally said. She lifted her free hand in the air, letting it fall. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to screw up our friendship.”
“I don’t either.” I was relieved she didn’t try to sidestep the obvious.
She still didn’t look away from me, and I started to feel uncertain, shifting on my feet before scuffing my toe against the floor again. I hated that I felt so unsettled with her now. Not much got to me, but that kiss had. The chasm it had created between us bothered me even more.
“Let’s have dinner tonight,” I said.
“A date?” she prompted.
I shrugged. I didn’t know how to define it. “Look, your friendship is important to me. We’ve had dinner plenty of times. Let’s just talk.”
She was quiet, and a subtle flush crested on her cheeks. The desire simmering on low burn whenever I was near her sent sparks leaping inside me.
Her eyes broke away from mine. Her hand clenched on the file folder against her chest. She stared out the window for a moment, and I followed her gaze. With our headquarters smack in the middle of downtown Fireweed Harbor, we had an excellent view of the harbor. Boats bobbed in the water, and the sun was high in the sky, striking sparks on the surface.
She looked back at me. “Okay. Are we going out?”
We often got takeout together and watched shows at her place. “It’s pizza night,” I pointed out. “I’ll bring pizza to your place. Does that work?” I felt my lips curling into a smile. I’d missed my nights with Quinn.
When she smiled back, my heart gave a tricky beat in my chest. “That works. See you at seven.”
ChapterNine
QUINN
I rested my hands on the counter in my kitchen, trying to take a calming breath. Ever since I’d agreed that Kenan could come over like he usually did, I’d been an anxious mess. We always watchedGrey’s Anatomytogether. We loved getting caught up in the drama.
I released my breath in a gust as I straightened. “This is no big deal,” I said to myself.
Maybe I can forget about that stupid kiss. He’s just a friend. You know you could never have anything with him.
Kenan had told me more than once that he couldn’t imagine himself being serious with anyone. He was still shocked that two of his brothers had fallen in love. He’d always said his family’s history had taught him love wasn’t worth it.
He wasn’t a jerk and didn’t use people. He played the field in college, but nothing out of the ordinary. Here and there, he dated. He didn’t speak of it much, but to this day, I thought he went to Juneau and Seattle for travel on occasion to meet with women who weren’t too close for comfort and accepted a no-strings arrangement with him.
I spun my bracelet in a circle on my wrist. I shook my hands consciously and strode from my kitchen down the short hallway to my bathroom. My dog’s claws clicked on the floor behind me as she followed.
