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Lily laughed. “She’s very good at her job. I’m pretty good too, though. So let’s see …” Which was how Quinn ended up with two new bras and four pairs of underwear, whichwerebikinis. And, all right, a set of her mom’s “darling” buttoned boxers with matching Henley, because the ribbed knit reallywasbuttery-soft, and so thin that it almost wasn’t there at all, especially if you wore it in a green as pale as pistachio ice cream. Beckett didn’t come downstairs until he was sure the kids were asleep, and he sure did like taking her clothes off, even if all they were was jeans and Fruit of the Loom underwear. These would be better, and her mom never had to know.
She was standing in the fitting room in her jeans again, pulling her non-transparent, non-sleep Henley over her head and trying not to envision the total amount she’d be putting on her card—for something only one person would even see!—when Lily asked, “Can I show you something else? If we don’t tell Hailey?”
“Uh …” Quinn said. “Sure. I guess.”
“I was just thinking,” Lily said, “how beautiful you’d look in butterfly wings. If you have a Halloween party to go to or anything. I actuallyhavebutterfly wings, because I wore them last year. Rafe loved them, but there are only so many times you can dress up in butterfly wings. I guess I thought of them because that’s what you swam, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Quinn said. “I’m usually a witch, though. Not for parties. For handing out candy.”
“That always sounds so fun,” Lily said wistfully, “and I’ve never done it. That’s the one time I wish I lived in town. Now that I have a baby, especially, though he’s too little to trick or treat, and my daughter Bailey says she’s too old, even though she’s only ten. She has the responsibility gene for sure. I have the cutest bee costume for him anyway, though. I just couldn’t resist. Here. Let me show you.” And pulled out her phone.
Quinn said, “Can I ask you a question? Do you do that—talk like a regular person, about your kids—so people aren’t intimidated?”
“I don’t seem like a regular person?” Lily looked a little wounded. “How?”
“Uh …” Quinn said. “Ridiculously beautiful? Married to a movie star?”
“That’s Rafe, though,” Lily said, “not me. And the other part’s just grooming, which is more or less my job, right?”
“Well, you were pretty glamorous before Rafe, too,” Quinn said.
Lily laughed. Even herlaughwas pretty. “You’re a judge,” she said. “And an Olympic gold medalist. I think all that counts asmuchmore intimidating than a lingerie-store owner in anybody’s world. I haven’t set any records, and I can’t change anyone’s life or put them in jail. All I can do is dress them better and hopefully make them feel a little more confident. Come on. Let me show you this idea I have.”
Which was how Quinn had ended up here, sitting on the couch in her stupid butterfly outfit and her stupid gloves with her feet hurting and too much scratchy lace on too many parts of her body, wearing a face full of so-called evening makeup and feeling like a fool. She hadn’t knocked Beckett’s socks off, whatever Lily had said. She should go change out of this outfit right now, because he was probably choking back the laughter already, and once he saw the rest of it …
Oh. The kids were back.
39
FLUTTERING
“Eight-fifteen,” Beckett announced, when the truly astonishing piles of lollies had been counted, sorted, and exclaimed over, and the other kids had been collected by their parents, with, yes, Micah uttering a last, “Bye, Janey. See you at school tomorrow.” And Janey saying, “See you,” in a breathless voice he’d never heard.
He’d deal with that tomorrow. Or sometime. Once he’d sorted out how. For now, he said, “Time to get ready for bed.”
“Dad,”Janey said. “It’s Halloween!”
“And tomorrow’s Tuesday,” Beckett said. “Let’s go.”
“My bedtime is absolutely ridiculous,” Janey tried next. “Alexis’s is nine-thirty, and mine’s a whole hour earlier!”
“Pity I looked it up,” Beckett said, “and read that eight-fifteen is a good bedtime for eleven-year-olds so they can be asleep by nine, and your bedtime isn’t until eight-thirty. As you’re meant to have at least nine hours of sleep a night, and ten hours is probably better.”
“I’m almost twelve,” Janey pointed out.
He thought,I need to talk to Quinn.She hadn’t drunk more than a few sips of wine, and had already extinguished the jack o’lantern candles, turned out the lights for the trick-or-treaters, put the extra lollies in a bag—“I’ll take them to the courthouse tomorrow,” she’d told him. “Deputies love candy. Strange but true,” and was now giving off about-to-go-to-bed signals.
He refocused and told Janey, “We’ll revisit it when you’re thirteen. Or when I go to wake you up at six-thirty and you don’t try to roll over and go back to sleep again.”
“Well,obviously,I’m sleepy in the morning,” she said. “Everybody’s sleepy in the morning!”
“Stay up and read in bed,” he said, “if you’re not tired. Get up there. Troy doesn’t take more than ten minutes in the bath.”
Troy asked, “Will you come up while I have my shower?”
“Yeah,” Beckett said. “Go on and get started. Make sure you brush your teeth well, because I think you ate half your weight in lollies.”
“It’scandy,”Janey said.
