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My head jerks up to where Quinn is sitting with his back against my apartment door. He’s dressed in dark jeans and a thermal with an open black vest. That ever-present hint of a smile is nowhere to be seen and his eyes have lost their light. Arms moving from where they were resting on his spread knees, he slowly stands.
“I was looking for you,” I whisper.
He rubs a hand over his face and holds up his phone, the messaging screen open to my name. Nothing from me. “Yeah?”
I shake my head, hating the pain I see in his face, feel coming off him. “I went to your apartment.”
He looks away. “Something you needed to take care of in person, huh?”
“Quinn,” I plead, stepping closer. “I’m sorry. I should have told you. Talked to you sooner. But I—”
“You’re the girl fromthat night,” he says, voice filled with certainty and regret. “Mexico. I guess this explains why you didn’t want me to meet your family.” He swallows. “Why you thought your dad mightactuallykill me.”
“Can we go inside?”
He nods and stands behind me, not touching me, not speaking as I let us in. I set the plate and the stems on the kitchen table and turn to him. “I’m sorry my brothers ruined these.”
He walks to the sink filled with cereal bowls and looks out the window. “They had a pretty good reason.”
They wouldn’t have if I’d told them the truth earlier. “They were the guys who attacked you in Mexico?”
“Like I said, they had a reason.” He turns around, gripping the counter behind him hard enough his knuckles go white. “They should have done worse.”
I take a step closer, my hands coming together in an anxious lock. I’m going to ask. Once. And then I’m never going to need to ask again. “Do you remember that night? Do you remember me at all?”
He gives up this strangled sound, his eyes going red rimmed. “I remember you were a virgin.”
I can’t breathe. Can’t make a sound. But then that panic fades, because even though this sounds like one thing… I know it’s not.
He takes a ragged breath. “You were, right? The next morning… I saw the sheets.”
And there it is. I know this man. “Yes.”
Choking out a strangledfuck, he pushes off the sink and takes my shoulders in his big hands. “Why would you ever let me near you again? Baby, how could you let me touch you after what I did?You never should have let me touch you.”
I take a breath and shake my head helplessly. “I couldn’t stay away from you. I wanted to.” My voice is barely a whisper now. “I hated you for what I thought you did. For how I felt. And… I hated myself for never getting over it. I just wanted to be able to put you behind me, stop comparing every guy I met to you. And I thought maybe, if I gave in to that pull… but on my terms—”
He closes his eyes, issuing a humorless laugh. “If you used me, instead of me using you?”
“I thought I’d finally be able to move on.”
The air leaves his lungs in a slow leak and he bows his head. “That’s what this has been about. You putting me behind you.”
“At first. But Quinn, that’s not what happened.” I step closer, smoothing my palm over the side of his face. “How could it, when no matter how long I waited for you to show me the villain who broke my heart when I was twenty… all I saw was the man I fell in love with? The one I don’t think I’ll ever get over.”
His eyes meet mine, searching. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I love you. And I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you the truth sooner. I was too scared to let myself trust you completely, and later I was too scared of losing—”
But then he’s kissing me hard on the mouth and then gently, fervently across my forehead and over my cheeks. He’s pulling me into his body and holding me like he might truly not be able to let me go. And when he does…
“George, I love you so much. I swear I can be that guy you fell for.”
I shake my head, smoothing my fingertips over his mouth, his jaw. “I loveyou. I see that guy in you, but who you are to me now is so much more. I don’t want anyone else.”
“I swear to God, I tried to find you. Figure out who you were. If I’d known, Georgie—” He shakes his head, the pain in his eyes fresh and raw. “Can you imagine what it would have been like if I’d found you?”
The first tear slips down my cheek. “I can,” I admit quietly. I’ve imagined it too many times to count. But this is the first time I’ve felt the loss of thatmight have beenquite this way… because I could have given us what we lost.
