Quinn looked from her mother’s beaming face to Edie’s and said, “Live together.”
“Yes,” Meggy said proudly. “It’s all because of you. You said you didn’t care what people thought, that you had to live your life for yourself, and all I could think of was how much I wanted to do that, too, to go for it all.” Meggy smiled at Edie, happier than Quinn could remember seeing her in years. “And then we talked and decided it would just be so convenient. And Edie moved in tonight, and I’m so happy. I’ve wanted this for years.”
“Years.” Quinn looked over at Nick, who avoided her eyes. “And how does Daddy feel about this?”
“We haven’t told him yet,” Meggy said. “He’s bowling.”
“That’ll teach him,” Nick said, and Quinn glared at him to shut him up.
“So you and Edie have moved in together without telling Daddy,” Quinn said, trying to regroup.
“He’s probably not even going to notice unless I stand in front of the TV,” Edie pointed out.
“I’m only doing what you said to, dear,” Meggy said. “Going for it all. You were right.”
“This wasn’t what I had in mind,” Quinn said.
“Well, we have to go.” Edie picked up her purse, brisk and matter-of-fact as ever. “Your father will be home any minute and he’s going to need an explanation.”
“That I’d like to hear,” Nick said, and Meggy ignored him to kiss Quinn good-bye.
“I just want to be happy, Quinn,” Meggy said, and then they were gone.
Quinn leaned against the counter and said brightly to Nick, “So. This is new.”
Nick nodded. “Interesting night you’re having.”
She met his eyes. “They’re not moving in together so they can go to garage sales, are they?”
“Nope.”
Quinn swallowed. “Did you see the way they looked at each other? For years, she said. How could I have missed this? How could I have been so blind?”
“Well, they haven’t exactly been advertising. And who thinks about their parents’ sex lives, anyway?” He looked slightly revolted as he said it. “I don’t want to think about it now.”
“I’m not ready for this.” Quinn said. “This is my mother. She doesn’t do things out of the blue. She just stands there in the middle of everything and stays the same.” Katie got up and headed for the dog door, and Quinn went to watch her, still talking. “I can depend on her to be boring. I don’t like this at all. It changes things.”
“I know how you feel,” Nick said, and took his beer into the living room.
Eight
Quinn never took her eyes off Katie for the five minutes she was out in the cold, but she thought about Meggy the whole time. Years, she’d said. I’ve wanted this for years. And now she was going after what she wanted, so happy, glowing at Edie. Okay, so it was selfish for her to just dump on Joe like that, selfish to turn everybody’s life upside down, but still…she was so happy.
Well, good for her, Quinn decided. Whoever had come up with the idea that women were supposed to sacrifice for others was probably a guy anyway. Good for Meggy for going for it. Katie came back in, and Quinn shut the dog door so she couldn’t get out again and then began to plan. Nick was in the living room and so was the couch. And he’d just rescued her dog without her even asking. She should show her gratitude for that.
Whether he wanted it or not.
When she went into the living room, Katie tiptoeing cautiously behind her, Nick was standing by the stereo with a CD in his hand looking as hot and heroic as ever, but when he heard her, he dropped it back on the stack with the others and stepped away, looking guilty.
“Music?” she said, and he said, “No.”
It sounded as if he was saying no to more than music. Of course, she was in her fat coat and clunky boots, and she’d just gotten him arrested, so he probably wasn’t in the mood to neck. But she was. She’d wanted him right there on the pavement when he’d told her he was going to rescue Katie. And she and Darla had made a pact to be more aggressive. Darla was wearing black lace, for heaven’s sake. And then there was her mother and Edie. The least she could do was make an effort.
Nick shoved his hands in his pocket and ignored her, looking hot and nervous, and she thought, He’s up to something or he’d have left by now. That was encouraging.
“I should go,” Nick said. “I have to work tomorrow.” But he didn’t move.
Quinn took off her coat and threw it on the chair behind her. “So my mother’s going for it all.” She wandered over to the stereo, trying to look casual as her pulse pounded, and picked up the CD he’d dropped: Fleetwood Mac’s Greatest Hits. He must have dug that one out of the stack. What the hell. She punched the button and slid the disk in the tray. “Well, good for Mom. I mean, we only get one shot at life. Shouldn’t we make the most of it?”
The first bars of “Rhiannon” filled the room. Not one of Quinn’s favorites. She turned it down to background level so they could talk. Or so she could. Nick wasn’t helping much. “I mean, shouldn’t we make it as exciting as possible? Since we’re only here once?”
Nick was looking at her funny, probably because she was talking like a beer commercial. Quinn drifted past him—not easy to do in rubber boots—and sat down on her mother’s red couch. They’d been on the couch when things had heated up before. She wasn’t proud; maybe it would work again. She unbuckled her boots and felt him sit down next to her, and her pulse went into overdrive. So far, so good. She kicked off the boots and wiggled her toes. “Listen, I’m really grateful for everything you’ve done for me tonight.” She stole a look at him under her lashes.
He looked grim, staring at her, his arm stretched along the back of the couch.
She leaned against the back of the couch and then rolled her head closer to his hand. “You stuck with me through everything. You really are my hero.”
“You know you’re driving me crazy, right?” he said.
“Well, I was hoping.” Quinn tried to keep her voice from shaking. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot.”
Nick’s face was like stone. “This is a bad idea. You’re my sister-in-law.”
“Ex-sister-in-law. Twenty years ago. Darla says the statute of limitations is up.”
Nick closed his eyes. “Darla knows about this.”
“Well, of course, Darla knows about this.”
“This is not what I want,” Nick said. “You’re my friend. My best friend. I need to keep you that way.”
Quinn would have kicked him out for being a wimp if he hadn’t just rescued her dog and she hadn’t wanted him so much. “So why are you here on this couch then?”
“You’re right, it’s the couch,” he said, refusing to look at her. “Classical conditioning. It’s not me, it’s the couch. Let’s go in the kitchen.”
But he didn’t move.
“I like this couch,” she said, and he finally looked at her, his eyes dark and hot on hers, and her throat went dry.
“So do I,” he said.
She swallowed and leaned forward a little so that her cheek brushed against his hand. “You know, we can’t just keep pretending this isn’t here, this thing between us.”
“This is dumb,” he said. “This is such a dumb thing to do.”
“No, it isn’t—” she began, and then he slipped his fingers into her hair, his hand real on her, not a fantasy, and she stopped, a little breathless, wanting him, afraid of him, not sure what to do next.
He said, “This is dumb, but I’ve been thinking about this since the last time we were on this damn couch, so just this once.” He slid his hand to the back of her head to bring her face closer to his. “Maybe this’ll be really lousy and we’ll never have to do it again.” He sounded a little out of control, and she held her breath as he leaned closer—amazing to have him that close, to feel how warm he was, how dark he was—and then he brushed her lips so softly he almost wasn’t there, making her heart clutch, tantalizing her until she wanted to
grab him, climb into him, and make him kiss her harder. She caught his T-shirt in her fist, pulling him closer, and his mouth moved deliberately on hers then, tempting her, making the heat flare in her, and she leaned closer as he pulled away.
“Damn, not lousy,” he whispered and she said, “More,” and he closed his eyes and kissed her again, harder this time, his hand tight on the back of her head as her heart pounded and she clenched her hands in his shirt and pressed against him to make the kiss last longer, forever. He pulled back, and she leaned forward, her mouth close to his until she was almost in his lap, trying to find him again, to draw him back, to learn his kiss and everything else she could get from him.
“Bad idea,” he said like a warning, his voice husky, and she said, “Kiss me hard,” and wrapped her arms around his neck, and he pulled her tight against him, tipping her back against the couch so she lay trapped in his arms as she stretched against the lovely hard length of him. His hands slid down her back, rough hands that made her hot and nervous at the same time. This was Nick, and that seemed exciting and dangerous but safe because it was Nick and he was kissing her, long lovely minutes of kissing her—time evaporated while he kissed her—heating her, scaring her, thrilling her because he wanted her so much and he was so rough. She moved closer, and he shuddered and pulled her hips to his and licked into her mouth. She touched his tongue with hers, and he rolled her down onto the couch cushions, twisting so she was under him, pressing her down with all his hot weight, pushing his thigh between hers and making what had been undefined heat suddenly fuse and flare so that she dug her fingernails into his back.
His body was harder under her hands than she was used to, leaner than Bill, more graceful, less gentle, and she tried to find her place with him, find his rhythm as he kissed her and moved against her, but it was confusing because there was so much heat and because he was Nick, insistent and hot on top of her, taking her mouth the way nobody had ever taken her body, but still Nick, and that kept getting in her way at the same time it made her breathe faster. Nick’s heart was pounding, too, she could feel the beat of it, but then he eased his hand up her side—the flannel of her shirt so worn that she could feel how hot his hand was through it—and she forgot his heart and tensed because it was Nick touching her, and then he slid his hand under her breast and then over her breast and cradled it, stroking through the flannel, and she shuddered because the heat and the pressure felt so good and his mouth was so lush on hers. He tightened his hand on her and then stopped, frozen for an instant, the darkness evaporating from his eyes while she pressed against him and he pulled away.
“What?” she said, rising to meet him, holding on to him, and then she heard it, too. Somebody was ringing the doorbell, holding his finger on it so it was one long trill.
Nick’s eyes focused on her. “Christ,” he said and rolled away to stand up, all in one motion, pulling Quinn into a sprawl on the couch because she was holding on to his shirt.
“Nick?” she said as he pried her fingers from the flannel, and then he was on his way to the door, shaking his head, and she heard him open the door and say, “Oh. Hi, Joe,” and she put her head against the back of the couch and exhaled her frustration through her teeth.
Her father came into the living room carrying the portable TV from his bedroom and a garbage bag that looked to be full of clothes.
“Hi, Dad,” Quinn said, trying to look unheated.
“Your mother threw me out,” he said, sounding equally astounded and outraged. “I asked her for a beer, and she just threw me out.”
“I don’t think it was the beer,” Quinn said. “Was Edie with her?”
“I thought it was menopause.” Joe put the TV on the end table near the archway and looked for an outlet. “I mean, she came in and said Edie was going to stay for a while, and I said, ‘Whatever,’ and she started yapping that I never listen to her, and I asked her if this was menopause, and she sort of screamed that was two years ago, and threw me out.” He looked at Nick. “Can they get that twice?”
Nick looked at Quinn and closed his eyes. “No. Well, I have to go.”
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Quinn stood up and glared at him. “You stay right there.” She turned to her father and said, “There are twin beds in the second bedroom upstairs. Pick one. I have to talk to Nick.”
“The game’s on,” Joe said.
“The game’s always on,” Quinn said. “And here’s the bad news: I don’t have cable.”
“Ah, hell,” Joe said and went upstairs with his garbage bag.
Quinn turned back to Nick. “What do you do, pay people to interrupt us?”
“Don’t start.” Nick shook his head at her, looking appalled. “One kiss, right, Jesus, and you say harder. No. This was a mistake.”
“Okay, you’re kidding me, right?” Quinn held on to her temper because screaming wasn’t going to help even if it would have felt good. “You’re going to do this to me again?”
“I think it’s your hair.” He looked up at the ceiling, anywhere but at her. “I must be nuts. Fucking nuts.”
“My hair.” Quinn felt herself flush again. “My hair. You grope me on my couch and then tell me no because of my hair.” She picked up a couch pillow and clutched it to her middle, wrapping her arms around it so she wouldn’t hit him. “You’re right. You are nuts.”
“You look just like you did at sixteen,” Nick said. “Except older.”
Quinn hadn’t realized she was gritting her teeth until she exhaled and her breath rushed out like a hiss.
“I didn’t mean it like that.” Nick closed his eyes and let his head fall back. “I’m having a bad day.”
“You’re having a bad day?” She felt her temper rise, a flood of heat that made her head ache. “The bank turns down my loan, my dog gets kidnapped, my mother comes out of the closet, my father moves in with me”—her voice rose to a shriek—“and my ex-brother-in-law refuses to sleep with me, but you’re having the bad day? I don’t think so!” She flung the couch pillow at him, aiming for his crotch, and he just stood there while it bounced off him.
“The bank turned down your loan?” he said.
“Forget the loan.” She took a deep breath so she could stop shrieking.
Nick took a step back. “Hey, this isn’t just my problem. You said ‘ex-brother-in-law.’ You knew this wasn’t going to work, or you wouldn’t think of me like that. Not while I was—” He broke off. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“This is not about me,” Quinn said. “I was ready to take off my clothes and do anything you asked.”
Nick closed his eyes again. “Don’t do this to me.”
Quinn wanted him dead. “I’m not doing anything to you. I’m not the problem here, you are. Why did you kiss me if you weren’t going to follow through?”
“I was going to follow through,” Nick said. “I wanted to follow through, believe me. But you—” He spread his hands and bounced them once in the air, as if trying to force the words he needed. “I can’t do it. I’ve been thinking about doing it, God knows lately it’s all I’ve been thinking about doing, but then I look at you, and you’re Quinn, not some fantasy, and I love you but not this way, and I can’t, so we’re not going to. Ever. This didn’t happen, and it’s not going to happen again.”
He pushed past her to pick up his coat, and she said, “You know, you can’t keep rewinding and erasing reality whenever you want to. It happened. You kissed me.”
He shrugged on his coat, refusing to look at her. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You groped me.”
“I really don’t want to talk about that.” He pulled his keys out of his coat pocket and pointed them at her. “We don’t do this again. No more big eyes at me on the couch.”
“Oh, it’s my fault.”
“Yes.” Nick turned and went through the dining-room arch to the front door, and Quinn followed him, wanting to throw herself in front of him and drag him back to the couch, but also wanting
to kick him hard. “It’s your fault,” he said. “Ever since you picked up that damn dog, you’ve been different. I never did stuff like this before, I never even thought about this before until you changed.” He stopped to yank open the door. “Not for a long time, anyway.”
Quinn glared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean? A long time ago you had thoughts? I can’t believe you’re going to just leave me like this.”
“Good night,” Nick said and slammed the door behind him.
“The hell it was,” she yelled at him through the window in the door. When he didn’t yell anything back and just kept walking to his truck, she looked down at Katie who’d come to see what the commotion was about. “My hair,” she said to the dog. “He turned me down because of my hair.”
Katie cocked her head, a little nervous and clearly doubtful.
“I know, I’m not buying it, either,” Quinn said, but when Nick’s truck pulled away, she went to stare at herself in the hall mirror. So she still wore her hair the same as in high school. Big deal. Dumb excuse.
In the living room, Fleetwood Mac sang, “Go Your Own Way.”
“What are you, the fucking sound track?” Quinn said, and stomped in to punch off the stereo. So much for Nick’s taste in music.
“Quinn?” Joe called down from upstairs. “Do you have an extra toothbrush?”
“In the cabinet,” she snarled up at him and then went out to the kitchen and dialed Zoë’s number.
When her sister answered, Quinn said, “I think Mom’s gay.”
“What?”
“Our mother is a lesbian. Just a guess, but she and Edie have not been swapping recipes, they’ve been swapping tongues.”
“I’ll be damned.” In the background, Quinn could hear the rumble of Ben’s voice, and then Zoë’s voice, slightly muffled as she turned away to say, “No, nothing’s wrong.” When her voice came back clear, she sounded bemused. “How’s Dad?”
“I don’t think he’s caught on yet,” Quinn said. “He has, however, moved in with me.”