Crazy For You (18 page)

She looked over Quinn’s head to her own neat French twist. Much neater than Barbara’s version of it, which was softer, sexier.

Hell.

“Since high school,” Quinn had said. Well, that’s how long she’d been growing hers, since senior year when she’d caught Max looking at some junior cheerleader and all he’d said was, “I like long hair.” Instead of saying, “I don’t, and you look at her again, you’re dead,” she’d stopped cutting hers.

“Darla?” Quinn said, and Darla said, “This is a good idea.”

She cut Quinn’s hair in a layered cap, parting it on the side to de-emphasize the roundness of Quinn’s face, amazing herself with how much Quinn changed with each snip of the scissors. She looked older when Darla ran a comb through her hair for the last time, but she looked better, too. Sharper. Faster. Sexier. So much for long hair having sex appeal. “What do you think?”

Quinn nodded, her face a little bleak but determined. “It’s a shock, but I like it. Once the shock’s over, I’m probably . going to love it.” She shook her head back and forth. “I used to be able to feel my hair swing when I did that.”

“Those days are over,” Darla said. “Want a blow-dry?” But then Nella came in, half an hour late, and said, “I’m not late, am I?” and Quinn stood up, dumping swathes of coppery hair as she did.

“Not at all, Nell,” Darla lied. “Sit down. Be right with you.” She followed Quinn out to the counter and said, “That one was on me. Call me later.” When Quinn was gone, she went back to the break room to find Debbie.

“My twelve o’clock here?” Debbie said, her voice a little frosty.

“No. Can you cut my hair later?”

Debbie’s jaw dropped. “Your hair?”

“Yeah,” Darla said. “I want it short. Pixie short.”

“Oh, my God.” Debbie’s frost thawed at the news. “Max is going to kill you sure as look at you.”

“It’s my head, not Max’s,” Darla said, and went back out to do Nella before Debbie could point out that Max was the one who had to look at it.

That was his problem.

Well, the hell with it. She had a good cut, Darla didn’t do bad ones, so she’d be fine. She flipped the visor up, took a deep breath, and went in to talk to Nick.

He was deep in conversation with Max, both of them frowning, and she had the distinct impression that they weren’t talking about cars. She let the back door slam behind her, and they both turned and lost their frowns in surprise, but Nick got his back again in a hurry.

“What did you do to your
hair?”
he said. “Are you
nuts?”

“No,” she said. “And you can stop saying that. I’m grownup. I’m thirty-five.”

“That would explain the maturity you showed last night,” Nick said.

“Last night?” Max said.

“Your brother made a move on me last night and then told me I wasn’t the type to pet,” Quinn told him.

“I don’t want to know this,” Max said, and retreated into the office, slamming the door behind him.

“Nice,” Nick said.

“Listen, the last time you pulled this on me, I was polite,” Quinn said. “But you just used up all my polite. What the hell are you doing to me?”

Nick tensed even more, glaring at her. “I don’t know. I just know I’m not going to do it again.”

“Well, why not?” Quinn walked closer so she could smack him or jump him, depending on how the conversation turned out. “I’m all for it, or I will be after I get finished wanting you dead.”

“You’re important to me,” he said, and her anger evaporated.

She swallowed. “Oh.”

“I don’t want you to be just another...” He searched for the word.

“Bimbo?” Her anger began to condense again.

“I don’t get involved,” he told her. “I don’t do responsibility. I like my life the way it is, and I like you in it, but you stay a friend because that way I can keep you around forever.” He didn’t look happy about his plan, but his jaw was set. “Having sex with you would be wrong, it’s not the way we are. So I’m not going to do it.”

“Then why did you kiss me?” she said.

“I was stupid,” he said, and she felt deflated.

Really, what could she do? Force him to make love to her? She wasn’t even sure she was ready for that. She’d done about all she could. At least she’d confronted him. The sensible, safe rationalizations piled up and buried her resolve.

“Okay, fine.” She backed up a step.

He looked miserable. “I don’t want to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you. I’m really sorry, Quinn.”

“Not a problem,” Quinn said. “I’m not the sensitive type. Sturdy. Competent. Dependable.”

“Quinn—”

“No need to get involved at all,” she said brightly, backing toward the door. “I’m completely responsible for myself. So we’re fine.”

“Don’t do this.”

“So I’ll be seeing you.” She bumped into the door and felt for the handle. “Best of luck in the future.”

“
Quinn
—”

She met his eyes and playing fair lost its appeal. “You are not going to forget me,” she said, her chin up. “I don’t give a damn what your plans are, you still want me. Just don’t expect me to sit around waiting until you get your commitment problem worked out because I’m getting a brand-new life with this haircut, and it’s going to include a brand-new sex life, too. Sorry you won’t be joining me.”

She swung open the door and stomped outside, flinging herself into her car and starting the motor immediately in case he followed her out, which of course he didn’t.

“Nice job,” she told herself. Now she had to get a sex life since she’d threatened him with it. And she had no hair. And her father was living with her and using Nick’s toothbrush. “The hell with it,” she said and went back to school.

“Yes.” Nick stared into Eli Strauss’s Honda. “Permanently gone.”

Max nodded, still safe in the office. “Is that good?”

“That’s perfect,” Nick said savagely.

“Well, good.” Max shook his head. “Why’d she cut her hair like that?”

“I have no idea,” Nick lied.

“I hate short hair on women,” Max said. “Makes ‘em look tough.”

“Yep,” Nick said, planning on killing Max if he didn’t shut the fuck up and leave him alone.

“So you made a move on Quinn, huh?”

Nick swung around and glared at his little brother.

“I’ll just be here in the office,” Max said and went back in.

Nick worked for another hour on the Honda without paying much attention to what he was doing. Mostly, he was fuming at Quinn. What an overreaction, big deal, a couple of kisses—his mind slid away from the mind-blowing heaviness of her breast in his hand—and she was acting like they’d—his mind ricocheted off what she was acting like they’d done, the things he hadn’t gotten to do, the way that soft flannel would have parted under his hands, the way Quinn would have rolled hot in his arms—he put his hands on the edge of the Honda and thought,
I am such a hypocrite, and she was not overreacting.

Suppose they hadn’t stopped, suppose he’d pulled that shirt off her, those jeans, suppose they’d had sex—

He’d never be able to leave her. Life without Quinn wasn’t possible. She was one of the people he loved, like Max and Darla and the boys. She stayed.

But life with Quinn in his bed on a permanent basis wasn’t possible, either. He liked living alone. And if he slept with Quinn, she’d want to move in or want him to move in with her, and he’d never be alone again, and she’d definitely want to talk about the relationship. Nightmare time. He had the perfect life, the perfect apartment, he’d done the right thing. He wasn’t the type to take care of people, he didn’t want responsibilities, he wanted to do what he wanted when he wanted, free to sleep with anybody and wake up alone—

He straightened at that thought. He hadn’t slept with anybody since Lisa. That was before Christmas. He’d been alone and Quinn was alone, and they’d just lost their heads. As soon as they both dated somebody else,
slept with
somebody else, the problem would be solved.

Except he didn’t want anybody else, and if she really made good on that dumb threat to have sex with another guy—

The back door slammed again, and he turned so fast he bruised his shoulder on the hood of the Honda, but it wasn’t Quinn, it was Darla, and her hair was gone. It was short, like Quinn’s, only shorter.

“Jesus,” he said. “What did you guys do, join a cult? Max is going to throw a fit.”

“Screw Max,” she said, and he put his head back under the hood of the Honda because life outside of auto mechanics was just too damn emotional.

“I cut it off.” Darla closed the office door behind her. “I wanted something different so—”

“Well, I don’t.” Max folded his arms across his chest and glared at her. “I can’t believe this. What the hell’s the matter with you?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Darla said, holding on to her temper with every cell in her body. “I just think we’re stagnating. We’re the same—”

“I want us the same,” Max said, still seething. “I worked my butt off to get us here—”

“Hey, I worked, too,” Darla said.

“—and now we’ve got life just the way we want it—”

“The way
you
want it.”

“—and you want to
change things?”
Max was so mad he looked away from her. “Just for the sake of change, you want to screw up a perfect life.”

“It’s not perfect for me,” Darla said, and then Max did look at her. “It’s been the same old thing for years, Max, we need to keep growing or we’ll just—”

“You mean I’m not perfect for you,” Max said.

“No.”
Darla shook her head, her heart beating faster. “No, you’re the perfect man for me, you always have been, I love you—”

“Then why this?” Max said. “Why all that stupid sex stuff?”

Darla went cold. “I wanted some excitement. Evidently you don’t.”

“We’re exciting enough,” Max said.

“No,” Darla said through her teeth. “We’re not.”

Max stared her down, as mulish as only Max could be. “You mean I’m not exciting enough.”

“Yes,” Darla said.

Max nodded, too mad to talk.

“I want something different for us,” Darla said.

“Well, I don’t.” Max uncrossed his arms and turned away. “So I guess you’re going to have to find something different on your own.”

“Guess so,” Darla said, and stomped out of the office. On her way she passed Nick bent over the Honda and said, “And you’re a jackass, too,” and then she went out and slammed the door.

“I know,” Thea said. “I like my hair long. But you’re right about people not seeing you. I mean, the whole school probably thinks you’re just the coach’s girlfriend and the art teacher who fixes things. They don’t see you’re a real person at all.”

“Thank you,” Quinn said. “That’s enormously cheering.”

“Well, now they will,” Thea said. “You dumped the coach and cut your hair. They’re going to have to look at you differently now.”

“We can only hope,” Quinn said.

“I think that was
very
smart of you,” Thea said. “The getting people to look at you differently part, anyway. I gotta admit I really liked your hair long.”

Thea was up to something, and Quinn didn’t feel any more reassured when Jason came up to sign out an X-Acto knife fifteen minutes later, and Thea said sweetly, “I owe you an apology.”

Jason gave her the same nervous look he’d been giving her ever since the movie fiasco.

“You know, for when I asked you to the movies.” Thea radiated earnestness. “I was really using you, trying to make my life different.”

“Oh,” Jason said, clearly not following at all.

“I just wanted something more exciting than studying all the time. And I figured if I went out with you, there’d be parties, drinking, sex in the backseat, that kind of stuff.”

“What?” Jason said.

“It wasn’t fair.” Thea smiled her apology. “I mean, imagine if you’d asked me out to use me for sex. That would make you a real creep, and here I was doing it to you. So I’m really sorry.”

“Wait a minute,” Jason said.

“It won’t happen again,” Thea said soothingly and went into the storeroom.

“She’s yanking my chain, isn’t she?” Jason said to Quinn.

“I’m sure she’s truly sorry,” Quinn said.

“She shouldn’t say that stuff about looking for sex,” Jason said. “She’ll have every creep in the school on her butt.”

Quinn tried to look as innocent as Thea. “Why do you care?”

“Look, she’s a nice kid.” Jason sounded exasperated. “She’s not my type, but she’s a good person. Tell her to knock off that sex talk or she’s going to get in trouble.”

“I’ll pass that along,” Quinn said, and when Jason finally went back to his table, she went into the storeroom. “That was an incredibly evil thing to do,” she told Thea.

“Paybacks are a bitch,” Thea said. “Besides, it’s not going to keep him awake nights, thinking about what he missed. He’s not interested.”

“He seems concerned,” Quinn said. “And he’s right, you probably shouldn’t spread that bit about the sex around.”

“Like I would.” Thea grinned. “But he did look at me differently for a minute, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” Quinn said. “He was appalled.”

“Beats bored,” Thea said. “And I didn’t have to cut my hair, either.”

The last bell rang fifteen minutes later, and Quinn grabbed her coat and ran, trying to avoid Bill and the BP, only to run into Edie instead. They hadn’t had much chance to talk at lunch with Marjorie loudly expressing her opinion that people knew who to blame for the team’s three losses, and Petra darkly muttering about the evil that lived in students’ hearts, especially the pervert boy students, and where had Quinn gotten that lovely blouse?

“Sometimes I think everybody in this school is crazy,” Edie said as they went out the back door.

Quinn nodded. “The BP is driving me there. Every damn day he’s on me for something else. It’s like being nibbled to death by ducks. Ducks in letter sweaters.”

“He doesn’t have a life,” Edie said soothingly. “You do. Your hair looks great, by the way.”

“I don’t have a life that I’ve noticed,” Quinn said. “Pretty much the same old thing as far as I can see. Except for you and Mom.”

“Quinn—” Edie began, and Quinn said, “No, it’s okay. As long as you’re both happy, I’m happy for you. And I’m sure I’ll grow to like living with Daddy. He seems fairly simple in his needs.”

“I’m so sorry,” Edie said.

“Don’t be,” Quinn said. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

But at five-thirty that night, in the middle of making brats and sauerkraut for her father before heading off for play practice, Quinn heard the doorbell and opened the door to find Darla with a suitcase, a pixie cut that took about ten years off her age, and a strained expression on her face that put the years right back on.

“Love the hair,” Quinn said as she stepped back to let her in.

“I’m moving in for a little while,” Darla said. “If that’s all right.”

“Uh, sure.” Quinn searched for something tactful to say and finally settled for directness. “What happened?”

“He didn’t like my hair.” Darla put the suitcase down where Katie could sniff it. “He said, ‘What the hell’s the matter with you?’ and I said, ‘I want something different,’ and he said, ‘Well, I don’t,’ so I left for a while. That’s different.”

The old Darla would have said it with a glint in her eye, but this one just stood there, looking as tense as Lois. Maybe this was the kind of tension you got when you separated from a husband. Not that Quinn would ever know.

Darla wasn’t saying anything else, so Quinn said, “Yes, it is different,” to encourage her. Nothing. “Well, come on upstairs and we’ll move one of the twin beds into the office.”

“Why?” Darla picked up her suitcase again, making Katie skip back a step.

“Dad moved in last night. I’m assuming you don’t want to share a bedroom.”

“Your mom and dad have a fight?”

“No. She’s in love with Edie. We haven’t mentioned this to Dad yet.”

Darla blinked at her. “Right. And you and Nick?”

“I’m annoyed and he’s in denial.”

“Well, at least we’re all out of our ruts,” Darla said and headed for the stairs.