Crazy For You (7 page)

“They going to be upset?” He followed her into the kitchen, trying not to look at her rear end. Her jeans were too tight. He’d never noticed it before, but her jeans were definitely too tight. It was a miracle she didn’t have guys baying at her on the street.

“Well, they got used to seeing Bill and me together.” Quinn dropped the last garbage bag of clothes on her mother’s kitchen floor where Katie could sniff it the way she’d sniffed the other eight, evidently suspicious something threatening lurked within. “I’m not sure they can see me without him. After two years with him, I don’t think anybody sees me anymore, not the way I really am. I mean. look at you.”

Nick froze for a moment in the act of taking a beer out of the fridge. “Leave me out of it.” He twisted off the cap and nudged the door closed with his shoulder.

Quinn leaned against the counter, folding her arms so her pink sweater pulled tighter against her breasts as she scowled her exasperation at him. “I bet your whole life you’ve thought of me as either Zee’s sister or somebody’s girlfriend.”

Nick shook his head. “You know better than that.” He knew better than that, even if he didn’t want to think about it.

“It was different when Zoe was around.” Quinn went past him to the fridge. “I could understand that when Zoe was around, nobody saw me.”

A gentleman would have told her that wasn’t true, but it was. Zoe had been perfect, exotic, her little vixen face capped with wild naturally kinky hair that fell past her shoulders, the red of it so dark it was almost black out of the sunlight.

“I got used to it.” Quinn got a beer from the fridge. “But you’d think somebody would notice me standing next to a
guy”

She screwed the cap off her own bottle and drank, and he watched the curve of her neck as she leaned back and the movement of the muscles in her throat, willing his eyes not to drop farther down that curve to that damn pink sweater. Her hair fell back in the same smooth bell cut she’d worn since she was fifteen. No kink to Quinn at all, he thought, keeping his mind off curves. Just all that smooth silky red-gold hair, the kind that looked like it would fall like water through his fingers.

“I saw you.” Nick put his beer down. “Listen, I have to go.”

“You haven’t finished your beer,” Quinn said. “But I can take a hint. I’ll stop whining.”

She walked out of the kitchen through the wide archway into the dark little living room, Katie stepping nervously beside her, and detoured around the big red couch that had been in front of the arch for as long as he could remember. “Do you believe this?” Zoe had said when they were seniors. “My mother bought a Carnal-Red couch. Don’t you just want to fuck every time you look at it?” Since he’d been eighteen and wanted to fuck anybody any time he looked at anything, the question was moot, but it came back to haunt him now because Quinn had plopped herself down in the center of it. Pink sweater, copper hair, orange-red couch: he could feel the heat from where he stood.

Get out of here,
he told himself, but Quinn rolled her head to smile at him over the back of the couch. “Really, I’ll stop whining. I truly am grateful you helped me move, and I’m sorry I’ve been such a grouch.”

The light from the kitchen gleamed on her hair.

“Your mother should redecorate,” he said and walked around the couch to sit beside her.

“There’s a lot of things my mother should do.” Quinn moved over to give him room while Katie sat anxiously at her feet. “Like get a life. I think that’s one of the reasons I decided I had to have Katie.” Quinn smiled down at the little dog. Then her smile faded. “And leave Bill. I don’t want to end up settling like my mother, hitting the garage sales with my best friend while my husband watches TV instead of me, and that’s the way I was heading with Bill. I want it all. Excitement. Passion.”

Nick leaned against the cushions, his arm stretched along the back of the couch but not touching her—that would be bad, touching her, don’t go there—and watched her soft lips part and close while she spoke, and felt his breath come a fraction faster.
This is dumb, get out,
he told himself, and yanked his mind away from her mouth in time to hear her say, “I want to be new, different, exciting. I want to be Zoe.”

“You can skip that part if you want,” he said.

“I think maybe Katie was a sign. You know, like my destiny telling me to get a life.” Quinn smiled at him and said, “You can’t ignore your destiny,” and he lost his place in the conversation again. Everything about Quinn was warm, he’d always known that, but for twenty years he’d been telling himself it was a puppy kind of warmth, cute and safe. But there was her mouth now, lush and smiling—

“Nick?” Quinn leaned forward a little and her hair spilled on the couch back. “Are you okay?”

Her voice came from far away. He only had to lift one finger to touch her hair. Just one finger. It was so easy, and the strands slid like silk, the way he’d thought they would, cool and slippery, and his breath snagged in his throat.

Her eyes widened, and he was caught, both of them caught, staring into each other’s eyes for long seconds, too long, way too long, hours too long, frozen in each other’s gaze, and the longer he looked the more he saw Quinn, her eyes huge and startled, Quinn, her soft lips parted, Quinn, hotter than he could have imagined,
Quinn.
He began to lean forward, sucked into her warmth, a little dizzy because he wanted her mouth so much. She closed her eyes and leaned forward, too, close and possible, too possible,
don’t go there,
but he leaned anyway to take all of her heat, and then a car door slammed outside and Katie barked, and Nick jerked back.

“Oh,
hell.”
He stood up, pulling away from her so that she fell forward a little, and Katie went under an end table in terror.

You have lost your fucking mind,
he told himself. “Okay,” he said to her briskly, betrayed only by how husky his voice came out. “Nothing happened. This is not you. You don’t do this. I’m sorry. It’s the couch. I have to go.”

Quinn took a deep breath, and he tried not to watch her sweater rise and fall.
Manicure scissors,
he told himself.
Sister-in-law. Best friend. Bill’s girl.

None of it was helpful.

“Maybe it is me,” Quinn said faintly. “Maybe I do this. I’ve changed some today.” She swallowed and the movement of her throat made him nuts again.

“No, you haven’t,” Nick said. “I’m going now.” He backed around the couch just as Quinn’s mother came in the back door and screamed.

“Us?” her mother said and Nick said, “No, there is no us, it’s just Quinn. And me. Not together.”

Then Quinn’s father came in from the garage, and said, “What the
hell?”
and Nick thought,
Good question.

“What are you doing here?” Meggy McKenzie looked at them and then at her garbage bag-strewn kitchen, the overhead light making her short curly auburn hair an improbably red-gold halo around her pretty, perplexed face. “What is this stuff? Why aren’t the lights on?”

“Hello, Nick,” her husband said, squinting into the dark living room, his voice a little slow with suspicion. Joe was a big guy, a little balding, a little paunch, but mostly solid blue-collar electrician bulk, all of it radiating disapproval of Nick.

Nick could relate. He wasn’t any too pleased with himself at the moment. “Hey, Joe. Well, I got to go. Have a good night. Quinn will explain.” He detoured around Meggy and was out the back door before she could ask him anything else, like
What were you doing on my couch with my daughter?
The second daughter of hers he’d been on that couch with.
Don’t even think about that.

Once he was in the truck, he realized he’d left his jacket behind, but he didn’t care. The cold could get his head back for him, or at least some of the blood it needed to function. He sat for a minute, trying not to think about how stupid he’d just been, blowing twenty years of self-control like that.

“This did not happen,” he said and started the truck.

It was all that damn dog’s fault. If it hadn’t been for the dog, Quinn would still have been with Bill. As long as Quinn had been with Bill, he’d known how the world worked. And before Bill it had been Alex and before that it had been Greg and before that—why in the hell hadn’t she married any of those guys? Not that they were good enough for her, but why was she still rolling around town unattached, a loose cannon with a mouth that made men stupid?

Why did he care?

He put the truck in gear and backed out of the driveway and drove away from Quinn and confusion and trouble, and the farther away he got, the easier it was to deny anything had happened, that anything had changed.

Because nothing really had.

“Hi, Daddy.” Quinn moved over on the couch to make room for him, trying to get her mind back from heat and surprise. Nick had almost made a move on her. And she’d been all for it. Amazing.

“How you doing?” her father asked as he sat, never taking his eyes from the screen. Joe’s question was the equivalent of “nice day,” not a request for information. Quinn was fairly sure that whatever was going down with Nick, he didn’t want to know.

“I’ve left Bill,” Quinn said, to test the waters.

“Good,” her father said, his eyes still on the TV, and then part of it must have registered.

“What?” He frowned at her a little, but Quinn knew he was bluffing.

“Never mind,” Quinn said, and when he patted her knee and put his attention back on the TV, she put hers back on her own life, which was suddenly interesting.

Nick had almost made a move on her and she’d said yes. Not an hour after she moved out on one guy, she was sending signals to another one, feeling hotter than she had in her whole life and, stranger yet, feeling that way about
Nick,
and the more she thought about him now, the dizzier she got.
How long has this been going on?

“What’s going on?” Meggy said from the kitchen. “There are nine garbage bags here. Nine.”

“Right.” Quinn got up and moved away from the couch where she’d almost done something exciting, and into the dim little kitchen of her childhood. “I’m staying with you for a little while, if that’s okay.”

“There’s a
dog
in here,” her father called from the living room.

“Don’t pet her,” Quinn said, and then Katie came clicking around the couch, casting worried looks over her shoulder in Joe’s direction.

“Does she bite?” Meggy said.

“No, she pees.” Quinn scooped her up. “Her name’s Katie. I’m keeping her. I have a dog now.”

It sounded wonderful.
I have a dog.
And then there was Nick. Such an interesting life she was getting. Finally.

“In your apartment?” Meggy frowned, her pretty,- faded face crinkling with incomprehension. “Is this why you’ve left Bill? You couldn’t be that frivolous—”

“Sure I could.” Quinn hugged Katie closer. “I’m gone. It’s over.”

Meggy’s frown bleached out into simpler worry. “Oh, dear, I think this is a mistake. Relationships take compromise. Maybe if you go back—”

“He took my dog to the pound,” Quinn said. “I told him I was keeping her, and he took her anyway while I was at school.”

Meggy looked torn, probably between wanting to escape and wanting to save her daughter from being manless.

“Quinn, dear, we’re talking about a
dog.
This isn’t like you. You’re the—”

“No, I’m not,” Quinn said. “Not anymore. I’m tired of being sensible and settling. I’m thirty-five. If I don’t go after what I want now, I never will.”‘ Like Nick. She hadn’t realized it until he’d looked at her like that, but she wanted him. He was excitement personified, the absolute worst person in the world for her. Perfect.

Of course, considering the way he’d left the house at a flat run, he was going to take some convincing. Maybe she should go after something easier first and work up to Nick.

“Life doesn’t end at thirty-five,” Meggy said. “I’m fifty-eight and I’m still doing fine. You just stop taking chances before you lose everything.”

Quinn wondered if her mother had ever wanted anything much, ever felt the zing and the pull she’d just felt with Nick. Stop taking chances? It was the advice Meggy had given her all her life and suddenly Quinn was annoyed about that. “I don’t want to be you,” she told her mother. “You’re doing exactly what you’ve always done. You get up, you go answer phones for Bucky at the real estate office, you go to a garage sale with Edie after school, you come home and fix dinner for Dad, and then you watch him watch TV.” Quinn slowed a little as Meggy’s face grew grim. “Look, if that’s what makes you happy, fine, but it’s not enough for me. If I stay with Bill, I’ll end up the same way you have, no passion, no excitement, and no real reason to get up in the morning. I’m not going to live like that.”

Meggy’s words came out stiffly. “And this dog is going to give you that.”

“No, this dog is just the beginning.” Quinn put Katie down so she could re-explore the kitchen. “Katie is the canary in the mineshaft. I didn’t know how stifling my life was until Bill wouldn’t let me keep her.” Quinn took a deep breath. “I’m not adapting anymore, Mama. From now on, people are going to have to adapt to me. I’m going after what I want.” It was such a lovely selfish thing to say, Quinn felt lightheaded for a minute. There should be background music. Trumpets. Nick.

“Need a beer here,” Joe called from the living room, and Meggy automatically went to the refrigerator and got it, frowning as she went. When she came back from the living room, she folded her arms, evidently still unconvinced and showing amazing staying power considering that her usual response to anything that upset her was, Well, all right. “Is this about Nick?”

Quinn felt herself flush. “No. This is about me.”

“Because you and Nick would be terrible,” Meggy said. “Bill—” The phone rang and Meggy turned her back to pick it up. “Hello? Just a minute.” She held the phone out to Quinn. “It’s Bill.” Her tone added,
Be careful, dear.

“Oh, hell.” Quinn felt the pit of her stomach drop to her knees as she took the phone. “Hi, Bill.”

“What’s going on?” he asked. “Your clothes are gone.”

“I know. I moved out. I left you a note.” Quinn closed her eyes and leaned against the cabinets. “I’ll come get my books later, but you can have the rest of the stuff.”

“Your note makes no sense,” Bill said. “And the silverware is missing.”

“I know.” Quinn tried again. “I took it. I moved out. You’ll have to buy some more.”

“But then we’ll have two sets,” Bill said, and Quinn stopped feeling guilty.

“Bill, I moved out. There isn’t any ‘we’ anymore. I’m gone. It’s over.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” The calm certainty in his voice kicked up Quinn’s anger again.

“I’m not ridiculous. I’m
gone.” I’m necking with other men.
Sort of. “It wasn’t working for me, Bill.”

“Of course it was. I’ll come get you, and you’ll come home, and we’ll talk this out tomorrow after school.”

“No.”

Meggy turned around startled, and Quinn shook her head at her. “No, you will not come get me,” she said to Bill with brutal firmness. “I’ve left you. It’s over.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes,” Bill said and hung up.

“I don’t believe this.” Quinn put the phone back. “He’s coming over. I told him it’s over, and he told me not to be ridiculous. He thinks I’m coining back.” She turned to see Meggy still eyeing the bags littering her kitchen, as if they’d evaporate if she just stared at them long enough. “Forget it. I can go to a motel if you want, but I’m not going back to him.”

“You really want this.” Meggy sounded unhappy.

“I really want to be free,” Quinn said. “It feels really good to be away from him.”

“I need to talk to Edie about this,” Meggy said. “This is so rash. I wish you—”

“Mama,” Quinn said. “It’s over. I’ll find an apartment tomorrow, but if I could stay here tonight—”

“Of course you can stay tonight,” Meggy said. “You’re my daughter, and you can always stay here, even when you’re making a big mistake.”

“Mama—”

“I’ll get you a list of apartments tomorrow. Stop by the office after school, I’ll have a list off the computer if you haven’t come to your senses by then.” Meggy patted her shoulder, still looking doubtfully at Katie, who looked doubtfully back.

“Apartments that take dogs,” Quinn said.

Meggy watched with patent disapproval as Katie returned to sniffing the garbage bags. “That dog is up to something. It’s sneaky.”

Katie looked up at her, dark eyes wide with anxious innocence.

“She is not,” Quinn said. “Look at that sweet face.”

“That dog has a secret,” Meggy said.

“Mother—”

“All right, apartments that take dogs. Did you say Bill was coming over?”

“Yes,” Quinn said. “He thinks he’s coming to get me.”

“Well, don’t burn any bridges,” Meggy said. “Bill is a good man with a good job and a good future. I’m sure it will all work out.”

“Bill is another thirty years of stripped pine furniture, high school athletics, and ESPN,” Quinn said, and Meggy glanced at the archway. The room glowed with the dim blue light from the TV and they could hear the faint cheers of some crowd enthused over some play.

“We got any Cheetos?” Joe called, and Quinn went to get them without saying anything else, feeling guilty about the damage she’d already inflicted on her mother. Her mother liked her boring life. Passion would probably have made her worry.

“I’m sorry, Mama,” she said on her trip back from the living room. “I shouldn’t have said that stuff. You live the way you want. What do I know about you?”

“Nothing,” Meggy said shortly, but when Bill came to the front door while Quinn was hauling her clothes upstairs, Meggy opened the door, said, “She’s staying here for a while, Bill, go home,” and slammed it in his face.

“Way to go, Ma,” Quinn said from the staircase.

“Was that Bill?” Joe said.

“Just watch the TV,” Meggy said. “God knows if you paid attention to anything else, you might miss something important.”

“What did I do?” Joe asked, but Meggy ignored him and went upstairs.