Wynter's Horizon (28 page)

“It’s before my time, but I love 80’s movies. It’s got Rob Lowe and Patrick Swayze in it, and it’s about hockey.”

Quinn grinned. “Why do girls like hockey players?”

“Well, they’re sick and have sicker asses. Why do you like it?”

“Hockey’s got all the stuff you do in other sports and you do it all on skates. It’s like the extreme in sports. Also they fight.” He said it matter of fact.

“Oh.” We watched the rest of the movie, to the end when Rob swung his arm around the girl and escorted her off the ice. I drained the rest of my Diet Coke, annoyed. “You see the problem with teenage movies.”

“What problem?”

“Teenage movies, even the ones now, are all about the guy coming to his senses and loving the girl in the end. That’s just not how it works.”

“What do you mean?”

I thought of my own history. “They never show the part where, after the sex, the guy dumps all over you, slinking out without a goodbye, tweeting about you to his friends, ignoring you. The nice guy never does that in movies but, guess what, it happens all the time. In this movie, the girl just told him she loves him and he smiles back and acts all nice. Hello. He’s supposed to be seventeen, like he wants some girl telling him that she loves him. Hell, in real life he’d run screaming for the door. You can name any teenage chick flick, and that’s the lie. I mean, look at
Say Anything
. That guy stands outside her window holding up a radio. Seriously?! Romantic but hardly realistic.”

I pulled the tab off the top of the can. In college, we used to joke that a tab that came off a beer can, in one piece, meant you would get lucky that night. The silence was deafening. Oops. So much for understated. Quinn just stared at me. My cheeks burned hotter and hotter
. Fuck!
I heard a cough and looked up. Beck stood at the top of the stairs.
Double Fuck!
I wondered how long he’d been up there and how much he’d heard.

“Hi,” I called meekly. He came halfway down the steps, glancing at Quinn as he did. He looked good, dressed in khaki pants and a dark blue button-up, sleeves rolled up. I loved his arms. His eyes held mine, and my heart stuttered.

“You want a drink?” He nodded at me. I followed him back upstairs, staring at the way his shirttails had come out and hung over his pants. I liked his butt, too.

“Did you hear all my ranting?” I asked, hoping uselessly he hadn’t. He shrugged in reply, handing me a bottle of water from the fridge.

“How was your week? You seem stressed.”

I pulled a chair out from the table, its legs scratching along the wooden floor, and plopped down, thinking of all the work I had brought, sitting in the car in my backpack. There was no comparison between undergraduate and graduate school.

“Okay.” I felt depressed just thinking about it. “Lots of work,” I added glumly, still embarrassed by my outburst downstairs.

“Nothing new and exciting?” Quinn prompted as he dove into the fridge after Beck, emerging with a can of beer. I avoided eye contact, instead focusing on the sun just starting its descent. The sky was still light. Maybe I could run off my embarrassment.

“No, just more work.” I thought about my date. I had been debating telling Beck the entire ride up. “Oh, hey, yeah, I went out on a date last night.”

Quinn whipped his head around. “You did?” He exchanged a look with Beck, who immediately opened the liquor cabinet.

“What’s that look for?” I asked, annoyed. So far, this visit was not going as I had planned.

“I’m thinking of where to put the bottle of scotch Quinn owes me.” He answered calmly, shutting the cabinet.

Quinn grunted a response as he opened the door to the basement. He motioned to Beck’s phone buzzing on the counter. “Hey, Reginald, Fiona’s calling.”

Beck’s eyes flashed and his face clouded. Striding to the counter, he grabbed it, glanced at it quickly, and silenced it. “You ass.”

It wasn’t often I got info on their lives. I took the bait. “Who’s Fiona?”

“Nobody.” I didn’t let it go. Maybe there was a reason he didn’t like me. I needed to know before I spilled my guts. I stared at his back and the way his hair almost curled over the edge of his collar.

“Well, she must be somebody,” I pushed.

“She’s a friend. That’s all. He’s just trying to be a jerk. We had a bet earlier, and he lost, and now he wants to be an ass to get back at me.” He emphasized the last words, tossing his head in the direction of the open basement door. He obviously wanted Quinn to hear.

“Okay. Is she
just
a friend or a friend with benefits?” I could hear Quinn’s laughter from downstairs, which gave me my answer, but I stared at Beck, waiting.

He squirmed and ruffled some papers on the table. “Yes. She’s an old friend and, sometimes, more.” He struggled over the last word, almost choking it out.

“Do you love her?” My heart went nuts. I usually wasn’t so nosy, but I had to know. Maybe he was in love with her and, for some unknown reason, couldn’t be with her.

“Yes, but as more of a … sister. She lives in London.”

“Oh. That’s kind of disturbing.” I hadn’t meant to say the words out loud.

Quinn laughed louder. “She’s got a point, Reggie.”

Beck reached out and, in one quick motion, despite the basement door being halfway across the room, slammed it shut. It was not a move a normal human could make, and I jumped. He usually didn’t do that stuff in front of me.

He turned and faced me, his expression hard to read, his tone clipped. “Listen, she’s a friend. I don’t think of her as a sister. It was the wrong words. She’s someone who’s shared a lot of my life with me. She knows what it’s like to be an outcast and to be wanted for something you can’t control.”

He raked his hand through his hair, and I wondered how I could even compare. He was sleeping with someone like himself, I realized. She could probably do things in bed I couldn’t imagine. This explained all those trips to London. So much for the future I kept imagining for us—and the conversation I’d planned in my head for three hours. I felt the air drain out of me.

He tilted his head, looking at me. “What?”

“Should I go?” I felt self-conscious and inadequate. He studied me, and then his face softened. Reaching out, he wrapped his hand gently around my wrist. I just stared at his fingers.

“Don’t go. I didn’t mean to be short with you. It’s just … love and I … well, they don’t go well together. I told you that before. For a long time I didn’t even think I could feel. Do you want to go for a run while I wrap things up here, and then we can go downtown for dinner and a movie?” I swallowed, feeling like there was so much more to say, but I wasn’t sure what. Something had set him off, but, whatever it was, he hadn’t let me in.

“Okay. Are you going to kill Quinn while I’m gone?”

He smiled now, a genuine one that reached his eyes. “Bloody hell, if it was that easy, he would have been gone a long time ago.”

“I heard that even through the door.” A mock hurt voice floated up the stairs. I smiled and went to get changed for my run.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Beck—Sara

I watched her retreating back, legs long and lean sticking out from her shorts, pouring into her running shoes. She always started out slowly, but I could see her pick up her pace as she rounded the bend and flew out of sight at the top of the drive. I tried to distract myself by collecting all the half-filled glasses and remnants of a week’s worth of life. I heard Quinn’s steps before the door opened. I didn’t turn around as I gathered up the last of my documents to clean off the table.

“You know, I could care less if you yell at me. But why did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Take it out on her? She has no idea what’s going on.”

I sighed. He was right, which was annoying on so many levels. “I hate the fact that she went out with that guy.”

“Oh, I know you do. The jealousy emanates from you almost as much as the sexual frustration. I don’t get it. You don’t want her going out with other guys, but you don’t want to tell her you love her. You’re putting her in some double bind, and she doesn’t even know it.”

“Well, that’s just what I have to deal with.”

“And the rest of us, apparently. You’re unbelievable. Your ability for self-denial is almost a religious art. Fuck! Cut yourself some slack. It’s all right to be in love.”

“No, it’s not. I’m not doing this to her.”

“Did it ever occur to you that she wants you to do it to her—in all interpretations of the word
it
?”

I was silent, trying hard not to let my imagination run away with me. I took a deep breath. “Even if that’s true—and that’s a big if—that doesn’t make it right.”

“I don’t know. It feels right to me, and I’m not even the one in love with her. She loves you.” He paused. “She is in love with you, and you are in love with her. Anyone can see that.”

“You don’t have to speak slowly. I’m not an idiot.”

“That’s debatable.”

Wynter pushed open the door, her face red and glistening, her chest heaving with exertion. “What’s debatable?”

“Beck’s IQ.”

“Oh.” She didn’t press for more, just sat on the floor and stretched. It was amazing to see her there. A year ago, I was staring at her across a bar.

“You still want to do dinner and a movie?” I asked, trying to distract myself from her legs.

“Sure, but we can skip dinner and go straight to the movies.” She lay down and crossed her leg over her side, arching her back—unfair and torturous.

“Don’t you want dinner?” I asked. I could see Quinn smirking behind her, pretending to read a magazine.

“Popcorn’s fine. Unless you guys want it.” She finally stood up.

“Oh, I think Beck wants it,” Quinn added. I gave him the finger.

“What do you want to see?”

“What’s playing at that retro theater?” Wynter asked.

“If it’s
Legends of the Fall,
we’re not going.” Quinn interjected.

“Why not?” Wynter demanded.

“We’ve already seen it, and I don’t know why you like that guy.”

“Brad Pitt? The one with the hair, smile, and hot way of getting on a horse?”

“It’s just hair. I have it, too.”

“Not like that you don’t. Besides, it’s a great love story.” She gave me a knowing look. “It ends unhappily.”

“Well, if I looked like that with that hair, would you be jumping my bones?” Quinn just couldn’t leave it alone.

“Maybe. But we’ll never know.” She smiled innocently back at him, fluttering her eyes in the process.

“Don’t tempt me.” He grinned even wider. My jealousy flared. Quinn had an easy way of interacting with Wynter. I wished for that ability to banter. I had never had it.

“Okay. So, what do you want to see?” She stood and gathered her bag.

“Anything but that,” Quinn said.

Wynter climbed the stairs, peeling off her sweatshirt as she went. I could see her shirt bunch up under it, exposing her bare back. “Fine. I’ll be down after my shower,” she called. I felt like moaning. I turned toward the kitchen to get a drink and caught Quinn smirking at me.

“What?” I pretended not to be bothered.

“Just tell her.”

“Forget it.”

“You’re nuts. Wait. What did she mean by a great love story?”

“Oh, besides the teenage movie thing, she has a theory all great love stories end unhappily.”

“Good God, she’s twisted, too. You guys should just do it and get it over with.”

“Sod off.”

***

We went to see some science fiction movie instead. I didn’t really pay attention. During most movies, I spent the time watching her, the way she ate her popcorn, how she drank her soda, the fact her hair never stayed behind her ear, the curve of her jaw as it melted into her neck and collarbones.

It was a nice night, unseasonably warm for the fall. In the Jeep driving home, she convinced me to take the top down, hanging her head out the side and letting the wind blow her hair back.

“If you like that, Wyn, you should try standing up,” Quinn said. We had, by this time, pulled down the dirt road leading to the driveway.

“Really?” She jumped up on the passenger seat. I could see Quinn reach out a hand to steady her, but she didn’t need his help.

“Totally. And then ask Beck to go really fast.”

“Quinn.” I hoped by the tone of my voice he could tell I wanted him to stop. She didn’t heal like us. She couldn’t afford to take the stupid chances we did.

“Oh, be quiet, Buffy.” I shot Quinn the nastiest look I could. He moved behind her and the passenger seat, which I supposed was to make me feel better.

Wynter wrapped her hands around the roll bar, braced her feet on the seat, and looked down at me grinning. “Go fast.” I could hear her heart starting to gallop.

“Wynter.”

“I’m okay. Really. Go fast,” she assured me, smiling and widening her eyes.

“I’ve got her, Beck,” Quinn added. Against my better judgment, I pushed the pedal hard, and the stones from the driveway spun under the tires. The Jeep leapt forward as Wynter yelled, her body sagging back against the seat. I slowed down.