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"But…" Felix frowns.
"Raven—" Quentin begins.
I shake my head. "No, both of you need to listen to me. You cannot fight like this, and definitely not over me. Felix,"—I turn to him—"you broke up with me at the altar, with a text message sent to your best man."
Felix reddens, but he stays silent.
"As for you, Quentin?—"
The furrow between his eyebrows deepens. No doubt, it’s because I called him Quentin, and he wants me to call him Q. But this is my bid to hold onto what shreds of dignity I have left in this farce, so I’m not giving him the satisfaction of knowing I do think of him as Q in my mind. "—you don’t know me, yet you proposed, knowing it’d put me on the spot. Knowing?—"
"You couldn’t say no," he completes my statement.
"—it’s the worst kind of situation to go from wanting to marry the son to the father."
"Does it bother you what people think of you?" He inclines his head.
"Wow, just wow!” I slap my palms on my waist. “Way to minimize the issue, Q.”
He flushes a little, then holds up a hand. “I apologize if you felt belittled in any way. I also apologize that Felix and I spoke around you. That was wrong of us.”
“You think?” I huff. Some of the anger inside me nevertheless fades at his words.
He glares at Felix, who’s watching our exchange with a look of disbelief.
“Felix?" he prompts.
Felix continues to stare at us.
"Aren’t you forgetting something?" Q growls.
“What?” Felix shakes his head. “Uh, yeah”—he clears his throat—“sorry about that.” He shifts his weight from foot to foot as if he wishes he were somewhere else.
It’s a lame expression of regret, but whatever. “Apology accepted,” I say in a cool tone.
Felix flushes further. He hunches his thin shoulders, then lets his gaze slide away. The tension in the room builds again.
Q clears his throat, drawing my attention back to him.
“For what it’s worth, it was a genuine question,” he offers.
“The desire to present a favorable image to others is thought to be a universal human motivation across cultures." The words are out before I can stop them.
Q seems taken aback, then his eyes gleam.
He doesn’t seem annoyed by my penchant for spouting weird facts when I’m nervous. In fact, he seems to enjoy my ramblings. I pretend not to notice the appreciative edge to his features.
"Unlike you, I have to live among them. I don’t have the money to put up a cushion between myself and what people are gossiping about me.” I wrap my arms about my waist.
"They only have to see us together to know what we have is real," Q counters.
"Did you two already sleep together?" Felix’s gaze widens.
And when I blush, he takes a physical step back like he can’t bear to be in my vicinity.
"We didn’t sleep together," I insist.
"We almost did," Q confirms in the same breath.
