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I set down my briefcase and crossed my arms. “Out with it.”
Noah bit back his grin again and looked back at Quinn. She had clearly told him that she would do the talking.
“Callum,” she said in a way that sounded rehearsed. “I am so grateful that you and Noah have taken me in. I wanted to do something to show my appreciation.”
I couldn’t help noticing how deep the V of her t-shirt was. How tight her jeans were molded to her ass. If Noah hadn’t been there, I would have had some suggestions for how she could show her appreciation. But he was, so I just braced myself for the inevitable.
“So, to that end,” Quinn tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. Her eyes lifted to the ceiling as she tried to remember what she’d planned to say next. Then, when it didn’t come to her, she shrugged her shoulders and decided to go for it. “So I bought the kid guitarlessons.” She said the last two words so fast they ran together. She didn’t want me to think for a second that she hadn’t followed my one directive. Then she trained her gray eyes on me, waiting for my response.
“Isn’t it going to be hard to take guitar lessons with–” I thought about it for a second. “You can rent guitars, can’t you?”
Quinn nodded.
In the hall mirror, Noah’s fingers tightened around each other. His little shoulders were rolled back, almost soldier-like. He looked like he was bracing himself for my inevitablehell no. The grin had been successfully bitten back. Swallowed.
Guilt lurched through me. Had I been so hard on the kid that he thought I was unreasonable enough to yank away something he wanted so badly? I thought back and wondered if maybe I had. So even though I hated the idea of my kid following his auntinto music instead of focusing on something more practical, I plastered a smile on my face and said, “Great.”
All at once, the smile sprang back onto my son’s face, big and full and happy. He let go of his fingers and threw his arms around my waist.
Quinn started to take a step toward me, too, but she checked herself. I caught her eye as I hugged Noah back. I extended an arm, but she shook her head in a small gesture, jutting her chin toward Noah.
“Hey, kiddo,” I said, unconsciously picking up on her nickname for him. “Can I hug your Aunt Quinn, too?”
“Yeah!” he said enthusiastically. He let go of me with one arm and opened the other to her. We were an open fold until she stepped tentatively into it.
My heart felt unexpectedly and painfully full as I wrapped one arm around Quinn and the other around Noah. Emma’s face flashed before my eyes, but only for a moment. I waited for the inevitable guilt, the crushing grief, the inescapable sense of loss that could never be recovered. Instead, the vision brought an uncanny calm. I didn’t know what the hell I believed about the afterlife, but I knew that if I could ask her in this one, Emma would want someone in our life like Quinn. She wouldn’t have pickedQuinnexactly, but no one could blame her for that. When Emma had been alive, Quinn was this wild, almost mythical, girl from Belmont Springs who sang poetry so beautiful it would break your heart and spoke in mostly swears. But she would want someone who clearly adored Noah and who could stand up to me, and Quinn fit that bill perfectly.
I tightened my grip on them both and then released them. Quinn took a half step back and studied me. There was a soft, curious look in her eye like she’d caught an impression of what I was feeling but didn’t know what it meant.
I didn’t know either.
Jason Cain was quiet for the next few days, but I didn’t reach out to nudge him. I told myself it was because he was volatile. I could push him too far and he could take it out on Quinn. The real reason–the one I stuffed down deep inside myself where I didn’t have to deal with it–was that I didn’twantto hear from him. Once he signed that renegotiated contract, Quinn would be free to go back to her old life. She’d have those three private events she was contracted to do, and I’d go with her, but what we had here would be over.
I could see it all so clearly. We’d talk some big game about how we could make it work. It was hardly even long distance, after all. But even though only an hour or so separated us geographically, we would be in two different worlds. Those private events would be reprieves from our different lives, but they wouldn’t last long.Wewouldn’t last long.
So every day I didn’t hear from Jason Cain was a gift.
I started working from home when I could so I could be near her. The sound of her rich, elemental voice in the next room made the boring shit I was working on feel a little less banal. I’d catch glimpses of her flame red hair as she moved from room to room. I’d smell her sweet, spicy perfume when she tried to sneak up behind me. I always felt her coming, but when she slipped herhands over my eyes or slid her hands over my shoulders, I’d act like she caught me off guard. I didn’t want her to stop sneaking in.
Since I didn’t have an hour-long commute at the end of the day, I was usually able to go grab Noah with her. He had his first guitar lesson with his rented guitar on Wednesday. I could already tell I’d end up buying him his own. He loved it in the way he only pretended to love gymnastics and soccer. He started racing through his homework so he could play around on his rented Loog Mini.
When Quinn sat with him, helping him find the chords in the mix up of strings, teaching him how to tune, she was more patient than I’d ever seen her. It was like a stillness that had eluded her for her entire life had finally settled over her. She’d sit like that for two hours, her beer warming beside her, untouched.
Renee noticed it, too. “You like this,” my sister observed one evening when she came over. “You really like this.” Noah was working on his homework at my desk in the office, and we were hanging out in the library.
“Hmm, yeah,” Quinn said distractedly. “He’s a good kid. He makes it fun.”
“You think it’s just Noah? Maybe you like teaching.”
Quinn snorted, like she doubted that very much. She took a sip of the beer that had been sitting on the end table beside her for two hours and made a face. “You gave me a warm one.”
“It was cold when I gave it to you,” I reminded her as I swapped it out for a new one.
“Lies.” She unfolded her legs, wincing, and patted the spot on the sofa beside her. It still held the small indent from Noah’s body.
I sank into it, and she put her legs over mine. Our eyes locked and both of us felt the change in the air between us. A jolt of electricity that was there no matter how tired either of us was. In an hour, Noah would be in bed for the night and Renee would head out because she had to be up early in the morning. It would be just the two of us. I felt like a kid waiting for Christmas morning.
Renee sighed theatrically and made a point of looking away for a moment.
