Beautiful Things Never Last (3 page)

But the trouble is, I don’t.

I
want
her to need me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Quinn, seriously, stop,” I say. I slide my arms around her and pull the pan out of the oven.

“I got it,” she says. And I know, like the weight of everything else, she can handle the weight of taking a turkey out of the oven, but still, I try to help.

She lets out an exasperated breath, blowing her long bangs out of her face.
 
I set the bird onto the countertop and she wipes her hands on her apron, looking uncharacteristically prim and proper.
Looking
the part of the girl my mom always thought I should end up with.

“And anyway, I don’t know why I’m going to all of this trouble, since it’s just us.” She tightens the tie on her apron and marches across the black and white linoleum floor like a woman on a mission.

“So what if it’s just us?” I say. I pull the oven mitts off and cross the room to her where she’s piping icing onto a chocolate pie. I nuzzle my face into her neck and breathe in the familiar smell of her.

“Sooo
...
You know, Thanksgiving is a
family
holiday,” she says. She gives a small shrug, just that same quick jerk of her shoulders that she rolls out when she’s most stressed out.

“Hey,” I say. I touch my fingertip to her chin and angle her face toward mine. Our noses touch, and I kiss along the familiar band of freckles that runs along hers. “You.
You
are my family.”

She nods, because it’s all she can do. We’ve been down the family road more times than I can count in the last few months.

Because I want to be sure this feels like family for her. That
I
feel like family for her.

We’ve settled into our one-bedroom studio in Southern California, right down the hall from her brother, Carter. And Quinn...well, for once, she seems happy. Content. Safe.
Grounded
.

“I just...” Quinn says, accidentally squeezing the icing bag so hard, she leaves a blob of the stuff on the pie. Quinn lets out a gasp and starts to do damage control, and I watch her turn a gooey blob of cream into this gorgeous flower with quick precision. When it’s all better, she sinks back against the edge of the counter, but her relief only lasts a second. She looks at me and holds her frosting smeared hands up in defeat. “I just…”

I press my index finger to her lips.

“Don’t. Seriously. Just don’t. Let’s enjoy this. It’s our first Thanksgiving here.” I take in the apartment, small as it may be. Its walls are covered in my photos and shelves lined with Quinn’s
favorite
cookbooks. We’ve made it our home, and I feel a sense of pride in that, because I feel like even though she lived in a nice place with her parents before this, that this is her first real
home.
The first place
that
she can just be her and it’s okay.
Better than okay, because we’re together. At least for now.

Fuck, why do I keep thinking things like that? It’s just a month. It’s nothing in the grand scheme, right?

“Okay,” she says. She checks her watch, the face fogged with smeared icing. “My brother and Shayna won’t be here for another thirty minutes. I mean, if there was anything else you wanted to do...until then...”

I don’t wait for anything else. I wrap my arm around her waist and pick her up until her back is against the wall and push my lips onto hers. “Like what?”

She playfully jerks her head toward our bedroom. I shake my head.

“Nope.You.Here.
Now
,” I growl.

I hoist her up, and she wraps her legs around my waist just as I slam her back into the wall.
Gently
, of course.
No more begging her to stop before she pushes me too far. In this new life, she’s all mine.

 
I pull her hair back away from her face and kiss her throat. “You’re beautiful,” I say.
 
 
 
 
 
 
“I love you,” she says. And as the words tumble from her lips, they squeeze at my heart just like they do every single time she utters them, because I know exactly how lucky I am
—
we are
—
to be right here. “But you’re going to have to be quick.”
 
 
 
 
 
“Quick I can do,” I say, lifting her hand and licking frosting off her fingers.
 
 
 
 
 
“Don’t I know it.” Quinn winks.

“Just for that, you’re getting a long session…in the bedroom.”
 
 
 
 
 
I carry her into our bedroom and let her fall back onto the mattress, and start working on the buttons on her shirt.
 
 
 
 
 
“We don’t have
time for all that,” Quinn says, swatting my hand away.
She reaches out and undoes my belt. She doesn’t quite get it all the way undone before my phone starts buzzing in my pocket.
 
 
 
 
 
“Don’t even think about it,” she says, her glare so sexy, I’m glad the phone buzzed when it did.
 
 
 
 
 
“Never.” I grin.
 
 
 
 
 
She reaches into my jeans for the phone. Maybe she plans to toss it across the room. Or onto the nightstand. Or even out the window. Right now, I don’t really care where the hell it ends up. I just want her, as soon as humanly possible.

But instead, Quinn stops.
 
 
 
 
 
She holds the phone out a little and her brow pulls down, like she’s focusing hard, making sure her eyes are seeing it right.
 
 
 
 
 
“Baby? What is it?” I ask. I reach out for the phone, but she yanks it back. She crawls backward off of the bed and stands several feet away from me.
 
 
 
 
 
“Why is
Caroline
calling you? Today?”
 

Two
 

QUINN

Ben frowns back at me. His eyebrows are pulled together in confusion, or annoyance, or maybe a thin line between the two. “I have no idea, Quinn. Come back over here.”
 
 
 
 
 
But I don’t. Instead, I clutch the phone closer to my chest and shake my head. I don’t understand why things can’t just be okay. Why in the middle of our first holiday in this apartment is his ex-girlfriend calling? The same ex-girlfriend whose appearance spiraled our relationship out of control last year?
 
 
 
 
 
“Quinn, if you want to know why she’s calling, just answer the phone. I don’t know, and I sure as shit don’t have anything to talk to her about.”
 
 
 
 
 
I roll the phone back and forth in my hands and consider his words. I take two steps toward him.
 
His dark eyes and the small nod he gives tell me he gets that it’s hard for me to take steps forward, rather than running.
 
 
 
 
 
“Or, just ignore it, and come back over here. I promise I can make you forget.” He reaches out and links his index finger through my belt loop and pulls me back into him.
 
I don’t push away. We spent so much of our past with me yanking back and Ben grasping for me.
 
 
 
 
 
“I’m sure it’s just because it’s a holiday...right?” I hate the jittery shake in my voice.
 
 
 
 
 
“Mmhmm,” He murmurs against my mouth.
 
 
 
 
 
“But like, has she called before?”
 
 
 
 
 
“Quinn.” Ben rolls his head around and sighs like he wishes to god I’d let this go. “She may have called once or twice. But I never answer. I think she’s just lonely.”
 
 
 
 
 
“And?” I press him back, hold out for more. I want to know why the hell this is all coming up and out now and if any of it ever would have if I never saw that call. And then I wonder if any of it matters.

And I realize that, even
if it doesn’t matter to Ben,
it matters to me. It matters whether I want it to or not. And I hate that.

But at least I’m not running away from it.

Though running would feel so…clear. So freeing.
This is messy as hell.
 
 
 
 
 
“And Caroline doesn’t have a ton of friends.” I hate that I can relate to her at all, but in that way, I can. “But you,” he says. He pulls me in and his thumbs rub circles on my hip bones making me shiver. “You’ve just got to trust me.”
 
 
 
 
 
“I—”
 
 
 
 
 
The knock at the door interrupts us.
 
 
 
 
 
“That’s my brother,” I say, half truly reluctant to answer the door, and half completely relieved to have an excuse to end this for now. Ben just stares up at me like he’s contemplating pretending we aren’t home like we’ve done before.
 
“We should, like, go answer that…”
 
 
 
 
 
Ben laughs and stands up to adjust himself while I re-button my flannel shirt. “Hey.’ He stops me in the doorway of our bedroom.
             
“I love you, Quinn.”
             
And I believe him. I do.