Her Best Friend (7 page)

A tall blond-haired guy entered as Quinn sank onto the bench seat to wait for his order to be ready. Quinn smiled as recognition hit.

“Rick Bachelor. How are you?” he asked, standing to shake the other man’s hand.

Rick grinned. “Hey. Quinn. Didn’t know you were in town.”

“Yeah. Came down to help Amy out,” he said.

Rick had lost a bit of hair and put on a little around the middle, but otherwise he looked almost the same as he had at Quinn and Lisa’s wedding six years ago.

“Right. I heard on the grapevine that Amy finally bought the Grand. Pretty impressive achievement, sticking to her guns all these years.”

“Yeah. She knows what she wants, that’s for sure. So, how are things?” Quinn asked.

“Great. Naomi’s about to pop with our second, so we’re at Def-Con four, waiting for her water to break.”

“Not Naomi Wilkins?” Quinn asked, putting two and two together.

Naomi and Rick had both gone to Daylesford Secondary with him and Amy and Lisa.

“Sorry, I assumed you’d have heard. Too used to small-town gossip, I guess. I finally talked her into marrying me a couple of years ago. We’ve got a little girl already.” Rick tugged out his wallet and Quinn found himself looking at a photograph of a little girl with big blue eyes and a very wet mouth.

“Teething,” Rick explained.

“She’s lovely.”

“How about you and Lisa? Any kids yet?”

Quinn hesitated a moment. “No kids,” he said. Then he shrugged. “Actually, we’re getting a divorce.”

Rick’s eyes widened and Quinn could see the other man searching for something appropriate to say. It was one of the reasons Quinn hated telling people. That, and the sense of failure he felt.

“I’m sorry. That’s bad news,” Rick said uncomfortably.

“Yeah, well. These things happen,” Quinn said.

He saw with relief that the server was trying to make eye contact with him to let him know his pizza was ready. He offered Rick his hand again.

“Looks like I’m up. Good to see you, mate.”

“Likewise.”

Quinn paid for his pizza and headed back to the Grand. It was well and truly twilight by now and the cars driving past had their headlights on.

It was dim inside the theatre but Amy was still busy sweeping when he entered.

“I bring pizza. Put the broom down before I’m forced to hurt you.”

“I’m done. My arms feel like they’re ready to fall off.”

She sank onto an upturned mop bucket. Quinn pushed an old milk crate across the floor to join her and placed the pizza box on the floor between them.

“Dig in. I got your favorite, Dino’s super supreme.”

She took a second to respond. “Smells great.”

He flipped the box open and grabbed a slice. He took a bite and gasped.

“Hot.” He swallowed hastily and noticed Amy had played it smart and was waiting for her pizza to cool, letting her slice rest on her knee before she tackled it.

“Bumped into Rick Bachelor while I was waiting,” he said.

“He comes into the hardware store all the time. Did he say if Naomi’s had her baby yet?”

“Any day now. He said she’s ready to pop.”

“Did he ask about you and Lisa?”

He glanced at her, surprised. “You psychic or something?”

“Don’t have to be. It’s what people do. Single people get asked if they’ve met anyone. Unmarried couples get asked if they’ve set the date yet. And married couples get asked if they’ve got any kids. Right?”

“Yeah. That’s what he asked.”

“People are so nosy,” she said, shaking her head.

“He was just making conversation. Being polite.”

“If you want to be polite, you talk about the weather. You don’t ask if people are having sex for reproductive purposes or if they’re worried they’re going to miss the boat.”

Quinn laughed.

“I’m serious. You should hear some of the things people say to me because I’m single. ‘Don’t worry, someone will come along.’ And my personal favorite, ‘I guess that’s the problem with being choosy.’”

He started to tell her she wasn’t choosy, simply discerning, but he frowned as he spotted a small pile of black circles on the thigh of her jeans. It took him a moment to work out what he was looking at: olives.

She’d picked all the olives off her slice of pizza.

“You don’t like olives?”

“Nope. Never have, really.”

He stared at her. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, a memory stirred: a much younger Amy pulling a face and spitting out a half-chewed mouthful of food.
These round things are disgusting.
They’d both been eight, and they’d stolen a plate of hors d’oeuvres from one of his parents’ dinner parties.

“So why go for the super supreme?” he asked, puzzled.

“I usually don’t.” She met his eyes. Which was when the penny dropped.

Super supreme was Lisa’s favorite.

He groaned. “Shit. I’m sorry, Ames.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He stood, angry with himself for making such a stupid mistake. “Give me ten minutes, I’ll go grab us another one.”

“Seriously, Quinn. It’s fine. I’m really not that hungry. This’ll do me.” She lifted the slice in her hand. The slice she’d had to quietly denude of olives before she could stomach it.

“I should have asked,” he said.

“Like I said, it doesn’t matter.” To prove her point, she took a big bite of pizza.

He sat back down. They were both silent for the next few minutes, then Quinn pointed a finger at her. “Ham and mushroom. That’s your favorite, right?”

“That’s me. Ham and mushroom.”

He took another piece of pizza, but his appetite had deserted him.

In the old days, there was no way Amy would have let him get away with something like that. She’d have made him go get her another pizza, then she would have held his forgetfulness over his head for the next few weeks until she’d committed some folly of her own that tipped the balance in his favor.

He’d suspected it this afternoon, and now he knew—something had shifted between them. And not in a good way.

Maybe it was to do with the divorce. Maybe she felt torn between him and Lisa. Maybe it was those eighteen months of silence. Or maybe she was angry with him for not confiding in her sooner, for withdrawing from their friendship while he dealt with the dissolution of his marriage.

He didn’t care what it was. He wanted to fix it. Because there was no way he was losing Amy. She meant too much to him. She was too much a part of his life for him to take their friendship for granted.

He stared at the pockmarked floors between his bent knees for a long moment. Then he lifted his head and caught her eye.

“If I’ve done something wrong, Ames, I wish you’d come right out and say it.”

He sounded so sincere, so wounded and confused. He thought he’d done something wrong. That she’d retreated from him as a punishment.

She shook her head. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

He smiled thinly. “I might not have been around much lately, but I still know when you’re lying.”

He was watching her steadily, waiting. She stared at him, feeling very exposed. What did he want from her? The truth? She could imagine how he’d react to that.

It’s like this, Quinn. I’m in love with you. Have been since I was fourteen years old. That’s why I haven’t returned your phone calls and why the idea of working with you every day for five weeks makes me want to leap for joy and bang my head against a wall at the same time.

She could almost see the dawning understanding on his face, the shock, the sadness. The pity. Could almost hear the awkward questions and explanations.

There was no way she was telling him the truth. It wouldn’t get either of them anywhere. It wasn’t as though he could do anything to stop her loving him. Hell, he’d married one of her best friends and it hadn’t stopped her stupid, foolish heart from adoring him.

And it wasn’t as though he could make himself love her. If that were possible, it would have happened years ago.

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” she repeated more strongly. “It’s been a while, that’s all.”

“You’re pissed with me. I know I kind of went into hiding when I found out about the affair. I know you probably felt shut out—”

“I didn’t.” She couldn’t stand the thought that he blamed himself when she was the one who had deliberately distanced herself from him. “I had some stuff going on down here, too. I could have called you, but I let things slide, as well.”

“I wondered about that.”

She could feel his gaze searching her face. She didn’t know what else to say to him. She didn’t want to lie to him any more than she had to when he was being so honest with her.

“You know I love you, right?” he said.

He’d never said it before, but she’d always known how he felt. It amazed her how wonderful it was to hear the words, even though she knew he didn’t mean it the way she wished he did.

She swallowed, hard. “I love you, too.”
You have no idea how much.

“I want things to be right between us again, Ames.”

“Me, too.”

“Does that mean if I buy the wrong pizza again you’ll slap me upside the head rather than eat it out of politeness?”

“Sure. If you think you can handle it.”

“I can handle anything you throw my way.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” she said, only half joking.

He caught her hand, wrapped his fingers around it. “Anything,” he said, looking into her eyes. “I mean it.”

There was so much warmth and affection in his open, handsome face—and yet her heart still wanted more.

She was impossibly greedy, a willful child holding out for the whole candy shop instead of the one perfectly good bonbon on offer.

He brushed his thumb across the back of her hand one last time before letting her go.

“You want another piece?”

“Sure.”

He picked the olives off a slice and handed it over.

She studied it critically. “In the spirit of recent discussions—you missed a piece, slack ass,” she said.

He laughed and reached across to remove the last offending olive.

“Happy?”

“Getting there.”

She watched him out of the corners of her eyes as she ate. In a mere twenty-four hours he’d managed to turn her world upside down. And—as usual—he had no idea. She was going to have to be very, very careful if she was going to keep it that way. He’d picked up on her hesitation this afternoon when he offered to stay and help her, and he’d registered her lack of reaction over the pizza, too.

The fact was, she was woefully out of practice when it came to covering up her feelings for him. All the little strategies and compensations she’d developed over the years had atrophied in eighteen months. A great example: for a few precious seconds after he’d announced he’d gotten her favorite pizza, she’d been filled with a sweet, piercing joy that he’d remembered something as small and insignificant as the fact that she loved Dino’s ham and mushroom with a thin crust. She’d wanted to throw her arms around him and hold him tight.

No matter what else happens, he will always be my friend, and we will always know these things about each other,
she’d thought.
I’ll always know how he got the long, white scar on the top of his left foot and that peanuts make him break out in a rash, and he will always know that I’m afraid of earthworms and that I once tried to fly off the roof of the garden shed.

They were best friends. And even though she had wanted more from him for a long time, being Quinn Whitfield’s best friend was not to be sneezed at.

Then he had unveiled Dino’s super supreme—Lisa’s pizza, for Pete’s sake.

“What time do you want me tomorrow?” Quinn asked, dragging her away from her thoughts.

“How does nine sound?”

“What time are you going to be here?”

“Eight. But you’re technically on vacation.”

“I usually start at six-thirty. I can handle eight.”

“Six-thirty. You need to get a life,” she said.

He shrugged. “I’m trying to. Why do you think I’m here?”

He finished the last of the pizza and they left the Grand together.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said as they walked to their cars.

He waited to make sure her old rust bucket started before driving out of the lot ahead of her. She started for home, then remembered that she needed to pick up some tools from her father’s garage for tomorrow. She sighed and drove past her own turnoff to her parents’ street. Gravel popped beneath the tires as she parked in front of the garage.

The light was on in the kitchen. She knew her parents would expect her to come in and have a coffee and maybe dessert with them. Instead, she leaned forward and rested her forehead against the steering wheel.

Five weeks.

How in hell was she going to survive five whole weeks of intimate, cozy contact with Quinn Whitfield?

She turned her head and stared across her parents’ back lawn toward the dark shape of the Whitfield house next door.

Somewhere, tucked in her mother’s photo album, was a snapshot of her and Quinn sharing the same teething ring—that was how long he’d been a part of her life. Since before they could walk they’d had a preference for each other, and they’d become the boon companions of each other’s childhood.

Then, over what seemed like the space of one summer, Quinn had grown from her funny, daring buddy into a startling, disturbing almost-man. He’d shot up four inches. His voice had deepened. And every time he looked at her and she looked at him, there had been an extra…something in the mix.

It was the summer she’d turned fourteen, and she’d never stood a chance. Because it was also the summer Lisa’s father landed the bank manager’s job in town and the Bartletts moved to Daylesford from Melbourne, buying the big Victorian farmhouse at the end of the street. Amy had taken one look at Lisa’s flowing blond hair and coltishly long, slender legs and known she was special. So had Quinn, and before long the three of them had been thick as thieves.

It had been the best kind of cultural exchange: they’d shown her country-kid stuff like the best place to go swimming at the lake and the shortcut to school through Mrs. Brown’s back paddock, and she’d taught them city-kid skills like how to sneak into R-rated movies and ditch school. It had been great. They’d called themselves the three musketeers, thinking they were highly original. Then…

Amy sat back in her seat and sighed. She figured it said a lot about her messed-up psyche that she could still remember with absolute clarity the day Lisa told her that Quinn had kissed her. It had been nearly fifteen years but the moment still loomed large on her mental horizon, etched in acid in her memory.