Page 42 of Playboy For Hire

I blinked, realizing what I was wondering. I shook my head. I didn’t actually care about the state of Quinn’s lips or any other part of him. He probably just used nice chapstick.

“Do you have early classes or something tomorrow?” Quinn asked after a moment.

“No, not until the afternoon. Which means I don’t have to get up at the ass-crack of dawn for once, thank God.”

“You could stay here for the night.”

He spoke so quickly, it took me a moment to parse the avalanche of syllables into discrete words.

“Here?” I said, when I’d finally worked it out.

“On my couch, I mean,” he said even faster. “Just to save you the walk and the wait for the metro. The trains will be running more frequently tomorrow morning.”

He had a point. And now that I thought about it, I didn’t really relish sitting in the metro station for who knew how long. The prospect of that wait made me feel strangely lonely, and cold.

“I mean, if you don’t mind…” I said.

“I don’t. I wouldn’t have offered if I did.” He was still trying to win a speed-talking medal.

I wondered if he was still residually freaked out about Thea or his weird date. Maybe he would feel calmer with someone else in his apartment tonight. The least I could do was help him out.

“Okay, then. Sure.” I smiled, and it was genuine. A smile I almost never used, because it wasn’t designed to have any effect on my audience. It was just how I looked when I was happy. “That would be great.”

Quinn’s apartment was dark when we walked inside, but he touched a switch by the door and the soft light of a floor lamp illuminated the living room with a warm, yellow glow. The living room flowed right into the kitchen, following the open floor plan that was so common in renovated row houses.

Quinn flicked on the under-cabinet lighting and gestured to the fridge, then a cabinet on the right.

“There’s a Brita, and glasses in there. Or feel free to drink anything else you see. It’s all yours.”

“Water’s fine,” I said. We were both talking in hushed voices. There was no need, but the night seemed to call for it anyway.

“Bathroom’s down the hall,” he said, pointing to a door on the left side of the hall, behind the kitchen. “And my room’s at the end. Here, let me get you some blankets.”

He disappeared into his bedroom. I assumed he had a linen closet in there, and wasn’t pulling things off his own bed. I got myself a glass of water, then wandered into the living room.

Quinn had framed black-and-white photographs of various landmarks across the world.La Sagrada Familiain Barcelona. The Pyramids at Giza. The Colosseum in Rome. One of those big wooden gates in Japan, this one with its feet in the water. I wondered if he’d been to all those places. I only recognized them from other people’s pictures on Instagram.

There was a big bookcase next to the couch, filled with science-fiction and fantasy novels, plus a bunch of books about birds. A little wooden model of a flower shop sat at the end of one shelf. A pair of binoculars perched on another.

Quinn’s apartment was filled with his personality and interests, and it painted the picture of someone I wanted to know better. I felt lucky to have been let in, but I couldn’t help thinking Quinn would find me ridiculously boring if he ever saw where I lived.

I’d been living with Amir and Raf for a while now—I’d moved off-campus as soon as the soccer team would let me—but I hadn’t put a single thing up on the walls of my room. It was just as beige and featureless as it had been the day I’d moved in.

I wasn’t just younger than Quinn. I’d done so much less with my life. Aside from soccer and a trip to Nashville for my maternal grandmother’s funeral, I’d barely traveled. I’d spent most of my life within a hundred miles of my parents’ farm near Tappahannock, Virginia. And if I hadn’t gotten that soccer scholarship, I’d still be stuck there.

A noise behind me made me turn around, and I saw Quinn padding into the living room, wearing an old white T-shirt and a pair of red flannel pajama pants. He was carrying a pillow with a Ninja Turtles pillowcase and a fluffy duvet in a dark blue cover.

“I like your linen choices,” I told him.

He flushed—this time I was sure of it.

“I know it’s kind of dorky. But my mom really hammered the whole ‘don’t throw anything out if it still works’ philosophy into me. The matching sheets got holes in them years ago, but the pillowcase is still good.”

“I wasn’t making fun of you,” I said. “I honestly like it. I was super intoTMNTas a kid. Rafael was my favorite.”

Quinn grinned. “I was more of a Donatello guy. Rafael seemed too angry.”

“Yeah, but he had thosesais. They were so cool. All Donatello had was a stick.”

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