Page 3 of Good Graces

And then I double take. It’s like my brain glitches for half a second, like the sun presses down a little heavier, and something in me short-circuits.

Standing near the entrance to the pool deck is Quinn Rose.

Long dark hair spills over poised shoulders, skin sun-kissed, glowing like she’s absorbed every second of the summer. But it’s the uniform that gets me most. The navy polo, the khaki shorts, the visor hooked to her bag. The same caddy uniform she wore that first summer we met.

She’s got a towel slung over her shoulder, a water bottle in one hand, her bag in the other, and a permanent scowl on her face. A bit of a warning wrapped in a hell of a first impression.

Quinn has always been the most magnetizing force in any room. The kind of person you feel before you see. Even now, people glance at her as they walk past, like they can’t help it, like something about her demands it.

She’s a force. A storm. A reckoning.

It’s been over two years since I’ve seen her, nine-hundred-something days since I told her I never wanted to again.

2

QUINN

What in theabsolute fuck is Warren doing here?

No one had the good sense to tell me he’d be back at Sycamore this summer. No one thought they needed to. They either assumed I could handle it or wanted to play a cruel joke on me. I was a last-minute addition to the staff. Someone must’ve figured the overlap was unlikely or just didn’t care enough to check.

I spent the first half of the summer traveling around South America. Bouncing between hostels, chasing sunsets like they were answers, pretending I had life figured out. It was meant to be my last hurrah before senior year. But those plans disintegrated halfway through, along with my savings and any sense of direction I thought I had.

So, I came home. And when you’re home, you need a reason to stay.

Four weeks. That’s all I needed. Not just to keep busy but to stay afloat. The job at Sycamore had never been some throwaway gig. It was money for groceries when the meal plan didn’t stretch far enough. For tampons, for hair products, for textbooks I couldn’t ask my parents to cover. For everything small that adds up until you’re drowning in it.

I told myself I’d work hard, keep my head down, save what I could before term started again. And of all the things I prepared myself to deal with this summer—low tips, drunk customers, the occasional grabby hand—my terminally grumpy ex-boyfriend wasn’t one of them.

I keep walking, my pace even, my posture poised, like I don’t have a storm brewing under my ribs. Like my pulse didn’t just trip over itself. Like the sight of him doesn’t rip open old wounds I never bothered stitching up.

I’m only on the pool deck because I need the starter kit from the storage closet. A pack of new scorecards, fresh tees, the clipboard they keep locked up because some asshole keeps stealing pens. Normally, I’d cut across the side lot to the caddy shack instead, but I was already passing through. It made sense to grab everything now. Efficient. Practical.

Unavoidable.

I feel his gaze before I even look at him. A slow, heavy drag across my skin, like a hand pressing against the center of my back.

I stare right back at him. Not a glance. Not a flicker. A full-bodied, unflinching stare as I walk, daring him not to look away first.

Warren sits on his guard stand, elbows on his knees, sunglasses covering those sharp, cutting eyes. But the moment he lifts them, pushing the frames up onto his head, the breath leaves my lungs.

He’s cold, emotionless, shuttered. It’s as if every piece of warmth he used to offer me—every glance, every smirk, every breathless whisper in the dark—has been scrubbed clean.

But my body? My traitorous, foolish, still-remembering body? It reacts anyway. To him. To all of it. There’s a flash of heat, then something far more dangerous.

The rough slide of his hands gripping my hips. The low, filthy words against my ear as he pounded into me. The heat of him, the weight of him, the way we used to fit together like it was inevitable.

Nights spent tangled up in each other’s bodies, our minds just as wrecked, just as ruined.

He watches me. I feel him watching me.

But then, just as easily as he lifted them, he lowers his sunglasses back into place. Settles back into his chair. Looks away from me like he didn’t feel anything at all.

Something inside me goes rigid, and I keep walking. Straighten my spine, tighten my grip on my bag. Trudge forward like it doesn’t matter. Like it doesn’t send sharp, slicing disappointment through me.

By the time I reach the storage closet, my chest is a mess of tangled wires. Frustration, embarrassment, something else I refuse to name. Something hot and bitter, lodged deep inside my chest. One of the new guys is already there, sorting through sunscreen bins like he’s afraid to mess anything up. So, I do what I do best. I bury it. Freeze it. Cover it up with something easier to swallow.

I flash a slow, lazy smirk at him. The guy is cute, in a forgettable kind of way. Dark hair, lean build, eager smile that says he’d absolutely let me ruin his day if I wanted to.

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