Page 85 of Hard Hitter

"My hair?" He remembered Rae defending him on several occasions when the boys she knew from family connections and their countryclub had decided to make snarky comments about Quinn's appearance. His clothes, his shoes, and yes, he supposed, his hair. While they had likely thought it was dirty because it stuck up all the time, Quinn had actually been almost obsessively hygienic as a kid. His hair just had a mind of its own and liked to look messy. It was one of the reasons he'd started collecting baseball hats.

"The boys teased you...because your hair looked dirty," said Molly. "They had taken your...hat off and laughed at your...messy hair."

Now the memory was resurfacing. Quinn bit back a laugh as he remembered how that whole ordeal had played out. There had been two boys whose parents knew Rae’s parents. They were in the same second grade class and had found Rae and Quinn hanging out together on the playground during recess. One boy had started teasing him and asking why she bothered hanging out with Quinn; the other had suggested that maybe she did it out of pity or some sort of charity.

Rae had immediately come to his defense and told the boys to leave them alone. At some point, one boy knocked Quinn’s baseball cap off his head and into the wood chips, and the other pointed and laughed. They had started criticizing his clothes, his messy hair, his obvious lack of wealth and said he had no business hanging out with her or being her friend.

In the end, one of them had referred to him as a peasant and, while Quinn had thought it was funny- What eight-year-old called someone apeasant?In 1998?- it was the last straw for Rae and she took her swing. Quinn made the snap decision to join the fight, knocking the other boy to the ground, and- despite Rae’s insistence- took the blame for the whole thing. The playground supervisors, teachers, and the principal were all familiar with Quinn’s temper by then, and he didn’t see why she should get in trouble for defending him.

Quinn looked down at his mom lying on the couch and laughed again, running a hand down his face. "Mom, the one meeting you went to was for a fight that wasn't even my fault."

"What do you...mean?" She looked up at him curiously.

"Rae threw the first punch," he said. "I just told the principal it was me because I didn't want her getting in trouble. And it wasn't really about my hair, either. That was just a cover."

Molly let out her weak, wheezy laugh. "She didn’t get…in trouble?"

"No, not really," said Quinn. "She was mad and tried to tell the truth, but no one believed her. They expected that kind of thing from me, and I knew they would."

"And the boys...went along?"

"You don't think an eight-year-old boy wanted everyone knowing a girl gave him a bloody nose, do you?" Quinn smirked. "I think he was pretty grateful that I decided to take the heat for it."

“Why did she...hit them?” his mom asked, though Quinn suspected she knew.

“Because Rae’s not too fond of entitled rich brats either,” said Quinn. “I guess she’s stood up for me as much as I have for her.”

Molly hummed, then eyed him knowingly. “You didn’t answer my...question...Did you hit...her ex?”

Running his hands through his hair and down his face he groaned, “No, but I wanted to.”

Sandra had come back in the room from the kitchen with a glass of water. Setting it on a coaster on the end table she asked, “Did something happen? Or you just wanted to because he’s her ex?”

He hesitated. “I sort of made an ass of myself when I drank too much and me and Rae had our first fight. And he was there just fueling the fire.”

“How did you hurt your arm again?” Sandra nodded toward the sling on his elbow.

“Oh, that was…” he paused, feeling his face redden and a grin threatening to tug up the corner of his mouth, “that happened later.”

Sandra raised her eyebrows and gave a knowing grin, “So, making up went well.”

“Um...yeah,” Quinn looked down to his feet, smiling shyly as flashes of that night flew through his head. He cleared his throat and looked up. “The fight was rough, but it’s good now. I just...I get so jealouswhen it comes to her. I’m possessive. Not in a way like I don’t want her to have her own life. She’s really independent and I love that. I don’t want to tell her what she can and can’t do or anything like that. I just want people to know that she’s...mine, I guess.”

“Why would you get jealous?” Sandra asked, “He’s an ex. You’re the one she’s with now. She made that choice, right? She wants to be with you, not him.”

“Well, yeah,” said Quinn, “but I can’t help…” he worked out the best way to say it, “I didn’t have much as a kid. And Rae grew up with everything. Her family was insanely wealthy. And I never got why she wanted to be friends. I didn’t fit in with all the kids she knew, and they always tried pushing my buttons, telling me I had no business being friends with her and doing everything they could to let me know that Rae and I just didn’t make sense.”

He stuck a hand in his hair again. “I guess I heard it enough that I believed it. To an extent, anyway. I didn’t want to stop being friends with her, but when we were teenagers and she started dating these guys who’d grown up like her, I felt like that kind of proved what they’d been saying. And then the other night with Emerson, her ex-fiancé,” he shook his head, “This was a guy, just like the others, who just over a year ago she’d agreed tomarry.”

After he’d figured out it was Emerson he’d been talking to and sharing stories with, he’d wanted to reach across the bar and deck him. The things Emerson had said about his last ex, knowing Quinn would figure out the mystery, had him absolutely seething. He’d tried to tell himself it was made up, that there was no way Rae had been like that for this other guy. Then he remembered the story Rae had told him about how she'd caught Emerson cheating only because she went to his office wearing a long coat and lingerie to surprise him.

So, he’d spent about an hour bragging about how amazing his and Rae’s connection was. About their mind-blowing sex. About how he, andonly he, could make her feel those things.

Then out of nowhere, that comment Emerson made about him being good enough now that he had money had crept in. Fueled byjealousy and alcohol, he’d thrown that in her face, knowing full well it was bullshit.

He sat up straighter and looked at Sandra, then to his mom, who he was sure was still listening, though she looked almost like she was sleeping. “I had a moment of doubt, I guess, that she didn’t want me forme, but for this new rich and famous person I’d become. I sort of blew up about it. In front of everyone. And she left me to find my own ride home.”

“Good for her,” said Molly, barely opening her eyes. Quinn peered down at his mother incredulously, and she added, “I thought we...went over all this...when she was here.”

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