Page 5 of Digging Up Love
He sure hadn’t. Somehow his playboy friend had fallen into marriage before him. It would’ve been funny if it didn’t hurt so much.
Tre stood, hitching up his khakis under the beginnings of a paunch. “All right, that’s me out, before this conversation hitsrockbottom,” he said, brown eyes alight with mirth.
Quentin let his head fall sideways and blinked once, refusing to encourage his friend’s nonstop geology dad jokes.
Undeterred, Tre grinned and dropped his voice. “Just remember, if Bridget does you a favor, the least you could do for her is a favor of your own.” He waggled bushy eyebrows.
This time Quentin caved into the temptation to hurl his pencil. It bounced off Tre’s shoulders on his way out. His friend’s laughter echoed down the hallway.
Tre could joke all he wanted, but no way would Quentin ask out a colleague. After Mercedes had toppled the foundation of his future, the university was all he had left. He wouldn’t jeopardize his career just to get back into the dating game.
His ex-fiancée’s specter pushed the mysterious bone out of his mind. He pivoted on his rickety chair until he faced the long rectangularwindow. Broken blinds slatted his view of the campus, the gray sky and still-bare branches a mirror of his darkening mood. Throwing himself into work and running countless miles hadn’t let him escape the truth that Mercedes had canceled their wedding viatext. Obliterated their future in 160 characters.
Love of his life? Gone.
Newfound family unit? Gone.
Hope for kids? Gone.
Quentin’s eyes pricked with tears, and he banished them by dragging a hand impatiently across his face. Stupid Harris curse. Tears flowed freely for men in his family, and for the hundredth time, he wished for the hardened exterior that seemed to come so easily to most men.
Yet lately he wasn’t sure what he was mourning: Mercedes, or the dream they’d built?
The echo of Tre’s words pelted like sleet against his mind, dumping an unwelcome shower of cold reality on his persistent state of suspended animation. Of course there were other women out there.
But he remembered their long runs on the Lakefront Trail, trivia night at their favorite bar ... a good, solid relationship. And their future shone bright. Until she snuffed it out in an instant, abandoning him for her dream job in Spain. Didn’t even ask him if he would join, or be up for long distance. She skipped town without a backward glance. The custom engagement ring he’d spent four months and six visits to the jewelers designing became just another jettisoned piece of baggage.
Stupid ring.Mercedes’s returning it like an overdue library book had dealt the crushing blow. The next morning he’d almost pawned the now-meaningless piece of jewelry. But part of him—okay, all of him, all the time, for a long time—hoped she’d fly back over the ocean into his arms.
She hadn’t.
Maybe he ought to take Tre’s advice and rip off the relationship Band-Aid. Jump back into the dating game before life passed him by.What was the other option? Give up on love at the ripe old age of thirty-three and invest in a tweed jacket with elbow patches and a pair of wire-framed reading glasses?
One corner of his mouth lifted at the irony, Quentin took off his round tortoiseshell glasses and rubbed the lenses clean on his polo shirt, then scanned the email again.Hawksburg, Illinois.He Google Mapped the route: four hours, eleven minutes.Oh-kay.No wonder Dr.Yates had pawned it off on him.
But he leaned forward, chin on his hand, and zoomed in on the photo again. The bone jutted out of the dirt like a wish, or a promise. His pulse sped up.
Maybe ...
A tendril of hope wound its way into the long-barren soil of his heart, taking root. Who knew what the future held? For once, uncertainty was his ally.
Now on to the tricky part ... finding a way to get there.
CHAPTER 3
QUENTIN
Quentin took the train to his brother’s auto shop. Sidewalks slick with half-melted ice slowed his steps on the brief walk from the station. Cars hissed through a sheen of water on the pavement, and a CTA bus lurched to a halt by the curb as he rounded the last corner.
Head down, hands in his pockets, he kicked aside the grimy remains of a snowbank outside the open garage doors and ducked into the glassed-out office. Blinds slapped back when he shut the door, muffling the zings from electric wrenches. Dueling smells of engine oil and exhaust permeated the room, even with the door closed.
Reggaeton thumped out from a boxy stereo on Hector’s desk. His brother sat scowling at an old desktop computer, glasses perched on his nose. Looking up, he snatched the frames off and tossed them into an open drawer. “Hey, little bro!”
Quentin grinned. “Hey, old man. See you finally listened to your wife and started wearing your glasses.”
Hector slammed the drawer closed with a matching smirk. “Must be seeing things, Q.” Hooking an ankle over his knee, he tipped back in his chair. “What brings you into the trenches today? Need someextra cash to beef up that crappy paycheck you get for teaching entitled college kids? I could always use an extra hand.”
“Ha. You know I got no time to spare.” And if he did, he wouldn’t spend it here. He’d clocked enough penitential hours under the hood during his teen years to atone for a multitude of sins. If he never saw the underside of a car again, it’d be too soon.
