Page 60 of Top Shelf
At that, Colton cleared his throat loudly and stood up, motioning for the guys to follow. “We should take off. Uh…great to see you, man.” He held a fist out for Quinn to bump his knuckles, then carefully yanked me close and leaned in to my ear. “Text me if you need me.”
I nodded. “I’ll be fine.”
“Mm, yeah, but we are so talking about this.” He pushed back and turned to give my mom a hug. She immediately began to fuss over all three boys, not letting them walk away without a plastic container each full of samosas and sauce.
When Eli passed, he slipped a swan into my hand. “Good luck.”
Cosmo squeezed my shoulder but said nothing, and eventually, the door closed, leaving another heavy silence in the room.
Finally, my mom cleared her throat. “Tell me what you’re asking from my son for something this big. And don’t bullshit me,” she said.
I sucked in a breath. I’d only ever heard her swear once, and that was when Logan jumped off the roof into a friend’s pool and broke his tailbone when he missed.
Before I could jump in, Quinn stepped around me. “I told you I played hockey when we met…”
“Wait,” I said, holding up a hand. “When did you meet?”
“Your mom and I met in the line getting coffee. She convinced me to treat myself.”
“And if I’d known…” my mom started.
I shook my head. “Please don’t. He’s not doing anything bad. He understands exactly what I’m going through.” I looked up at him and tried for a smile. Quinn’s eyes softened, and I nodded for him to go on with his story.
“I was hit by a car. A drunk driver.” His voice was steady, but knowing him the way I did now, I could hear the tension in it.How much those words hurt to say. “It destroyed my knee, and because I was stubborn about the whole thing, I messed up my chances for it to heal properly, and I was forced to retire. I don’t regret it now, but I see so much talent in Ferris. I don’t want him to screw something up for himself that could be so, so good. I can help him with that.”
She was silent for so long it felt like spiders were crawling up my back. Then she nodded. “I want to see where you’re living.” She switched back to Urdu. “I want you to promise me you’ll be safe, and if you feel that he’s taking advantage of you, you’ll call me. Your dad will drive down here with all of your brothers and make sure he never looks at you sideways again.”
I laughed. “I promise, but please trust me, I feel safe.” I was almost afraid to believe it was this easy, but there was something different in the way she was looking at me.
She finally closed the distance between us and grabbed me by the face, kissing my forehead. “I love you.”
I grunted. I rarely said those words, no matter how deeply I felt them. But she knew.
Letting me go, she turned to Quinn and gave him a long, slow, up-and-down look. “You obviously haven’t been eating enough. Sit down and let me finish cooking.”
“Oh, um…”
“I don’t know what my son told you about the way I run my house, but in here, we don’t argue with me. Sit down. You can gather his things after I’m satisfied.”
He shot me a terrified look, and I shrugged. She wasn’t wrong. In here, we didn’t argue with her. But for the first time in a long time, I didn’t want to.
Chapter Seventeen
Quinn
Not that Ihad anything to compare it to, but that did not go the way I expected, meeting my first…I didn’t want to say boyfriend—I didn’t have permission for that word—but lover wasn’t enough for how I felt. Anyway, meeting Ferris’s mom was overwhelming in the strangest way.
I was still reeling a bit from the fact that she was the kind lady at the coffee shop who had made my entire day feel better when I was entirely upside down. I shouldn’t have been surprised at all. He was so much like her.
She was terrifying at first, but then her presence was so calming. In fact, it was enough that I was half-tempted to just blurt out that I was falling in love with her son. But Ferris hadn’t relaxed the entire time we were there, which stopped me in my tracks.
It didn’t take long for me to gather most of his stuff, and she fussed over me and my bum knee as I walked everything out to the car like I was her son.
Like I mattered.
“Mrs. Redding,” I started, but she held up a hand.
“Manisha. I would invite you to call me Auntie, but I think in this case that would be…strange for you.”
