Page 47 of Top Shelf
His eyes widened. “What? No! Why would you think that?”
The answer seemed both simple and obvious. “You keep asking me.”
He swallowed heavily. “I’m going to let myself be inspired by you, okay? And I’m going to be honest.”
I tried to hide a smile as I nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”
He took another long, slow breath. “I don’t really know what you see in me. Don’t get me wrong, I know I’m attractive, and I know that we had a really good time the night we were together. And I also know I’m not some ancient old man teetering on the edge of retirement…or worse.”
“Geriatric?” I offered.
He winced, then rolled his eyes. “Yes, thank you for that.”
Quinn said it like he was responding to sarcasm, which I didn’t totally understand, but I chalked it up to one more thing I wasn’t going to get.
“I haven’t had the best opinion of myself over the years,” he said, his voice a sort of soft rumble. The timber of it felt nice—almost tactile in a way. I wanted to reach over and touch his mouth to feel it, but I also knew that would be bad social manners, so I squeezed my hand into a fist instead. Quinn glanced at me for a second at the red light. There was pain onhis face. “I had one very bad, very short marriage. And any relationships I had after that fell apart before they could get any deeper than sex. I figured it was a me thing.”
I tilted my head to the side. “Maybe it was.”
“Ouch.”
I laughed nervously. “No. I-I mean…yes. I…” I trailed off, my voice failing me.
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I’m not actually offended. Tell me what you’re trying to say.”
I took a moment to recenter myself and focused on the pain in my ankle to keep me grounded. “People aren’t universally liked, right? Even people who most people think are hot, there are some people who disagree. Last year, a couple of us got really high and started talking about celebrity crushes, and everyone thought I was a complete weirdo because my first crush was on Ian McKellen.”
“The Lord of the Ringsguy? Gandalf?” Quinn had the same tone as everyone else did that night.
I ducked my head, and my cheeks went hot. “Um. I know it’s weird.”
“No, sweetheart. No.” I felt a touch on my wrist, not too soft, not too hard. I relaxed a fraction, but I still couldn’t look up. “Mine was Sean Connery. Not young and hot, James Bond Connery. I’m talking Indiana Jones’s dad Connery.”
I looked up at him and burst into laughter. “You like nerds!”
He shrugged as he put his hand on the steering wheel. “Yeah. I think I do. And trust me when I say I got a lot of weird looks about that.”
“Yeah. So…your personality has to be like that, doesn’t it? Most people find me…off-putting.” That was probably the nicest insult people had used to describe me. “They don’t like me. Someone once told me they didn’t know why, but that I gotunder their skin and they wanted to punch me in the mouth every time I spoke.”
“What the fuck? Who was it?”
“No one important.”
Quinn growled. He actually growled. “I want a name, Ferris. That is fucking bullshit.”
I couldn’t stop my smile as I leaned over and squeezed his wrist. “He was some guy from high school. I don’t even remember his name. I’m just saying that…that I thought everyone would feel the way he did about me because a lot of kids back then shared his opinion. Only I went to college, and my housemates kind of liked me. And some of them are my real friends. Then some NHL recruiters liked me. And…andyoulike me.”
“I am fucking obsessed with you,” he said fiercely.
My chest went warm. “My mom used to tell me it was because people were jealous of me. I always knew that was bullshit. People just preferred what they preferred. They weren’t used to people blurting out whatever was on their mind, and I made them uncomfortable when I did that.”
“I understand what you’re saying,” Quinn answered. The car slowed down, and he took a turn into a nice neighborhood with very old-looking brownstones. They looked expensive. Maybe not quite as nice as Beacon Hill, but close.
He pulled into a parking spot in front of a stoop with several steps, and I felt a twinge in my gut.
“You live there?”
He pointed to the one with the forest-green door to the left of the one I was staring at. That one only had two steps. “That’s me.”
