Page 80 of Sins or Secrets
When I get near the bar, Harlan himself waves me over.
He’d told me Quinn was here and I’d asked him to keep an eye on her.
“Hey Harlan, where is she?” I ask.
“God you sure know how to pick em.I got her in the break room.”
“Thank you.”
I follow him out back to the breakroom where I find Quinn sitting on a little chair with a blanket wrapped around her and a mug of hot cocoa set in front of her on the coffee table.
She looks like she’s been crying for years.Something tells me she has, and those are the tears that nobody has seen until now.
The woman that reaches out to me does not look anything like the one who told me she wanted things to be professional between us yesterday.
She looks like the Quinn I’m used to.The one who used to reach for me the same way ten years ago.
And when I get to her she throws her arms around me and holds me like she doesn’t want to let go.
“She’s been crying like that since she got here,” Harlan says from behind us.“Maybe it’s sinking in about her aunt.”
“Yeah,” I reply, although I’m sure it’s not that.This feels different. “Come baby, I got you.”
“You used to call me that all the time,” she whispers into my ear.
Baby…
Such a simple word, but yes she’s right.
“Come on let’s get you out of here.”
I help her get up and slip my arm around her so she can walk.We make it to the door before her legs give out and I end up picking her up.
She curls into me, childlike and vulnerable.Fragile.
When we get in my car I take off my jacket and spread it over her and she goes quiet.Really quiet.
I drive to the lake house and pick her up again to carry her to her room.
I haven’t been inside here yet, but seeing it now I notice the way she changed things around.
It suits her.
She huddles against the stack of pillows and looks at me with those blotchy tired eyes.
On the floor is a stack of letters.Her gaze drops to the floor too.
“What’s all this Quinn, you still looking through Lilly’s stuff?” I’m trying to attempt casual, anything to break down the walls of the broken woman lying before me.
I don’t like seeing her like this, and it’s clear that something sent her out drinking by herself.
“No,” she mumbles.
“What is it then?”
“The truth,” she replies in an even monotone.
I crouch down and pick the letters up, glancing over them.“The truth about what?”
