by Jill Shalvis
—From the mixed-up files of Tilly Adams’s journal
Here was the thing: Life sucked if you let it. Quinn Wellers worked really hard to not let it. Caffeine helped. For up to thirty-eight blissful minutes it could sometimes even trick her into thinking she was in a good mood. She knew this because it took forty-eight minutes to get from her favorite coffee shop through LA rush hour traffic to work and those last ten minutes were never good.
That afternoon, she got into line for her fix as always and studied the menu on the wall even though in the past two years she’d never strayed from her usual.
A woman got in line behind her. “Now that’s a nice look on you,” she said.
Quinn looked at her. It was Carolyn, a woman she’d seen maybe three times in her life, all right here in line at the coffee shop. “Excuse me?”
“The smile,” Carolyn said. “I like it.”
Quinn didn’t know whether to be insulted or flattered. She smiled all the time. Didn’t she? Okay, so maybe she forgot to smile lately. “I’m pretty desperate for the caffeine today,” she said.
“Nectar of the gods,” Carolyn said conversationally. Something about her reminded Quinn of an elementary school teacher with her gray streaked hair pulled back in a messy bun, the glasses perpetually slipping down her nose, expression dialed into sweet but slightly harried. “You’re up,” she told Quinn, gesturing to the front counter.
Trev, the carefully tousled barista behind the counter winked at her. “Hey, darlin’,” he said warmly, hands working at the speed of light while the rest of him seemed chilled and relaxed. The LA beach bum slash aspiring actor forced to work to support his surfing habit. “How you doing?”
“Good,” Quinn said automatically. And hey, she didn’t like to brag but she’d totally gotten out of bed today. “How did your audition go?”
“Got the part.” Trev beamed. “You’re looking at the best fake Thai delivery guy who ever lived. I think you’re my good luck charm. Say you’ll finally go out with me.”
Quinn smiled—see, she totally did smile!—and shook her head. “I’m off dating right now.”
He said the words in perfect sync along with her and shook his head. “You’re too young to be in a rut, you know that, right?”
She wasn’t in a rut. She was . . . not feeling life right now, that was all. “Hey,” she said, realizing he was already working on her coffee. “I didn’t give you my order.”
He kept moving. “Has it changed? Ever?”
Well that made her want to order something crazy just to throw him off. Hell, it would throw her off too, but she held her silence because she wanted her damn regular.
And shit. Okay, she was in a rut. But routine made life simpler, and after the complications she’d been through, simple was the key to getting out of bed and putting one foot in front of the other every day.
“You should go out with him,” Carolyn whispered. She smiled kindly when Quinn looked at her. “You only live once,” she said.
“Not true,” Quinn said, beginning to lose her sense of humor. “You live every day. You only die once.”
Carolyn’s smile slowly faded in understanding. “Then make it count, Quinn. Go hog wild.”
Hog wild, huh? Quinn turned to Trev, who got a hopeful look on his face.
“An extra shot and whip,” she said.
Trev blinked and then sighed. “Yeah, we need to work on your idea of hog wild.”
When Quinn got to Amuse Bouche, the trendy, upscale restaurant where she worked, it was to find her fellow sous chef Marcel already in the kitchen.
He glanced over at her, sniffed disdainfully, and went back to yelling at Sky, the new hire, who was chopping onions the way Quinn had shown her.
“Leave her alone, Marcel.”
He slid her a glacial stare. “Excuse me?”
Sky backed away from them both as if they were a live grenade. Quinn squared her shoulders and faced down Marcel the Tyrant, as the staff called him.
Behind his back, of course.
“I showed Sky how to chop,” she told him. “She was doing it correctly.”
“Yes,” he agreed, dropping his fake German accent. “If you work at a place flipping burgers and asking what size fry you want with your order.”
Here was the thing. Some days Quinn surprised herself with her agility, and other days she put her keys in the fridge. But she was good at this job. And yes, she understood that at twenty-nine years old and quickly rounding the corner kicking and screaming into thirty, that she was young and very lucky to have landed the sous chef position in such a wildly popular place. But she’d worked her ass off, going to a top notch culinary school in San Francisco, spending several years practicing cutting and or burning her fingers to the bone. She knew what she was doing—and had the tuition debt to prove it.
Oddly, Marcel wasn’t that much older than her—late thirties, maybe. He’d come up the hard way, starting at the age of twelve washing dishes in his uncle’s restaurant not all that far from here, but light-years away in style and prestige. He was good, excellent actually, but he was hardcore old school and as far as she could tell, he resented a woman being his equal.
Quinn did her best to let it all bead off, telling herself that she believed in karma. What went around came back around. But near as she could tell, nothing had kicked Marcel in the ass yet.
“You,” he said, pointing at her. “Go order our food for the week. And don’t forget the pork like last time. Also your cheese supplier? She’s shit, utter shit.”
Quinn bit her tongue as Marcel turned away to brow-beat Sky’s dicing of some red peppers. He jerked the bowl away to prove his point and ended up with red pepper all over the front of his carefully starched white uniform shirt.
Karma had finally shown up, fashionably late, but better than never.
On Sunday, Quinn got into the fancy Lexus her parents had given her for her last birthday in spite of her insistence that she wanted a cheaper, more affordable car, and headed to their place for brunch. A command performance since she’d managed to skip out on the past two weekends in a row due to working overtime.
She hoped like hell it wasn’t an ambush birthday party. Her birthday was still two weeks away but her mom couldn’t keep a secret to save her own life and had let the possibility of a party slip several times in spite of the fact that Quinn didn’t like birthdays.
Or surprises.
She parked in front of the two-story Tutor cottage that had been her childhood home and felt her heart contract. She’d learned to ride a bike on the long driveway, alongside her sister who’d been a far superior bike rider, so much so that Quinn had often ridden on Beth’s handlebars instead of riding her own bike. They’d stolen flowers from their mom’s beloved flower garden lining the walkway. Years later as teens, they’d also sneaked out one of the second story windows, climbing down the oak tree to go to parties they’d been grounded from attending—only getting caught when Quinn slipped and broke her arm.
Beth hadn’t spoken to her for weeks.
Coming here alone never failed to make Quinn feel hollow and empty. And cold.
And deep down, she was afraid nothing would or could ever warm her again.
It’ll get easier.
Time is your friend.
She’ll stay in your heart.
Quinn had heard every possible well-meaning condolence over the past two years and every single one of them was shit.
It hadn’t gotten easier. Time wasn’t her friend. And as much as she tried to hold on to every single memory she had of Beth, it was all fading. Even now she couldn’t quite summon up the soft, musical sound of Beth’s laugh and it killed her.
Shaking it off the best she could, she slid out of her car and forced a smile on her face. Sometimes you had to fake it to make it.
Actually, more than sometimes.
June in southern California could mean hot or hotter, but today was actually a mild eighty degrees and her mom’s flowers
were in full, glorious bloom. She ducked a wayward bee—she was allergic—and turned to watch a flashy BMW pull in next to her, relieved to not have to go inside alone.
Brock Holbrook slid out of his car looking camera ready and she couldn’t help but both smile and roll her eyes. “Suck up,” she said gesturing to his suit and tie.
Brock flashed a grin. “I just know where my bread’s buttered.”
He worked for her father’s finance company and no one could deny that Brock knew how to work a room. He was good-looking, charismatic, and when he looked at her appreciatively, she waited for the zing she used to get from that very look.
But it’d been two years almost to the day since she’d felt a zing for anything. She sighed and Brock tilted his head at her, eyes softer now, understanding.
He knew. He’d been there when she’d found out about her sister Beth’s death. But his understanding didn’t help.
She’d rather feel again, dammit.
The front door opened behind them and Quinn glanced over. Both her parents and Brock’s stood in the doorway, all four of them smiling a greeting at the chickens coming home to the nest, where they’d be pecked at for all the details of their lives.
Quinn loved her parents madly and they loved her, but brunch was going to be more invasive than a gyno exam on the 405 South at peak traffic hours.
Brock grabbed Quinn’s hand, tugged her into him and planted a kiss on her lips. It wasn’t a hardship. He also looked good, and he knew it. He kissed good as well and he knew that too.
But though they’d slept together occasionally over the years, it’d been a while. Two, to be exact. Still, the kiss was nice, and normally she’d try to enjoy it—except he was only doing it for the show.
So she nipped at his bottom lip. Hard.
Laughing, he pulled back only very slightly. “Feeling feisty?”
“I’m not sleeping with you.”
“You should.”
“Pray tell why.”
“It’s been so long, I’m worried you’re depressed.”
This was just uncomfortably close enough to the truth to have her defenses slam down. “I’m not depressed.”
“Not you,” he said. “Your vagina.”
She snorted and pulled free. “Shut up.”
“Just keep it in mind,” he said, a smile in his voice. He took her hand back and held it as he led her up the front path, clearly having already accessed that she was a fight risk.
“I should’ve bitten you harder,” she murmured, smiling at the parentals.
“Next time,” he murmured back, also smiling. “Feeling vicious today, I take it?”
“Annoyed,” she corrected.
“Ah. I guess turning old does that to a person.”
He was nine months younger than her and for just about all their lives—they’d met in kindergarten when he’d socked a boy for pushing her—he’d been smug about their age difference. She nudged him with her hip and knocked him off balance. He merely hauled her along with him, wrapping both his arms around her so that by all appearances he’d just saved her from a fall. His face close to hers, he gave her a wink.
And suddenly it occurred to her that this wasn’t about her at all, but him. His parents must be on him again about giving them grandbabies. The truth was everyone expected them to marry. And she got it, she did. Brock had been her middle and high school boyfriend, and they’d gone off to college together until they’d had a wildly dramatic and traumatic breakup their first year involving his inability to be monogamous. Oh, he loved her. She had no doubt. But he also loved anyone who batted their eyes and smiled at him.
It’d taken a few years, but eventually they’d found their way back to being friends. Best friends at times, and had gotten into the habit of being each other’s plus one. They even had a promise that if they were still single at age forty, they’d put a ring on it, but it was more a joke than a real vow.
“You’re only making it worse for both of us,” she whispered as they got close to the front door.
“If they think we’re working on things,” Brock said out the side of his mouth, “they’ll leave me the hell alone.”
She shrugged, conceding the point. There were hugs of greeting and airy almost-but-not-quite cheek kisses. “Still not used to it,” Lucinda murmured to Quinn, clinging for an extra minute. “It never feels right, you here without her . . .”
She didn’t mean it hurtfully, Quinn knew it. Her mom wouldn’t hurt a fly, but as always, a lump the size of Texas stuck in her throat. “I know, Mom.”
“I miss her so much. You’re so strong, Quinn, the way you’ve moved on.”
Had she? Moved on? Or was she treading water, staying in place, just managing to keep her head above the surface? One thing for certain, she’d buried her feelings, deep. It’d been the only way to survive the all-encompassing grief, which sat like a big fat elephant on her chest. She’d locked it away in a dark corner of her heart and built a wall around it, brick by painstaking brick to contain the emotions that had nearly taken her down.
But she knew she was lucky. She had a job she loved, parents who cared, and a best friend slash fall-back husband if it ever came to that. Yes, she was turning thirty soon and that surprise party still lay in wait regardless of the fact that she didn’t want it. And while she’d like to pretend that wasn’t happening, it wouldn’t derail her because compared to what she’d been through, there was nothing scary ahead of her.
Famous last words.
A week later, Quinn was in line for her usual afternoon before-work latte when she felt the weight of someone’s gaze on her. Turning, she found a guy around her age with black tousled hair and black rimmed glasses, who looked a lot like a grown-up Harry Potter.
He was staring at her with an intensity that had her blinking and then craning her neck to peek behind her. No one, which meant he was staring at her. She turned away and did her best to ignore him. The women in line in front of her were chatting . . .
“Orgasms after the age of fifty suck,” one said to the other. “No one tells you that but they do.”
Her friend agreed with an emphatic head bob. “I know. It’s like sand paper down there in Lady Town. Takes an entire tube of lube and a bottle of gin.”
The first woman snorted. “Don’t get me started. Alan can’t give me ten minutes to find the G-spot but he’ll spend thirty minutes looking for a golf ball . . .”
Quinn must have made some sound because they both turned to her with apologetic laughs. “Sorry,” Dry Vagina said. “But it’s just one of the many, many things coming your way, along with hot flashes and murderous urges.”
Yay. Something to look forward to.
“Excuse me,” someone said behind her.
Harry Potter, her stalker.
“I need to speak to you,” he said.
Oh boy. “Sorry,” she said but before she could finish her polite excuse, one of her new friends spoke up.
“No need to make a hasty decision, honey. He might be suitably employed with no baggage.”
“Impossible,” Dry Vagina said. “That’d be like finding a unicorn.”
“Are you a unicorn?” the first woman asked him.
Harry Potter blinked at her and then looked at Quinn with more than a little desperation. “Can I please talk to you . . . alone?”
“Not alone,” the first woman said. “That sounds like stranger danger. You can do your pickup line magic right here in the crowd, or better yet do it online like the rest of the world.”
The guy never took his gaze off Quinn. “You’re Quinn Weller, right?”
How did he know her name? “You’re going to need to go first,” Quinn said.
“I’m Cliff Porter. I’m an attorney and I really need a word with you. Privately.”
She stared at him, trying to come up with a reason why an attorney would be looking for her.
“Porter or Potter?” Dry Vagina asked. “Because Potter would make more sense.”
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