“What has you thinking so hard?” she asks, and I realize I’ve been staring at her while thoughts cascade through my mind.
“Just lost in thought. And I’m sorry I took this too far,” I apologize as I move her off my lap, instantly missing her warmth, even in this ridiculous heat.
“That’s okay, I liked it. And I don’t think anyone saw anything.”
The swing starts rocking again as I kick us off with the tip of my shoe.
“So, anything you want to do to kill time?”
Her cheeks redden and I immediately realize that she’s thinking of us heading back up to my bedroom. Something I’m not opposed to, but I don’t want our entire time together to be about sex, even though it is incredible. Quinn was my friend far before we took it to this step, and I want to prove to her that we can be friends when everything is said and done.
“Have you been downtown yet? We have a couple new shops.”
“Oh, no I haven’t. I’d like to see how things have changed. It sounds fun. I haven’t eaten lunch yet either. Is Erma’s Sandwich Shop still around? I could go for one of her Italian subs and a frozen lemonade.”
“Erma’s is still alive and kicking. Best sandwiches in all of Houston sixty years running.”
Quinn jumps from the swing and I follow dutifully, knowing I’d follow her anywhere right now as her hips sway with each step, her dress brushing against the back of her thighs, teasing me.
I settle her in my car and then do the same, starting the ignition and looking out onto the street.
“Come on, let’s go eat!” she joyfully exclaims, and I trail my gaze from her legs up her body. It only takes a moment for her to realize what I took from her comment.
“Trevor, I meant sandwiches.”
“But you’re my favorite meal.”
She giggles as if she doesn’t believe me, but she’s totally wrong. I would devour her for every meal if she’d let me.
*
AN HOUR LATER, QUINN and I are walking down the sidewalk under the green awnings synonymous with Dale City, each with a frozen lemonade in hand. The summer heat squelches, but the refreshing drink keeps us cool. I love watching Quinn’s cheeks hollow out as she sips from the straw between her pink-tinted lips. The action reminds me of the way she sucked my cock the other day in the laundry room. And as if my most treasured asset senses my thoughts, it begins to grow behind my pants, achingly pressing against the zipper of my jeans.
With my mind elsewhere, I don’t notice the buxom woman heading in our direction, or the venom spilling from her eyes toward Quinn, or the stroller she’s pushing irritably toward us. In her stacked heels, Mindy Caldwell hobbles over with fire in her eyes. Unfortunately, Mindy was a menace in high school, and it looks like she’s itching for a repeat performance. Though she’s Playboy-pinup gorgeous, she hides behind her silicone-filled body and has a mean streak to rival anyone else in Houston.
As she approaches, her puckered mouth grows into an overly fake smile, her bright white, straight teeth on display. And in horror, her eyes narrow in on my hand clasped with Quinn’s, something that innocently occurred as we left the shop but now seems as if it’s going to cause trouble.
“Well, Officer Shaw, what a pleasure it is to see you,” she purrs as she closes in. Quinn squeezes my hand tightly and I look over to see her face blanched. Then I remember how Mindy and her minions teased and tortured, for all intents and purposes, Quinn in high school. If it hadn’t been for my sister, I’m sure it all would’ve been much worse, but Izzy was the head cheerleader and one of the most popular girls in our school; you didn’t mess with her or Quinn and not get some sort of retribution.
“I wish I could say the same, Mindy. Of course, you remember Quinn Miller, right?”
Mindy’s nose bunches as if she’s smelled something foul as her eyes travel up and down Quinn’s body.
“Yes, how could I forget little Quinn? What have you been up to?”
“Mindy,” I press. “You don’t live under a rock. You know Quinn has made something of herself. How lucky are we here in Dale City to have an actress of her caliber in our midst?”
“I’m not sure I would consider acting a job. I mean, how hard can it be?” she accuses.
Quinn takes a sip of her drink and then asks, “So, what is it you do, Mindy? If I remember correctly, you wanted to be a fashion designer one day.”
It’s difficult but I hold back my laugh as Mindy’s eyes narrow and her nostrils flare.
“I’m a stay-at-home mom.”
“That’s wonderful! I know it can’t be easy. How many children do you have?” Quinn leans over to peer into the stroller.
“Just the one,” Mindy barks and then softens as she looks back at me. “Officer Shaw, would you like to look at your baby?”
My eyes narrow into thin slits at Mindy’s implied meaning. We’ve never slept together, though she tried for years.
“Yours?” Quinn asks as she coughs on her lemonade.
“No, not mine,” I reply harshly, my angered gaze still on Mindy as she smiles without a care in the world. “Little Billy Jr. belongs to Billy Smithson. You probably remember him from school. I helped deliver Billy Jr. when Mindy’s water broke at the supermarket.”
“Oh, that’s Billy now,” Mindy hums as she waves across the street to the ex-quarterback with a growing tire around his waist.
Quinn’s expression is masked by her curiosity of the baby cooing at her from the stroller.
“Sorry about her,” I whisper to Quinn, who peeks at me from behind her long lashes and shoots me a quick smile before putting her attention back on the baby.
“Billy, Mindy, it was a pleasure to see you as always,” I lie. “Quinn and I have some plans, but I’m sure I’ll be seeing you all later.”
Quinn stands and takes my hand in hers as if it’s as natural as flowers blooming in spring.
“Good to see you, Mindy,” Quinn echoes as we walk past her nemesis.
I watch in amazement as the woman walking beside me takes a sip of her drink as if we hadn’t just spent the past five minutes reopening old scars left by our pasts. Needing her closer, I release her hand and wrap my arm around her shoulders, kissing the top of her head. Her arm wedged between our bodies wraps around my waist, and I wish it was a permanent fixture holding me to her.
We pass by a sprouting of bushes blocking a parking lot from the buildings, and I turn Quinn toward me and kiss her for everything she’s worth.
Chapter Thirteen
Trevor
THE HOUSE SITS IN the middle of the same two-acre lot it’s occupied since before I was born. My parents still live across the street, but when Quinn moved away, I had a hard time gazing at the home that seemed more foreign to me than ever before.
The two-story brick colonial is large, mimicking a few of the other houses on the street, but strangely it always seemed a bit dark to me. Shadows linger on its surface from the surrounding trees, but it’s the shadows on the inside that intrigue me most. It’s still hard to this day to picture bright and bubbly Quinn living in a house that’s her opposite.
Growing up, we never saw her parents much. Just comings and goings from work, leaving Quinn alone in the massive estate, far too big for a teenager, which is why she spent many nights sleeping over with Izzy. My parents love Quinn, but the same can’t be said for her parents toward me and my sister. They always complained when we were over and would send us home claiming Quinn needed to spend her time studying. Except that was typically what we were doing.
I remember how hard her parents pushed her in school, but they never made an effort to support her. Izzy and I never saw them at any of Quinn’s plays or her high school graduation. She didn’t even get to go to prom because her parents were taking her to a medical convention across the country. That part had hurt me just as much as it had hurt her. I had plans to ask her to senior prom, even turned down requests from some of the most popular girls in our school. I had my sights set on only one
girl, and that girl was Quinn. When I found out she wasn’t able to go, I begged my parents to see if she could stay with us, but they said it wasn’t up to them and I needed to find someone else to take. My heart had hurt for her, so I had no qualms about the fact that she up and left after graduation.
So as I pull into the driveway with the murky darkness closing in on the car, my past anger and hurt for Quinn boils at the surface, threatening to overflow.
“Quinn,” I start as I turn off the car and twist in my seat to face her, “if I say anything out of line tonight, I want to go ahead and apologize now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I just….” I run a hand through my hair as I try to find the words expressing my feelings toward her parents. “I just want to protect you, and if they say anything condescending, I’ll probably snap.”
She rests her small hand against my cheek, and I want to lean into her touch more than anything right now. Strangely enough, it’s as if she’s comforting me and not the other way around.
“Trevor, you don’t have to stand up for me. I’m a big girl.”
“I know I don’t have to, but I want to. My job is to serve and protect, remember?”
“Ah, yes. Officer Shaw. How different our lives turned out to be.”
“I want to kiss you now, Quinn.”
Her brown eyes dart toward the front door but quickly come back to me.
“Okay,” she whispers and I swoop in, craving her lips against mine.
I forget about the house before us, my parents’ house across the street, or the fact that we live in two different worlds. For this moment she’s mine, and I’m making it count.
Ten minutes later, we enter the house behind Quinn’s scowling mother. I used to wonder how it would feel to awkwardly walk into a house where you weren’t wanted, and boy, it is not a good feeling.
The interior looks the same as it did when Quinn lived here; not much has changed in the six years since she left. I almost feel sad for her parents until they move into the dining room without a greeting and begin saying a prayer at the table before Quinn and I have even taken a seat ourselves.
With a shrug, Quinn asks what I would like to drink and then steps into the kitchen to fill two glasses with water. We move into the dining room where her parents are divvying up the meal onto plates between the two of them. The lasagna does smell delicious, so I scoop a square onto my plate and repeat the same for Quinn, who takes a seat beside me instead of next to her mother.
Silence builds and grows and festers until it’s tearing at the seams. The scrape of our utensils and chewing from her father are the only sounds in the room until a throat clearing calls from across the table.
“Quinn, when were you going to tell us that you were in town visiting?” her mother inquires.
“I’m supposed to be reviewing the script for my next movie. And I’m already having to go back early. And truthfully, I didn’t think you wanted to see me.”
Fascinated, I listen as her mother ignores the quip about not wanting to be seen and focuses on the script.
“Are you still doing the acting thing?” she asks disdainfully, and I’m surprised that she doesn’t seem to realize how successful her daughter is in the industry.
“Mother, please,” Quinn pleads as she looks over at me, embarrassment coloring her cheeks.
“I’m surprised to see you, Trevor. Isn’t there some vagrant you should be arresting?”
“Mother!” Quinn cries before I have a chance to retaliate.
“I’m sorry, but what is so wrong with being an officer of the law?” I question.
“Nothing, other than it takes no real formal education. Pass a mental and physical test and you’re in. And we all know both of those can be stretched,” her father chimes in, and I begin to see red.
Who do these people think they are?
“Well, I’ll be sure to remember the next time one of those vagrants needs medical care and has to be restrained and monitored at the hospital that it takes very little mental and physical strength.”
“Trevor,” Quinn shushes, and I refrain from saying any more, as vile as her parents seem to be at the moment. “Mother, is there a particular reason why you requested my presence tonight?”
“Is it not enough that I want to see my child?”
Quinn sits patiently, knowing her parents have a reason or they wouldn’t have requested her to visit at all.
“Okay, Quinn, have it your way. We’ve asked you to come because your father and I are moving. We need you to take your things and clean out your room.”
Not so bad. Them moving isn’t the end of the world, but my mouth goes dry as they slide a set of thick papers across the table.
“What’s this?” Quinn asks as she grasps the stack.
“Your adoption papers,” her mother mentions casually, as if this information isn’t life-destroying for their daughter.
Quinn has tears in her eyes as she asks, “My… my what?”
“You’re adopted, Quinn,” her father says stoically as he takes a sip from his drink.
“Er, excuse me,” Quinn murmurs as she rushes from the table, her hand pressed to her mouth.
I want to go after her, my body pleading with me to rise from the table and hurry behind her, but my heart aches for Quinn. Her parents continue eating as if they haven’t just devastated her, haven’t just pulled the rug out from under everything she’s ever known, haven’t destroyed the heart that beats inside her.
“How could you?” I demand without remorse as my fury triggers something deep inside. “How could you do this to her in that way?”
“She should know.”
“Sure she should, but not like this. Don’t you love her at all? Can’t you see this will tear her apart? I don’t even understand how you could’ve adopted her.”
“I was working on a surgery for a drug-addicted patient who came in after being shot. The patient died on the table, but we were able to save the baby. I knew I was up as a candidate for the chief of surgery at the hospital we were working at, and at the time it was very family-centric. It wasn’t enough that I was married. As a woman, I needed to have children.”
“So you stole her?” my officer instincts solicit.
“No, we simply requested to adopt her. We were in good standings with social services, and they let us take her home three weeks later.”
“Did you get the job?”
“Of course I got the job. After everything was said and done, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with the baby once I was promoted, so we kept her instead of putting her back into the system.”
“How kind of you,” I say icily.
“Not that it needs any explanation, but our jobs were too hectic to take the time to have children the natural way. This worked in our favor. We had only hoped that she would follow in our footsteps. Instead, we were stuck with a child who had dreams of her name in lights.”
“Do you have any idea how successful your daughter is? How remarkable she is at her craft?”
“We don’t follow entertainment. It’s too barbaric and brain-numbing. I’m sure she’s successful enough.”
“Well, I’ll have you know that your daughter is one of the most sought-after actresses in the world. She’s been nominated for numerous awards and won a few.”
“But has she won them all?”
Rage fills my bones and wrath ignites in my veins, causing me to lash out.
“Are you kidding me right now?” I stand and slam my fists onto the table, ignoring the pain from the hard surface. “I can’t even do this right now. How dare you demean your own daughter like this. She is remarkable, and you’re missing an opportunity to support her in a way that all parents should. Shame on you. I’ll be taking your daughter away from here, and I hope to never hear from you again.”
“What about her things? We need them gone,” her mother adds as if it’s an inconvenience.
“I’m sure you can manage to hire someone
to pack it all up, and you can give it to my parents. We’ll make sure she gets her things.”
Without a second thought, I force myself away from the dining room and go after Quinn. Luckily I don’t have to search far, because I find her standing just inside the kitchen in hearing range of our conversation. Her tears have dried up, only small black smudges evident under her eyes, but the look of rage in them has me taking a step back.
She bypasses me and storms over to the table guns blaring, slamming her fists onto the table across from her mother.
“How could you? All these years I’ve spent berating myself for not being good enough, for not being the daughter you wished I could be. And to find out after all this time that I was never your daughter to begin with? Did you even love me?”
“Quinn, don’t be so dramatic,” her mother sighs as she takes a sip of her water, and I watch as the fire in Quinn’s eyes flares to enormous heights.
“Dramatic? You’re saying that I’m being dramatic? I just found out I was adopted by two people only hoping to get a heads-up in their careers, and you do it in front of my guest.”
“Yes, you’re being dramatic. It’s just some papers.”
“It’s my fucking life!” she shouts and then breathes heavily as she tries to calm herself down. “All of my life I’ve wondered what I could’ve done to make you both hate me so much. How you could look at me like I was just a plant you kept around to feed and water when the time suited you. Well, now I know why,” she says in an eerily calm voice before she stands straight and looks over at me.
We don’t exchange words; instead, I wrap my arm around her and escort her out of the house.
“Quinn,” I prod as I start the car, hoping to get her attention.
Between the Lines Page 11
