Chose the Wrong Guy, Gave Him the Wrong Finger

by Beth Harbison

  In a way it was like time travel.

  He slid his hand down my back and dipped his fingertips under the waistband of my jeans. I felt him smile against my mouth.

  “Going commando?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.” I tilted my head and kissed his cheek, his jawline, and tangled my fingers in his hair.

  “Since when?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “This isn’t like you.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  His mouth found mine again and I opened to him eagerly, but said, “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  “Why are we doing this?”

  “I don’t know.” He ran his hands up my back again and pulled me closer. Not that closer was really possible. Tighter.

  And I felt so safe. For just a moment, here in the arms of the wolf himself, I felt completely safe.

  But I forced myself to draw back. “I’ve got to go.”

  He looked at me for a moment, then took a step back. “Probably a good idea.”

  “Is this the part where I say it was good to see you again and then I spend the rest of the night kicking myself for saying something so small and ridiculous?”

  He nodded. “That’s exactly where we are in the script.”

  “Okay, then. It was good to see you again. And kind of bad. Actually kind of awful.”

  That smile. “Ditto.”

  “This”—I gestured vaguely between us—“what just happened cannot happen again. Nothing good can come of that.”

  “I hear you.”

  “You need to do more than hear me, Burke, you need to agree with me and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  He sucked air in through his teeth. “I don’t know, if you come at me, I’m not sure I’ll be able to stop you.”

  I rolled my eyes but had to smile. “Somehow you’ll just have to find a way to fight me off.”

  “And if it’s the opposite, if I approach you, you have my full permission to beat me off as well.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Look, we’ve always had this chemical attraction. Apparently that still exists even though there are many, many reasons, we both know, that we are a bad combination.”

  He shrugged.

  What did that mean?

  Wait, it didn’t matter what it meant. I didn’t want to care what it meant. There was no room in my heart or my head to revisit Burke Morrison.

  “So I’m going to go now,” I said. “And that’s not going to happen again. Agreed?”

  He paused, then nodded. “Agreed.”

  “Good. So. Good night.”

  And with that, I left. And with every foot, every yard, every mile that subsequently fell between us, I—or maybe some deep gut instinct—tried to tell myself to stay away, stay away, stay away …

  Stay away from Burke Morrison.

  Chapter 11

  Late July, Fifteen Years Ago

  Quinn knew she shouldn’t have tried pot.

  She had always been completely straight and narrow. When people started lighting up at a party, she’d go to another room, or go home, or whatever, it just wasn’t her thing.

  But it was midsummer before her senior year and she was supposed to be having the time of her life, and instead Burke had upset her by saying … something, she actually couldn’t remember exactly what his wording was, but it was to the effect that he was going to “keep my options open” when he started college in the fall.

  As soon as she’d gotten upset, he’d taken it back, of course, but by then he’d already said it. He couldn’t unsay it.

  So she went with Karen and Rami to a party at Rami’s friend’s house down some endless dirt road, way outside of town. No parents, no close neighbors, the music was throbbing, the keg was spilling over, and after about five beers when a cute guy asked Quinn if she wanted to get stoned, she thought, Fuck Burke, and went into a darkened back den of the house with the guy. He lit a bong, took a hit, and handed it to her.

  She had no idea how to use it.

  So he laughed and told her, and for about fifteen minutes they passed it back and forth. At first she felt nothing, beyond the harsh rush of smoke in her lungs, but she kind of enjoyed the process of passing it back and forth, like they were playing a game.

  She’d always heard that you don’t really get high the first time you smoke. That the chemical needs to build up in your brain or something, so it might mellow you out a little, or make you hungry, but it wouldn’t blast you.

  So she was completely unprepared for the room to start spinning.

  “Good stuff, huh?” the guy—she thought he said his name was Nard—said.

  “I … don’t…” She swallowed and blinked hard. “Yeah,” she said, suddenly aware that she needed to get out of the smoky room and into fresh air. Alone. “Thanks.” She got up unsteadily and made her way to the door, feeling like she was in a spinning room in a carnival funhouse.

  Except there was nothing fun about it.

  Why did people do this?

  She went outside and made her way to Rami. Even in her state, she could tell that Rami, who had driven that night, was hammered.

  “We’re going to stay here, okay?” Rami slurred. “Can’t drive. If something happened, my parents would kill me.”

  Quinn made an effort to focus on her. She was disappointed that they weren’t leaving, but there was no way she wanted to get in a crash on the way home. That had happened to too many people they knew.

  “I think I’m going to try to get home,” Quinn told her. “Another way.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m calling Burke.”

  “That asshole. Screw him! Just stay here. I think Nard likes you! Go with him instead!”

  Just the mention of his name gave Quinn a surge of nausea.

  “What’s wrong?” Rami looked concerned, though she herself was teetering. “Are you okay?”

  There was no way she could admit to Rami what she’d done. She couldn’t admit it to anyone. The thought of telling Burke the truth was terrifying, he would be so mad. But what if she needed to go to the hospital or something? What if the pot had been laced with something? This wasn’t a reaction she’d ever heard of, so something else seemed to be going on.

  “Fine,” Quinn muttered, “just going to go find a phone.” She went back into the house, hoping she wouldn’t run into Nard. (Was that really his name?) She found a phone on the wall in the kitchen, glanced at the digital clock on the stove, which seemed to say it was 11:41 P.M. though the 1’s and 4’s kind of blurred together. As bad as it was to have to call Burke’s house phone so late, she hoped it wasn’t 4:00 A.M. instead of 11:00 P.M.

  She dialed and leaned against the wall, holding the phone to her ear. Please don’t let Dottie answer, please don’t let Dottie answer, please don’t let Dottie answer.…

  “Hello?”

  Oh, thank god. “Burke, I need you to come get me. I’m at a party and I’m sick and Rami drank too much to drive, and…” She started to cry, like a kid who’d fallen and skinned her knee. “I just want to go home.”

  “This is Frank. Burke’s not here. But where are you? I’ll come get you.”

  “Burke’s not there?” The tears burned.

  “No, but don’t worry, I will leave now, just tell me where you are.”

  “I don’t know!” She felt frantic, like a caged animal. “I don’t.” She shook her head even though he couldn’t see her.

  “Have you been drinking?”

  She grimaced. “Yes.”

  “Okay, are you in someone’s house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you ask someone the address?”

  It was too pitiful to say, I don’t know anyone here, so she said, “Hold on,” and started to put the phone down to begin the humiliating task of asking someone where she was. Then she noticed a pile of mail on the counter by the oven. “Wait. There’s mail. I�
�m at…” She squinted and tried to read the printing on the catalog addressed to Clark or Resident. She read it off, then looked at another piece of mail and read it again to make sure she was consistent.

  “Got it,” Frank said. “I’ll be there in about thirty minutes.”

  “I’m going down to the end of the driveway,” she said, hoping the walk would do her good and knowing that being away from the people would. “Don’t run me over,” she added with a lame laugh.

  “I won’t,” he said, but his voice remained gentle.

  She made her way down the drive. It seemed to take forever. Even alone, she was embarrassed to be so wobbly. She took big gulps of air, willing the freshness in and the toxin out, but everything was still spinning and once she even had to stop and be sick into the bushes. It was horrible. What a mistake.

  She’d always been anti-drug, so it figured the one time she went against her own principles something like this would happen. Lesson learned, she thought. Let it end now.

  She sat down on a brick wall by the end of the driveway and held on with her hands, gripping the rough surface hard so she wouldn’t fall.

  After what seemed like forever, headlights appeared in the distance and a car came slowly down the road, drawing to a halt in front of her. He flicked his lights and she got off the wall and went to the passenger door.

  “Thank you,” she said, climbing in. “I don’t know how to thank you enough.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Seriously.”

  “I didn’t wake your grandparents up by calling, did I?”

  He gave a laugh. “An earthquake wouldn’t wake them up.”

  There was that small mercy at least.

  He started to drive and she felt her stomach lurch.

  “Maybe you should get sick,” he said. “Get rid of whatever might be in your stomach waiting to go into your bloodstream.”

  “I already did.” She started to cry again. “Frank…”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I didn’t just drink.”

  He stopped the car and turned to face her in the mostly dark. “Okay…? What did you do?”

  “Swear you won’t tell anyone.”

  He paused. “If you need medical attention, we’re going to have to tell the truth.”

  “I don’t think I do. Swear you won’t tell Burke.”

  “Okay.”

  “Swear it. You’ll never tell him.”

  “I swear I’ll never tell Burke,” he said. “What am I not telling?”

  “I smoked pot.”

  Even in the dim light, she could see his features relax. “Quinn, that’s not that big a deal—”

  “I think it was laced with something.”

  His gaze shot back to her eyes. “What?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s just that I’ve never done it before and it made me really, really dizzy and I’m seeing vapor trails and it’s been like, I don’t know how long, and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better, and”—a wave of nausea came over her—“I don’t know if it’s supposed to be like this or what. I’ve never done it before.”

  “Who gave it to you?” His voice was hard. He was ready to kick ass on her behalf, it was clear. And she appreciated that.

  “I don’t even know,” she admitted. “Nard or something.”

  He thought. “Bernard Wolfe?”

  She shrugged and swallowed hard.

  “Tall, skinny, black hair?”

  She nodded. “Maybe.”

  “Motherfucker.”

  “You know him?”

  “Barely. He’s a dealer. He probably hoped you’d like whatever the hell this is so you’d buy more.”

  Great. So the supposedly cute guy hadn’t even liked her for herself, he just wanted her to be a new customer. Maybe she deserved that.

  “So you don’t think it’s dangerous?”

  He glanced at her, then pushed the gas to resume driving. “Probably not. I’ll stay with you till you feel better and if we need to go to the ER, we will. I can kill Bernard later.”

  She wanted to thank him, to express how this wasn’t like her and she didn’t normally do anything crazy and would never, ever do it again, but she was afraid if she didn’t stay very still she was going to puke.

  So instead she leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes.

  She didn’t think she was tired but she fell asleep anyway, and the next time she opened her eyes, she was lying across the front bench seat of Frank’s Chevy Impala and the sun was just beginning to rise over the horizon.

  He was sitting on the front hood of the car, watching it.

  She sat up and put a hand to her head, still woozy. The world wasn’t spinning anymore, but it wasn’t exactly “normal” either.

  She opened the car door and got out into the fresh, warm air of another perfect summer morning.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Oh, hey.” He turned, surprised, and got off the hood. “I was just thinking I should wake you up so we could go before your parents get up.”

  “Yeah.” She rubbed her eyes. “Thanks.” She met his eyes. “Seriously, thank you.”

  He smiled. His eyes crinkled at the corners and his whole face softened. “Get in the car.”

  She did, and as they started toward her house, only a few blocks away, she said, “I know you really went out of your way to help me last night and I really appreciate that. I also know I don’t have any right to ask you any sort of favor on top of it, but, like I said last night, I really don’t want Burke to know about this. It’s … it’s just really embarrassing.”

  “He’s not going to hear it from me.”

  “Do you mean it?”

  He glanced at her. “Quinn, I think you’ve been through enough hell from last night. Why would I add to that? What could I possibly gain from it?”

  She felt her face grow warm. “Thank you.”

  They finished the drive in silence.

  When he pulled up in front of her house, she took a steadying breath, then looked at him one more time. “Thanks again.”

  “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  They looked at each other for just a fraction of a moment too long, and Quinn felt a tremor go through her. Embarrassment, she rationalized. He’d seen her at her worst.

  How could she ever face him again?

  It wasn’t until later in the afternoon that the most obvious thing occurred to her: Where had Burke been in the middle of the night when she called?

  It wasn’t the last time she’d wonder something just like that.

  Chapter 12

  Present

  Speed dating. Tonight. I already signed you up.

  Glenn had used a bigger envelope this time so he could fit a pamphlet in for Short Stops Speed Dating. Tonight’s meeting was in a good restaurant in a bad strip mall twenty-some miles away, in Leesburg.

  “Oh, good, you got it,” Glenn said, coming through the front door of the shop.

  “Like you weren’t standing in the window watching.”

  “I was,” he admitted immediately. “I had to rush in and quell the objection I know you’re going to make.”

  “Not necessarily.” But probably. He was probably right.

  “Listen,” he said. “I went to a few of these when I lived in Savannah and they were really fun, though, admittedly, a different crowd. Each round is just a few minutes, then you’re off the hook. Honestly, this should have been a Day One activity, and I tried, but they sell out for women so fast, this was the soonest I could get.”

  “Which means there will be, like, three men there?”

  He hesitated. “There do tend to be more women than men,” he acknowledged. “Especially in the big metropolitan areas. That’s what everyone says.”

  “Great. So it’ll be like musical chairs. Some people sitting and chatting, while everyone else stands around awkwardly, trying to figure out what to do with their hands.” I hated that feeling, the self-conscious posture that came with knowing th
ere was no way to look cool in a given situation. Like inhaling on a doctor’s command, or waiting for a ball you may or may not have to dodge.

  “But you are superior to most women. Besides, nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re not expecting me to get a boyfriend out of this, right?”

  “Tonight? No. It would be nice, but the main objective of you doing this tonight is to get you mingling with people who don’t live within two miles of you. Consider it mere practice for a later assignment.”

  “That sounds daunting.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Let’s just stick to the task at hand, okay? This is going to be totally refreshing. Think about it—how often do you get to meet new people and not be allowed to talk to them for more than six minutes?”

  I nodded. “I have to admit, there is some appeal there.”

  “And if you find a guy to keep your mind off the Morrisons?”

  I thought about it. “There is definitely some appeal there.”

  “So you’ll do it?”

  This one actually made sense as far as breaking my routine. “Sure. Why not?”

  * * *

  Kate Newton was one of the sweetest people I’d ever met. Seriously. Everything about her just emanated kindness.

  She’d come to me in March with an outdated pink bridesmaid dress in hand. “Can you make this into a wedding dress somehow?” she’d asked. “It’s the most formal thing I have and we don’t have a lot of money to waste on something we’ll only use one day.”

  I’d half expected her to go on to tell me they didn’t have time either, that she needed the dress for a shotgun wedding—not that there’s anything wrong with that—but it turned out she was a teacher and he was a truck driver and they were saving their money for a house someday, so everything to do with the wedding had to be on the cheap.

  It made sense, really, and even though I was in the business of making quality, and most often costly, gowns, I was more impressed with her attitude than that of many of my clients.

  So I wanted to help in any way possible.