by Penny Reid
“Really?” He asked conversationally, like I was telling him about a good bargain down at the Save A Lot. “What were you thinking of playing?”
“Poker.” I wanted to cross my arms over my chest but, due to clothing and boobs and lack of coordination, I encountered too much bulk; my movements were restricted.
“Poker.” He nodded once, holding me in place with a clearly skeptical if not entertained expression. “Is it very cold? This place where you’re going to play poker?”
Without me really noticing he’d crossed the room. I felt like one moment Quinn was at the far side by the window and the next moment he was standing directly in front of me, no more than three feet of air, and clothes, separated us.
“N-no. Not necessarily. I just wanted to be prepared.”
“Prepared for artic temperatures?”
“Prepared for any eventuality.”
“Like what? Poker in a freezer?”
“Like strip poker.” I said the words before my brain thought them and, due to his proximity, I saw something the opposite of calm flash behind his eyes. I chewed on my top lip to ensure I didn’t say anything else; I knew my own eyes were overtly large and watchful and repentant for the most recent movements and sounds of my mouth.
Quinn swallowed, his expression less teasing but no less intense; “We could-” his gaze flickered to my lips then lifted to settle on my forehead, “we could play strip poker here.”
CHAPTER 19
My overtly large eyes widened further and I blinked several times in rapid succession, “I- I- I-“ I reached for something to hold on to and ended up leaning against the wall behind me, “I can’t- we can’t do that.”
“But you’ll play strip poker with strangers?” He seemed to be studying me very closely.
“Well, yeah-” this was a strange conversation to be having as I was speaking both in the theoretical and the literal. Theoretically, I’d play strip poker with strangers, depending on the circumstances and the strangers, but I had no literal intention of doing so.
Quinn quickly countered, “And if I happened to be playing poker- strip poker- at the only table in the casino, would you still play?”
I hesitated, feeling like I was being led into a trap that involved Quinn getting naked... which actually sounded really nice. I reluctantly said, “No.”
“Why?”
“Because… I- you’re you.” I congratulated myself for not slurring the words even as sweat was beading on my chest and upper back.
“Do you trust me?”
“Sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” He lifted his eyebrows just slightly in challenge, his voice lower, “Haven’t I always been honest?”
“You’ve been technically honest.”
“Do you think I’d ever hurt you?”
His questions were rapid fire and the way he looked at me paired with my self-imposed heat-suit and questionable drinking alone policy made me a lot dizzy.
I hesitated again then said, “I don’t know.”
He frowned at my response but didn’t relent, “Don’t you think everyone deserves a chance?”
“A chance?”
“Yes, a chance.”
“What- what kind of chance?” My words were a little shaky as his expression remained inscrutable; but his eyes... his eyes were dark, purposeful, almost menacing in their glittering intensity.
Freaking smoldering eyes. Smash, smash, smash.
“A chance to prove themselves, to defy shortcuts and preconceived expectations, preferences… labels.”
I pressed my lips together. It was one of those questions you can’t answer correctly, like: When did you stop beating your wife? Did I believe everyone deserved a chance? Yes. But he knew that. I started to breathe in through my nose but stopped when I smelled him, whiskey and aftershave and Quinn.
He smelled great. Smash, smash, smash.
In a moment of weakness, likely caused by my smelling him, my voice was quiet, laced with a note of resignation, “Yes. Everyone deserves a chance.”
He gave me one of his barely there smiles, just a hint of a smile, and licked his lips, “Then I want my chance.”
“And how do you propose I give aforementioned shhh-ance-” I swallowed in order to correct my slur, “chance… to… you? What vehicle will you use for the chance?”
We’d said the word ‘chance’ so much it was starting to sound distorted and funny: chance, chance, chance, chance, shance, shance, shanz, shanz… shnaz
Without preamble he said, “I want to date you. I want us to spend time together like we did before I had to go to Boston last week. And, if I have to travel, I want you to answer the cell phone when I call because I want to hear your voice.”
With every syllable that left his mouth I felt my button being pushed again and again and the resulting crimson blush was truly massive. I cleared my throat and tried to say, “Oh, is that all-”
“No.” He shook his head, interrupting me, “That’s not all. I want to touch you and kiss you, frequently, and I want you-” he shifted on his feet as though steadying himself then his hand reached out; he stepped closer and he cupped my cheek in his palm, “I want you to touch me.”
Gah! His words!! Smash, Smash, SMAAAAAASH!!
“And…” he paused, his fingers threading through the hair above my temple and beneath the hat covering my head. He pushed it off and we both let it fall to the floor, “I want to play strip poker, with you, right now.”
I was careful to take my next breath through my mouth. I didn’t want Quinn-sniff to influence my already wino impaired brain function. A little voice in the back of my head said: don’t trust him! You’re not special! You’re weird and awkward and a big-headed Neanderthal freak with Medusa hair!!! He’s confused you with someone else!!!!
Almost immediately I told that voice to go eat shit and die.
I wanted to believe him.
Therefore, I did believe him.
My palms lay flat against the wall behind me and I slanted my chin upward so I could really look at him. His expression straddled between guarded and hopeful. I recognized it so acutely because it was how I’d been feeling since we met.
I cleared my throat and took another steadying breath, through my mouth, releasing it slowly before asking, “What if I said no?”
Quinn became very still. Finally he asked, his tone felt just a wee bit dangerous, “Are you saying no?”
I shook my head, “No- I mean, I’m not saying no. I just want to know what happens if I say no.”
He paused again, staring at me as though the answer to my question was written on my face. He no longer looked hopeful, he just looked guarded. Silence stretched for almost a full minute and we stood there, watching each other. Then he blinked suddenly and an expression resembling dawning comprehension made his eyes flash.
“Janie,” Quinn shifted away, his hand fell from my hair, his countenance darkened. “You’re not going to lose your job.”
I twisted my mouth to the side and made sloppy work of crossing my arms over my chest, “You won’t be upset?”
“Yes, I’ll be ups-” He cleared his throat, looked away briefly, then met my gaze again, “I’ll be disappointed.” He said the word disappointed very carefully, measured- like it was meant to be four words in one. “But, I’m not going to disadvantage my company because you don’t…” he lifted his hands between us then rested them on his hips, “Because you’re not interested.”
I surveyed him for a moment then asked, “Would it be the same job, that I have now? Or would it be something else?”
His jaw ticked. “The same job.”
I nodded absentmindedly. Even though he was looking increasingly reserved and upset, I found my nerves had calmed significantly.
I took a step forward and shrugged out of the jacket, “Would we be friends? Or just Mr. Sullivan and Miss. Morris? Could we still hang out?”
He let out a deep sigh and I didn’t like the hard expression setting his m
outh in a firm, unhappy line, or the way his usually fiery eyes were growing cold and distant. “Listen,” he said it slow, like a rumbly growl, “I’m not an overbearing asshole but I’m also not a masochist. So, no... I’m not interested in being friends.”
“Hmm.” I said, studying him. If I were honest with myself I had to admit his answer made me happy… strangely. I didn’t understand why so I tucked the data point away for future analysis. Regardless, it made me happy and I allowed myself a small smile. The alternating lava and ice emoto-craziness I’d been living with since last Sunday settled down to a heated simmer of unease.
“What if-”
“Janie-” he lifted his hands, hesitated, then placed them on my upper arms; I found it interesting that he seemed to need to touch me or make contact between us before he could speak sometimes, “what can I say to convince you that a relationship between us isn’t going to affect your job?”
“But what if we were to break up or it didn’t work out?”
“I still wouldn’t fire you.”
“How can you be certain of what you’ll do? What if I kidnap your dog?”
“What? Why would you-” he huffed impatiently, shook his head, “I don’t have a dog.”
“That’s not the point. What if I turned bat-shit crazy on you but still was a great employee?”
“I’m professional enough to keep my work-life and personal-life separate.”
I sighed unhappily, “But you don’t know-”
He slid his hands down to mine and held them, “You can’t prepare for every scenario or eventuality.”
“But what if getting involved turns out to be a horrible mistake?”
“What if it turns out to be the best decision we ever made?” he countered.
“I’m risk adverse.” Even as I said the words I squeezed his hands with mine, afraid he would let go.
He studied me, frustrated contemplation encouraging his brow to furrow deeply. He shifted closer, leveling me with a deliberate gaze, “Ok, what if we didn’t decide. What if we left it to chance?”
I swallowed, “How so? How do we do that?”
“We’ll play poker.”
“One hand?”
“No, we’ll play until midnight. Whoever has the most clothes on at midnight wins.”
“Wins what?”
His eyes flickered to my lips and he licked his own, “If I win then we date, for a month. During which I get to buy you whatever I want-” I started to protest but his voice rose over mine and his hands held me in place, “-and you stop looking for reasons or labels or whatever for why we shouldn’t. If you win then…” he shrugged lightly, “then you decide what happens next.”
I swallowed again, eyed him wearily, then pulled my hands from his grip and stepped to the side.
Still hot, I pulled the sweatshirt over my head; the workout shirt also came off at the same time and I tossed them across the discarded jacket. This left me in my tank top, bra, sweat pants, underwear, socks, and slippers- six pieces of clothing, nine if you counted the socks and slippers as separate articles.
The room titled a little and I wobbled. My state of intoxication hung around my consciousness like a fur coat and would likely continue for several hours. Any decisions I made would likely be impaired.
Impaired judgment- check.
His eyes drifted to my neck, chest, stomach, then back up again. The usual fire reignited in his eyes but it was mixed with something else, something I couldn’t place or, more likely, didn’t comprehend. It was like I’d just slapped him but not quite.
I stopped trying to read his thoughts and instead tallied his clothes with a sideways glance. He was wearing a tie, shirt, jacket, undershirt, pants, socks, shoes, and either boxers or briefs. That counted as seven pieces of clothing or ten if you counted the socks and shoes as separate pieces.
“We’re not evenly matched.” I pointed to his tie then put my hands on my hips and mimicked his stance. I hoped bravado and wine-haze would prop up my resolve. So far so good.
He glared at me, looking resentful, and his voice was steely as he asked, “What, specifically, makes you think so?”
I lifted my chin and indicated his tie again, “Your tie, Quinn. I have on nine pieces of clothing and, assuming you’re wearing underwear of some sort, you have on ten. Now I can either put on my hat or you can take off your tie.”
His glare morphed into a perplexed frown as I spoke but then, when I reached the end of the last sentence, his features transitioned into something like petulant yet amused understanding and most of the rigidity left his shoulders and neck.
We stared at each other, again almost for a half minute, before I broke the silence.
“Or, you could take off your jacket…?”
Quinn’s mouth hooked to the side and he smoothly removed his jacket; he tossed it to the pile created by my discarded clothes. He began unfastening his cufflinks at his sleeves and the breath he released while pinning me with an irritated stare sounded relieved. It made me smile.
“You’re going to pay for that.”
I widened my eyes, “For what?”
“Hmmmm…” he fought a smile, “Do you have cards or do we need to get some?”
I stepped around him unsteadily and crawled across the bed to my luggage, “I have cards, I like to play solitaire when I travel.”
“Why don’t you use your laptop or the iPad?” He turned to watch me dig through my bag.
“I like the feel of the cards.” I fished them out then crossed to the couch. There was a desk against the wall but no table near the couch. There was, however, an ottoman. I placed a magazine on the ottoman and decided it would make a flat enough surface and started to shuffle.
Shuffling helped. It kept my hands from shaking when the faint sound of my sober-self asked, What am I doing? Am I really doing this?
He was… blindingly beautiful, and wealthy, and my boss; all really good reasons why we were not suitable.
But, I really, really liked him. He was damn sexy and interesting and crazy smart and annoyingly insightful. I had to trust that there was something about me that he saw and liked enough to abandon his slamps and his Wendell lifestyle. I didn’t like trusting, I didn’t like setting greater than mild expectations, but I wanted to have faith in him. Call it wine, call it Quinn-sniff induced obscurity but I was too warm and fuzzy feeling to dwell on the scary side of strip poker.
Impaired judgment… still check.
“So…” I heard Quinn’s voice from behind me; he sounded like he was still standing in the same spot. “I did actually come here to talk to you about something else.”
I glanced over my shoulder to find my suspicion was correct; “What’s that?”
He pulled one hand roughly through his hair and put the cufflink in his pants’ pocket with the other, “I need to talk to you about last Sunday, that- uh- guy, in the park.”
I was kneeling on the floor next to the ottoman; at the tone of his voice I sat back on my heels and turned my entire torso towards him, “Ok.” I placed the cards on the magazine top, he had as much of my full attention as was possible given my current lack of sobriety.
Quinn hesitated, sauntered as he spoke, not looking at me; “So, when I left Boston years ago I wasn’t very popular with… anyone.” He fiddled with the contents of the room- a lamp shade, the mini bar, the instructions for internet connectivity, “I made some data copies in order to make sure that I wouldn’t be… bothered in Chicago.”
He paused over the mini bar, touching a doll-sized bottle of Jonny Walker.
I asked, “Data copies?”
“The people I worked for, I made copies of their data when I installed the wipe script and degauseer.”
“You mean, the bad men?”
He gave me a small smile and nodded, “Yes. The bad men.” Quinn walked to the couch, seemed to hesitate, then sat down. He placed his large hands on his knees, like he might stand back up at any moment, “Janie…” he leveled me with a v
acillating, undecided gaze.
“Yes…?” He was quiet for so long I felt the need to prompt him. I was beginning to feel a renewed sense of anxiety. This was a long buildup for him; he was usually a straight-to-the-point kind of guy.
He sighed then asked, “Have you had contact with your sister Jem recently?”
I’m sure I looked comical, gaping at him and his question. He might have asked me, ‘Do you want tampons or pads for your Bat Mitzvah?’ and received a less dumbfounded reaction.
I breathed out heavily and responded with the first words that occurred to me, “How do you know Jem?”
He shook his head, his eyes focused and attentive to the expressions which must have been kaleidoscoping over my face, “I don’t really know her. But- in an effort to be more than technically honest- I know who she is.”
“What do you mean, you ‘know who she is’?”
“I mean, just before I left Boston six years ago, I met her when I was at a… business associate’s house. She was- she was involved with him and was… introduced to me briefly.”
“Six years?” I frowned at this. Jem would have been seventeen or eighteen. “Are you sure…? And you remember her?”
“It’s hard to forget someone who tries to set your car on fire.”
My mouth gaped open and I slowly released a breath in that sloppy, over exaggerated way you only achieve when you’re nearly drunk, “That sounds like Jem.”
Quinn leaned forward, pulling his gaze from mine and picking up the cards. He started to deal, “Right before I left Boston, before Des died, I was securing systems for a group that, well, the particulars aren’t important. It wasn’t a typical operation, though. The main guy- his name was Seamus- was basically a skinhead, a thug. But, he happened to be a very smart thug.” Quinn replaced the deck and picked up his cards, began rearranging them, frowning. “The trusted members all had these neck tattoos.” Quinn offhandedly gestured to his throat, drawing curving lines from his collar to his ear and around the back of his neck.
I drew in a deep breath, “The guy in the park, last Sunday, he had a tattoo on his neck.”
