Ride: Hearts Wild Series

"Are you serious right now? How can you not think it's important that there's some, I don't know, fire? Some passion?"

"You know what? You were right. We ought to spend this trip in companionable silence. Without Quinn here, we have nothing to discuss." Zoe swallowed and then stared pointedly out the passenger's side window.

The next few hours dragged. They sat there, listening to the music of Aerosmith and Fleetwood Mac while the tension between them grew. He knew that she, just like him, was thinking of all the things she could add to their conversation. For her, this was probably details about all the care Quinn needed, and in a way, he couldn't blame her.

Maybe Quinn didn't see everything Zoe did for her, but he had. He saw the look in Zoe’s eyes when something good happened for Quinn, like she'd just won the lottery and they were splitting the prize. And then there were the bad days. Those were far worse to witness. However crushed Quinn was, Zoe's heartache was always the same, or sometimes even worse.

Still, that didn't change the facts of Quinn's life. Maybe Zoe was willing to live for her sister, but it was madness to expect Quinn to do the same. She needed joy and spontaneity and passion, and the more Zoe insisted her sister didn't need it, the more Ian wanted to ask her if she'd ever felt those things herself, if she'd ever loosened her commanding grip on life long enough to get swept up in love.

But then, he was pretty sure he already knew the answer.

Eventually, the glimmering casino towers rose in the distance, and they crossed the bridge into the city. As they approached, Zoe typed the address of the apartment into her phone, and they followed the instructions to the boardwalk, not far from one of the most run-down casinos on the strip.

When they pulled up, Zoe hopped from the car without a word then smoothed her hands over the form-fitting yoga pants. She was still wearing the crazy shoes Quinn had gotten for her, and Ian mentally scolded himself for not stopping.

"There's a mall not far from here,” Zoe said. “I'm going to go grab a pair of flats, and I'll meet you back here. The code to the apartment is 21225. Got it?"

He nodded then waited as she disappeared onto the boardwalk. When at last she was out of view, he snuck to the back of his truck and grabbed his toolbox. Popping the hood, he stared down at the car and tried to decide where the best place might be to begin his sabotage.

Three

Tennis shoes in one hand, Zoe trudged back to the old apartment with the familiar edge of dread she always felt when she was there. She knew she'd have to go inside the place to change, but the idea of seeing the dingy, peeling red walls and the tiny kitchen made her heart scream like a crab dropped in boiling water.

Briefly, she'd considered changing her shoes in the mall while she was there, but every second she spent avoiding the apartment was another moment she was pulling herself away from the truth of where Quinn was and whether she might be here.

Sucking in a deep breath, she opened the back door—which was, of course, perpetually unlocked—and greeted the familiar smell of stale menthol cigarettes and cheap booze. The green carpet under her feet was splotched with stains she definitely didn't want to know the origins of, and she avoided looking at the cracked plaster walls and flickering fluorescent lights as she made her way up one flight of steps, then another, until she was finally at the door she remembered all too well.

After the funeral, she and Quinn had kept telling each other they were going to come and clean the place out, that they'd sell the place back to the landlord and move forward. But it had been over a year now since their father had died, and nobody had crossed this threshold since the EMTs who'd come to wheel him away.

Swallowing hard, she pressed the familiar code into the door then turned the knob and closed her eyes. She didn't have to look at the place to see it. She knew every detail by heart. In the center of the room would be the king-sized bed she, Quinn, and their father had shared. In the corner, there would be the kitchenette, probably still stocked with canned ham, tuna fish, tomato soup, and canned pasta sauce. Then there was the dining room table on which would sit an ashtray and a pack of playing cards.

Of all the things to hate about this place, it was the cards she loathed the most.

Opening her eyes, she focused in on them, studying the intricate red pattern on the back of the cards that she knew so well. Whenever dad was down on his luck, he'd try to get his fix by playing with Quinn and her. At first, he'd say he wanted to teach them how to be card sharks like he was. He'd sit them down and laugh for a while, teaching them about the river and the flop, but then things would progress, the liquor would come out, time would go by. He'd lose a hand then two.

Zoe winced. There was no need to remember that all now. Now, she just needed to focus on Quinn.

She glanced around, but there was really no way of telling whether Quinn had been here or if her father had simply left the place a mess when he'd gone. The bed things were rumpled, a half-empty pint of whiskey sat on the nightstand, and the cards were neatly stacked. The ashtray was still dirty.

With a little edge of self-hatred, grief took over her heart, squeezing it hard until she felt like she could hardly breathe. She took another step toward the cards, her hand outstretched to touch one, to turn it over. The ace of hearts stared back at her.

"Zoe?" A man’s voice sounded from behind her and she swiveled around, her cheeks scorching as if Ian had caught her in the middle of something shameful. Which, in a way, he had.

"Yeah?" She cleared her throat.

"You might want to change your shoes and come downstairs. I've got some bad news."

She sat on the bed and took her shoes from the box, kicking off the hideous platform heels Quinn had foisted on her.

"Damn, this place was—?" He started, but Zoe cut him off.

"My father's apartment. We spent summers here," she offered, rolling on her socks. There was no need to include that, when the chips were down, they spent the school year here, too. There was certainly no reason to tell him that those were still not the worst of her memories.

No, those were the nights she starved, the nights she'd pretended she'd already eaten so Quinn wouldn't have to go to bed with an empty stomach. So Quinn would never know the extent of their suffering.

Ian's voice broke through her thoughts. "Wow. Quinn told me he had a place here, but…"

"He wasn't much for decorating." She pulled on her sneakers and bounced back to her feet. "Now, what is it you wanted to show me?"