First and Tension (Summersweet Island 4)

“Honestly, if you have any ecstasy on you, it might be beneficial. You’ll have a much more enjoyable evening here tonight on drugs—I promise you.”

Quinn just laughs softly, the sound warming me back up again and reminding me that, regardless of what he just did to me back in that driveway, he’s still a guy I’m comfortable with and can joke around easily with. I need to stop being nervous and just have a good time with him, like I always do.

“Come on, fake girlfriend. I’ve got some parents to impress with my sparkling personality.”

I groan, shaking my head at him as we walk up the steps, the heavy weight of his hand wrapped around mine giving me courage.

“Your ego called; he’d like a night off tonight.”

“You’re cute. He never gets a night off.” Quinn chuckles as he lifts his free hand and gently raps on my parents’ front door.

“…and the time Birdie dared her to go one full day at school, talking to all her teachers at the top of her lungs, pretending a firecracker had gone off too close to her ear the night before and she couldn’t hear.”

“Or the time Tess dared her to have an argument with a wall in the middle of a blind date in college. Oh! Remember when she was in Chicago at that dance competition, and Valerie Geer dared her to sit down at someone else’s table at a restaurant and start eating their food?”

“In my defense,” I finally cut in after my parents have spent the last twenty minutes regaling Quinn with every dare—that they know about—I’ve completed. “Those people were super nice when I asked them if the bread was any good, and they invited me to sit down and try a piece.”

“Right, but you also sampled their salad, their calamari, and one of their spaghetti meatballs,” my dad so helpfully reminds me.

He’s a man of few words, my father, but when it comes to embarrassing any of his children, he goes all in. My parents’ relationship is pretty much exactly like that old black-and-white TV sitcom, The Honeymooners, except the roles are reversed. My mom is the one who stomps around, yelling until she gets her way, and my dad is the one who calmly rolls his eyes and humors her just to get her to stop talking. I pretty much deal with my mom the same way my dad does, just to get some peace and quiet.

“They were damn delicious meatballs.” I sigh, remembering that night in a tiny little hole-in-the-wall Italian place off the beaten path of the bustling city. It was my first time leaving Virginia, and my first taste of freedom. It all tasted perfect. “And the dare specifically said I had to eat something from the main course and not just the free bread.”

“So you thought all the courses would cover your bases. Got it.” Quinn snorts, making me playfully reach over and smack his arm.

After we walked into my parents’ home and dealt with a solid fifteen minutes of them fawning all over Quinn, and my dad asking him to sign every piece of Sharks memorabilia he owns, they finally calmed down, and we were able to enjoy a nice meal. Where Quinn did indeed impress them with his sparkling personality.

He drove me absolutely insane doing that damn hair-twirl thing in between courses, but he also impressed me right along with my parents. He was so laid back and at ease, being completely open with them, talking about everything from what it’s like to be a professional football player to what he was like as a child. Even though that kiss knocked me for a loop, it really did make me feel more comfortable with this stupid ruse and make this all seem so natural. Quinn makes me forget this isn’t real. That it’s just pretend. And now that I’ve gotten a taste of what it would be like to actually date this man, I don’t know if I’ll ever recover.

“Well, we’re just happy Emily is finally home, where she belongs, doing what she should be doing,” my mom says with a smile.

Ever since we finished dinner of roasted chicken with mashed potatoes—and my grandmother’s gravy that is absolutely not horse shit and really should be considered its own food group—we’ve all been sitting out on my parents’ back deck. It’s right on the beach, where we can enjoy the sound of the waves crashing to the shore from the inky blackness a hundred yards away, in the matching Adirondack chairs, where Quinn has been holding my hand.

Our fingers are laced together, and he’s pulled my chair right up against his, so we can tangle our arms together on the chair arms. Because of this, Quinn immediately feels the tightening in my body and the sweatiness of my palm when my mom talks about this being where I belong, doing what I should be doing.