First and Tension (Summersweet Island 4)

“Bitch! I was just thinking about you!” Carson answers the call, making me smile. “I was showing that sexy photo of you from the charity event to one of my friends like a proud mama, bragging about your smoky eye!”

“I’m at Sip and Bitch with the girls. Everyone, say hi.”

I hold the phone out so Carson can shout at everyone, and everyone can shout at Carson, before pulling the phone back to me.

“I swear I’ll call you back later so we can talk longer, but I just have a quick question,” I tell him as the girls all lean in closer. “After that party at Quinn’s house, do you remember if you ever got any texts or voicemails from someone saying it was him?”

Carson’s loud peel of laughter comes out of my speaker, making me miss him, and I make a mental note to beg him to come for a visit as soon as he can when we talk later.

“Girrrl, I can’t believe I forgot about that until just now!” Carson continues to laugh, making butterflies start to flap around in my stomach as Wren quickly reaches across the bench and grabs my hand. “It was the funniest thing! Literally everyone I spoke to who was at the party said they got a message from some loser claiming to be Quinn Bagley. Never went into much detail, just said it was really important someone get back to him, because he was trying to find a woman. So freaking random!”

My heart drops right into my stomach to frolic around with all the butterflies as Wren squeezes my hand and Birdie and Tess’s mouths drop open in shock.

He was telling the truth.

“Why didn’t you call him back? Why didn’t anyone call him back?” Wren asks Carson, while I’m finding it hard to breathe and speak.

“Uh, because it was obviously a prank caller, duh!” Carson snorts. “Like Quinn Bagley would really contact a bunch of strangers and leave a desperate message like that, looking for a woman. He could snap his fingers and have ten of them in his bed in five minutes. That prank caller sure was persistent too. I think he left me four voicemails and at least five texts. Same with everyone else. Ahhh, we all had a good laugh about it though. I think I replied to one of his texts with a link to an escort service. I can’t believe I forgot about that until just now!”

Carson’s still chuckling to himself, oblivious to the fact that I’m holding back tears and my hands are shaking so hard that Wren has to take the phone and say goodbye to Carson for me.

“He really did try to find me,” I whisper after a few quiet minutes where nothing can be heard but the muffled shouting of Palmer to Shepherd upstairs to “put the damn glitter away already, because it’s getting on everything.”

All of a sudden, the quiet basement is filled with the ear-piercing screams of four grown women completely losing their shit, flapping their hands in the air, and bouncing up and down at the picnic table.

My crush on Quinn has lasted longer than I care to admit. For all of my adult life, that man has starred in every one of my fantasies. Having him actually be a part of my life after so many years of dreaming, and having the reality of him be so much better than the fantasy, it definitely took me longer than it should have before I let myself believe everything he said to me in that concession stand was true.

“I want to see where this could go when you stop pretending like you don’t want this to be real.”

I deserve to have a man fighting about glitter in my home too. And I deserve to be with a guy who makes me deliriously happy. I don’t know if I’ll get the white picket fence and the happily ever after, but I deserve to try, dammit. And I deserve to try with a man who attempted to hunt me down for weeks, sounding like a prank-calling loser, and has done everything he can to be around me ever since he found me again.

“Go get yourself that orgasm, bitch.” Birdie nods once everyone has finally quieted down.

“If he wants to keep fucking me like he did in that locker room, I’ll let him burn my entire life to the ground.”

“That’s what I’m talking about.” Tess smiles, giving me a high-five.

I clink my slush cup with everyone else’s while I let them shoot rapid-fire ideas at me about what I should do to apologize to Quinn for letting him walk away from me the other night and for not trusting what he said to me.

I know I’m worth it. I still can’t stop that tiny little bit of nagging doubt in the back of my head that says Quinn still doesn’t need the distraction and I’m going to make his life more chaotic when he’s finally playing for a team that makes him happy.