First and Tension (Summersweet Island 4)

“I just want to know how! How in the hell do you get that fucking ball in the 100-point cup ten times in a row?”

“Remember that thing I did to you last week under the bleachers of the football stadium, when you picked me up from coaching practice?”

“Mmm, that was good….”

“Yeah, that’s how I do it. It’s all in the flick of the wrist, baby.”

“What are you doing?”

“Snuggling up behind you on the couch while we watch Varsity Blues.”

“I meant with your hand.”

“You’re all soft and warm, and I just want to lay here with my hand up your shirt, playing with your tits, while we watch the greatest movie of all time.”

“I think Crouton is getting jealous.”

“Look, he already gets the bathroom. He’s not getting your tits too.”

“I meant there’s plenty of room on the couch for the three of us, you crazy man.”

“I really like you, Emily Flanagan.”

“And I really like you, Quinn Bagley. And your hand on my boob. Keep that shit up.”

“Where have you been all my life?”

“Right here, waiting for you to come find me, so I could bring you down a peg or two.”

CHAPTER 23

Emily

“Get a room before you melt all the ice cream!”

To:

From:

Subject: Job Offer

Good morning, Emily. I hope this email finds you well. I just wanted to thank you again for meeting with me and Bill at the charity event. The information you provided was invaluable. After much discussion these last few weeks, and with some more changes to our internal organizational structure, we now have an opening for a new director to the Virginia Beach Sharks Cheerleaders, and we’d like to offer that position to you. Bill and I both feel you are the type of person who can help us bring some much-needed change to this organization with your passion and determination. I know this offer might come as a surprise, and I’m aware you have responsibilities with the family business you run. This isn’t a decision that needs to be made overnight. We have some time before audition camp begins. Attached, you will find your official offer letter, salary, and benefit package information. Please, take whatever time you need to think it over. If you have any questions, I can be reached at any time here at the office or via my personal cell phone number included in this email. I have not discussed this with Mr. Bagley. I felt this type of news might be something you’d like to share with him yourself, so it will remain confidential until that time.

All my best,

Jeanie Bidwell

“What the hell do you mean you haven’t told Quinn yet? It’s been a week!”

Wren turns her back on me to hand a customer their chocolate-dipped cone through the window, and I huff from where I’m perched on top of one of the back counters at the Dip and Twist.

“First of all, I still can’t even believe it’s real. I keep opening my email, expecting it to just not be there one of these times and it was all a dream. But if I take this job, you know people are going to think I only got it because I’m dating Quinn. And they’ll think I’m only dating Quinn to get the job,” I remind her, a ball of anxiety taking up entirely too much room in my stomach.

Anxiety, mixed with “oh my God, what the hell do I do?”

“No one is going to think that,” Wren shouts from deep inside the chest freezer as she leans her stomach on the edge to reach the strawberry container in the far back, her short legs kicking out behind her and making me laugh.

“Do you want me to get that for you?”

“Shut up! Stop bragging that you’re four inches taller than me!” Wren shouts back as she slides off the lip of the freezer and comes back to her feet with a sugar cone perfectly piled high with strawberry ice cream. “No one is going to think you’re only dating Quinn to get a job with the Sharks. All they have to do is look at the two of you together. You’re so adorable I want to puke.”

“Says the woman who makes us vomit daily with all her Shepherd PDA,” I reply dryly, the cash register dinging when the drawer pops open, and Wren hands the customer their change. “It still feels weird accepting the job. I want to say yes. God, do I want to say yes. But I don’t want Quinn to think this is why I started dating him. Literally, right after we officially start dating, I suddenly get my dream job? That doesn’t sound fishy at all. Do you know how many times he’s told me about past dates and past girlfriends who only used him to get something from him? It’s literally been every single woman until I came along, Wren. And that’s not an exaggeration. That’s all his parents talked about at dinner. ‘Remember Michelle Wilson, who dated him for a week so he’d pay for her ticket to France? Remember Alison Westcott, who broke up with him after he got her and all of her friends Super Bowl tickets? Remember the one who ghosted him after he helped her get that job with his old college professor?’” I finish, mimicking his parents.