Rick wanted this one to stick.
“Three weeks, Mara! Three! It’s like he just… disappeared!” Quinn shouted across the pub table to her friend, the loud Friday night crowd making conversation near impossible. “I even drove to his condo. He’s not there, he’s not at work, he’s gone!”
Mara’s eyes narrowed, focusing in on Quinn with an air of seriousness. One brow arched up in accusation as she tapped a perfectly manicured nail on the edge of her glass.
Quinn felt the heat spread up her neck when she realized what a hypocrite she was being. “Okay, fine. So I left Rick hanging for six weeks. You’re right. Is that what he’s doing? Tit for tat? Out getting laid left and right while I suffer with not knowing? You know why I had to leave, Mar. I had things to get done and loose ends to take care of.” Quinn’s hands flew through the air rapidly to emphasize her point.
“I know that, Quinn. Rick doesn’t.” Mara’s beautiful features softened towards her distressed friend.
“And he won’t know if he won’t talk to me!” Needing something to occupy her nervous energy, Quinn twisted her unused straw around in her hands until it resembled a pretzel.
“He’s a man, Quinn. That means he’s stubborn and has an ego as big as this city, with an equal amount of pride. You hurt him.” She shook her head. “I can hardly believe it, but somehow you got through that tough as nails exterior of his and hurt him.”
“I’m trying to fix things, Mara. He needs to meet me halfway.” Quinn glanced around the room before landing back on Mara. Nervousness flooded her system as she realized she might have screwed up everything with Rick beyond repair. “We—we shouldn’t be together, I messed it up, but we can still be friends. If only I could see him.”
Mara sighed, as if resigned to do something she didn’t want to do. She bent down, reaching by her legs for her purse. “You didn’t get this from me, understand?” She tapped on her phone for a moment before dropping it back in her bag. Quinn saw her own phone light up on the table. “I just texted you Dane’s address. Rick should be there.”
“He’s with Dane? All this time he’s been hiding at Dane’s house to avoid me?” Quinn’s eyes bulged at the news, but hope surged through her body. If she could confront him, she could make him see that she didn’t leave him, she left to fix herself. Maybe they could still have some semblance of a relationship, as friends since he’d clearly moved on to other women.
The corners of Mara’s mouth pulled down slightly. “No, Quinn, he’s not hiding. I’ll let Rick tell you what happened, why he’s at Dane’s. It’s not my business to tell.” She picked up her margarita and held it up. “Now, we drink and forget all about men and their dicks!”
Confused and upset, Quinn mimicked Mara, clinking glasses with her before downing half of her glass of wine.
Quinn could hardly put on a happy face, when all she wanted to do was drive right over to Dane’s house and see Rick. Steeling herself, she tossed her hair over her shoulder. Screw him! Tonight, I’m having fun. She gulped down her drink and smiled at Mara, who was pleased to see her letting loose.
Tomorrow. I’ll see him tomorrow.
Rick sat on Dane’s back patio, staring off into space. He couldn’t remember ever being this bored in his life. Even the Braves game he was listening to couldn’t hold his interest. The doctor would only release him from the hospital on the promise that he would stay with a friend for at least a couple more days until his stitches came out. Ready to leave the torture of sitting in a hospital bed day after day—and the recurring nightmares from his time in the Marines each night—Rick eagerly agreed to whatever the doctor said.
Now, with Dane at work, Rick realized he wasn’t that much better off here than he had been at the hospital, alone all day with only his torturous thoughts to occupy his time. At least the hospital had people coming in and out of his room that he could talk to.
Rick tried to stay busy so he wouldn’t obsess over Quinn. He did his first brief workout that morning, walking some and attempting to strengthen his core. It was painful and frustrated him to no end that he couldn’t work out the way he wanted. He wouldn’t really be able to get back in shape until the stitches came out. They pulled too much when he moved around.
“Rick?”
His head snapped up at the faint sound of Quinn’s voice coming from somewhere. He had sworn once he stopped the painkillers that the strange dreams would go away.
Am I so fucked up that now I’m imagining things while I’m awake and unmedicated?
“Rick?”
The second time he heard his name, it was louder and now he knew it wasn’t his mind playing tricks. Quinn was here. Rick chewed on his lip, deciding if he should man up and face her now, or stay quiet and put it off indefinitely.
Rubbing his tired eyes, Rick decided that if nothing else, he wasn’t a coward. Dodging her at the gym had been a mistake. He might be a glutton for punishment when it came to Quinn, but he wouldn’t be a coward.
“I’m in the back!” He hoped his voice was loud enough for her to find him. Walking to the front door sounded exhausting at this point, and frankly, he didn’t really feel like getting up.
Quinn’s slender frame came around the corner of Dane’s house. Rick swallowed, his heart going a mile a minute at the sight of her. She was just as beautiful as always. Her long hair was pulled up into a high ponytail, her cheekbones were flushed with a hint of pink, and her amber eyes sparkled in the bright sunlight of the hot summer afternoon. She stopped when she saw him on the patio, watching him warily. His gaze zeroed in on her long, tan legs, bared to mid-thigh by her short skirt.
“What are you doing here?” Rick asked, finally getting his brain to function beyond gawking at Quinn’s exposed skin. His resolve to keep from flat out begging her to be with him was already crumbling just from the sight of her.
Quinn’s eyes darted off nervously and she twisted her hands together. “I—I wanted to talk to you. You haven’t been at work. I thought you were avoiding me.”
“I haven’t been avoiding you, Quinn. I’ve been… busy.” Not a complete lie, but not the entire truth either. Rick couldn’t tell Quinn what he really did for a living, what Mack was running behind the scenes at the gym. He tried to sound unaffected by her presence, not wanting her to know how badly she hurt him when she disappeared that night.
“Busy?” Quinn looked around the yard, noting Rick in his casual T-shirt and shorts, his feet bare, looking the very p
icture of relaxation. He knew she didn’t buy his pathetic excuse, not for a single second. “You don’t seem very busy.”