Love in Slow Motion

10. Quinn

10 QUINN

5 Years Ago

Chase takes my hand in the car, stops my fingers from trembling. “You’re overthinking this,” he says as we pull up to the high-rise in New York where his mother lives. I crane my neck to look up at the building as we wait for valet. I grew up in Minnesota and then went straight to Boston for school. This is my first time in New York.

“Easy for you to say,” I tell him.

He smiles over at me and pushes his door open, handing his keys to the valet. “Come on. Mom is going to love you. They’re all going to love you.”

I climb out of his car and fix my skirt, making sure it’s fluttering perfectly around my knees. I spent a week picking out this dress, forcing Brooke to go with me to a dozen different stores. I’ve never met a boy’s family before.

Chase takes my hand and pulls me into the building. Nobody at the front desk stops us, instead waving Chase through, clearly familiar with him. My eyes are pulled in all directions, caught on the lights and the shiny surfaces and the way that everything seems to sparkle.

When we get into the elevator, there’s a person already in there, and when I step forward, fully intending to press the button up to the floor—the tenth, Chase has already told me—the man that was here before us pushes it for me without my having to ask. He’s dressed in a suit, and when I look from the lit-up tenth-floor button to his face, he smiles.

“Happy Thanksgiving, Miss Porter,” he says. I step back into Chase’s embrace, feeling like an idiot. A shocked idiot. Chase didn’t prepare me for this. I knew that his family came from a different world than mine, seeing as how they all call New York City homebase, while I’m vaguely tied to a little house in suburban Minnesota.

Beside me, Chase chuckles. When I tilt my chin toward him, watching his smile in the reflection of the elevator doors, he says, “You just have to roll with it. I didn’t realize how fucking dystopian my life was until I left it for a little while.”

I’m not totally sure what he means until the elevator doors slide open, and my feet won’t move. It’s the penthouse. The elevator opens directly into a white marble, geometric penthouse, beyond which huge glass windows display what feels like the entirety of New York City.

“Holy shit,” I whisper.

Chase ushers me out of the elevator, almost against my will. My body is physically rejecting this entire scenario. Not only because I don’t generally approve of such intense wealth, but because I do not belong here. I had absolutely no idea. Sure, Chase dresses nice, usually in polos and designer jeans, but we go to school in the city. Everybody dresses nicer in the city than they do on a normal day in the suburbs, even if they’re not wearing designer clothes. And I’ve always felt out of the place there .

This. This is something else entirely.

I’m so busy taking in my surroundings that I don’t even realize there are other people in the room until a woman steps forward, her arms out in front of her like she’s going to hug me. “Hello and welcome!” She has a huge smile, the kind that can only be sincere because if it wasn’t, it would break her face. “You must be Quinn.”

I try to get my mind to focus instead of winding out in all directions. I let this woman who smells like expensive perfume hug me, and when she has her arms around me, I see the massive framed magazine cover on the wall. It’s an issue of TIME magazine, and the woman currently squeezing me is on it in a white suit against the black background. “Madison Lynch Is On Top” the headline reads.

I still have my eyes on it when Chase’s mother lets me go. At least, I’m assuming she’s Chase’s mother. Otherwise, this whole thing is very uncomfortable.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Lynch.”

She scoffs and waves me off. “None of that. I’m Madison, you’re Quinn, and I’m so happy you’re here. Come on in.” She pulls me further into the apartment, and the pieces of it start to slot together. There’s a massive kitchen, open to the rest of the room, and a huge living room that would probably be perfect for a party of a hundred people.

“Everyone else is in the dining room. They’re anxious to get to dinner because it smells so amazing. Spencer really outdid himself this year.” At her words, a man steps into the kitchen with a very large white ceramic platter in his hands. He smiles up at us and then immediately goes back to his work.

“It does smell lovely,” I say as Madison squeezes my hand.

“Who all is here?” Chase asks, coming up beside me. To his credit, he hasn’t complained about the fact that his mother has ignored him. His eyes shoot over her shoulder to the doorway I’m assuming leads into the dining room.

“Just your brother and sister. Just us family this year.”

My stomach drops. Did Chase invite me when he wasn’t supposed to? “Oh, I’m so sorry if I’m intruding?—”

“Of course not!” Madison tugs me in the direction of the doorway. “I begged Chase to bring you. I wanted to meet the girl he’s been talking so much about. In the past, we’ve often invited acquaintances and neighbors, but I really wanted it to be the five of us this year.”

She ushers me through the doorway and into what feels like a glass elevator. It’s a floor-to-ceiling glass room with a table so long that it looks like it would fit at least twenty people. And it’s full of food. Down at the far end, two people are seated, a beautiful girl with long, straight hair and…

My feet skitter to a stop. My eyes meet Chase’s brother’s. Eyes I’ve thought about an embarrassing number of times since the Halloween party. Seeing him sitting at the table is like waking up from a dream about a stranger and then bumping into them on the street. Round face, dark hair, bright eyes.

“This is Sabrina,” Madison says, motioning toward the girl. She smiles and waves. She has to be the youngest of the siblings. She looks like a teenager. “And you know Reed,” Madison continues.

The shock of her words makes my chin jolt back, like I’ve been hit. So, that’s it? Chase’s brother is the guy from the Halloween party, and everybody knows that we met at that party and flirted and that I wanted to lose my virginity to him but ended up losing it to Chase a week later instead?

Reed stands, reaching across the table to hold his hand out for me to shake. My mind reels back to the Halloween party, when he did the exact same thing.

“No, we haven’t met,” he says, his eyes steady on me. He’s still waiting for me to shake his hand, but I can’t seem to get my limbs to move.

He doesn’t remember. He was so drunk that night that he can’t remember that we met, that we flirted, that we clicked . Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s for the best. Nobody in this room ever has to know that he tried to get with me, if that was what happened. One girl in a long line of them.

“Oh!” Madison’s voice is like a bullet. It knocks me out of my reverie, and I finally shake Reed’s hand. “I just assumed you two would have bumped into each other at some point on campus.”

Reed takes his hand back, straightening and putting them both in his pockets. “Nah. Chase has been hiding her away.” His eyes shoot sideways to his brother. Chase shrugs. Is that what he was doing? Hiding me away? “He didn’t even want to drive up together.”

“We wanted to spend our break on campus,” Chase says, defensive. What he means is that we decided to stick around for a few extra days since it meant that Chase’s roommate would be gone and we could have sex whenever we wanted without being in anyone’s way. I lost my virginity three weeks ago, and in that time, I’ve discovered that I very, very much like sex, even if it’s a little…tamer…than I thought it would be. I keep waiting for Chase to be less gentle with me, but it never happens.

“We actually had a class together last semester.” My comment takes everyone by surprise, even myself. Reed’s eyes shoot to me, and I’m not sure if this is what I meant to do, offering him a piece of what I told him at the party in hopes that he’ll remember.

Reed’s eyes narrow a little bit, like he’s examining my face for clues of familiarity, and then his head tilts. “Sorry, I don’t remember.”

Of course he doesn’t.

Everyone seems to move on after that, getting into place at the table, even as my mind is settled heavily on the situation I’ve found myself in. Serving dishes get passed from one person to the other, but when Chase should pass the bowls of mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce to me, instead, he serves me, giving me reasonable portions before passing the dishes on to Sabrina across the table.

Spencer sweeps into the room, the massive platter with the turkey on it held aloft in his hands. He rushes to the head of the table and presents the perfectly golden turkey as if he shot and killed it himself. Everyone at the table applauds kindly, so I do as well. Spencer places the platter in front of Madison, but when he picks up the carving knife, Reed shoots up out of his seat.

“Hey, man, let me do it.”

Spencer gives Reed a devious smile, as if he’s used to this kind of behavior. He happily hands over the carving knife and disappears. Reed brandishes the knife, smiling over at his mother, who looks up at him adoringly.

Chase tilts his face toward me and rolls his eyes. “Oldest child gets all the attention,” he whispers, but his comment is loud enough that everyone at the table can hear. Reed doesn’t acknowledge the comment, but Madison looks over, her face blank.

I smile politely at Chase and watch Reed carve the turkey. He’s wearing a short-sleeved shirt, not terribly unlike the one he was wearing the night we met, and I can see so many of his tattoos. Some of them are words, intertwining with images. A bundle of flowers, a bird with wings spread, a very intricate sun. My eyes travel over all of it, caught on the slice of muscle just above the angle of his elbow that flexes and smooths as he cuts and serves and cuts and serves.

I’m so attracted to Chase. So, so attracted to him.

But Reed is something else entirely. He’s dark where Chase is light, hard where Chase is soft. By the time I realize Madison is talking to me, I’ve lost track of how long I’ve been watching the curve of Reed’s arm.

My eyes shoot to his mother, her smile bright. “I’m so sorry, say again?”

“You’re not a vegetarian, are you?”

“No.”

“Oh, good. I mean, of course it’s fine to be a vegetarian, but we’re a family that’s rather fond of meat. Please let me know should you ever change your mind.”

I hold back a smile at her words. If you ever change your mind . She’s talking like I’ll be around for a very long time, and the thought makes me warm in the chest.

When I look back at Reed, his big brown eyes are on me, and I feel the heat rush up my neck at his gaze. I focus on the very dainty-looking china plate in front of me. It looks like it would crumble under my touch. As I’m thinking that, Chase grabs the plate and hands it up to Reed, who drops some meat onto it.

As we all finally start to eat, Sabrina looks across the table at me. The sun shines bright in her eyes. “So, Quinn. Your family isn’t big on Thanksgiving?”

My family isn’t big on being a family . “Not really. All of my siblings have sort of scattered around the country, so getting everyone together can be hard.”

“Big family?” Madison asks, taking a sip of the wine Spencer has just poured her. When he comes around to my side of the table, I start to shake my head no, seeing as I’m not of age yet, but Madison nods to Spencer who tips some wine into my glass.

“Yes. I’m the youngest of eight.”

The same thing happens now that happens every time I tell someone I have seven brothers and sisters. They all stop eating and look up at me with wide eyes, everyone but Chase, who already knows this about me. When I told him that I haven’t spoken to any of my siblings in a long time, he invited me to spend Thanksgiving here. Even with just the five of us, it’s far cozier than anything I would have gotten back in Mendota Heights.

“Eight,” Sabrina says. “That’s pretty wild, but it actually sounds nice.”

With a fork full of corn, I can’t seem to stop myself from blurting, “Yeah, it’s really nice until your dad picks up and leaves and your siblings start vanishing the moment they turn eighteen, until it’s just you and your mom left in a town where everyone has their eyes on you.”

And just like that, I’ve made it worse. It’s so quiet that I can hear everything Spencer is doing in the kitchen outside the open doorway. He’s putting away silverware, each piece making a clink clink clink noise as he settles them into their spots.

“This turkey’s fucking delicious,” Chase says. And when he reaches over, grabs the back of my chair, and slides it over until my hip is touching his, a laugh bubbles up in my throat. I smile over at him, happy to be here with his family, and lean in to kiss him on the cheek.

When I settle back in my chair, my eye meets Reed’s, sitting across the table from me now that he’s done carving and serving the turkey.

There’s an odd look on his face, like he’s suddenly woken up somewhere he doesn’t recognize. He blinks and then, like someone has ripped the words out of him, he says, “Me and Oscar got a place.”

I have no idea what that means, but Madison’s eyes go bright and her fork clatters to her plate, so that must mean it’s a good thing.

“Oh, sweetheart, that’s wonderful. You’re going to love being a business owner.”

“A business owner?” I can’t stop the question from coming out of my mouth.

Reed looks over at me, but when I think he’ll answer, Sabrina answers instead, smiling at me from her spot beside him. “Reed is going to have his own restaurant in downtown Boston after he graduates next year.”

“Oh! Are you a chef?” I didn’t know our school had degrees in culinary art. Or maybe he’s getting a business degree. How exactly does a person become a chef anyway? I can barely boil water.

Beside me, Chase says, “Well, sort of. He’s a dessert chef.”

Reed raises an eyebrow. “I’m a pastry chef.”

“Right. Yep. Pastry chef,” Chase says, and the way he says it makes me giggle. He smiles over at me, his cheek bulging with whatever he just put in his mouth. “He makes these fancy as fuck desserts that I can never pronounce. What’s the one you made us eat last week? The custard thing.”

“Zabaglione.” Reed’s amused eyes shift from his brother to me. “What’s your favorite dessert?”

My face flushes at having his attention so fully focused no me. “Oh. I’m not sure I?—"

“You might as well tell him,” Madison chimes in. “He does this with everyone, and he won’t let up until you tell him.”

As if to punctuate Madison’s point, Reed stubbornly crosses his arms and leans back, raising his eyebrows at me in a way that makes my stomach flip. I feel like someone turned up the heat several degrees.

I tell myself to look away from him, but I can’t. He watches me, and I want to give him a good answer, but I don’t know any fancy deserts like that Italian thing he just said, and I already feel like I’m not making a very good first impression.

But when Reed has been watching me for what feels like an eternity, I say, “It’s not exciting.”

Reed’s face changes. That smug guy that his mother said would never stop seems to vanish, replaced by someone softer. Someone who settles his elbows on the table and leans toward me, like he’s going to whisper. Like we’re the only two at the table, even though everyone is watching.

In my mind, I see him lift the corner of my skeleton mask in that dorm hallway and smile down at me.

“Dessert doesn’t need to be fancy,” he says in this voice that’s almost nothing but breath. I’m watching his mouth move as he says it, the shape of his lips.

Chase’s elbow bumps mine, forcing clarity back into my brain, and it finally jolts the truth out of my mouth. “Chocolate chip cookies.”

For a beat, it’s like the world stops turning. How stupid do I sound, choosing chocolate chip cookies over something like crème brulé or whatever?

Reed’s face spreads into smile. “Noted.”