Love in Slow Motion

19. Quinn

19 QUINN

“Quinn?” Chase bangs on the bedroom door, and I sigh. Why can’t Chase just disappear? Like a magic trick. Abracadabra .

“What?” I shout through the door. It’s been locked all afternoon, and absolutely nobody has come looking for me, not while I showered, not when I didn’t show up for lunch, and not as they apparently watched a movie in the living room, which I heard the majority of through the wall.

Because I’ve been lying on this bed all day, trying to figure out what the hell I’m supposed to do now. This is definitely a don’t shit where you eat situation. I have to be in this house with these people for the rest of the week, and on the third day here, I made a total tit of myself coming on to the one person in the house I definitely should not be coming on to.

I mean, I guess it wouldn’t have been any better if I came onto Sabrina or Madison, but my point still stands.

“What do you mean, what?” Chase’s muffled voice asks through the door. “The door is locked.”

“Yep.”

There’s a beat of silence, and for a moment, I think he’s actually going to leave. Maybe I shouldn’t have answered at all, and then he could have imagined me in here dead. Death by mortification.

“Can you let me in, please?”

I don’t exactly have an option. It’s his room, after all. But if it’s his room, then that means I don’t have any space to run and hide anymore. I can’t hide away in the basement now that I’ve fucked everything up. So this is where I’ll have to spend the week, in this room and in this bed…with Chase.

I grumble and roll off the bed, throwing open the door and immediately turning back the other way. When I hear Chase shut the door behind him, I sigh.

“We’re starting a bonfire,” he says, whipping his shirt off over his head and moving to the dresser against the wall to get a fresh one. “You might want to make an appearance. You can’t sit in here all day. What’s your problem, anyway?”

He has to be kidding. Even if he doesn’t know about the whole Reed situation, he can’t honestly think I’m having the time of my life on this trip.

“My problem is that pretending to still be married to you is eating away at my soul.”

He slams the top drawer of his dresser closed and turns angry eyes on me. “You know what, Quinn? Could you at least try to make this trip a little less miserable? I didn’t just bring you here so I could have that money. I brought you here because I know you need the money, too. I’m not stupid. I know how expensive that house is, and I know you’ve got to be struggling to find a job. I’m trying to help. And all you’ve done is act like a spoiled teenager who hasn’t gotten her way. I don’t want to be here any more than you do, but if you don’t start acting like you don’t hate my fucking guts, Mom and Sabrina are going to start asking questions.”

Uncomfortable silence settles between us. I feel so exposed, standing here in the middle of the room, having my first open conversation with Chase since that night so many months ago, after I came back from the doctor with a chlamydia diagnosis and Chase told me he was sleeping with the sister of one of his college buddies.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I finally say, the words coming out sour. I hate saying them, but Chase isn’t wrong. I have to find a way to get myself on emotionally neutral ground so that I don’t fuck this up for everyone. Chase did bring me here so that I could have a cut of the money, too. That has to be worth something, right? “Let’s go out to the fire.”

His face loses all traces of anger, and I’m struck by how much he looks like that guy I met in a dorm hallway five years ago. That night when he took me to his dorm room and treated the coffee stain on my stupid skeleton costume and we talked about our favorite movies and the bands we’d seen in concert and the classes we loved and the ones we hated. He kissed me that night, holding the skeleton costume out between us and then leaning forward to brush his lips over mine.

I wanted him to be that person forever. But I’m not convinced he ever actually was that guy, the sweet one who wanted to help out a strange girl. Chase is far too cunning for all that. And he was never that guy again.

The sky is dark and the bonfire is in full blaze by the time we get out to the fire pit. Sabrina and Lydia are laughing about something and Madison is quietly watching the fire, her face ablaze in its light. The pit is sunken into the stone deck, one long cushioned seat moving around it in a circle. I walk down the cold steps and settle at the seat closest to the stairs.

Chase, much to my discomfort, takes the seat right beside me.

Across the fire, sitting between Sabrina and Madison, Reed watches us. His eyes are bright in the light of the fire and they drop to where Chase’s hip is positioned firmly against mine. It’s not as if I can help it. Chase was right about what he said. We have to pretend to still be a couple.

A tray of hot dogs is passed around, and Chase takes one for himself before offering me one. Once I take one, he sets the tray on the stone wall beside me.

“How’s the job searching going?” he asks before stuffing the hot dog into his mouth. He looks at me, waiting for me to respond. And maybe this isn’t so bad. Sure, he was a shitty husband. But maybe I was a shitty wife, too. And maybe it was never meant to be, so who even cares if he cheated and gave me an STI? We were only married for three years, and so much of those three years was spent trying to figure out how to be adults together.

Maybe we just never figured it out.

“Not great,” I tell him, quietly enough that nobody else can hear. The fire pit is big enough that I can hear Lydia and Sabrina’s voices on the other side, but I can’t quite make out what they’re saying. If I wanted to speak to them, I’d have to shout. The fire crackles loudly in the center. “Nobody wants to hire someone with no experience for a job that would actually pay a decent salary. And it’s not like I could blame them. Maybe I should just get a job at Trader Joe’s or something so that I’ve got something to put on my resume other than a Bachelor’s degree.”

“Or maybe you should hold out for something you really like.”

“I don’t know if I have that luxury.”

His hand settles on my knee, and I work hard not to flinch. My eyes immediately shoot to Reed, and I can tell he’s clocked it, too, his eyes glued to Chase’s sweaty palm. Chase clearly hasn’t thought twice about it though. His thumb moves back and forth across my skin as he takes another bite of his hot dog, leaving a smear of mustard in the corner of his mouth.

“I could talk to some people. I have a lot of contacts at?—”

“I don’t need your help.”

His mouth clamps shut, his cheek protruding with food.

I sigh. I hate the way he makes me feel guilty for how I feel. Hate that he can do it with one glance at me. I shake my head and gently brush his hand off my leg. “I’m going to go talk to your mother.”

Madison and I haven’t had a ton of alone time in the few days we’ve been here, so I stand and move down the bench, taking the seat beside Madison. From here, I can only kind of see Reed, just half of him, the angle of his broad shoulder and his hands, hanging over his knees. Big and veined.

“Hello, sweetie,” Madison says, slinging her arm around me.

“I wanted to make sure you’re feeling okay.”

She smiles at me. “I’m fine. This is exactly why I kept the secret so long. I didn’t want anyone worrying about me.”

I lean against her a little, meet Reed’s eye over her shoulder. “Sometimes it helps to worry about people. I wish I had gotten some time to worry about my mother before she was gone.”

Madison presses her forehead into mine, and I feel so certain that I could never do anything to hurt this family, to hurt her . Someday, she’ll get over the fact that Chase and I got a divorce, but I don’t know if she’d ever forgive me if she knew that I’d kissed Reed, too. And right under her nose. I’m embarrassed that it happened.

I know I can never let it happen again.