Love in Slow Motion

26. Reed

26 REED

Quinn is eating a cookie like nothing happened. Like she didn’t just rip me to pieces and then put me back together.

I watch her, bare shoulders and blanket tucked under her arms. She looks…relaxed. She doesn’t look like someone who had to kiss her ex for their mother today. Her hair is tousled. No, she looks like someone who came so hard their entire body shook. I felt that orgasm in my soul.

I want to give her another one.

“What are you going to name your new restaurant?”

I can’t believe she’s asking me that. I feel like the entire universe exploded into a million pieces and then regenerated, but now everything is more colorful, more beautiful. The air is cleaner, the stars brighter as they shine down through the window. I reach for a cookie.

“I’m not sure. I haven’t thought about it too much.”

She chews, considers. “I never really liked Aeronaut . It sounded sort of…”

“Pretentious?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“No, it’s okay. The name wasn’t my idea.” It was my partner’s idea. He thought it would represent our “roles as trailblazers of the industry.” As if we were doing something important. As if we were special. Not special enough not to get mixed up with the wrong crowd and lose a shit ton of money. By that point, I had sunk every penny of the money I had saved over the years into the restaurant. There was no way to keep it from sinking.

“Have you ever thought about opening a bakery instead? Do it all on your own?”

“Sure. But the vibe is just different. People walk into a bakery, they take their stuff, and they go, you know? They might have a coffee, but that’s about it. I always liked the idea of people coming and sitting down with their friends, having a drink, ordering a delicious dinner, and then realizing there’s a dessert menu. And not just a dessert menu that has cheesecake and chocolate cake. A dessert menu that has fresh eclairs, homemade limoncello ice cream, and custard-filled sopapillas.”

She smiles over at me. It’s so easy to talk to her. That’s always been the problem, hasn’t it? I’ve never had to hide from Quinn. Never had to play it cool, or bury my thoughts, or hold in responses. Everything I think and feel is safe with her.

“Now, imagine all of those things, but it’s a mom and her teenage daughter on a Saturday afternoon, walking through the city and going to bookstores and seeing a movie and then stopping when the scent of vanilla meets them on the sidewalk.” She turns her head to find my eyes. “Sometimes, I worry that you’ve all been in this world for so long that you’ve forgotten about everyone else. Those swanky restaurants are nice, but Minnesota Quinn never would have been able to afford to eat there. It breaks my heart to think that there are people out there who’ll never get to taste your perfect chocolate chip cookies because they couldn’t afford to eat at a five-star restaurant.” She shrugs. “I don’t think I’ll ever be that caliber again, you know? It’s going to be Hostess snacks and box cakes for me for the rest of my life.”

“Jesus, don’t say that. You’re breaking my heart.”

She finishes the rest of her cookie and then burrows deep into the covers. When she meets my eye, all that joy and pride I found in them a moment ago is gone. “Did we do something bad, Reed?”

I set my half-eaten cookie back into the Tupperware container I put them in last night. “After everything, I don’t really know what’s good and bad or right and wrong. And I don’t know that it matters, either. There are no innocent parties here.”

I could feel bad for having sex with Quinn. But at the end of the day, Chase and Quinn are not really married anymore and Chase cheated on her. We kept our distance for five years. I respected the Bro Code or whatever. It’s not my fault Chase made the biggest mistake of his life.

All I know is that what just happened between Quinn and me wasn’t a mistake. This is the way it should have been all along.