Love in Slow Motion

36. Quinn

36 QUINN

“Oh, so you and Reed dated for a while then.”

I’m trying to keep my cool. We lounge on the couches, Sabrina with her feet in my lap and Amina on the couch opposite ours. She’s so pretty it’s hard to look at her, with light brown skin and dreadlocked hair that’s pulled into a bun. She’s dressed all in white, which is something I don’t feel like I could pull off in a million years. I’m still in the athletic clothes that I went hiking in, and when I look down, I realize I have dirt on my knees.

Jesus Christ. Hopefully, if no one has noticed by now, they won’t notice at all.

“Almost a year,” Amina says. “We broke up because I wanted to move to New York and he didn’t.”

Sabrina stretches, her smooth calves sliding across my thighs. “Yeah, Reed is pretty much married to Boston. That’s where his restaurant is.”

“Well, was ,” Amina says with a kind smile.

My gut tightens. No. What? Does she know about Aeronaut? Is she about to out Reed? This is not how Sabrina should find out about this. It should be Reed’s story to tell.

But if Amina knows, who else does?

“What do you mean?” Sabrina asks, pulling her legs out of my lap just as Reed comes around the corner. Sabrina’s eyes immediately go to him, her mouth opening, but before she can say anything, Reed cuts her off.

“Amina,” he says, standing at the end of her couch. “Why don’t I show you around?”

She smiles up at him, and something sharp hits me in the chest. The two of them were together for a year . I remember Amina. She came to a few family things the year after I met Chase, but when Reed graduated, and I stopped seeing him around campus, I never heard about her again.

But here she is. Gorgeous and probably single and now staying in this house just like the rest of us.

“Sure.” She puts out her hand, and Reed helps her up off the couch. I don’t miss the fact that he’s helping her up the same way he helped me up off my knees not even an hour ago. I look down at the floor as they walk out of the room, feeling embarrassed that I’m jealous. This thing with Reed is just sex. He can hold hands with whomever he wants. He can take Amina out to the boat house and fuck her senseless right now, and that’s fine.

It’s fine , right?

I don’t care who he sleeps with.

I don’t care who he invites to the lake house.

I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care.

“What did she mean, his restaurant was in Boston?” Sabrina says, now sitting up fully, watching the front door close and Reed and Amina walk by the front windows.

I don’t want to lie to her, but I also really don’t want to give away what Reed has been keeping from the family. It wouldn’t be right. He’s keeping my secrets, so I should keep his.

“I’m not sure,” I say, but Sabrina narrows her eyes at me, like she knows I’m lying. Her eyes shoot to her cell phone, sitting on the coffee table in front of the couch.

We lunge at the same time, both of us landing with a hand on the phone.

“Let go of it, Quinn,” Sabrina growls at me, but I shake my head, adamant.

“You have to let him tell you when he’s ready.” I know I’ve already said too much. I know I’ve given away the fact that I just lied to her and that Reed has been telling me things he’s not telling anyone else, but I don’t care. Reed deserves to do this on his own time.

Sabrina’s eyes widen in shock, but then I feel the muscles in her arm go slack, her shoulders slump. She pulls her hand back from mine, settling back onto the couch.

“Okay,” she says and leaves it at that.