Love in Slow Motion

47. Quinn

47 QUINN

I forgot how much I dislike these parties. While the rest of America is having cook-outs in denim shorts and red, white, and blue t-shirts, the Lynches have a black-tie party. Because, of course.

And on top of that, they invite everyone in the New England states that Madison is on a first name basis with, so there has to be over a hundred people squished into the lake house. A lot of them are on the back patio and some still on the front lawn, drinking expensive champagne and looking up at the stars that are visible through the light pollution.

I wander down to the lake, knowing chances are good that nobody from the party will venture this far. I can smell the water, but I can’t really see it in the dark. There’s no light by the dock because there’s never anybody out here this late. But I know exactly where the dock is, having been down here so many times, so I step onto the boards, enjoying the sound of my heels on the wooden slats.

When I reach the end, I let my head fall forward, feeling the breeze cool the sweat on the back of my neck. I pick my hair up and hold it off my skin to let it dry.

When I hear footsteps on the dock behind me, I spin around. Relief hits me like a tidal wave when I realize it’s Reed. I’ve been trying to keep my distance from him all night. He looks good enough to eat, and I know that if I get too close to him, I’ll be tempted to swallow him whole. And here he is, stepping closer to me on the lake, where we’re completely alone, with the top two buttons on his shirt open and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

Lord save me.

“Trying to find some quiet?” he says, coming to stand beside me and putting his hands in his pockets.

“Yeah. There are a lot of people in there.”

He steps closer. “I like finding you outside parties all by yourself.”

I laugh, something unpleasant settling in my stomach when I think about the last time he found me outside of a party. I turn my back to him, tilt my face up toward the moon, sparkling down on the water. “It’s sort of your specialty. Except this time, if you could refrain from abandoning me to hang out with some other woman, that would be nice.” I don’t mean for the words to come out bitter, but they do anyway. If he had just come back at the Halloween party, would all of this be different?

He steps up beside me, pushing his way between me and the end of the dock so I’m forced to look at him. “What are you talking about?”

Now that I know he remembers, the memory of that night is even more wrapped in sadness than it always has been. “The Halloween party. You left. You went to hang out with those other girls.”

“I didn’t leave.”

I scoff. Is he really going to tell me I didn’t see what I saw? “There were girls?—”

“I had friends. And I was at a party, where people sometimes talk to their friends. But I came back.”

The world sways a little. No, he didn’t. He stood there, talking to those girls for a long time. And then…. And then I left and bumped into Chase. “You came back?” The words come out a whisper. I don’t have the strength for anything more than that.

“Yeah. I did. But you were already with Chase.”

My stomach riots, and I suddenly can’t catch my breath. He saw us that night. He saw me leave with Chase. “I didn’t know,” I gasp out.

He pushes forward, taking my face in his hands. “I will always come back for you, Quinn. Always.”

There is no more oxygen left in the world. He’s taking up all of it. I shake my head. “You were so perfect. I just didn’t understand how you could want me. I think I…I think I was trying to walk away before I got hurt.”

“You were all I wanted.”

I bite my lip, feeling all of the overwhelming emotion that I’ve been trying to stamp down all day rise up in my throat. “It was too hard to believe that the boy all the girls were after would be interested in me.”

He makes a noise in the back of his throat, his hands smoothing down my jaw and gently wrapping around my throat. “Let me make something clear because you obviously don’t get it. I’m yours. I’ve been yours since that night. I belong to you.”

I whimper, feeling like he stuck a knife in me, and then his mouth comes down on mine. I’ve never needed someone’s kiss like this, craved it the way I crave oxygen. He wraps himself around me, and I wish, so desperately, that the rest of the world would melt away. That there was no danger in this and that we could walk off this dock and back into the party hand-in-hand.

There has to be a way that this doesn’t all end in three days. There has to be.

Because I can’t give this up now that I know everything. I can’t let him go.

I pull back from him, gasping for air. “Reed, I?—”

Over our heads, a firework pops. We both look up, our arms still around each other, watching the colors burst in the inky black sky. The water ripples with rainbows after every explosion. When I look over my shoulder, I see that people are crowding around the pool, trying to get a good vantage point between the trees.

I step back from Reed. “We should probably be a little more careful now that everyone is outside.”

He doesn’t say anything, just watches me silently.

I don’t know if we should head back now and risk being seen coming back from the lake together, or stay here until the crowd goes inside. I turn toward the house, and my eyes catch movement on the trail leading from the house to the boat house. I watch in the moonlight, trying to make out shapes, and realize it’s Sabrina and Lydia.

As a spray of red fireworks burst, they stop on the dirt trail and kiss.

“Not getting used to that anytime soon.” Reed steps up behind me, his hand curling around my hip and his eyes focused where mine just were. He watches Sabrina and Lydia disappear into the boat house, and then he sighs. “No one in this family is who they claim to be.”

I turn to argue, but then I realize he’s right. Everyone came to this lake house with secrets, all of them being kept to protect Madison, and Madison was trying to protect everyone else with her own. A sticky situation, to be sure.

“Now, you know everyone’s true selves,” I say, feeling confident in the words. All the secrets might not be out in the open, but unless there are going to be anymore revelations, Reed and I at least know everything.