Timeless

CHAPTER 34

“E xcuse me. Just what do you think you’re doing? That store is closed,” a woman, who looked to be in her sixties or so, said when Quinn fumbled with her keys.

“She owns it,” Abby said, pointing at Quinn.

“Yeah. I’m the Jordan of Jordan Antiques .”

“How do I know that for sure? I should call the police.” The woman squinted at them.

“Do you want to see my driver’s license?”

“Uh… Quinn, you could try unlocking the door,” Abby suggested.

“Oh,” Quinn let out before she put the key in the lock, turned it, and the door opened. “See?”

“Fine. But I’ve got my eye on you two.”

“Great. Have fun with that,” Abby said as she gently pushed Quinn inside and closed the door behind them.

“What was that about?” Quinn asked her.

“We must look like the wrong sort to her,” she teased before she locked the door.

“But… I’m wearing a blazer.” Quinn looked down at herself in confusion.

Abby chuckled at that and thought Quinn was being totally adorable.

“Babe, where’s that book?”

“That’s the second time you’ve called me that,” Quinn noted and motioned for her to join her in the back.

“It just slips out now.”

“But I know it’s you saying it and not them,” Quinn replied as she took a box from the floor and placed it on her pack-and-ship counter.

“How?”

“Because true or false: you haven’t had any visions of anyone after Diana and Cheryl.”

“True. ”

“Which probably means we’re the next version after them. That means they lived long lives, which is great, but ‘babe’ wasn’t exactly a common term to call someone up until recently, so that’s all you there, Abs.”

“Do you really think so?” Abby asked.

She moved to stand next to Quinn, who pulled a few random items out of the box.

“Yeah, it’s you for sure.”

“No, I mean the part where they got to live a long, happy life together. I haven’t seen anything after they visited Paul, but they were still relatively young then.”

“I feel like we would’ve seen another couple by now otherwise, don’t you?” Quinn pulled a book out of the box. “Here. I could still be wrong, and there’s another old book out front that we can check, but this one looked different to me. It seemed handmade; like maybe they bound it themselves. And it’s typed, but there’s not a title or author. I only flipped through it initially but didn’t read anything inside it because then, you were in my life, and everything in my brain kind of honed in on you.”

Abby smiled and rubbed Quinn’s back over her blazer before she took the book from her. That was when she saw it. Cheryl was sitting at her trusty typewriter. Diana was sitting nearby in a recliner, reading something that looked medical in nature, but Abby couldn’t tell what it was.

“This is it,” she said, returning her mind to the present. “Cheryl typed this.”

“You saw it just now, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Diana was sitting there, too, reading a book. They were maybe in their forties, I think. They could’ve been older. I didn’t see Simon, though.”

“Simon?”

“Oh, shit,” Abby let out and went to set the book down because she didn’t want to risk damaging it. “You might want to sit down for this one.”

Quinn sat on the stool in front of the counter and said, “Okay. Tell me. ”

“We have another son?” she asked more than told her.

“I’m sorry. What?” Quinn asked.

“They adopted a friend’s baby,” she revealed. “And they named him Simon.”

“We have… I mean, they had…”

“A son, yes. Their friend couldn’t take care of him, or didn’t want to be a mom, so they adopted him.”

“When?”

“In 1964.”

“Two women adopted a baby in 1964?” Quinn asked, doubtful.

“They had two gay guy friends. One of them adopted Simon with Cheryl. So, it’s a much longer story, but Simon was their son. They raised him together. I haven’t seen much beyond what I’ve already written, and he would’ve been about eleven then, but he understood that he needed to keep their secret. He was a happy kid, too.”

When Quinn exhaled deeply, Abby wrapped her arms around her neck, feeling like she needed to keep her from falling over. Quinn then spread her legs for her, so Abby moved into her, letting Quinn rest her head against her chest.

“This is a lot.”

“I know,” Abby said gently. “For me, too.”

“I didn’t feel him… And I felt Paul so specifically. Why didn’t I feel Simon?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t feel him, either, until I was writing. Then, it was like I just knew he’d been ours.”

“When will it hit me?” Quinn asked.

“I don’t know,” Abby repeated. “But there have been more.”

“More what?”

“Children.”

Quinn looked up at her then, and all Abby wanted to do was kiss her. She wanted to kiss her forehead, her nose, her cheeks, her lips, her jaw, her neck, her… everything. Quinn was so beautiful. She looked so vulnerable in that moment, though, that Abby felt like it wasn’t the right time. For now, sh e’d just hold her, so she pulled Quinn back in against her chest.

“Think about it. A woman’s job throughout history has always been to have children. They had to do that with their husbands, but I imagine, with our connection, the women we’ve been raised those kids together.”

Quinn nodded but didn’t say anything.

“Cheryl and Diana knew of some of them but not all of them. They could’ve discovered even more about the other women we’ve all been the older they got, and I just didn’t get that far yet.”

“The book would have the answers,” Quinn muttered against her sweater. “You smell good.” Her hands moved to Abby’s back and quickly moved under Abby’s sweater and shirt. “And feel really good.”

“Quinn…” She chuckled nervously. “That’s called fabric softener and lotion.”

“No, it’s you,” the woman protested adorably. “You still smell like honeysuckle to me, so unless you went out and bought honeysuckle-scented everything, it’s you.”

Abby just smiled and decided to let her have this one because Quinn still smelled like honeysuckle to her, too.

“I never want to move from this spot,” Quinn added softly. “Just sit right here forever, with you holding me and me holding on to you. Is that okay?”

“I would say yes, but I think we might get hungry.”

“Be romantic with me here, Abs,” Quinn said with a little laugh.

“I’m not good at that part,” Abby revealed with a hard swallow.

Quinn looked up at her and asked, “Being romantic?”

Abby nodded.

“Oh, babe… You’re doing it right now,” Quinn replied, running her hand up and then back down Abby’s back.

“I’m just standing here.”

“No, you’re holding me. You realized that I was a little in shock about this whole thing for probably at least the second time tonight, and you came over here to hold me.”

“That’s not romantic, Quinn.”

“It is to me,” Quinn stated. “It’s just what I needed when I needed it. If that’s not romance, what is?”

“I don’t know. Dinner with candles? Me remembering our date and not wearing my sweatpants? Remembering to go shopping for it because I was supposed to cook for you, and–”

“A million other things you can name, yes. And maybe you can do some of those things in the future, but right now, I don’t care about candles. I also liked you in your sweatpants.” Quinn shrugged a shoulder. “And you did remember our date, Abs. You were leaving to shop when I showed up an hour early because I just couldn’t wait another hour to see you. I closed this place early, rushed to the store, and then straight to your place because I loved texting with you all day and I missed not seeing you.”

Abby smiled and said, “I missed you, too.”

“No, you didn’t.” Quinn laughed and looked up at her. “You were too busy writing about Cheryl and Diana.”

“Quinn, I replied to your texts, remember? I don’t reply to anyone’s texts when I’m writing. My family gets ignored. My publisher gets ignored. My ex-girlfriend got ignored, too. I’d say my friends get ignored as well, but I don’t have many of those these days. I didn’t ignore you . I was even writing a story about us in a past life, so you were sort of right there with me, and I still missed you. I replied, and I laughed at your messages and wished you were there with me. I thought about going to the shop and bringing you lunch, but I had to get the words out.”

“Why don’t you have friends these days?”

“I hardly ever left my place in LA. It’s one of the many reasons I broke up with my ex. We were in our mid-twenties, but I never wanted to do anything. I like quiet nights in. She wanted to go out in LA. We were clearly wrong for each other, but she was all I had there for a minute; the only person who put up with me. I lost most of my friends for the same reason. They came over and hung out in the beginning, but eventually, they all slowly stopped making the effort because they didn’t see me making one.”

“You’re making an effort right now.”

“No, I’m not. I–”

“Abs, your eyes have landed on that book at least five times that I’ve noticed since you told me to sit down, but you’re still holding me and not going through it, even though I know you’re dying to do so. You’re making an effort, babe.” Quinn pressed her lips to Abby’s collarbone through her sweater. “And I appreciate it.”

“I…” Abby wasn’t sure what she’d been about to say, but she swallowed and began again. “You’re more important.”

Quinn looked up at her in confusion.

“Than all of it.”

“I am?”

“I won’t lie to you, Quinn: I’m curious. I want to know everything about our pasts together. But I don’t want to risk losing you in this lifetime because I put the past first.” She cleared her throat, her heart racing inside her chest, and added, “We could have a future.”

Quinn smiled up at her and said, “Yeah, we could.”

“I mean, you could leave this town again, now that we’ve met,” she joked off.

Quinn just laughed a little and pressed her face between Abby’s breasts. Abby held her by the back of the neck, keeping her there, keeping Quinn close, and loved the feel of Quinn’s hands still moving around on her back.

“If I do, are you coming with me?” Quinn mumbled, but Abby understood her.

She didn’t answer, so Quinn looked up.

“Abs?”

“I’d like to,” she finally said. “As much as all this stresses me out, you calm me down, Quinn Jordan.” She leaned down and kissed Quinn on the forehead. “I feel less worried about everything when I’m with you.”

“Maybe I’ll take you home to meet my parents one day to get my mom off my back.”

Abby chuckled and said, “Mom, Dad, this is Abby. She’s my girlfriend today, but she’s also been my wife on and off for the past several centuries. We may or may not have raised several dozen children together, and our descendants could be roaming the earth right now. That could be an interesting introduction.”

“I was thinking about just going with, ‘This is Abby,’ and probably leaving it there.”

“Probably a good idea,” Abby teased.

“Kiss me on the forehead again.”

Abby kissed her and smiled down at her.

“A little lower,” Quinn requested.

Abby shook her head and kissed her on the nose.

“Lower?” Quinn asked softly this time.

Abby leaned down and grazed Quinn’s nose with her own.

“You know once we do this, there’s really no going back.”

“I don’t want to go back. Do you?”

Abby shook her head again, but this time, she didn’t have a playful smile on her face. She was very serious. She did not want to go back to her life before Quinn; before finding out something so important about herself that it helped explain so much of her life to her; before she’d kissed the woman sitting on a stool in front of her.

When Abby leaned in and gently pressed her lips to Quinn’s, that was when she saw it: every first kiss of every couple they’d ever been. All of them rushed into her mind, milliseconds at a time. Centuries of history and love flashed behind her eyes, and it was from her perspective. She was kissing the other woman, who was Quinn but also not Quinn, and every first kiss between them had started the same way, with the exception of one. The first one. The first two women they’d been. Abby only got a tiny glimpse of them, though, because every other couple who had shared a first kiss had moved through her mind just as quickly. Most of them, she didn’t recognize, but some of them, she did. When the flashes were over, she quickly pulled back and stared down at Quinn.

“I saw it, too,” Quinn said. “Kiss me again.”

Abby leaned back in and reconnected their lips. This time, there was no one else, though. No more visions of other women kissing each other for the first time. It was only her and Quinn. She moaned when she realized that they weren’t going to be interrupted again and held Quinn’s face in her hands, deepening the kiss. Quinn moaned in response before she quickly stood, forcing Abby back as she moved them to the counter. Quinn’s hands went to it, locking Abby in place, but that was fine with her because Abby didn’t want to go anywhere anyway.

Everything they’d ever been and could ever be was held in this kiss. Quinn’s tongue moved into her mouth, and Abby met it with her own, letting them dance together as her hands roamed down Quinn’s front, over breasts, but not landing there. Then, she wrapped Quinn up in her arms, pulling the woman into her by the waist and spreading her legs to allow Quinn to be as close to her as possible. When Quinn’s mouth moved to her neck, Abby used that as the opportunity to catch her breath.

“I’m not ready for anything else tonight,” she managed out. “I want to. I really, really want to, but–”

“It’s okay. This is enough. It’s more than enough.” Quinn was holding her face then, bringing Abby’s lips back to her own. “God, Abs… This is what I’ve been missing my whole life.”

Abby moved her own lips to Quinn’s neck and began kissing the soft skin she found there.

“You smell like honeysuckle,” she noted with a smile. “And it feels that way for me, too.”