Timeless

CHAPTER 42

B efore spending the rest of the day at Quinn’s shop, Abby had decided to run home first to pick up her computer along with the photos she had of Deb and Harriet and the one of Cheryl and Diana so that everything would be in one place, and they could look through it all at once. To do that, she took Quinn’s car, since they’d driven together, and noted how easily they’d fallen into this relationship after the initial confusion and overwhelming parts had been sorted out. She grabbed her computer, tucked the photos carefully into her bag, and then, she returned to Main Street, where she found parking on the street this time. Before she headed back to Jordan Antiques, though, she went to the coffee shop that didn’t have the bitter stuff and picked up two cups for them along with some pastries since it wasn’t likely that they’d be heading out to lunch.

When she returned, she finally saw what had Quinn keeping the doors open. The small shop was packed with people. Most were probably not going to buy anything – in fact, she saw two people leave with no purchases when she got to the door to go back in – but at least a dozen people were milling about, and three people were in line. Quinn was behind the counter, ringing someone up for a purchase. She looked up and smiled when Abby appeared. Abby dropped her stuff in the back and headed out to the front again.

“What can I do?” she asked.

“Nothing. I’m all right.”

“I can help, Quinn,” she offered, smiling at her. “Can I ring people up so you can work the crowd or something?”

“Work the crowd?” Quinn laughed. “Here you go.” She handed a man his credit card back. “It’ll be delivered to you on Monday.”

“You have a delivery person?” Abby asked after he walked off .

“Yeah, me. I don’t have very many deliveries, so I rent a truck when I do and do it myself.”

“Oh. Can I help somehow?”

“With deliveries?” Quinn asked. “Hello,” she greeted the woman in front of her.

“With this. I can ring people up, Quinn. Just show me how.”

“Okay. So, the item has a number on the tag. You just have to enter it here.” Quinn pointed to her laptop screen. “And it’ll show you the price. It should match what’s on the tag. If it doesn’t have a tag, it’s probably in a bin or a bowl with a tag on it, like with keys and random bits and bobs.”

“Did you just say bits and bobs?” Abby laughed.

“Shut up,” Quinn replied with a smile as she entered the number of the item that the customer was buying into the computer, and it spat out a price. “That’ll be one hundred and twenty dollars.”

The woman handed over her credit card, and Quinn showed Abby how to process the payment. Then, she kissed Abby on the cheek to leave her to it while she went onto the floor to try to sell more stuff or answer questions. For over an hour, Abby managed to keep the line down to two to three people before she got more backed up, and Quinn came to help out. Quinn would wrap things up for her while Abby worked the computer, and she found that the number of people in such a small space didn’t bother her as long as Quinn was there with her. She even made small talk with some of the customers and had actual fun doing it. Finally, when there was a lull, she and Quinn went through the shop, straightening things up a bit before the next rush happened after lunch.

“I brought my computer because I thought it might be cool to write in the back while you worked. Silly me, huh?” she said when she flopped down onto the stool in the back once the front door was locked and the sign on it had been turned to closed.

Quinn chuckled and said, “I told you that I get busy on the weekends. Today, though, I sold more than I have in a while, which is good.” She walked over to Abby and began massaging her shoulders. “You’re so tense, babe.”

“Yeah, I haven’t worked that hard in years. I carried a table to someone’s car for them voluntarily. That thing was solid wood and heavy.”

“And four hundred dollars,” Quinn added.

“What?” Abby looked up. “Really? It’s just a table.”

“It’s a two-hundred-year-old table with a famous owner. It appraised at three-fifty. She offered three. I told her four, and she didn’t counter again. I bought the thing for three, so I just made a hundred bucks. Did she at least tip you for carrying it to her car for her?”

“No. She was supposed to? What an ass.”

Quinn laughed and pulled her into her body.

“Thank you for your help today. I made more money because of you.”

“How so?”

“If the line’s too long, the people buying little things don’t stay and wait it out. The big purchasers, who are out antiquing, do, but the ones who just came in to look around but found something small that they liked just look at the line, and if it’s too long, they put the thing back down and leave. So, I probably made an extra hundred or two today, thanks to you.”

“Where’s my tip, then?” Abby teased before she tapped her own lips.

Quinn smiled, leaned down, and kissed her sweetly.

“Are you ready to get out of here? I can tip you more at your place.”

Abby leaned forward then and pressed her face into Quinn’s chest.

“I brought everything here,” she mumbled. “I was going to write and thought we could look through it together when you were on a break.”

Quinn took a step back and took both of Abby’s hands.

“Come here.” She pulled Abby into a hug that felt so good. “You know what I think?”

“What?”

“That none of that stuff is going anywhere. We’ll scan everything in so that it’s all digital, and we’ll have it forever that way. We’ll protect the pictures and the book from being damaged, too, so everything will be there for us to look over whenever we want, but you and I will only be in this stage of our relationship once, Abs.” Quinn kissed the top of her head.

Abby nodded and replied, “You’re right. Want to go on that date now and worry about the rest later?”

“I do, yeah.”

“You’re not too tired?”

“I do this every weekend, so I’m used to it. Are you too tired?”

“No,” she replied. “I want a date with you tonight.”

“What if we go to the store down the street and get some food for a picnic in the park? It should be quiet right about now. It’s getting dark. Kids will be heading inside. I have a blanket in my trunk. We can just relax and head to my place so I can pack a bag after.”

“That sounds really nice.”

Plan for the night made, they grabbed Abby’s stuff and walked down the street hand in hand, which felt so perfect to her. While Abby didn’t get a vision of Deb and Harriet doing the same because they had never been able to hold hands in public like this, she did think of them and hoped that they were watching her and Quinn now as they got the chance to do it out in the open.

Inside the store, Quinn continued to hold Abby’s hand, likely remembering what she’d told her about shopping, and Abby held the basket over her free arm while they walked up and down the aisles, putting in item after item. This simple gesture on Quinn’s part warmed her all the way through in a way that she hadn’t felt before, but then again, Quinn seemed to do that a lot: make Abby feel things that she’d never felt before .

“We’ll never eat all of this,” she noted.

“Maybe not tonight, but we’ll have it for the next one.”

“Next picnic? Do you, like, love picnics or something? Is that something I should know about you?”

Quinn just smiled over at her until they landed at the aisle where Abby had found the popcorn previously.

“Popcorn?” Quinn asked.

“Sure.” Abby chuckled and put a box of the bagged stuff into her basket.

Tonight was about them, so she didn’t want to bring up the vision of Deb and Harriet making popcorn the old-fashioned way for one another. There was also the fact that Abby had since done some research on how long popcorn had been around, finding an article on the history of the stuff that told her it had been around practically forever, which she hadn’t known prior to that. In fact, between her writing multiple chapters in a day for the first time in her life, she’d gone on a whole learning path about various things from her visions, but that was for another day.

After paying, they held hands while walking all the way to the car, each of them holding a grocery bag as well, and Quinn drove them to the park, which was more of a playground with a grassy area and some trees surrounding it. Then, Quinn set up the blanket while Abby got their dinner ready, and they sat down and ate as they talked about the day and how the next day would probably be just as busy. Abby wanted to help again, and Quinn said that it would be nice to have someone there with her, but Abby knew that just any someone wouldn’t do. Quinn liked that it was her , which made Abby feel pretty amazing, being wanted like that.

After they finished eating and the sun had disappeared from the sky, Abby thought that they would head home, but Quinn had another idea.

“Come here,” Quinn requested after lying down on the blanket.

Abby moved to lie against her chest, resting her arm over Quinn’s stomach, and said, “It’s going to be too cold to stay out here for long.”

“I know. Just a minute or two.”

“Quinn?” she asked after a moment.

“Hmm?”

“I’m just… I’m really happy right now, and I wanted you to know that.”

“Yeah?”

“I know some of it is still scary, but I feel good. I feel like, even if we weren’t also these other women throughout history, I’d still really, really like you, and we’d be here lying on a blanket after a picnic together. I wasn’t sure I’d feel that way in the beginning.”

“I’m really happy, too,” Quinn replied. “You know, in all our visions of the past, each woman was a little different. While Harriet and Diana had some similarities, they were different, too.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I’m different than both of them. All of them, really. So are you. And what I like most about you are those differences.”

Abby snuggled in closer and felt her blush creep up on her cheeks.

“You do?”

“You have a dry wit and this sarcasm that I love. It fits right with my own. I don’t think any of them were quite like that, were they?”

“Not from what I’ve seen, no,” Abby said.

“And, yeah, you’re a writer, and Cheryl was, too, but she was a journalist. I’m sure her articles were good and all that, but you write books, and your first book is amazing. I really do love it. And I love what you’ve shown me of the stories you’ve been writing about our past lives.”

“I’m just writing down what actually happened.”

“Maybe the events, sure. But the words are your own, Abs. The prose is all you, and I love it. I love that today, you brought your computer because you wanted to write at the shop while I worked. You love working from home, and I know how the rest of the world isn’t always your favorite place, but you came back to the shop today.”

“I… I would’ve missed you too much,” she admitted. “That is so unlike me, by the way.”

Quinn laughed and said, “I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“You should. But don’t go getting a big head about it, Quinn Elizabeth.”

“I’ll–”

Just as Quinn had been about to complete her sentence, the automatic sprinklers popped up out of the grass, and cold water started to spray all around them, including on them, their blanket, and the rest of their stuff.

“Oh, my God!” Abby laughed as she jolted up and ran away from the water toward the small parking lot.

“You just left me here?” Quinn laughed. “Abs, our stuff.” She picked up the blanket and the bags of food leftovers.

Abby laughed some more and replied, “I thought you were the chivalrous one.” She wiped the water off her face and looked down at her clothes, which were pretty much soaked through.

“I must be less chivalrous than my previous versions.” Quinn ran toward her and shook her head back and forth like she was a dog, getting water all over Abby again.

Abby laughed wildly and wiped her face again.

“I really thought the park was open until eight,” Quinn said as she placed the blanket over Abby’s shoulder. “You’re carrying that.”

“I guess they water around six,” Abby replied. “Come on. Let’s go home, babe.”

“My place to get a bag?”

“No, just come to mine,” she said. “You can steal my clothes again.” She took Quinn’s hand and moved into her side, leaning against her. “Well, this was quite an eventful day, huh?”

Quinn laughed. Then, she drove them home. It only took about ten minutes, but Abby was freezing by the time they got there, despite Quinn putting the heat on full blast for the entire drive.

“You’re freezing,” Quinn said as she ran her hands up and down Abby’s arms. “Bed? And, like, five blankets over you?”

“No, I need to get in the shower. That’ll warm me up.”

“Okay. Can I get a towel and some clothes while you do so? I’ll dry off, change, and then, I can make us some coffee. I know we’ve had, like, four cups today, but I think we could use it to warm up. Or tea? Hot chocolate?”

“Quinn?”

Quinn looked at her expectantly.

“Just get in the shower with me.”

“Oh. You…” When Abby nodded, Quinn wrapped her arms around her waist, holding on to her tightly, and asked, “Just to get warm, right?”

“Not just to get warm,” Abby replied. “I mean… We could start on the bed. I’m sure I’ll get warm pretty fast.” She chuckled nervously. “But I have grass and mud places I’d prefer not to have it the first time we do this. Or, any time we do this, really.” She let out another nervous laugh.

“Are you sure you’re ready?” Quinn asked her. “We can wait.”

“I’m sure,” she replied. “Are you sure?”

Quinn nodded and softly said, “Since I met you.”

Abby moved out of Quinn’s embrace and took her hand, walking them into her bathroom, where she turned on the water in the shower-and-bathtub combo that she wanted to replace one day, making a separate jacuzzi tub and shower, if she even stayed in this house. If not, she’d find one that had it already. She wasn’t sure why she was thinking about that while Quinn was standing behind her, waiting for what was to come next. Well… She knew why. She was thinking about that because she was nervous. Abby was nervous about this very important step that they were about to take.

Pushing all the trivial thoughts aside, she turned around and found Quinn staring at her, so she reached for the hem of Quinn’s shirt and pulled the damp thing off and over her head, tossing it to the floor at Quinn’s feet. Then, she moved into her again, just wanting to take a moment to be this close before they did anything else. As she breathed Quinn in, she smiled against her chest just above Quinn’s sports bra.

“You smell like you.”

“How’s that?”

“A little like apples, I think.”

“My body wash is green apple,” Quinn shared. “I bought it on sale once and really liked it, so now, it’s what I always have.”

Abby kissed her collarbone and said, “I like it.”