‘You want me to go out with another man?’ she asked.
He pushed his hand through his hair. ‘If and when we start dating, I want to know you’re all in, no doubts, no regrets.’
She sighed. She wasn’t sure she could ever give himthat. ‘These fears are not just going to go away overnight.’
He moved closer, stroking her face. ‘I know, we can take it as slow as you need. We don’t have to rush into anything.’
‘I’m just not ready for something big and life-changing.’
And she wasn’t ready to tell him the truth about the night Liam died and then lose him forever.
He took a step back from her and she knew she had hurt him.
Just then Zara came running down the stairs. Quinn stared at her as they heard Zara putting on her coat and boots in the hallway and, a few moments later, Zara arrived in the kitchen. She hadn’t waited for her gory threat today, and Alex had a good one. She’d have to save it for tomorrow.
‘Hey Rocket,’ Quinn said.
‘Hey.’ Zara gave him a hug. ‘Are you heading into town again to collect some metal?’ she said, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl and taking a bite.
‘Yes, so I’ll walk with you if you want.’
Zara nodded. ‘You know, it might be more efficient if you were to pick up all the metal you needed once a week.’
Alex watched Quinn suppress a smile. ‘But I never know how much I’ll need. Sometimes an idea will come to me and I end up using a lot more than I planned.’
Zara seemed to accept this answer, coming over to give Alex a hug goodbye. ‘Don’t forget I’m at Harley’stonight after school,’ Zara said, as if she was the mum in this relationship. ‘I won’t be back till late.’
Ordinarily, Alex wouldn’t let her daughter stay out late on a school night but all they seemed to be doing these last few days of school was watching films and making various Christmas decorations and cakes.
‘I hadn’t forgotten,’ Alex said, giving her daughter a kiss on the forehead. ‘Take the presents for your teachers.’
Zara pulled back, grabbed the presents and put them in her school bag then joined Quinn at the door. Zara gave her a wave and then stepped outside. There had been a light dusting of snow overnight; sadly not enough to make a snowman or have a snowball fight, but enough to make her daughter look around in wonder.
Quinn gave her a little wave too but didn’t say anything else as he stepped outside. The door closed behind them and Alex sank down at the table with her head in her hands.
Quinn was walking down Cherry Lane, the main high street, a while later, trying to get his thoughts in order. How could he and Alex go back to being just friends after that earth-shattering kiss, especially knowing they both had feelings for each other? And what could he do to get her to take that step with him? If she didn’t have feelings for him it would be so much easier to walkaway but knowing she had quite possibly been in love with him for four years made it so much harder.
He looked around at the beautifully decorated shops, some displaying their wares among fairy lights, baubles and Christmas ornaments, others having a kind of theme going on with whole scenes in the windows. At the end of Cherry Lane was an ice skating rink and people were gliding gracefully around it. He planned to take Alex and Zara skating in a few days. He’d promised Alex nothing would change their friendship and he had to make sure he didn’t break that promise.
He thought about getting a doughnut from Donut Park to cheer himself up. He didn’t really have a sweet tooth but their crème brûlée doughnuts were amazing. Although shopping at Donut Park was highly contentious in Lovegrove Bay. With its little independent shops and cafés, a big global chain like Donut Park had never been wanted. For some, the US spelling was the thing they were most offended by. And while he was always happy to support local shops rather than commercial chains, he had walked past there one day and had been tempted in by the crème brûlée doughnuts and despite the glares he got for shopping there, the doughnut more than made up for it. Today felt like the kind of day one of their doughnuts was needed, even if he had to face the wrath of the locals to get one.
Quinn passed a café and thought about popping in to have some lunch before he got a doughnut. He walked up to the window to look at the menu and couldn’t help noticing two people, a man and a woman, sitting on theother side of the window, seemingly trying to hide from him behind their menu. He peered closer. The sunlight was on the window so it was difficult to see but he was pretty sure that the woman was his mum. Although without seeing her face he couldn’t confirm it. He tapped the window to try to get her attention and the woman buried her face even deeper inside the menu, the man opposite her doing the same, their faces buried so deep in the pages they couldn’t possibly be able to read it. He was just about to go in and see for himself when he heard a voice calling out to him.
‘Quinn!’
He turned round to see Immy beckoning him from the entrance to her sweet shop on the opposite side of the street. Giving the window one last confused look, he went over to Immy wondering if he was going to get some kind of lecture from her. Alex was bound to have told Immy what happened, they told each other everything.
He’d never really had that kind of relationship with Liam. He’d adored his little brother and they used to play well together as children but with a gap of four years between them the gap seemed bigger somehow when they hit their teenage years. Quinn had been interested in girls and Liam had still been playing on his game console. As they’d grown up, it had felt like they were very different people. Quinn always wondered whether, if he’d taken more of an interest in Liam’s life, made more of an effort, he could have helped him more when he needed it.
As he approached he realised Immy was looking annoyed. He’d always liked Immy and he knew how much Alex loved her and relied on her. When the four of them – him, Alex, Immy and Zara – went out together, he’d always got on well with her but they’d never spent any alone time together for him to get to know her really well. She seemed nice. Although his cousin, Xander, who owned the chocolate shop opposite Immy’s, always said she was the bane of his life, though Quinn was never sure why.
‘Hey,’ Quinn said. ‘You alright?’
Immy held the shop door open for him and he stepped inside and then, to his surprise, she locked the door and turned the open sign to closed.
‘We need to talk,’ Immy said.
‘Right…’
