Lark trilled with laughter. “Calm down, Quince. I’m not being serious.”
Quin contemplated whether he should hang up, turn his phone off, and then run to the beach and chuck it into the sea. Somehow, he imagined Lark would get ahold of him anyway, perhaps by sending him a message personally delivered via strip-o-gram or something equally ridiculous.
He sighed. “What do you want?”
“You haven’t been responding to my messages.”
“No. I haven’t read them.”
“Rude.”
Quin barked a laugh at the audacity of Lark’s statement. “You have no self-awareness, do you?”
Lark was quiet for a few seconds. “So, you’re still mad at me.”
“No, I’m not.” It was the first time Quin had even thought about the fact that he no longer held any strong feelings for Lark. Given how long they’d been in a relationship, it should have been shocking with the ease with which he’d got over it. His gaze slid to Kit where he lay next to him, and a slow, content warmth swelled in his chest. Maybe it wasn’t surprising he’d moved on so fast, after all.
“So, you’re going to come back and we can put everything behind us?” Lark asked.
“No.”
“But…that’s not fair.” Quin couldhearLark pouting furiously over the phone.
Quin was unaffected by the dramatics, however. “It’s very fair. What did you think was going to happen after I came in to find you getting railed in the kitchen?”
“Quin, we talked about opening the relationship up.”
“I remember the conversation. And I also remember saying that I needed time to think about it.”
“I thought that meant you were okay with it.”
Quin’s fingers caught in a knot in his beard as he rubbed at it. “The funny thing is, Lark, I might have said yes, had you given me the space to consider it. You could have gone off and got fucked with no issue. But you did it behind my back.”
“It was a misunderstanding.”
“No. It wasn’t.”
“A miscommunication, then.”
“Those are the same thing,” Quin pointed out.
“Don’t be so stupid. Come back.Please.”
Quin winced at the insult. “I don’t live my life to cater to your whims. Not anymore.”
“You’re overreacting.”
“You haven’t even apologised.”
“I-I have nothing to apologise for,” Lark said, his voice growing wobbly and thin. Quin might have felt bad for him if the situation were different, but he’d had enough of Lark berating him and calling him names. He didn’t need to listen anymore.
“This conversation is over. Don’t contact me again.” With that, Quin hung up. And then, with a sense of finality, he blocked Lark’s number. He wasn’t under any illusions that it would stopLark unless he accepted the rebuff, but he was well overdue putting the final nail in that particular coffin.
Quin took Mabel downstairs for her late dinner, then cleaned up in the kitchen before inhaling two packets of prawn cocktail crisps. He regretted it immediately and popped a few grapes in his mouth for some kind of balance.
After a thorough brushing of his teeth, he slipped back into bed, situating himself so that he was spooning Kit. It was odd, holding him like this when he was unconscious, but Quin figured it would be nice for Kit to wake up in his arms.
Quin must have dozed off, as the next thing he knew, small hands were roaming over his body. He cracked one eye open. “Kit?”
