Quinn’s mouth quirked. “Yeah.”
And then he stepped inside the house.
Aaron could have yelled at him to leave—a part of him still wanted to—but since when had Quinn MacGregor ever listened to him? A sudden flash of memory assaulted him: Him and Quinn, standing in the kitchen, a decade ago.
“Hey,” Aaron had said. He’d been trying to play it cool, but had ruined it the second the rest of the words tumbled from his mouth: “You can’t be here.”
Quinn’s mouth had lifted in a faint smile, and he’d shrugged. “Well, I am.”
“Where’s Jimmy?” Aaron had known he had to be here somewhere. Jimmy and Quinn always hung out together. Whenever you saw one of them, the other one wasn’t far behind. Except Quinn had only shrugged.
“He left.”
“You need to leave too.”
“Come on, man, I just poured this.” Quinn had held up his beer.
“You can take it with you.”
Quinn had looked at him like he was crazy. “What the hell is wrong with you? I thought this was supposed to be a party.”
“You weren’t invited,” Aaron had said, his heart beating faster.
Quinn had tilted his head. “Do you even know how parties work?”
“Just go,” Aaron had crossed to the back door and opened it. “Just get out.”
“Dear Trip Advisor,” Quinn had said, rolling his eyes. “Zero stars. The owner was rude and unwelcoming and wouldn’t even let me finish my beer.”
Jesus. Quinn had always been a mouthy asshole. Aaron wondered if ten years had changed either one of them enough that this time he’d actually take a hint and Aaron could throw him out. But then he thought of what Quinn had just said. Not about having a kid with Charlie, though that was fuckinginsane, but about Aaron making it all make sense for him. Was that really true? Instead of throwing Quinn out, he found himself closing the door after him, and sliding his hand up the wall to flick on the interior light.
Then he turned around to face him, and Quinn stared back at him warily.
Quinn looked as though he’d done some hard living, which wasn’t any surprise. Not for Spruce Creek, and especially not for a MacGregor. Aaron might have been through some shit these last couple of years, but he was pretty sure he didn’t have as many crow’s feet as Quinn. When they’d been teenagers, Aaron had been baby-faced. Quinn never had been. All his angles had sharpened with adulthood, and there were shadows under his eyes as dark as bruises.
“You look like shit,” Aaron said.
Quinn dug a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one without permission. “Yeah? At least I didn’t dye my hair.”
“Fuck you. It got darker as I got older, okay? You think I’m seriously vain enough to dye my hair?”
“I liked you better as a hot blond.” Quinn cast his narrow gaze around the room. “You got an ashtray in here?”
“No, because I don’t fucking smoke.” There was something maddening about the way Quinn had always done this: just barged his way into Aaron’s life and did whatever the hell he wanted and expected Aaron to be okay with it. It gave him a weird twinge in his chest to know that at least some things never changed.
Quinn walked into the kitchen and reappeared a moment later with a mug. “So can I talk to you about this, or are you going to bitch and moan and try to throw me out?”
“Fuck you,” Aaron said, and limped his way over to the couch and sat down. When he looked back up, Quinn was watching him with a faint frown.
Quinn looked around at the lack of furniture, and sat down on the couch beside Aaron. He flicked ash into the coffee mug. “We left,” he said abruptly. “After my father’s trial, when we knew he wasn’t coming home again, Mom and I left Spruce Creek.”
“Where’d you go?”
“Chicago,” Quinn said.
“What’s it you do there?”
“I don’t want to talk about that.” Quinn drew in another lungful of smoke and exhaled it slowly. It hung in the air like a ghost before fading away. “Point is, I was here a while after you’d already gone. And me and Charlie were both pretty fucked up, I guess. We got drunk one night, and, well, it happened. Only once, but I guess once is all it takes, right? So now it turns out I’m a dad.”
