* * * *
He ended up getting a few hours of restless sleep and the next morning, and then he sent a group text to Charlie and Aaron, asking if they could all meet at Aaron’s as soon as possible.
He still wasn’t sure if he was doing the right thing, but he needed to dosomethingto feel like he wasn’t watching his friends stand on the tracks in front of a runaway train. He couldn’t be sure if they’d have time to jump off those tracks, but he could do his best to let them know when the train might be on its way.
Charlie texted them, saying that she’d be by with late lunch and that she could leave Lennox with his friend. Aaron agreed to the plan, and with his heart in his throat, Quinn went to his car and drove the few minutes it took him to arrive at the parking spot across the road from Aaron’s.
He sighed. It was time. He opened the trunk of his car and popped open the bottom of the trunk. He reached his fingers under the spare tire and felt for a screw there in the divot where the tire wrench rested. He pulled the screw and heard a faint pop when the side panel of the trunk loosened.
Quinn glanced around and when he didn’t see anyone, he grabbed the item he needed from the hidden compartment and closed it.
Then he closed everything again and waited for Charlie to park next to his car.
“Help me with this stuff,” she called to him and he went to take the containers from her.
“Did you cook for us?” he asked when she got out of her car and grabbed a case of bottled water from her back seat.
“Yeah, it’s nothing much, just healthier than the junk from the diner, you know.” She shrugged, and they walked across the road together.
Aaron opened the door before they got to it, and frowned at them.
“I can’t believe you two have a kid,” he said, making a pang of guilt reverberate through Quinn once again.
“She has a kid, I was a sperm donor,” he corrected automatically.
Charlie just snorted and shook her head.
She served the food on paper plates and they took it to the living room. She sat on the floor and once Aaron and Quinn had taken a seat on the couch, she looked at Quinn.
“So, why the summons?”
“Can we eat first? I’m starving and…” Quinn stalled. He was hungry, but he wasn’t sure he could actually eat with how nervous he felt.
Aaron’s eyes narrowed and for a while, Quinn felt like he was under a microscope.
Then he squeezed Quinn’s thigh. “Okay.”
They ate and Charlie launched into a story of Lennox being a brat at school at a stupid teacher. Her words, not Lennox’s, or so it seemed.
“I just don’t know how a teacher can you know, teach a subject that the nine-year-old he’s teaching actually knows more of than he does, you know? Like, if Lennox, smart as he is, can debunk something the guy is teaching, how much trust am I supposed to have that there aren’t other teachers like that in there?”
“To be fair, they pay them peanuts so….” Aaron smiled wryly and put his empty plate on the coffee table.
“He’s not wrong,” Quinn quipped, making Charlie smile and roll her eyes.
Too soon, Charlie had taken their plates into the trash can in the kitchen and came back to sit on the floor. “Now talk.”
Quinn took in a deep breath and everything he’d thought he’d say in this situation evaporated from his mind.
“You both know now that Ian’s dying and everyone thinks it’s either Jimmy or me who is going to take over, right?” He watched both Charlie and Aaron nod and sighed. “Well, when I say I’m not here to take over, it’s the honest truth.”
Aaron frowned. “But you’ve said yourself that things will go all fucked if Jimmy does, so…”
There was an accusation in those words; if Jimmy took over, people would be in danger, if Quinn did, well, Quinn supposed people including his friends thought he’d be the lesser of two evils? That was what made the final decision for him.
He rubbed a palm over his mouth and looked from Charlie to Aaron and back. “This is…this is the moment I need to ask you to leave if you don’t want to know something that’s potentially dangerous.”
Aaron’s frown deepened, but Charlie just looked concerned.
