“I know!” She ripped her hand away from his. “I know! I’m notdeaf, Aaron! I can hear what Quinn’s saying!”
She stood up and stomped into the kitchen. Aaron heard the refrigerator open, and the rattle of glass bottles. He and Quinn exchanged a wary look. Charlie was back a moment later, with three bottles of beer. She sat down again, twisted the top off one bottle, and held it out to Quinn.
He shook his head.
“Right,” Charlie said, and took a swig of the beer. “Rehab, of course.”
Aaron wasn’t as constrained. He reached for one of the other bottles, and watched Quinn watch him drink. “So rehab was the real deal, huh?”
Quinn’s brows drew together, wrinkling his forehead. “Yeah.” And then, before Aaron could ask, he said, “It was for coke, mostly, but I also used crack when I couldn’t get my hands on any coke. It fucked me up for a while.”
Aaron raised his brows. “Past tense?”
Quinn shrugged. “I didn’t say I wasn’t still fucked up, just that now I’m fucked up and clean.”
Charlie picked at the label on her beer bottle and glared at Quinn. “So you want me to quit my job and just leave town? Like it’s all that easy?”
Quinn didn’t say anything.
Aaron sighed. “Listen, there’s nothing keeping me here. Maybe you and Lennox could come with me.” He saw Quinn’s shoulders slump a little as the tension left him. “We could go on a road trip or something.”
Charlie leveled him with a stare. “A road trip? To where?”
“Fuck if I know.” He took a swig of beer. “Where was that place you always wanted to go to?”
“Hollywood?”
“No, the place on the postcard you used to carry around,” Aaron said. “With the lake and the trees. Vermont.”
Charlie set her beer down on the table and rubbed her hands over her face. “You want to take me and Lennox on a road trip to Vermont?”
“It’s not like I’ve got anything more pressing on my schedule. Besides, maybe in a few weeks everything will have settled down again.” He glanced at Quinn, and could tell he thought that was bullshit. “How long’ve you been working at the diner?”
“Since high school.”
“So tell your boss you need a few weeks off,” Aaron said. “They might hold your job for you.”
“That’s a hell of a gamble to make when I’ve got rent to pay and a kid to feed.” But Charlie’s voice had softened, and Aaron knew he had her on the hook now. “I mean, maybe it will work.”
“So that’s what we’ll do then,” Aaron said, looking to Quinn for confirmation and getting a short dip of his chin. “We’ll leave…when? A couple of days from now?”
“As soon as you can,” Quinn said. “Please.”
And it was probably that word, more than the badge still lying on the table, that convinced Aaron that Quinn was deadly serious, because he couldn’t ever remember Quinn MacGregor ever saying it so quietly, so wholeheartedly, in his life.
He took another swig of beer.
Fuck. This was all real.
* * * *
Charlie left after her beer, and Aaron limped into the kitchen to throw the paper plates into the trash. He figured Quinn would leave when Charlie did—slink out like a stray dog, probably—and he was surprised when he followed him and then moved to stand beside him at the counter. He was a line of heat along Aaron’s side.
“You know how to shock a guy. I always figured you’d followed in your dad’s footsteps,” Aaron murmured, folding a paper plate in half and shoving it in a garbage bag.
“No,” Quinn said. “I followed in your dad’s footsteps instead.”
Heat rose on Aaron’s face—anger and pain and hurt—and his chest ached. “Don’t—don’t—”
