Quinn turned to Nora with a smile. “I’m busy, huh?”
Nora rolled her eyes. “Oh, shut up.”
“You’re adorable.” Quinn kissed her cheek.
“Woof!”
“See, even Fort agrees,” Quinn added. She grunted when Fort surged forward, yanking her off balance, and smiled at the sound of Nora’s laughter behind her. “See anything you like?”
“I do,” Nora replied.
Quinn turned to see what had caught Nora’s attention, and her throat tightened when she realized that Nora was staring at her. “Besides me?”
Nora smiled and shook her head. “Not a thing.”
Fort had stopped to inspect a trio of wired reindeer lit with fairy lights, and Quinn batted her lashes as she murmured, “C’mon. There’s gotta besomething.”
“You are a terrible cheat,” Nora admonished.
“Just some lights for the balconies?” Quinn suggested hopefully.
Nora sighed. “Show me what they have, and we’ll see.”
“I cannot believe I let you talk me into all this.” Nora propped her hands on her hips and shook her head as she surveyed her balcony that was now bedecked with twinkling, multi-colored lights that weren’t terribly dissimilar to the ones she’d professed to be fond of the night before when Quinn had been wearing them and nothing else. She didn’t look angry, exactly. The furrow of her brow and the pinch of her mouth were more annoyed than anything, but the hint of a tug at the corner of her lips suggested that even that was more about the fact that she wasn’t truly annoyed by any of it.
Quinn laughed and wrapped her arms around Nora’s stomach to pull her back into her. “I don’t think you mean that.”
“Quinn… There’s an inflatable Rudolph on my balcony.”
Quinn grimaced. She’d been trying rather hard not to pay too much attention to the reindeer in question. In Rudolph’s defense, hewaspretty cute with his Santa hat, sunglasses, Hawaiian lei, and shiny red nose, but the cuteness didn’t negate the fact that he was, in fact, a four-foot-tall inflatable. Though in her defense, she had only planned on buying some lights to string along the balconies—something festive, yet simple and easy to remove—but Fort’d had other ideas.
“Yes, there is.” She squeezed Nora tight and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “But, to be fair”—she rocked them both from side-to-side in a bid to quell some of Nora’s irritation—“we kinda didn’t have a choice about the reindeer after Fort, um, decided he really liked it.”
“‘Really liked it,’” Nora repeated, shaking her head. “He laid on the floor andscreamedwhen we tried to get him to leave.”
Quinn chuckled at the memory of the rather epic puppy tantrum Fort had thrown when Nora had told him it was time to go. When she’d given up trying to lead him away, he’d rushed back to Rudolph’s feet and laid on top of them, sniffling and crying so pathetically that a dozen people stopped to watch. For a minute, Quinn thought she was going to have to pick him up and carry him out of the store, but Nora had taken one long look at Fort’s pathetic, whimpering face, picked up a box that had a picture of Rudolph on the side, and showed it to him with an exasperated, “Do we need to bring him home with us?”After carefully inspecting the picture on the box, Fort huffed and got to his feet, and he’d kept a strict eye on the box as they went through the check-out line. He’d refused to even get in the car until Nora set the box on the back seat—at which point, he jumped up happily and snuggled the box the whole way home.
“Well…” Quinn gestured to Fort, who was belly-up in front of Rudolph and gazing up at the inflatable with the most lovesick smile she’d ever seen on a dog. “Look how happy he is.”
Nora looked over at Fort and muttered something under her breath in Norwegian that Quinn didn’t quite catch. “He’s lucky he’s cute.” She leaned her head back onto Quinn’s shoulder. “And that I only have to look at that monstrosity for a week.”
“Aww, you’re gonna put his new friend away?” Quinn pouted. “He’ll be so sad!”
“He’ll survive,” Nora muttered. She took a deep breath and draped her arms atop Quinn’s as she sank deeper into her embrace.
Though the sun was bright, Nora shivered in her arms, and Quinn couldn’t help but wonder if she was thinking the same thing she was—But will I survive losing this?
Even though she’d lived through every blissful moment, it was insane to think they’d only met a few days ago.
“What are you thinking about?” Nora asked softly.
Quinn rested her cheek against Nora’s head.That I am living some peak lesbian fuckery. It’s only been three stupid days, and I’m halfway to buying a goddamn U-Haul.She figured that was probably too much truth for now, though, and she squeezed her tight as she said, “That Fort would’ve been over the moon if we’d gotten the female reindeer too.”
Nora laughed and tipped her head back onto Quinn’s shoulder to look at her as she said, “One inflatable is enough, thank you very much.”
Quinn’s throat tightened as she drank in the warmth of Nora’s smile and the softness in her eyes. “You are unfairly beautiful,” she whispered as she dipped her head to brush a kiss over Nora’s lips. Her stomach fluttered at the feeling of Nora’s hand cupping her jaw, and her heart squeezed with a fragile longing that she might somehow find a way to keep Nora in her life after this weekend. She didn’t know how it’d work—or if Nora would even be interested—but as Nora hummed and turned in her arms to deepen the kiss, she made herself a promise to at least try.
Before she could even begin to figure out how she’d go about that, however, Fort let out a sharp bark and then promptly followed it up with a panicked whine.
