“You have to do more,” Quincy insisted. “You have to be on stage. It’s where you were meant to be.”
I was meant to be with you.
The heartfelt feeling rose up in me like a crescendo. I tried to dismiss it as the effects of Quincy’s ongoing heat, but the idea wasn’t going anywhere.
“We should go stock up now,” I said.
Neither of us moved. More than anything, I wanted to kiss Quincy before getting out and walking into the rest stop with him like we’d been a couple for ages. He was mine, I knew it, and I needed to do whatever I could to stake my claim on him.
“Okay, let’s go,” I said after a good thirty seconds of us just staring at each other.
Quincy’s beaming smile turned into a look of misery, then into a neutral smile, so fast that I might have imagined it.
“Yeah, let’s go,” he said, then turned to push his way out through the passenger door.
The feeling of uncertainty that I’d had earlier came back and lodged in my gut. It stayed there as we entered the rest stop, which was far more crowded than the earlier one, since it was getting close to lunch.
Quincy seemed a little subdued by all the people. As we shopped in the convenience store, buying cheap, kind of nasty food that would sustain us for a day or two, he kept looking around, wariness in his eyes. It was like he expected someone to jump out at us and cause trouble at any second.
“It’s okay,” I said once we’d bought a bunch of things, then sat in the sunroom section of the dining area to eat a quick lunch. “No one is going to bother you, even if you are in heat. I will protect you with my life.”
Quincy sent me a heated, but still wobbly, smile. “I’m going to make things better for you,” he said with sudden determination. “I’m going to give you the life you’ve always wanted.”
I sucked in a breath and broke into a smile. I didn’t even know what that meant, but Quincy must have thought he knew. He drew his hand away from where he’d reached over the table to touch my arm and pulled his phone out of his pocket.
I would rather have had his touch than whatever he needed his phone for.
He had the right idea, though. I deliberately hadn’t checked my phone since we’d started out on our adventure. I had it with me, though, so I did the responsible thing and turned it on.
As expected, there were half a dozen missed calls from both my Dad and Mom, not to mention a mess of texts from each of them.
“Where are you? You’re not in your room.”
“Have you left Kincade Slopes?”
“Wherever you are, answer me and get back here immediately.”
Those were all from my dad.
One from Mom said,“Your father says you left the conference early for some reason. Where are you?”
I stared at my phone, wondering how long I could get away with ignoring them. I wasn’t anywhere near done feeling free yet.
“There,” Quincy said, sitting up with obvious excitement. “Oh my gosh, it couldn’t be more perfect. Look!”
He turned his phone to face me. The screen showed something that looked like a notice for the Norwalk Family Theater. It was an audition notice for their summer season.
Auditions were taking place this weekend, today.
“That’s—”
I didn’t know what to say. My heart beat faster. All kinds of hope and possibility throbbed within me. We were less than an hour away from Norwalk and the auditions were open call. We could drive to the theater and I could try out for their company. It would be a pain to commute back and forth between Barrington and Norwalk to be in the show, but I could get an apartment in Norwalk and work for the law office remotely. I could?—
Quincy still held his phone up to me, so I saw the text that came through from someone who was probably family.
“Honey, where are you? You haven’t checked in, and I’m worried.”
“I think that’s a text for you,” I said, nodding to the phone.
