“Jess, I’ll take whatever charity you’re handing out.”
“Oh, trust me, Quinn. You’re no charity case. If I stay, I might never leave.”
* * *
“You said I could pick anything, right?” Jess called from my room.
When we’d arrived at my place, I’d offered her dry clothes of her choosing, and she’d been more than happy to go shopping in my drawers.
“Anything,” I confirmed, fine-tuning the satellite connection.
Jess emerged a minute later in the vintage Van Halen t-shirt I’d taken from my father’s drawer and a pair of my boxers.
“Wow. When I said make yourself comfortable, you took it to heart.”
“All your pants are too long for me.” She shrugged. “Oh, and I hope you don’t mind, but I put my clothes in your dryer.”
Again, wow. Jess didn’t wait for things to happen, she just forged ahead. That was a characteristic most of my uncomplicated girls did not possess.
“That’s my favorite shirt, by the way.”
“Mine too,” she said, doing a model pose for me. “I gotta say, Quinn. This place surprises me.”
“What surprises you about it?”
“Just that your apartment is crappier than mine, no offense.”
“None taken.” I chuckled.
“I mean, you have a full-on freeway in your backyard.”
“I know. Cool, huh? You wouldn’t believe the accidents I’ve seen.”
“Oh, I can believe it. It’s just… I thought…”
“That I lived like a king?”
“Well, yes. Alan said…”
“Don’t listen to what Alan says. Listen to me. Yes, my family has money. I do not. As a musician, I travel around a lot. I got the cheapest place I could find so I’d have somewhere to lay my head down when I was back in town.”
“Gotcha,” she said, grabbing her white food bag and dropping down onto my sofa. “Yum.”
Dinner, such as it was, consisted of a Chick-fil-A drive-thru meal. I was a big spender like that. Actually, the choice had been Jess’s. Traffic had been fierce on the way back to my place, and we were pushing it if we were going to catch the last performance of the night… my performance.
The feed came up just in time. Suzette, the contestant who’d taken the stage just before, was singing. My heart raced. In a few minutes time, my life would change—in what direction I wasn’t sure.
“I’m up next,” I told Jess.
She sat up straighter, chicken nugget in hand. “Holy shit, I’m nervous.”
“How do you think I feel?”
Jess grabbed my cheek in her pinched fingers and cooed. “Does someone need a drop of liquid courage?”
I’d almost forgotten. Jumping from the sofa, I headed to the kitchen with Jess right on my heels.
“Where areyougoing?” I teased, boxing her out as we fought for position in my tiny kitchen.
