“I sent it last night, after the parking lot.” He shrinks. “But it was before she posted! I didn’t know she was going to. I didn’t mean for this to happen!”
Scottie stares at him blankly. Not speaking. Not moving.
Then she looks away.
“Scot, please,” he cries, and I drop him. He slumps against the wall, his chin quivering. “I had no idea this would happen!”
“That’s enough,” Doug says, and Jake and I whip around to see the GM angry but controlled. The few staffers hovering in the periphery scatter like roaches. “Quinn, Fischer, go back to the hotel. I have separate cars waiting for you in the lot. Jake, come with me.”
Jake gives Scottie a backward look as he follows Doug, not that she sees it. She’s a shell.
I try to talk to her on the way to the parking lot, but she doesn’t say a word until we spot the two cars.
“I’m going back to Mullet Ridge. All of this drama will end when I’m gone,” she says.
“No way!” I say. “You think you’re alone in this?”
“There’s no reason to tie you to me.”
“Don’t say that.” I step closer, lowering my voice. “Iamtied to you, and I’m not untying anything. I know what Doug thinks right now. I know what my roster spot looks like from his office this morning.”
Her eyes finally meet mine. Just for a second.
“I don’t care,” I say. “I don’t care about any of it. I care that you’re about to get in that car and disappear and tell yourself it’s the right thing to do.”
Something moves across her face—pain, guilt, recognition. I can’t tell.
“Don’t,” she says.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t make this harder.”
“I’m trying to make it easier.”
“You can’t.” Her voice breaks on the last word, just barely. “Nothing can. You can’t fix this, Lucas.”
“I’m not trying to fix it! I don’t care how broken it is. I care aboutyou.”
I move toward her, but she throws her arms up and steps toward the car.
And then she stops.
Not because I stopped her. She just … stops.
For a second she stands there with her back to me, one hand on the door, and I watch something move through her shoulders. Not resolve. Something more like recognition.
She knows what she’s doing.
She’s choosing it anyway.
“Don’t run away from me, Quinn.”
She turns just enough that I can see the side of her face.
“Stay in your hotel room, Lucas.”
“No way.”
