“You know it,” Quinn replies, slipping into the booth across from me.
I try to ignore the way his arms flex, the corded muscles taut and on full display. I’ve never noticed that before. I’ve always been an arm girl. Sexy arms with a little ink are my Kryptonite, and I have to turn my attention away from him before I start drooling all over the old tabletop.
“Big plans later?” Quinn asks.
I glance up, my eyes narrowing. “Why?”
He’s not fazed by my saltiness. “Just trying to be friendly.”
I huff out a deep breath. “Sommer and I are going to a movie later.”
“Which one?”
“That new scary one,” I tell him, anxious to see the latest slasher flick after it scored high reviews.
He shudders. “No thanks.”
“I can’t believe you don’t like scary movies. You know they’re fake, right?”
“Yes,” he replies tersely. “But all that shit could still happen. Have you seenThe First 48?”
“Of course I have,” I insist, loving everything about it. “My favorite isMaking a Murderer.”
“You’re really weird,” he mutters, shaking his head. “I just…can’t. I didn’t witness shit like that, but I lived my own brand of fucked up.”
My stomach drops to my shoes, and I feel terrible. “I’m sorry, I?—”
“No, don’t apologize. There’s a big difference between a horror movie and what I experienced. A big difference. But for a young boy, it was pretty horrific,” he says with a sad smile, and it guts me.
I’ve known Quinn’s story. I learned the sugarcoated version when I was about ten, wondering why Camden got to have a friend over all the time and we didn’t. I’ll never forget—and never truly understood at the time—my mom’s words to me. She told me some kids aren’t born into the best homes. They don’t have a mom or a dad, or if they do, their parents don’t treat them the way they should. Some parents are there physically, but have no business raising a child, and it’s our job to love, teach, and welcome those kids into our homes as if they were a part of it from the very beginning.
Over the years, I started to see things differently. I saw his parents, heard the fights, witnessed the pain reflecting in his young eyes. It wasn’t from anything physical—at least that I was aware of—but more of a mental anguish he carried with him.
Unless he was at our house.
There, he got to be a kid, playing with my brother, eating a good meal, receiving help with whatever homework he had to complete. My parents made sure he was taken care of, sometimes even washing his clothes while the boys ate and played or telling him to take a shower before he went back to his own place.
I open my mouth to apologize a second time, but any further comment is cut off by Jeff’s appearance. “The very best strawberry and chocolate milkshakes I can make,” he boasts, placing the frosted milkshake glasses on the table.
“Just the shakes, or are we eating too?”
“Oh, we’re eating,” I reply, not bothering to grab a menu.
Jeff smiles. “Your usual?”
“You know it,” I state, removing the paper wrapper from the straw and sticking it in the milkshake.
“And for you?” he asks Quinn.
“Jumbo and fries.”
“You got it,” he proclaims, tapping on the table. “Coming right up.”
I take a long sip of the cold, sweet milkshake. “Oh my God, that’s so good.”
Quinn sticks his own straw in his shake and takes a drink. “He’s the best.”
“You know, when I worked here in high school, I gained like ten pounds that first month because all I did was drink milkshakes.”
