What a dick. Everyone else got everything they wanted. Becca had Chris. Nick had Adam. Quinn had nothing. She had a fake boyfriend who gave her a raft of shit the first time someone else was nice to her.
The thought rang false inside her head, and she told her subconscious to stick it.
A metro bus was rolling up to the curb. The brakes squealed into the darkness and the door creaked open. Adam took the bus all the time, but Quinn had never tried. At least it was a surefire escape from Nick.
She climbed the steps and sniffed back the last of her tears. “How much?”
“One sixty, one way. Three fifty, ride all day.”
All day. Quinn wondered who would spend the entire day on a bus. Then she realized it was warm in here, and empty aside from the driver. No one to bother her.
“Ride all night, too?” she asked.
“We stop running at two.”
Well, there went that. She counted out a dollar sixty and crammed her money into the slot.
Once the vehicle started moving, she realized she had no idea where she was going.
Wasn’t that always the case?
Her phone chimed. Nick.
Where did you go?
Quinn deleted it.
Then she started a new text.
Playing sentry again tonight?
The response text took less than three seconds.
Why? Need rescuing, baby girl?
Quinn smiled.
Now that you mention it, yeah. I do.
Her phone vibrated almost immediately.
What’s up?
I’m on a bus, bound for nowhere.
Sweetheart, it’s a TRAIN bound for nowhere.
Her heart gave a little squee at the endearment. It meant nothing and everything all at once. She smiled over her phone while she texted back.
Well, I’m on a bus with no destination in mind.
Want me to come get you?
Quinn stopped and stared at the phone. Was this dangerous? It didn’t feel dangerous. Tyler had had ample opportunity to hurt her last night and he hadn’t.
When Becca had first told her about finding Chris in the middle of a fight with Tyler and Seth in the parking lot, Quinn’s first question had been, “Why?”
She’d never gotten a good answer.
She slid her thumbs across the face of her phone.
Are more taquitos in my future?
Play your cards right and there might be a soda, too.
His texts were teasing, so she wasn’t sure if his offer to come get her was genuine. She didn’t want to get off the bus until she knew for sure.
Then her phone lit up with a new message.
Don’t make me ride the bus all night. Where should I pick you up?
“Excuse me,” she called to the driver. “What’s the next stop?”
“Annapolis Mall. West side.”
Next stop is Annapolis Mall. West side.
Well look at that. You just got upgraded to a soft pretzel. See you in 10.
CHAPTER 12
Nick swore at his cell phone for the third time. Or maybe the tenth. He’d lost track.
“Enough.” Adam reached across his tiny kitchen table and took the phone. He put it behind him on the counter, next to where the coffeemaker was choking out a pot.
“I’m sorry,” Nick said.
“It’s all right. I care about her, too.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to rehearse.”
Adam shrugged. “I’ll make do.”
But it bothered him. Nick could tell. Adam had less than two weeks until his audition, and Quinn’s temper tantrum might not be for tonight only. “I shouldn’t have set her off in the truck.”
Adam frowned. “That’s not your fault.”
Nick blew out a long rush of breath and ran a hand through his hair. He glanced at his phone on the counter. “I just wish she’d answer.”
“She did answer.”
Nick gave him a look—but he was right. Quinn had answered. She’d told him she was fine. Then she’d told him to fuck off.
“I’m worried she’s going to hang out with Tyler, just to piss me off.”
The coffeemaker beeped, signaling it was done, and Adam stood. “And would that piss you off?”
His tone was easy, but there was the tiniest bit of an edge hiding there. Nick blinked and realized he was being an idiot.
“Yeah,” he said. “But not like that. I want Quinn to be happy. But Tyler is not a good guy.”
“You think he’ll hurt her?”
He’d hurt her once already—but Nick couldn’t explain that without explaining everything. “I hope not. I don’t know.”
Adam fetched milk from the refrigerator and poured some into one mug, leaving the other coffee black. Nick watched this, bemused that Adam had remembered how he took his coffee.
Adam interrupted his thoughts. “How do you know him?”
Nick wondered how to answer that without spilling every secret he had. For the first time, he was tempted to tell Adam all of it. His shoulders felt tight with tension—from the fight with Quinn, from school, from his family, from living up to everyone’s expectations.
“He used to go to school with my older brother. His family and my family—we don’t get along.”
Adam turned from the counter with mugs in hand. “Why?”
Because Tyler thinks we should be put to death for something we can’t control.
Nick rubbed at his eyes. “It’s a long story.”
He heard the mugs slide onto the table, but jumped when Adam’s hands landed on his shoulders.
“Relax,” Adam said softly. “Relax.” Then he pressed his thumbs into the muscle there.
The trapezius muscle, Nick’s brain supplied helpfully.
God, he was such a nerd.
Adam’s hands felt amazing. Warm and strong with just enough pressure behind his fingers. But instead of being relaxing, his touch had Nick ready to leap out of his chair. Was this a prelude to something? Obviously, right? But what if it—
“Relax.” Adam shook him gently. “Are you really this wound up over Quinn?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know. I feel like I should go get her.”
“Yeah, and how would that go?”
Tyler would want to fight. He’d win—Nick could hold his own if he had to, but he didn’t fight dirty. He had Gabriel for that. Tyler would get the upper hand and beat the shit out of him, if Nick didn’t suffocate him first.
Neither option sounded all that appealing.
“It would suck,” he said grudgingly.
“So your families hate each other. Are you guys the Montagues or the Capulets?”
Nick snorted. “Romeo and Juliet? I don’t think so.”
But his brain flashed on that day when he was twelve, when Tyler’s sister had died. When Michael had come home soaking wet and terrified. When their parents had told them all to lock themselves in the master bedroom and not come out for anything. It was the first time he could remember seeing his mother frightened.
It wasn’t the last.
Adam’s hands brought him back to the present. “Do you ever think that maybe this Tyler guy thinks you are bad for Quinn? That maybe his intentions aren’t evil at all?”
The thought brought Nick up short.
“I remember reading something once,” Adam continued, “about divorce. It said that just because someone is a bad husband doesn’t mean they’re a bad father. I think about that a lot, how people have different capacities for failure. And even if you fail in one area doesn’t mean you fail in all of them.”