Page 87 of Just Let Go

Quinn huffed. “I have not.”

“You said you were going skiing for Jaden. I did not see Jaden anywhere on that video.”

“Seriously? You guys cannot tell me you actually watch Facebook videos.”

“I watch them when I’m fixing my hair,” Hailey said. “They’re a nice break from Jack’s cartoons.”

“I never saw anyone filming me, only adoring fans with phones pointed at Grady,” Quinn said. “I think I should sue someone.”

“Right, you go out in public with Grady Benson, and you don’t expect someone to snap a picture or take a video?” Lucy looked away. “Just wishI’dbeen the one to get the whole story.”

“That was not the whole story,” Quinn said. “It was fiction! They made it look like Grady has been relegated to teaching beginners how to ski when really he was just trying to do something nice.”

Both Hailey and Lucy stared at her with those wide-open eyes that told Quinn they were reading way too much into her defense of him. Thankfully, Gus and Beverly showed up, and Lucy and Hailey gave it a rest.

For now.

Carly and Jaden walked in two minutes after the service started, and Quinn found herself relieved Grady wasn’t with them, no matter how disappointed Jaden would be.

Her nephew sat on the other side of Carly, sulking as usual, every trace of that vibrant, excited kid she’d spent the day with yesterday completely gone. What would it be like to have something in your life that made you feel alive like skiing did for Jaden?

For a fleeting moment, she wondered if Grady felt that way about skiing too, or if it had just become a job for him. He had said it sometimes felt like work. Regardless, the threat of losing it had to hit him hard.

He’d been going through something legitimately distressing, and she’d been nothing but awful to him.

As the music started, Quinn closed her eyes and asked for forgiveness. She hadn’t been welcoming or kind, and despite what she thought she knew, she didn’t have the whole story. What if much of what she’d read about him—the very articles she’d used to form her opinion of him—were as fictitious as the story and video she’d seen this morning?

The thought shamed her.

I’m sorry, Lord.She knew better.

But as the music swelled, she had the distinct impression that God wasn’t the only one who deserved an apology.

Sunday brunch at her father’s house was something Quinn almost never missed. She’d always told herself her commitment to it was because she didn’t want her father to feel lonely, but as she sat in thecar across the street watching Beverly, Judge, and Calvin all filter in through the front door, she had to wonder if maybe she was the one threatened by loneliness.

Throughout the meal, she admired the way they all interacted, with their familiar, comfortable rapport. And when she caught a knowing smile between her father and Beverly, Quinn began to wonder if she’d been too busy to notice something had changed between the two of them.

When her father went to the kitchen to fetch dessert, Quinn followed him.

“What was that about?”

“What?” His expression was guilty and innocent at the same time. She had a hunch the guilty part was real and the innocence was a put-on.

“Are you and Beverly...?”

He stuck his head in the refrigerator and hunted around for something. “What if we are?”

“Dad, it’s great,” she said. “And it’s about time.”

He popped back out, holding a can of Reddi-Wip. “You think so?”

She closed the refrigerator and faced him. “Absolutely. You two are perfect together.”

“Well, don’t make a big thing about it,” he said. “Nothing has to change.”

She smiled in agreement, but she knew it wasn’t true. Things would change—and they should. Her father had moved on with his life. He’d made room for love in his heart.

She was happy for him—so happy... So why did her heart feel alone?

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