Page 88 of Memories with Fire

Frowning, I bring my hand to her face, brushing some of the hair from it behind her ear. It falls back in her face a second later, so I push it away again. “Baby, you’re not broken.”

“I don’t know if I ever want to talk to my mom again,” she confesses on a quick exhale, like she can’t get the words out fast enough, or like they might burn her if they stay in her mind.

I’ve wondered about that while Hailey was asleep. Jordan gave me that one condition not to ask about her mom, which told me that something must have happened. The fact that Debra was by Hailey’s side before I got hauled off, and she hasn’t been here since I showed up again, was also a major clue that something must have gone down. In time I’ll learn, but there’s no need to push for the answers now.

“You don’t have to. You don’t owe her anything, Hailey,” I tell her, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “And you don’t need to make any decisions about it today, either. It’ll come in time.”

She curls back into me, resting her head on my chest, fitting perfectly against my body and beneath my arm wrapped around her. I settle back in, my fingers resuming their gentle caress when she lifts her hand and holds it up in front of us. My eyes land on the ring around her finger, and there’s nothing but a smile on my face seeing it there.

“I think I really like having your ring on my finger,” she murmurs.

Dang. If that doesn’t make my heart want to explode straight out of my chest so it can sing to the entire world about how the prettiest girl around likes my ring. My mark.

“One day, when you’re ready, we’ll upgrade it,” I say, reaching out and pressing my fingers beneath hers. Hers curl around mine, and I pull her hand closer to get a better view of the ring.

“I don’t know. I like this one and what it represents.”

“You can wear them both, then.”

She tilts her head up to me, and despite looking tired and a tad drugged, she smiles brighter than I think I’ve ever seen. “Thank you for coming back to me.”

“I told you we’d be together again one day. I could never get over you, Freckles. Never-ending is just that.”

EPILOGUE

HAILEY

Four MonthsLater

“It’s a secret, Quinn. You can’t tell a single soul.”

An exasperated, very unladylike sound comes from her throat. “What the hell would I tell people anyway? Oh, hey, my best friend and her boyfriend blindfolded and kidnapped me and won’t tell me where they’re taking me?”

“She’s kidding,” Luke says to the driver from the front seat of the rideshare we’re all in. “We didn’t kidnap her.”

“That really kind of depends on your definition of kidnap, now, doesn’t it?” she retorts with a huff, crossing her arms over her chest. “You guys realize it’s our second night in Vegas, and the only thing I want to do is go out with everyone else and party it up, right?”

“Which we’re going to do,” I reassure from beside her in the backseat. “We just have a pitstop first.”

“A pitstop which made me leave the pool an hour and a half early to get ready, only to find out I got bamboozled by you two,” she grumbles. Suddenly she sits up in her seat and leans towards me and the front where Luke is. “Wait. Are you guys taking me to some weird sex club? If you wanted a threesome, all you needed to do was ask.”

“Quinn!” I admonish.

“I’m sorry, but the answer is no. I love you both, but I can’t fuck either of you. We work together and it would upset the balance.”

“She’s kidding,” Luke tells the driver again, running a hand through hair that has completely grown back to what it was like when we first met. Long enough I can run my fingers through it and hold onto it when he’s?—

I need to hold thoughts like that at bay until later. Much later. Easier said than done on any given day, but so much harder when I’m ovulating and he’s looking like a delicious snack I want to fill me.

It’s not like we’re trying. We aren’t. We’ve talked about kids, and we both want them, but after losing so much time together, we want to enjoy each other for now. One day in the future, though, we’ll have them. Not that my body understands that decision, especially when I’m at this point in my cycle. It just wants him. All. The. Freaking. Time.

Then again, so does the rest of me.

“We are not taking you to a sex club,” I hiss at her, rolling my eyes as I cross my arms over my chest. “Can you just relax for a second? You’ll understand when we get there.”

“Let the record state that I hate driving around Vegas not being able to see anything,” she says with another huff, but falls back against the seat.

With Quinn quiet, finally, I lean forward and slip a hand over the shoulder of the front seat where Luke is sitting. My fingers move along his soft, button-down shirt. It’s a green-blue color that matches his eyes, and I couldn’t love it more.

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