Page 5 of One Night Entanglement

"What are you saying?" I whisper, scared of what might come out of her mouth.

"If you want to kiss me, Quinn? I wouldn't say no." Her voice is just as soft as mine.

Letting go of the top of the chair takes superhuman effort. "For old times’ sake?"

"If that's what you have to tell yourself, then sure. But I think there's still something between us that isn't finished. That night we broke up? It was the only time we ever fought and we went overboard. We walked away from each other. We weren't done, were we?"

The fuck I was. That night, right after I walked out that door, I wanted to turn around and go back in. It was my pride. My stupid goddamn pride that kept me from apologizing. She hadn't wanted me to join the military, but it was the only way I could see that we'd be able to make it. In the end, because I walked away, it didn't even matter. "No, we weren't done."

Reaching forward, I cup her jaw with my palm, softly at first. Then I can't slow it down. I tunnel my hand to the back of her neck, grab hold, and pull her mouth to mine. Leaning down, I take the kiss. Working my lips against hers, forcing hers open so that I can sweep my tongue along hers. She grips my waist with her fingers, digging her nails into my flesh. We might have kissed for minutes or hours. All I know is when we finally pull apart, Cecily puts her hand over those lips and runs for her bedroom.

As I turn, I know I should follow her, but unlike before, I think she needs this time alone. Cecily needs to come to grips that we aren't done, and so do I.

The next dayI'm still thinking about that damn kiss. In fact, I was up most of the night thinking about it. Although we had dinner and acted like nothing happened or changed, everything has.

"How are you liking it?" Cam asks as he stands next to me in the library. "I started out as an SRO."

"It's not bad. The kids are interesting. The questions they ask blow my mind." I laugh, thinking about one I got this morning. "Like is there a database that has everyone's cell phone numbers in it and we can just search it willy-nilly. It's crazy."

"I know. Some of these kids are more conspiracy theorists than the adults."

I rock back on my heels as I watch the library door open. "Ain't that right? Looks like they're coming in." I tilt my chin at where JT walks in with Emma, Cody, Troy, and his new baby sister. Cam stands at attention, giving a wave to the family as JT takes a seat behind the table with his family behind him. The space is decorated in blue and white, the colors of the University of Kentucky.

On the table there's a letter of intent, and in front of it is a group of media that's gathered around.

As I watch this go down, all I can think of is how amazing it would be to follow in my dad's footsteps the way JT's going to. Except, my dad gave up on me, which is why it hurt so much when Cecily did the same thing.

6

Cecily

It had been a mistake. Not the kiss. Kisses that hot are never a mistake. The mistake had been getting cocky and thinking that I could handle it, that I could have a little make-out session in the kitchen with the man who literally taught me everything I know.

Even after our speedbump of a marriage was supposedly annulled, there really hadn’t been anyone. Oh, I dated. I went out with a few guys. Even slept with one or two while thinking I was single. Part of me feels guilty about that, but I don’t think Quinn was exactly a monk in the decade and a half since we parted ways. And no one can blame you for what you do when you truly have every reason to believe you’re single.

And yet, here I am, feeling more like an adulteress because I kissed him. Because kissing him means that he and I aren’t done. It means that what’s going on between us is a fuck-ton more than just sorting out a clerical error. Thoughts like that shine a big-ass spotlight on all the shit that went sideways, and contrary to what I always liked to tell myself, it wasn’t all him.

I’d pulled a page from my father’s book. I hadn’t just been honest with him and told him I was afraid—afraid of what would happen to him if he joined up. Afraid he would get hurt, that he would come home mangled and broken and someone else. I was afraid to be without him. I was afraid that if we let that much time and space between us, he’d bolt. He’d see that he could have more than me, more than someone who was perfectly content to sit on my ass in the hometown that had never done right by him. I held my breath and stamped my feet like the spoiled little shit I was, and he fucking called me on it.

So when my dad said it was time to fix my little rebellion and get it annulled, I didn’t fight for him. I ran, I hid, I cried… and I let go of the one thing I should have been holding on to for dear life. Because there had only ever been two people in the entirety of my life who were always a safe bet. My grandmother and Quinn Carter.

“Fuck my life,” I breathe. Then I get out of the car and make my way into Liz’s shop. If I’m going to job hunt, I’m going to need to look like I haven’t been doing my own hair. Which I have. Poorly.

“Hey, Cecily! Long time no see!” Liz says, not exactly bright and chipper, but still warm and welcoming.

“How’s my credit here?” I ask. “I need to get my shit together and find a job, but cash is tight.”

“Cut? Color? And if I have to hold you down, we’re doing your damn brows. You ever pick up another pair of tweezers, I swear to you, I will whip your ass up and down Main Street.”

“Color is too expensive. But definitely a cut, and if you want to fix the mangled mess of my eyebrows, I’m not gonna fight you on it.”

“And you don’t have to pay for this with anything but tea,” Lizzie says as she waves me into her chair. “What the hell is Quinn Carter doing in your house?”

“Currently sleeping in the guest room.”

“Then you are dumber than I thought!”

I can’t stop laughing at that. Because Lizzie has no idea just how right she is.

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