Page 85 of Finders Keepers
“I think that’s what happened to us. We got too wrapped up in the stories we were telling ourselves about…well, ourselves. And each other.” He turns toward me now and rests a hand on my hip. “My biggest regret in life is that I missed what was real and right in front of me back then. That I didn’t see you trying to prove yourself to me the same way I was trying to prove myself to you. That I ghosted you instead of facing what I’d done. That I wasn’t around when you needed me, when your dad got hurt. I will never forgive myself for that.”
“Quentin…”
“I told myself you couldn’t possibly want me unless I hoodwinked you into it. Part of me still thinks that, if I’m being honest. But I’m going to try so hard, Nina, to stop telling myselfthat story now. I’m hoping we might start a new one together. I know you might have changed your mind about staying—”
“I haven’t,” I say. “I haven’t changed my mind at all. In fact, the library formally offered me Mrs. MacDonald’s position yesterday morning. I’ve already accepted.”
It’s true that I considered taking the job at Malbyrne and going back to Boston in the immediate aftermath of our fight. But then the other day, staring at that puzzle box on my nightstand, I found myself thinking about Julius James Fountain, wearing pink paisley pajamas that matched his chair. He believed that fear was just a shorthand way to discover everything you loved and would do anything to keep. And that made me realize that, even without Quentin in the picture, what I was most afraid of losing were my parents and apple fritters and Hanako’s bar. The special collections room and Mr. Farina’s booty shorts and the scent of honeysuckle. I think my heart is here now, whether it’s broken or whole.
Obviously I prefer whole. But as much as I want to be Quentin’s Nina, I know I don’thaveto be in order to find happiness. I understand now that love, when it’s real, doesn’t require you to be someone different. It just makes you even more solidly yourself.
And the fear of getting it all wrong, getting hurt…Maybe it’s just a sign that you’re doing it right.
“You…you did?” There’s so much hope in his expression that it’s a physical pain inside my breastbone.
I nod. “It’s what I want. I want to be here. And I prefer it to be with you. Because I love you, Quentin. And I’m sorry that the treasure wasn’t worth more, but—”
I’m kissed silent, the rest of my words swallowed up beforethey make it past my lips. “The treasure is worth everything,” he says. “Because for me the treasure is you, Nina. And it always has been.” Quentin punctuates the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me with a small laugh that rises to the very top of my mental catalog’sFavoriteslist, filed underThe moment I knew, deep in my soul, that there would never be anyone else for me.
Epilogue
Two months later…
“Oh my god,Quentin, you didn’t,” I groan, slapping a hand over my eyes as if I haven’t seen my boyfriend’s naked body a million times. Though, to be fair, I have not seen it sketched out in pencil by mymotherand hanging in a gallery. Except…wait…I peek through my fingers. “Oh. You…actually didn’t?” Because that is definitely Quentin Bell’s face, including the scatter of faded freckles beneath his eyes, and that rarely seen serious, almost warrior-like expression. But that isnotQuentin’s chest, or his stomach, or his penis. And I should know.
He takes a sip of his champagne. “Patti ran out of time in class and was left with a headless man. So I agreed to be the head.”
“You seem very nonchalant about this.”
Quentin shrugs. “I’m comfortable in my own skin,” he says.
“Except that isn’t even your skin,” I point out.
“Guess I’m comfortable in other people’s too.” There’s a wink and a grin before he wraps his arms around me and pulls meback against his chest. “Does that sound like a sexy thing or a murder-y thing?” he asks, lips brushing my ear.
“Kind of both?”
“Neat.”
“When did you even pose for her without me noticing?”
“While you were in Belfast.”
Sabrina and Malcolm eloped last month, and I was extremely honored when they asked me if I could hop on a plane to be one of their witnesses. I was worried that things with Sabrina would change when I decided to turn down the new term position at Malbyrne, officially closing the door on my career in academia. That we wouldn’t be friends in the same way now that we weren’t on the exact same trajectory. But, of course, the only difference is that the small sting of envy I sometimes had to hide from her has dissipated. Now we’re closer than ever.
I sigh. “I really should know by now not to leave you alone with my parents.”
“There you are, Ninabean!” Quentin releases me and my mom wraps me in a big hug, greeting me as if I didn’t see her two hours ago when she left the house to get drinks with her classmates before the community center’s end-of-summer art show. “What do you think?”
“I think you drew my boyfriend’s head on someone else’s nude body.”
“I did!” she confirms, filled with glee.
My father has fully turned away, pretending to look at a painting of a dog.
“Isn’t that a little…Dr. Frankenstein of you?” I ask.
She pauses, considering, as if she’s an art critic and not the artist herself. “I think it makes it more interesting. And Quentin is so handsome.” Her fingers dart out and he allows her topinch his cheek. “Much handsomer than the model was, no offense to him.”
