Page 110 of Saving Sparrow
Quentin didn’t hear him, it seemed, because he only had eyes for the hand I now fisted in my lap. The hand I’d had on Miguel’s warm skin. A muscle in his cheek twitched as he gritted out, “Lunch is ready.”
Elliott
Then
I stole paranoid glances at Quentin and Miguel, trying to read their body language. Was I in trouble? Did theyknow?
Everything seemed fine by the time we took our food and drinks out to the patio. Quentin wore his usual cocky grin, like he was in on a joke we had no clue about. Most times, it just meant he had dirty thoughts running through his mind.
Miguel tore into his sandwich, groaning between bites, crowning Quentin the sandwich king. I chewed and swallowed, not tasting anything, wondering if I’d imagined the tension I thought I’d felt.
“You okay, pretty girl?” Quentin played with the shell of my ear, making me shiver. I nodded, too scared my voice would give me away.
The patio table was huge; each of us could’ve had more than enough elbow room if we’d wanted to. Yet we sat painfully close, both their chairs anchoring mine.
Quentin shoved the last of his sandwich into his mouth before slouching in his seat, resting a hand over his stomach. He gazed out over the pool, the fingers of his left hand now rubbing my earlobe.
Miguel kissed my cheek once he was done eating, then rested his head on my shoulder as he stared into the backyard as well. I pressed my nose to his hair, breathing in his citrus shampoo as he looped his arm through mine. Quentin took up the same position on my other side.
We stayed like that for a long time, content without words, latched on to each other. And then Dylan came home.
He appearedin front of us, blocking out the sun. Miguel and Quentin stiffened but didn’t move, like maybe they were just irritated he was there, not embarrassed by the way we held on to each other.
We’d pushed away from the table so Quentin and Miguel could throw a leg over each of mine. Their heads still rested on my shoulders, my hands resting on their thighs.
“Boys,” he greeted, his green eyes—identical to Quentin’s—focused on me.
“Um, hi, Mr. McAllen.” I tried to sit up, to push their legs off me, but Quentin wasn’t having it. He pressed me back into my seat with a hand on my chest.
“What are you doing here?” he snarled at his father. Miguel said nothing.
“I live here, Quentin.” Dylan slipped his hands into the pants pockets of his suit, fully composed.
“Since when?” Quentin scoffed, standing. He stood an inch taller than his father, and he took pride in every centimeter of it. “Why don’t you just go back to whatever hole you crawled out of until we leave for college? We’ll finally be done with you then.”
Quentin had already signed Wembly’s letter of intent. He’d be playing for the Hawks come fall. Miguel and I got our acceptance letters too.
“If you’d taken my calls, I wouldn’t have had to make the trip.”
In all the time I’d known Quentin and Miguel, I’d only ever met Dylan once before. He’d been nice enough, although he hadn’t said more than hello before vanishing back into the house and then leaving again. But the tension between him and his son sucked the air out of even an outdoor space.
“And why the fuck would I want to talk to you?” Quentin’s crudeness gave Dylan pause, but he remained cool.
“You had papers sent to my office. Did you really think I’d sign them without speaking to you first?”
“Yeah, because why not?”
“The rules of the trust state that you have to be a high school graduate before gaining access to it.”
“What difference does less than a handful of months make, Dylan?” His father flinched at the use of his first name. Miguel gripped the armsof his chair. I rested my hand on top of one of his. He turned it over, lacing his fingers through mine. “We’re not gonna live on campus, which means we need to get an apartment. That takes money, and I’m tired of you thinking you have some kind of hold on us by keeping the fridge stocked, the house cleaned, and just enough money on the credit cards to keep the gas tanks full.”
It was true. He and Miguel had everything they needed, so long as they didn’t go too far from home. They had credit cards, which Dylan paid the bills for, but the limits weren’t enough to survive on if they left. Sometimes I wondered if he kept up this passive-aggressive control because he wanted a relationship with his son and thought this was the only way to get it, or because he was as cruel as Miguel and Quentin claimed. Hadn’t this been the way he’d treated their mothers?
“I can’t change the stipulations of the—”
“Liar!” Quentin roared. Miguel squeezed my hand tighter. I wasn’t afraid of Quentin. I knew his heart. I knew it was breaking right now—whether he’d admit it or not—and it made mine break too. Miguel gazed up at Quentin as though he felt the same way.
Dylan wouldn’t budge—his stance, and the way he glared at Quentin made that clear. Quentin’s next words made me realize what Dylan truly wanted. He wanted Quentin to beg. He wanted to humble him.
