Page 11 of When We Were Reckless
“If it does work…” Which I highly doubted it would. “Then what? She wants to go to a good college. You can’t just fuck that up for her.”
“Yeah, about that. This needs to stay between us. But you’re family, so I know I can trust you. UT Austin is holding a place for her in the fall. My dad knows someone… Anyway, doesn’t matter. Quinn doesn’t know about it.”
“If she ever found out, she’d be pissed.” And I wouldn’t blame her.
“I know. That’s why it needs to stay between us. For now. So what do you say? Will you help us out?”
I should say no. Or tell him the truth. But I couldn’t do either of those things. Everything about this was wrong. I didn’t know if anyone would be able to convince Quinn to give up her California dream, and in my heart, I didn’t believe it was right to play her like this. Yeah, I got it. She’d been through hell, and she was only eighteen.
But did anyone, even the family who loved her, have the right to fuck with her dreams?
If anything, spending time around me would make her want to leave home even more. But maybe this could be a chance to show her that I was still her friend, that I was still looking out for her. I’d let her know that I was sorry for the words I’d said.
Instead of thwarting her plans, I’d find a way to help make her dreams come true. I’d convince her brothers that Quinn wasn’t a kid anymore and that letting her go was the best thing they could do for her.
Even as I devised the plan in my head, I knew it was a shitty one. But I told Mason I’d do whatever I could to help and shoved away the guilt when he thanked me for being a good friend.
Chapter Five
Jesse
The following evening,I parked my bike next to Quinn’s cherry red VW Beetle and strode across the field to the taproom. As I rounded the side of the building, she came out the front door, her arms laden with plates. I watched her serve a family of four sitting on the front patio. She was wearing orange neon Nikes with shorts so short they should be fucking illegal.
Quinn was tiny. Five-foot three and all legs. Naïve and innocent with the most brilliant smile I’d ever seen. A honey blond with these big hazel eyes that changed from brown to green, depending on the light.
The night she’d come over to my house on her eighteenth birthday, I hadn’t seen it coming.
Before that, I’d always thought of her as Mason’s little sister. But that night… there was something different about her. I forgot that she was only eighteen, still in high school. Completely off-limits.
I could blame it on a million things. My confidence had taken a hit, and I’d been in constant pain. My back. My heart. Every bone and muscle in my body. I’d pushed my body to the limits. I rode through the pain, kept a grueling practice schedule in anticipation of the upcoming Supercross season.
At my level, the level I’d been at as an athlete, you couldn’t afford to sit back. You couldn’t afford to lose your edge because then some guy would come along and steal the title right out from under you. So all my life, I’d strived to win, win, win.
After I broke my back and had my third concussion, I was scared to race again. Although I’d never admitted it, I was afraid that I’d fail.
So I had a lot on my mind.
I hadn’t even been thinking about Alessia. Not that night anyway.
When Quinn showed up at my door, her cheeks rosy from the cold, her eyes green and filled with stars—that was how she looked—like she had stars in her eyes. Big dreams and hopes and plans for the future. And yeah, maybe I liked the way she looked at me too. The way she stroked my bruised ego and made me feel like I was the guy of her dreams.
She’d been standing right in front of me, her eyes raised to mine when she said, “There’s only one thing I want for my birthday. I have one birthday wish, and maybe you can make it come true.”
And I think I knew what she was going to answer even before I posed the question. “What’s your wish, Quinn?”
“Kiss me. I want you to kiss me, Jesse.”
Now she turned, about to go back inside when she caught me watching her. Before she had a chance to escape, I erased the distance between us in a few long strides and stopped in front of her. “Hey, Sunshine Girl.”
“Hey, asshole.”
Okay. So Quinn wasn’t going to make it easy. I smiled because it made me happy that she didn’t put up with my shit. She was better than that. Stronger and fiercer.
When she was a kid, I always told her not to settle for any guy who didn’t treat her like a queen. She used to tell me I would be her king. But that was a long time ago.
She planted her hands on her hips. “What are you doing here?”
“Didn’t Mason tell you? I’m the new summer bartender. I’ll be working in the taproom.”
