Page 68 of More than Paper

“Is this a bad time for me to be here?” I ask quietly.

He brushes the hair off my face. “No. It’s never a bad time for you to be here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. And don’t ever question that.”

I take a deep breath.

“Quinn, I want you here. All the time. I’ve missed you terribly.”

“I’ve missed you terribly.”

He rubs his thumb over my lips.

“Did you talk to your brother?”

“Ugh. Why do you have to bring that up?”

“Because I know it’s been bothering you, and you love him. Did you meet up with him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

I look away. “I’m not ready to.” What I don’t tell him is that my brother and I had a long exchange of text messages that didn’t result in anything good. He also had my mom call me to lecture me on how I shouldn’t repeat the sins of her past and present.

All my brother and mother did was fuel the fire. I’m angry at them both. They have no right to assume Jamison and I are anything like my father or mother’s situation.

The more I get to know Jamison, the more I’m falling for him. We talk, FaceTime, text, and email daily. While the flowers he sends every day are beautiful, what I love most are the cute and funny notes.

Jamison shows me he’s always thinking of me. One day, I mentioned I was stuck in the office and starving but not leaving anytime soon, and he had lunch delivered. Another time, I was having an awful day. My boss was in one of his moods, and when I left work, a private driver was standing in the lobby with my name on a sign. He took me to a spa where I had a massage, facial, pedicure, and manicure.

There are so many ways he surprises me, and I stopped telling him to not spend money on me. He reminds me over and over that he told me the last night I was in New York he wanted to take care of me, and I realize that this is his way of doing it when we are apart.

I push all the guilt and voices of my mother and brother to the back of my head and keep reminding myself that I’m not my mother, and Jamison is not my father.

“Quinn, I don’t want you not to have a relationship with your brother. He’s had some time to calm down. Surely he’s come to his senses by now.”

I look away.

Jamison turns my face toward him. “You did talk to him, then?”

“Just through text.”

“And?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Quinn—”

I put my fingers over his lips. “Can we just concentrate on you and me while I’m here and not anyone else? Our time is limited as it is.”

He takes a deep breath. “Okay. We can discuss that later.”

“Or never.”

“Quinn!”

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