make you miss me • q. hughes

29

The moment I'm in Quinn's passenger seat, I reach over and grab his hand. Not to hold. Though, we all know I wouldn't be opposed to that idea. I take his hand and press his palm right over my heart. His fingers splay out toward and over my collarbone. They're freezing and for some reason, it's grounding.

"Do you feel that?" I ask him.

He adjusts his hand slightly, pressing a bit harder to feel how much my heart is racing. "Nervous?"

"No. I think something's wrong medically."

"I think you're nervous to go on a date with me," he teases. How funny would it be if I took his hand and made him slap himself?

"God, no. You're the least nerve-wracking person ever," I lie.

"Yeah, I have nothing on Crosby."

"Am I ever living that down?"

"Hell no."

* * * * *

It's really starting to blur for me. The past. I don't know. Sitting across from Quinn on a date is making it clear how much it's starting to blur in my mind when I truly started liking him. Was it the scar thing? Was it in the kitchen while our friends were all outside? Was it the night we all went to dinner and he put his stupid arm on my chair? Maybe it was at the bar that first night, watching for his reaction to my shit-talking. I don't know anymore.

He's laughing and it blurs even more. We were on the topic of messing with our respective brothers. I don't know how we got there. It all just flows so well with him. Has from the start, when I think about it. We could jump from one thing to another. Granted, usually was from a calm conversation to an argument at the start. That doesn't matter though.

"Atticus and I would make Finch be on his own team against us for street hockey," I say.

"Oh yeah?" He leans forward slightly. "How'd that go?"

"We let him win."

Quinn bursts out laughing. Not that it's much of a burst. I wish he'd truly burst out laughing instead of his quiet little chuckles and laughs. I think it'd be fucking beautiful.

"In our defense, we weren't scoring defensemen," I try to argue but it makes him laugh more. "Oh my god, I hate you."

He calms down a little. His shoulders still slightly moving with his laughs. "Go on a lot of dates with people you hate?"

"Starting now, yeah." It's a slip-up. My hands shoot up to cover my face. I can't believe I just admitted I want to go on more dates when we haven't even finished our first.

"Hey, I don't want to move too fast," he jokes.

"Sorry to be the one to break it to you but you already moved a bit fast."

"I didn't move fast. You did."

My jaw drops, genuinely shocked. "You were the one who pressed play, Hughes."

"How?"

It'd be way too embarrassing and exposing for me to tell him how. That I'd paid that much attention to his eyes and their tendency to flick down to my lips. Even when I had a whole table of people to pay attention to I paid attention to his fingers barely grazing my arm. But he absolutely started this. I don't think I did.

"How did you not?" Not my best work.

"You're the one who invited me into your room." Quinn blushes. Looks down at his basically finished food like it's super interesting. I'm not going to judge. My face has barely cooled down the entire night.