"HEY, MOSES, WHAT was that drink you made me last night?" Dylan asked.
"White Devil."
"Why is it called the White Devil?" Quinn asked.
He smiled. "Because it looks good, goes down well, gets you drunk fast, and gives you a hell of a hangover the following morning."
"That explains the condition I was in when I woke."
"What made you want to drink last night?" Quinn asked.
Jake walked through the door, and Dylan distracted Quinn by pointing and saying, "Hey, look who's here."
As he reached them, she got up and wrapped her arms around him.
"And who is this lovely lady?" he asked.
"This is Quinn Peters. Quinn, meet my best friend, Jackson Howard."
"I prefer Jake," he said as they shook hands.
"Moses, could you please give us the usual?" Dylan turned to Quinn. "What are you having?"
"I'll have gin and tonic," she said.
"Do you guys want to sit at the counter, or should we get a table?" Dylan asked.
Jake looked around. It was early, so the bar was not yet full, but since it was Friday night, it was just a matter of time. "A table would be nice," he said.
They got a table, and one of the waiters brought over their drinks.
"So, Quinn, I hear you're on the verge of ruining Dylan's carefully cultivated reputation at the park," Jake said.
Quinn gazed at Dylan as she answered. "I was, but she fixed it."
"She did? How did you do that?"
Dylan shamefully recalled how she'd barked at the young woman's overture earlier that day.
"I was in a bad mood," she said defensively.
"When are you ever not?" Jake and Quinn asked in unison. They looked at each other and laughed.
"I didn't invite you guys here so that you could team up and make fun of me," Dylan complained.
"You must be something special. Dylan never lets me meet any of her lady friends," Jake said.
Dylan didn't know why she'd thought it'd be a good idea to have Jake and Quinn at the same table. She was obviously going to be sorry for her lapse in judgment.
"It's a pleasure to meet you," Quinn said.
Dylan ordered another round of drinks. If the current tag team conversation was any precursor, she was going to need it.
"So Quinn, what do you do?" Jake asked.
"I'm still in school, but right now I'm on a break. What about you guys?"
"I'm a computer engineer, and Dylan here owns this place," Jake said.
Quinn's eyes cut to Dylan. "You do? You never told me that."
"You never asked," Dylan said.
"What's it called?" Quinn asked.
Jake raised an eyebrow. "The bar?"
"Yeah, the bar."
Dylan chuckled. "It's called 'The Bar,' just like you said. And that's why I spend so much time here. I live here."
"Where?"
"She has an apartment upstairs," Jake supplied helpfully.
"Oh, that's convenient."
"How well do you two know each other? I don't want to put anyone on the spot," Jake said.
"Not well enough," Dylan said wryly.
She felt she knew Quinn pretty well, considering she'd met her entire family. She knew the kind of people they were, and also that Michael character. But Quinn didn't know her well.
"How long have you two known each other?" Quinn asked.
"Years. We were neighbors growing up, so we went to the same schools," Jake said.
"Was Dylan always this way?"
Dylan jumped on that. "Always what way?"
Jake chuckled. "Yeah, pretty much. She was an angry kid."
"I was not an angry kid!"
"Have you two ever had a falling out?" Quinn prodded.
"Once or twice." Jake gave Dylan a pointed look. "Dylan slept with one of my sisters. When I found out, I went crazy on her. Didn't talk to her for a whole day."
"Oh."
"Jake," Dylan said with a warning note in her voice, "I thought we decided we'd never share that story."
An awkward silence descended on the table, and in the conversational lull, Dylan noticed the bar was starting to fill up. She looked at Quinn and wondered what she was thinking.
"Come on, it happened, I forgave you, it's in the past," Jake said.
"In my defense, your sister and I were both drunk, and for all we know, maybe nothing even happened," Dylan said.
"How many sisters do you have?" Quinn asked.
"Two. One older, one younger—Casey and Terry."
"And Dylan slept with..."
"Casey," Jake supplied.
Dylan exhaled loudly, and both Jake and Quinn looked at her. "Come on, you can't talk about me as though I'm not here."
"Quinn's just trying to get to know you," Jake said.
"She can do that on her own time," Dylan said.
"Fair enough." Jake turned to Quinn. "Do you mind if I get to know you?"
"No, not at all," she said.
Jake nodded. "Cool, now that's the spirit."
Dylan was interested in hearing what Quinn had to say, so she feigned disinterest while listening intently as the background noise in the bar got louder.
"Do you have a boyfriend?" Jake asked.
"No."
"Girlfriend?"
Quinn shyly shook her head.
"What are you studying?"
"Law."
"Wait a minute," Dylan interjected. "The first day we met, I asked you if you were a lawyer and you said no."
"I'm studying law. I'm not a lawyer yet."
"Just like a lawyer to split that hair," Dylan muttered.
The alcohol was starting to give them all a buzz. Jake was making fun of Dylan, as he usually did, and Dylan reciprocated. They made sure to include Quinn in their banter, and by the time Jake was leaving, it was quite late and they were all drunk. Dylan couldn't let Quinn drive home in that condition, so she took her upstairs to her apartment.
The living area and the kitchen were one spacious room separated by a partition that served as a counter. There were three long stools along the marble countertop, which Dylan enjoyed using for meals. Her living space was well furnished with tasteful decor, which made the room feel warm and welcoming.
When Dylan's father was alive, the apartment had been a mess. There wasn't much she could do to keep it neat. Dylan cooked, cleaned, and generally took care of him. Long before her father had passed away, Moses taught Dylan how to run the business because her father had barely been able to function for some time before his death.
When he died and she was left on her own, Dylan considered moving, but Jake helped her redesign the apartment into the clean, lovely home it now was. She'd taken her father's bedroom, since it was larger of the two, and converted her smaller one into an office.
"Use the bedroom, I'll take the couch," she offered.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I don't mind." Dylan shrugged. "I end up falling asleep on the couch most nights anyway."
"I really like the apartment. It's so..."
When Quinn didn't finish the statement, Dylan looked at her curiously. "So what?"
"So...unlike you."
Dylan didn't know what Quinn meant by that, but she took it as a compliment.
"I mean it's warm and cozy and welcoming, which is the exact opposite of who you try to appear to be," Quinn said as she walked around.
"Thanks, I guess." Dylan went to the kitchen and got herself a beer.
"You want one?"
"Sure."
Dylan wondered whether Quinn had ever been so drunk before. She spoke slowly and with a soft slur. Her movements were slightly uncoordinated.
"You sure about that beer?" Despite her own questionable condition, Dylan knew that she could handle more, and she was safely at home. She wasn't so sure about Quinn's capacity, and she didn't want her to overdo it.
"I'm sure. Don't you trust me?"
Dylan shook her head. "I haven't seen you drunk before, so...no."
"Sometimes I get a little crazy. You'll see."
"I'm not so sure I want to. Did you call home to tell them you're safe?"
"I called Brian. He expressed his disapproval since I'm not really allowed to sleep out."
"Not allowed," Dylan repeated.
"They worry something bad could happen," Quinn said, accepting the open bottle of beer Dylan held out to her.
"Why? Has something happened before?"
"Not really. I was arrested for vandalism once, but that's about it." Dylan laughed.
She sat down and took a sip of her beer. "Vandalism?"
"Yeah, about a year ago at a party in school." Quinn took a seat across from Dylan. "I was drunk, so I don't remember most of it, but when I woke up, I was in jail. The following day at school, my friends told me what happened. Apparently, we trashed the house, the cops came, everyone ran, but I wasn't fast enough because I was drunk."
The way Quinn told the story, with the slur, the story itself, and the image of Quinn blacked out in a jail cell cracked Dylan up. She couldn't stop laughing.
"Haven't you ever done something stupid while you were drunk?" Quinn asked.
"Hmm, let me think. Apparently, I slept with my best friend's sister, which prompted him not to speak to me for a whole day. Then there was the accident with the raccoon, though I wasn't really drunk that time. And there were a few other silly, insignificant things," Dylan said.
"Like what? Tell me, I want to know."
Quinn's energy had risen, and Dylan wondered how long it'd be before the crazy Quinn emerged. "I can't."
"Why not? Is it something embarrassing?"
"I don't know, I guess it depends on how you look at it."
"Then tell me. Let me be the judge," Quinn insisted.
Dylan berated herself for bringing up the subject. She should've just pretended she'd never done anything silly while drunk. "I started drinking pretty much the same time I started having sex, which was at age fifteen. My dad drank a lot, and I really hated it because it took away a little bit of him with each passing day. I guess he didn't care, not when he was drunk, anyway. He'd get abusive and mean, but when he was sober, he was good to me."
She took a sip of beer and swallowed it slowly, enjoying the burning sensation down her throat before she resumed.
"One night he came home, as usual, he'd had a few bottles. He'd talk a lot when he was drunk, and that was when he'd get abusive. Verbally, of course, he never laid a hand on me. Anyway, he started going on about how much I reminded him of my mother and how sometimes he hated it and couldn't bear to look at me. He went on and on about how much he'd loved her, and how much he resented that she'd left me behind."
It happened a long time ago but recalling what he'd said still hurt. "Long story short, when he blacked out, I went to the fridge and drank his beer. I hated it—the taste, the feel of it as it trickled down my throat. I couldn't understand why he enjoyed drinking so much, not until later, when I discovered there are other types of liquor besides beer."
Quinn's expression remained neutral.
"That night I took his six-pack and went to my mother's grave. I drank them all. At some point, the taste wasn't so bad anymore. I talked to my mother's tombstone, ranting silly, frustrated things. By the time I was on the sixth bottle, I was plastered and my emotions were all over the place. I cried until I passed out."
It was a pathetic story, and Dylan had never told it to anyone before. She had no idea why she shared it with Quinn. "That was stupid," she finished.
"How did they die?"
"What?" Dylan emptied her bottle.
"Your parents, how did they die?"
"My mother died when I was eight. A vein ruptured in her brain, and my dad, well, the alcohol killed him about five years ago."
"You said that you used to hyperventilate after he died. Did you also have panic attacks?"
"Every time I remembered I was alone. It scared me and I'd get panic attacks, but over time I guess I got used to it."
Realizing she was talking too much because she never shared such personal information, Dylan cleared her throat and got to her feet. "You want another beer?"
Quinn shook her head. "Maybe later. I haven't finished this one yet."
When Dylan got back to the living room, she found Quinn at her stereo.
"How do you turn this on?"
Dylan showed her the remote, and a couple of minutes later the room was vibrating with the rumba. "Can you dance?" Dylan asked.
"I think so."
Before Dylan could ask what that meant, Quinn started dancing to the music as though she'd been doing it all her life. "Is there anything you can't do?"
Quinn was a lovely dancer, and as Dylan watched her, it felt as if a river that had been dammed up inside her had begun to flow free.
"Have you ever been in love?" Quinn asked, dancing gracefully.
"Why do you want to know?"
"I'm trying to get to know you."
"What if I don't want you to know me?"
Quinn arched an eyebrow. "Why are you getting touchy?"
"I'm not getting touchy. I just don't feel comfortable sharing that kind of information with you."
"All right, what if I share something that makes me uncomfortable? Then will you tell me?"
Dylan thought about it and decided to give it a chance. "All right, sure, go ahead."
"I've never had sex."
Dylan choked on her beer. "What?"
Quinn didn't look at Dylan. She just continued dancing with her almost empty bottle of beer.
"Your turn, have you ever been in love?"
"No, and I can't believe you've never had sex. What the heck are you waiting for?"
"The right person," Quinn said softly.
Dylan didn't mean to laugh, she could tell Quinn was being serious, but she knew Quinn expected it. "Such things don't exist."
"For some people they do."
"You mean to tell me that you won't have sex until you meet the right person?"
Quinn nodded emphatically. "Yep."
"What about Michael? After you guys get married, do you not plan on consummating your marriage on your wedding night?"
"Things could change."
"I have to say, I admire your optimism."
"Thank you. How come you've never fallen in love?"
"I don't believe in that stuff."
"Oh, grumpy, you never cease to surprise me."
Dylan frowned. "Did you just call me grumpy?"
"Yeah. You don't believe in anything. Why do you think you're so angry at everything and everyone?"
"Still psychoanalyzing me, I see. I thought you were a lawyer, not a psychiatrist."
"I'm not psychoanalyzing you, it's just who you are. Anyone can see it from a mile away."
"Okay, while we're on the subject of who we are, then tell me, Quinn, who are you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Who is Quinn Peters? Is she the girl who grew up in a strict traditional background, who does everything her family wants?"
Quinn stopped dancing and peered at her. Dylan stood up and went over to her. She took the bottle from her hand and got even closer.
"Is she the girl who steals dogs, vandalizes people's homes, and stubbornly sticks to a person who sparks her interest, even though that person expresses no interest in return?"
Quinn's brown eyes gazed into hers.
"Or is she stuck somewhere in between?" Dylan reached for a tendril of hair on Quinn's face, tucked it behind her ear, and waited for her answer.
"I don't know who I am," Quinn said simply.
Dylan could see the honesty in Quinn's eyes. She touched her face, trailed her hand over the soft cheek, and then leaned forward and placed a light kiss on her lips. "You should go to bed, it's late."
Quinn nodded, and Dylan guided her to the bedroom.
When Dylan was on her way back to the couch, Quinn said, "Please don't leave. There's plenty of room for us both to sleep here." She scooted over and made room for Dylan.
"All right."
She got two T-shirts from the closet, handed one to Quinn, and left the room to give her some privacy while she went to the bathroom to change. After a few minutes, she went back to the bedroom and found Quinn fast asleep.
If someone had told her she'd someday meet such a spontaneous, weird, and maybe a little awesome, though overly friendly person, Dylan would've found it difficult to believe. If someone had told her that person would be asleep in her bed a few days later, she would've thought that fortuneteller insane.
Dylan didn't realize how drunk she was until she lay down on the bed. By the time her head settled on the pillow, she was falling asleep.