Quinn
Seven and a half hours on a plane and one awkward limo ride later, I'm standing in Cash's new home in Santa Anna. Cash drops the keys on the little table by the door, and I look around. His apartment has two bedrooms off a sizeable main loft area with a beautiful view over several city blocks and across the ocean. It's messier than I expected, with clothes tossed over the back of a sofa, dirty dishes in the sink, and dust on the coffee table. I don't understand...Cash was always so neat. He follows the path of my eyes and then back at me, blushing knowingly.
"Sorry about the mess," he grumbles, and I weave a little on my feet. He studies me, pushing his hat off his head and mussing his hair with one hand. "I wasn't exactly expecting company."
"I'm not judging," I assure him, carefully stepping into his apartment.
I slide off my jacket and see his new life without me for the first time. It's weird to be here alone with him and see how different and alien everything familiar looks after we've been apart for what feels like forever.
He walks into the living room and motions for me to follow. From behind, he asks, "Are you regretting this yet?"
I start to respond to this—I've been regretting it from the moment I agreed to it, but I'm not about to tell him that—but he keeps talking.
"If the only reason you decided to come was because you pity me or because you feel obligated, then I don't want you here. You barely said two words the entire flight...you refuse to look at me...You're not exactly easy to read, Mittens."
"Okay, Brooks." Stopping in front of a door, I turn and look up at him. "You're going to lecture me about not being easy to read? You're the one who hid a secret wife from me. Is it shocking that I'm scared to get too close to you again?"
I don't mean to sound flippant, but I do. At this moment, I realize how long it's been since I stepped on that plane to Boston. How different our lives have become without each other. Instead of a life full of passion, impulse, and excitement, my life now is structured, controlled, and focused. Yet somehow, it's emptier than it's ever been.
He nods, and the silence stretches for a long, weird beat until he says, "I'm going to take a shower." He looks down the hall and then back to me, gaze moving from my face to my feet. "The spare bedroom is done in the hall."
He turns, ducking his head into the bathroom before slipping entirely inside and closing the door behind him with a quiet click.
I carry my bag toward the spare bedroom, and when I walk inside, I toss it in the corner and flop on the bed. I sigh and take in the white walls, tall wood dresser, and matching nightstand on my right. The bedroom looks staged. It reminds me of a cookie-cutter showroom for some luxury condo. None of this feels like the Cash I grew to love. It's cold and plain, and I can't quite put my finger on it, but something's missing.
The drawer on the nightstand is slightly open. I spy a worn photo album tucked inside and feel my heart sink into my stomach. I'm pretty sure this must belong to Cash. I grew curious because he'd never shown me any photos of himself as a child.
I look around for a moment, debating whether or not I should look inside or close the drawer and pretend I didn't see anything. What I should do is keep my emotions in check and keep my head straight. I'm only here to make sure he doesn't ruin his career by not treating his concussion, not here to look for answers in an old photo album or let my heart nostalgically swell until I'm considering giving him a second chance. But the longer I stare at the album, the more I feel a prodding feeling in my stomach that tells me I need to look inside.
With a sigh, I flip open to the first page.
The first photo has a glowing honey-haired woman, no older than thirty, hugging two cute little boys. I swallow hard at the realization that this woman is Cash's mother, Marie. God, she is so beautiful. A small smile touches my lips, knowing those two adorable little boys sitting on her lap are Cash and his brother, Cory. I run my finger over the photo, thinking Cash can't be older than seven or eight. His big blue eyes are full of mischief, and he misses his two front teeth. His brother Cory looks like a mini version of Cash but with brown eyes and no dimples.
I flip through the album, and page after page is filled with childhood photos of Cash and Cory—playing hockey, fishing off a dock, swimming at the lake, holding a toad, and playing with friends. A timeline of his life unspooling on the pages. It's strange to see this version of Cash, young and playful and goofing around with his younger brother. I can feel the happy memories pulsing off the pages and see how much they loved each other.
I flip to another page and find a picture of Cash wearing a Tornadoes ball cap on his head, with a Tornadoes jersey over a three-piece suit. He must have just been drafted to the Tornadoes. His arm is wrapped around Cory, and to the left of Cory stands Daniela.
All the air vacuums out of my lungs when I see her in the photograph—frozen in time, celebrating the happiest and greatest moment of accomplishment in Cash's life. She looks stunning, dressed in a slim black skirt, heels, and a dark emerald silk blouse, with long strawberry blonde hair brushed and smoothed down her back. She's young and smiley and proud of Cash. The glimmer of a diamond ring on her left-hand catches my attention. But the way Cory's arm is wrapped around her shoulders makes me question whether her engagement ring isn't from Cash but rather from Cory.
Could Cash have been telling me the truth? Was he in this relationship with Daniela because of his brother? I stare at the photo, and my heart pounds painfully. My eyes blur with unshed tears. I'm reminded just how real she is, how much Cash's past destroyed us, and the reality of his secret relationship with this beautiful girl.
I hear the faucet turn off and the bathroom door open, and then he calls from the hallway, "Quinn?"
His voice startles me, and I panic, flipping the photo album shut, stuffing it back inside the nightstand drawer, and appearing in the doorway. "Yeah?" I shout back.
His shoulders fill a doorway down and across the hall, and I feel oddly unsettled. He's shirtless, with only a towel wrapped around his waist. His hair is wet and slicked back, and tiny water droplets trickle down his defined chest and abdomen.
"Are you hungry?" He gives me a dark grin. Leaning against the wall, he says, "I'm thinking I'll run out, grab a few groceries, and make us dinner."
"You'll do no such thing," I scold him.
His expression straightens, and he looks away, looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows.
"This is exactly why Dr. Henderson wanted me here," I say, voice firm. "To protect you from yourself. You're supposed to be resting."
"Okay. You're right," he interrupts quietly. He looks back at me, his eyes making the slow circuit of my face. "Why don't we order Chinese take-out? Like we used to."
I feel the reminder of our past sink like a weight in my chest. It will never be the way it was. Cash and I will never be that couple again, and it's hard to accept. There's something so utterly defeating in that. An intelligent woman wouldn't have agreed to seclude herself with an ex-boyfriend who broke her heart for two days; she would've let him hire a home nurse and return to her new life in Boston. But deep down, I know all the reminders—what my heart felt during our once most tender and intimate moments—brought me here.
"No take-out," I say. "I'll run out, grab groceries, and make us dinner. You'll lie down and rest, exactly like Dr. Henderson told you."
"You're a terrible cook," he says quietly, teasing but also not. He's had a fair share of cooking fails from me, including burnt grilled cheese sandwiches and overly salted tomato sauce.
"Can we focus on what to eat, not how terrible of a cook I am?" I ask.
He keeps his steady gaze on me and considers for a moment. "You're going to return with groceries? This isn't some excuse to make a run for it?"
The memory of me walking away from him—twice—evokes a rush of aggravation. How dare he throw that in my face right now. Why does he always have to push the limits? Or more pointedly, my buttons.
Discomfort squeezes my chest. "Don't make this about you and me."
Cash smirks. "You and me? There's a you and me?"
"You know what I mean."
Cash seems unconvinced, but I don't care. I don't regret walking away from him. After his drunken stupor and finding out about his secret wife, I didn't have any other choice but to walk—no, wait—run away from the man who broke my heart.
"I'm here for the next forty-eight hours. I'm not going anywhere." My heart does a painful flip. "This is your health we're talking about. It's not personal."
Cash bites back a smile, his green eyes doing a seductive sweep from my head down to my toes.
"I don't want to eat Chinese take-out," I ramble. Too much like old times. "And since you're a self-proclaimed chef, you can order me around in the kitchen from the bar stool."
"I can live with that." His expression straightens, and he looks into the kitchen. "I always did like ordering you around."
I suck in a breath. I know exactly what type of ordering around he's referring to—the kind when we were together—in bed, curled around each other.
"I'll be back soon." I swallow, turn away from him, and walk out the door.
_______________
On the way to the grocery store, I can't help but Google natural remedies to help cure a concussion. Besides getting adequate rest, eating foods high in antioxidants, and drinking lots of water, the following few suggestions include fish oil and mixing powdered turmeric in water. It doesn't take me long before I check out the grocery store with bags full of leafy greens, blueberries, salmon, fish oil capsules, and a jar of powdered turmeric.
I walk into Cash's apartment thirty minutes later, and when I turn the corner, I see Cash lying shirtless on the sofa, his perfect torso stretched out and bare. His bottom half was covered only by a flimsy gray knit blanket.
"Hey," he mumbles when he sees me and reaches up to scratch his jaw. "Did you happen to get any Tylenol? My head won't stop pounding."
I nod and toss a bottle of Tylenol at him. "I sure did."
He catches it quickly and sits on the sofa's edge. His approving grin shines in my direction, and I wish he'd put some damn clothes on. He runs his hand absentmindedly through his lush honey hair and stands up. I swallow the lump in my throat and turn away from him.
"Ready to order me around?" I ask over my shoulder and walk into the kitchen.
"Always," he says, and I can hear the smirk in his voice.
I place the bags on the counter and begin to unpack the groceries. Cash sits on the stool beside me, bare-chested with only a pair of running shorts. I can't stand how good he looks, sitting there watching me.
"You look like crap," I say, admiring his five o'clock shadow and messy honey hair.
"So do you." He smiles and glances down at my breasts, all perky in my white tank. "I'm almost embarrassed for you."
"I'm that hideous?" I ask.
"Repulsive," he says with a wink.
I look away with a shaky breath, and Cash clears his throat.
"What's that?" He stares at the bottle of fish oil capsules and the container of powdered turmeric.
I smile. "I am going to make you a drink."
He raises a brow. "The whiskey is in the cupboard."
I place my hands down on the counter. "Not that kind of drink. I'm making you an all-natural concoction to treat your concussion."
"How can I be sure you're not trying to poison me?"
"I'm not the untrustworthy one here." I cross the room and pull open a cupboard. "Where do you keep your cups?"
I feel him behind me, reaching over my head to retrieve a cup from the shelf. I freeze, fingers gripping the edge of the countertop, before he pulls away, and I finally relax. I stiffen again when he leans his chest against my chest.
"Here you go," he says, bending to say the words against my hair.
He smells so good, and his body is so warm and inviting that I have to step away before he can feel that I'm trembling. Pushing back, I turn on the tap and fill the cup with water. Cash walks back over to his stool and sits on the small island. Without meeting his eyes, I break open the fish oil capsule, add a tablespoon of turmeric powder into his cup, and then mix it with a spoon.
When I look up, he's watching me. Amusement flickers in his eyes, and I slide the cup across the counter.
Cash lifts the cup to his nose and sniffs it. "It smells terrible."
"On my way to the grocery store, I did some research on natural remedies to help cure a concussion."
Cash takes a cautious sip. I smile when he coughs a bit from swallowing his first gulp.
"What the hell is in this water?" He wrinkles his nose and then takes another gulp. "It tastes like crap."
"It's a secret." I unpack the groceries onto the counter and rinse a bunch of kale in the sink, watching Cash struggle to swallow down his drink.
"Don't be drinking that on account of me," I say calmly, shake out the wet kale, and then place it down on the cutting board in front of Cash.
He lifts his chin tinily, running his tongue over his bottom lip. "I'm not. I'm drinking it for me. I'm fully aware that I need to recover from this blow. And I do appreciate you looking out for me."
We stand there momentarily— his hand outstretched and covering mine, my face flush from his gentle contact— before Cash seems to remember we're not together anymore. He pulls away, and I feel the absence of him immediately. My arms fall to my sides, and I watch as he reaches for his cup and takes another sip.
"I've been thinking about what Dr. Henderson said." I start chopping up the kale. "I think that if you get enough rest and take care of yourself, you'll be surprised at how fast you recover. There's no sense in dealing in absolutes."
"There is one thing I am absolute about," Cash breathes out. "You. After everything, you're still here for me, taking care of me."
"Yeah, I am," I say thoughtfully. "And I'm here because I want to be, okay?"
______________
After forty minutes of Cash ordering me around in the kitchen, I successfully made and served us a kale Caesar salad topped with grilled salmon. I'm easing up and getting used to this new version of us—a cross somewhere between friends and necessity —as I join him on the sofa to eat dinner. He turns on the television and clicks through various show choices on his streaming device. When he finally finds a Game of Thrones rerun, he looks at me with a knowing smile. We watched last season together when we were a couple. It's so strange being with him like this again, eating in companionable silence and having it feel so . . . normal. But I must remember this: Cash hurt me, and right now, I need to be here for him as nothing more than a friend.
"Thanks for dinner," he says once we're done eating and wipes his mouth with a napkin. "All my ordering around must have made it taste so good."
I roll my eyes. "You're always so modest."
Cash laughs takes my empty plate, and carries the dishes into the kitchen. I sink further into the sofa, grab a blanket, and toss it over my legs. Cash reappears, yawning and running his hand through his hair.
He smiles down at me. "Mind if I rejoin you?"
"Not at all." I lean my head back against the couch.
He sits beside me and drapes his arm along the back of the sofa, letting out another yawn. "I feel pretty tired, but I wanted to watch another episode of Game of Thrones with you. I never actually ended up finishing the season."
"Yeah, me neither." I take a deep breath, but it chokes halfway through. "I didn't even bother trying."
I couldn't bring myself to watch it without him, even though Aiden religiously watched it alone on our sofa every Sunday night.
"Yeah, I know what you mean. I couldn't watch it after you left. It didn't seem right." Cash shifts on the couch, leaning closer to me, "Although I tried to watch it once," he admits, and I feel something tighten in my chest. "But I didn't want to experience it without you. It just wasn't the same, you know?"
"I do know," I say, and without realizing it, I place my hand on his knee, squeezing it. His skin is warm beneath my palm. I pull away, but he reaches out, taking my hand in his while casually studying it.
"I'm thinking two days is more than enough time to burn through an entire season," he says.
"This may sound weird," I murmur. "But I'm kind of glad that jackass Jenkins body-checked you."
Cash laughs, and I rest my head on his shoulder. We fall into another comfortable silence and watch episode after episode until my eyelids become heavy, and I drift off to sleep on the sofa with Cash at my side.
__________
I'm not a light sleeper. I never wake up in the middle of the night. This is precisely why I'm surprised when my body is startled awake from a peaceful sleep. It's like I could sense his warm body missing from mine. I'm alone. I sit up on the sofa's edge, hearing nothing but silence. The living room is dark, the television is off, and the only light I can see is faintly coming from under the door of Cash's bedroom. Could he be awake?
I tiptoe down the hallway and push open his door a crack to see him sitting on the edge of his bed, an empty glass in one hand, and a picture frame in another. I clear my throat to alert him of my presence. He turns his head and lets out a defeated sigh. His eyes darken as I take a cautious step forward. He clenches his jaw and glances back down at the picture frame when I sit beside him. I follow his gaze to a photo of him and Cory sitting on the front steps of their home in Newfoundland.
"Everything okay?" I ask cautiously.
"I couldn't sleep." His voice sounds weary and a little low and uneven. He looks at me with an intense gaze. "Watching you sleep with your head on my shoulder...I just couldn't."
I freeze when whiskey blows off his breath. I stare down at the empty glass in his hand.
"Have you been drinking?" My voice is stern.
His gaze is dark and distant for a moment. He nods and clenches his jaw. He stands up, moves away from me, and puts on a shirt. It's several tight, pounding heartbeats before he says something.
"We need to talk," he breathes out and closes his eyes, jaw tight. When he opens them again, he continues, "I feel terrible seeing the hurt in your eyes and knowing I'm the one that caused it."
I wince, looking away, and he steps closer before stopping. I want to reach forward, put my hands on his face, and kiss him. I miss him, despite how angry I am that he lied to me the way he did.
"Cash, you should be resting. This isn't good for your concussion. We don't need to talk about this now."
He can see the anxiousness in my expression, and he drops his eyes to the floor, running his hands through his hair.
"Quinn..." He looks at me, and I can see the conflict in his eyes.
This burden he's carried is so enormous that it's destroyed everything between us, our relationship torn and shattered by his past. My heart turns over, pounding so hard it's no longer a safe rhythm. He's going to tell me everything. And I'm ready to know.
"The world thinks I'm some great hockey player with a perfect life full of money, women, and things." His voice drops to barely a whisper. "No one knows I grew up with nothing in some dead-end town. No one knows my father abandoned us and never looked back. No one knows why I worked so hard on the ice because I knew it was the only way I would finally get out and see the world. No one knows I'm why my brother Cory didn't reach his nineteenth birthday or why he never got to marry the love of his life. No one knows that the real reason I spun out of control with my drinking, partying, and drug use was because a few years after I lost my brother, I lost my mother to cancer...the only person I had left. And no one knows I've taken care of Daniela financially for years or that I let her talk me into some green-card marriage. Even though we never knew our father, he was an American and Cory, and I had a dual-citizenship." He steps closer and searches my eyes, pleading. "You have to understand that the thought of losing you was my worst fear. You found parts of me I didn't know existed, and I found a love I never knew I could feel in you. You deserved the truth."
His whiskey breath is still warm on my cheek as my brain frantically searches for the right way to respond. I'm furious that he's been drinking. I want to scream at him. Tell him he needs help, but I don't. He's finally about to open up to me. I can't risk having him pull away.
"I found an old album in the spare bedroom," I say. "I saw a photo of you, Cory, and Daniela on draft day. And I saw an engagement ring on her finger..."
"Daniela was engaged to Cory." He stops, and suddenly, realization dawns on me. "She was the love of his life."
"And yet she ended up marrying you," I note.
"Quinn, I've known her my entire life. She was like family to me. Daniela grew up down the road from us in Thompson. She was an only child raised by her mother. Her father passed away from a brain aneurysm when she was a baby. From the moment she met Cory, they became inseparable. And she became the daughter my mother never had. She was Cory's first kiss, first love, and first girlfriend. Everybody knew Cory and Daniela would end up together."
As we stare at each other in the muted light provided by the lamp on his nightstand, the enormity of this conversation only grows more tangible. This is real.
He scratches his jaw and then tilts his chin to me. "The night of the draft...that picture you saw. It was the night he asked her to marry him."
My stomach flips. "Okay, but I still don't understand how -"
"The year I was drafted, the draft was held in Montreal, Quebec," he interrupts in a tight whisper. "I flew them down to attend because he wanted to propose. She thought she was coming down to see me get drafted, but Cory proposed to her in Old Montreal on a horse and carriage ride that afternoon."
I close my eyes. This is what I've wanted him to confide in me from the beginning and what I've been most afraid to hear. I pull my lip between my teeth, biting down before I bravely ask, "How many months later did he pass away?"
"Six." He winces, dragging his hand through his hair. "Their wedding was supposed to be in July."
I nod, swallowing what feels like a bowling ball in my throat.
"When I crashed into the ditch, my blood alcohol level was high," he says in a whisper, and from the slight shake in his voice, I can feel the years of guilt weighing down on his shoulders. "I saw my brother, lifeless, crushed and swallowed up by the vehicle. Blood everywhere. I shook him. I tried to wake him up..." Cash's voice trails off. He takes a deep breath, regaining control. "My agent, publicist, and the league worked with the police department to bury the fact that I had been drinking. They successfully hid the entire accident from the media. Like it never even fucking happened." He takes a deep breath and his bottom lip trembles. He blinks away and looks down at the floor. "My mother was destroyed. She could barely look at me, and it was never the same between us. Within months, her cancer came back, and Daniela was the only person who stood by my side even though she was as broken inside as I was, if not worse, after suffering through the loss of my brother."
He closes his eyes, rubbing his forearm across his face. My hands shook, my pulse racing, and Cash finally looked up at me.
"Together, we learned how to grieve his loss, and my mother and I felt like I owed Daniela the world. Especially after my mother passed, I realized she was the only person I had left. Financially, I was her everything. Emotionally, I was her rock. When I left Newfoundland, she was devastated but continued to run her dance studio in Thompson. She asked me if I would marry her so she could live and work in the States as a dancer and be closer to me. I agreed and moved her to California for a while until she found a job in Las Vegas working in a club as a dancer. She's obtained random jobs on the side and has worked as a choreographer on large Vegas productions. And like I told you, she's now a backup dancer on a world tour."
I want to reach forward and place my hands on his face. But I'm still so angry at him, and yeah, since the moment I attended the Tornadoes Dark Room, I've wanted to hit him with something so hard it would cause him as much pain as he's caused me. But I care about him and want him to tell me everything, no matter how much it hurts.
"She's fragile and she's never fully healed from losing Cory. I don't love her, Quinn. I've never loved her and don't want to be with her. I've been so blinded by guilt and trying to make it right for her that I never saw the repercussions of our arrangement. During those years, I was so drunk and high half of the time nothing mattered to me. I never thought..." His voice trails off.
"Cash, you should have told me."
"My love for you came without warning, Quinn." He takes a step forward and runs his thumb along my cheek. "You had my heart before I even realized how tangled up I was in my past mistakes. I'm so sorry for hurting you. And I swear I'm going to make it up to you. I love you."
"See, my problem is that as crazy as that sounds, I believe you." I shake my head. "I believe you when you tell me something that absurd and crazy, then finish by saying you love me."
My chest squeezes at the earnest vulnerability in his expression. Being near him is so confusing. From the distance of Boston, it was easier to forget the hold he once had on me. Now, having him touch me, even if it's just my face, makes me feel like crying. I was so scared he was not going to be okay. I've missed him. Everything about him: I'd be lying if I didn't want to be this close to him again.
"I broke your heart a thousand different ways, and I am sorry for that. But something changed once I met you. Me. And I know how to love you now. That man you always wanted me to be, I am that man. And I can give you everything that we were always meant to have. And maybe I'm too late, and maybe I should just move on, but I can't. I've tried like hell since you left for Boston, but all that ever happens is that I only get better at lying to myself. I don't want to do that anymore. You and me, Quinn. That's how it's supposed to be. You know that. I want you. Whether you're in Boston, New York, Paris, or even with me here in Santa Anna, I promise Daniela will be out of my life. I will do anything to make it work between us. I need to tear my eyes from his and look down at my bare feet on the floor, letting the heavy drumming of my heart take over my senses for a beat. I'm relieved and terrified...but mostly, I'm confused. He just told me everything. Everything I've been begging him to confide in me since we met. I'm so uncertain, and maybe it's my fear again, that I can't trust him, let it go, and that I'm returning to Boston in forty-eight hours.
"Do you think you could ever"—his forehead tightens into a frown— "forgive me?"
"Cash—"
"Don't answer me now." He pulls me closer, my head resting against his muscular, hard chest. He runs a gentle fingertip along the side of my face, picks me up like I weigh nothing, and carries me to his bed.
"I need you to lie here with me."
With my head on his shoulder, he pulls me up his body as he turns and lies down on the bed, resting his head on the pillow, legs stretched out behind me. Cash positions me with my legs twined with his. I arch my neck, and his fingertips skim my collarbone, firm but gentle. He pulls me in closer to him. Our bodies curled around each other; he tenderly ran his fingers through my hair until I fell asleep.