I put my hand on his hair, ruffling it as I steered him toward the door. My feet moved in a straight line, my shoulders square, as I fought the urge to look back.
Quinn hadn’t looked back.
So neither would I.
After the funeral, she’d be gone. And I doubted she’d look back then either.
“What kind of pizza should we get?” I read over the menu at Audrey’s, my favorite pizza place in Bozeman.
“Pepperoni?” Colin had his elbows on the table, his knees planted in the booth’s seat.
He’d been bouncing off the walls when we’d gotten home after the church rehearsal, and even an hour playing catch in the yard hadn’t mellowed him out. Ruby had told me he’d been hyper all day.
Mom had invited us over for dinner tonight, but I knew he’d be too wound up to sit through a meal and listen to adults visit. That and I didn’t want to be next door to Quinn. So we’d come out for pizza instead.
Most nights, I cooked at home, opting to save our disposable income for home improvements rather than restaurant food. But I hadn’t made it to the grocery store this week and there were times when I just didn’t want to be cooped up in the kitchen. Our normal routine was out the window anyway this week.
“I’m good with pepperoni.” I closed my menu.
“Can we get breadsticks too?”
“Sure.” I grinned as he took a long drink of his lemonade. “So how was swim—”
“Quinn!” Colin flew out of his seat and bolted toward the door, weaving past tables before colliding with her legs.
“Fuck,” I grumbled into my beer. Was this one of fate’s evil jokes? Was she going to be everywhere this week? From the corner of my eye, I watched as my son grabbed her hand and dragged her toward our table.
She waved. “Hi.”
“Hey.”
“I didn’t realize you’d be here. I saw your mom earlier and she said this was a good pizza place.”
Ahh. Not fate, but my mother.
I had no doubt that the minute I’d hung up the phone with her she’d marched over to the Montgomery house and suggested Quinn try Audrey’s before she left town.
“Want to sit with us?” Colin hopped into the booth, shifting toward the window to make extra room.
“I was just going to get mine to go,” Quinn answered at the same time I said, “She’s busy, bud.”
“Please?” Colin clasped his hands together and begged. “Please. Please. Please. Please. Please.”
Six pleases. The kid was desperate.
I stifled a groan and motioned to the open space. “Join us.”
“Are you sure?”
No. “Yeah.”
Colin fist pumped as Quinn slid into the space beside him and the waitress appeared. “You guys ready to order?”
“We’ll take a large Hawaiian and an order of breadsticks.”
“No, pepperoni,” Colin corrected.
“Quinn doesn’t like pepperoni.” I handed the waitress our menu. “Thanks.”
“You remembered,” Quinn whispered.
“How’d you know that, Dad?” Colin asked.
“Remember how I told you Quinn and I used to be neighbors?”
“Oh, yeah,” he drawled, then focused on Quinn. “What other kinds of food don’t you like?”
Strawberries. Sugar snap peas. And the worst offender . . .
“Bacon,” she answered.
“What?” Colin’s jaw dropped. “You don’t like bacon?”
“Nope. I’m weird, huh?”
“Super weird.” He giggled. “I don’t like string cheese.”
“But you like other cheese, like the kind they put on pizza.”
“Yep.” He swiped up his lemonade, sucking it down as he inched closer to Quinn. When a bead of condensation dripped from his cup, it fell on her arm and she just brushed it away. “Do you have any pets?”
“No pets. I’m not home very much so I think it would be kind of lonely to be a dog or cat living in my house.”
“I want a dog.” Colin’s big brown eyes drifted my way.
“Not until you’re eight.”
That was the deal we’d come up with. He could have a dog once he was eight and there was a chance he’d be able to share in the responsibility of a puppy.
“Can you do this?” My son set down his cup, then began rubbing his belly in a circle while patting the top of his head. He’d been working on it for months because Nan had told him that Quinn could do it as a child. Nan swore that was the moment she’d known Quinn would be a great drummer.
And anything Quinn could do, Colin wanted to do too.
“Hmm. I don’t know.” Quinn lifted her hands, patting her belly and rubbing her head. “Is this right?”
“No.” He laughed. “Like this.”
“Oh. Right.” She corrected the motion and his eyes lit up.
“You’re doing it!”
“Good thing you showed me how. I guess I forgot.”
“Will you teach me something on the drums?” Colin asked, eyeing the drumsticks Quinn had shoved in her purse.
“No,” I answered at the same time Quinn said, “Sure.”
Of course, Colin only heard her agree. “Yes!”
It was never going to happen, but I wouldn’t tell him that today.
I took another drink of my beer, then turned my attention to the window and the cars streaming by on the street. Watching Colin laugh and smile with a woman . . . it would have been fine if she was anyone else.
Anyone but Quinn.
The last thing I wanted was for him to be hurt when she left. And make no mistake, she was leaving.
I should have ordered the pepperoni. She might have excused herself.
It was only pizza, but I wished I didn’t remember her favorite type. I wished I would have forgotten how one corner of her mouth raised higher than the other when she laughed. I wished she’d stop talking to my son, making his whole goddamn day. She was learning things about my son his own mother didn’t know.
He couldn’t fall for her. I wouldn’t allow it.
But if I kicked her out of this booth, he’d hold it against me. This week had been hard enough, and I wouldn’t steal this moment from him.
Walker had told me she was leaving Monday. We only had to make it a few more days, then she’d be gone.
I just prayed she wouldn’t stay.
For Colin’s sake.
And for mine.
Chapter Seven
Quinn
“How are you holding up?” Jonas asked the second I’d answered his call.
“Fine.” I traced a circle in the quilt as I sat on my bed, legs crisscrossed. “How are you? How’s Kira and Vivi?”
“They’re good. I’m good. Worried about you, though. Why didn’t you tell me at the show about your grandmother?”
“I just . . .” I sighed. “I didn’t want it to be a thing. I needed to play and forget for an hour.”
“I get that.” Music was Jonas’s outlet too. “Want me to come out for the funeral?”