I don’t know if we would have defiled them, but there was a damn good chance they would have been burned beyond recognition by the time I got done doing all the dirty things I want to do to her granddaughter.
Quinn pulls herself away from me with a groan, moving to the living room to connect the call that way. Hmm. I think this is the first time I can recall her taking a call from her family there.
“Ah, hola, mija.” Abuela Lupe fills the screen, her face instantly breaking into a smile when she sees her granddaughter. “Como estás?”
I’m completely lost as Quinn responds in rapid-fire Spanish, but I’m hard. Highly, inappropriately, uncomfortably hard at every rolled R coming off Quinn’s very talented tongue.
Quinn glances over her shoulder at me, the messy topknot she tied her hair in listing to the side before she winks at me. She. Winks. At. Me.
Sonofabitch.
She knows.
If I had any doubts that she knows I’m standing here with a boner that could rival the goalpost at the football stadium while she casually talks to her grandmother, well…those are put to rest the instant she drops her gaze to where the counter hides my lower half.
“CK!” Abuela Lupe’s hot pink lips spread into an even bigger grin when she spots me, if that’s possible. “Ven aquí, ven aquí.” She makes a Come here motion with her hands.
I follow her command. It seems I can’t deny any female who shares DNA with Quinn.
Her eyes are the same shade of dark brown as her granddaughter’s, and they hold an all too familiar sparkle in them as they take in my bare arms and naked chest beneath the apron.
“Oh, mija…” There’s one more pass over my body before Abuela Lupe returns her attention to her mischievous protégé. “Now that’s the sort of thing you should get the mitoteros of an Instagram account to post.”
Quinn’s gaze, naughty and full of sexy promise, dips down my body. Holy shit, she’s blatantly checking me out in front of her grandmother.
And…
Now I have to resort to running lines of code in my head to keep the erection I barely managed to get under control at bay.
The touch of Quinn’s tongue to her teeth tells me she’s doing this to me on purpose.
Quinn visibly stiffens when a different feminine voice calls out something off-screen. I wish I knew what was being said and am mentally cursing my lack of knowledge of the Spanish language for my inability to understand what could cause Quinn to react the way she is.
That feeling of What the hell? only grows stronger when it’s Quinn’s mother who joins our conversation. “Quinny, linda, hi, baby.”
“Hi, Mamá.” Quinn returns the greeting, but her posture remains stiff as hell.
Why does she seem…apprehensive about talking to her mom?
“You and Abuelita aren’t talking about that Grady boy, are you?” Mrs. Thompson visibly brightens at the possibility of the hockey player being the topic of discussion.
Now it’s my shoulders locking up at the mere mention of him.
“You’re not still dating him, are you, mi niña?”
Quinn’s gaze slides my way, and for some unexplainable reason, bile crawls up the back of my throat. I know she hasn’t been out with Grady again. All our time not spent attending summer classes or working has been spent together.
But…
Could they still be talking? Is that why she didn’t fight me when I asked if we could keep things just between us for now? Was it her way of hedging her bets? To see if the crush she claimed to have on me panned out while keeping Grady on the hook if it didn’t?
What the fuck am I thinking?
Quinn isn’t like that…right?
No.
No, she’s not.
Again I wish Grady were a jerk. It would be so much easier to despise the future NHL player and shut down these nonsensical thoughts if he were a major douchecanoe. The fact that he seems like a genuinely nice guy only makes it all the more unbelievable that Quinn would choose someone like me over him. And from the sound of things, it seems her mother agrees.
Maybe if her mom knew she was dating you, she would feel differently?
“No, Mom, I’m not dating Grady. I’m—”
“Oh good,” Mrs. Thompson says before Quinn finishes speaking. “Because Lindsey Davis and I got to talking at last night’s Hoedown Throwdown planning meeting.”
“Mamá,” Quinn starts as if she can already tell what her mom is about to say.
“Don’t Mamá me, linda.” Mrs. Thompson’s mouth presses into a flat line. “You remember how much money the kissing booth raised at last year’s Throwdown.”
A kissing booth? Quinn’s going home to help run a kissing booth? Other guys are going to be kissing lips that belong to me? Why didn’t she tell me?
Quinn’s eyes fall closed, and I can feel the weight of her next measured inhalation like I’m the one taking it into my lungs.
“Mom.” She sighs, rubbing her forehead. “I told you I’m not working the booth this year.”
“Nonsense. What better way to increase the numbers than to have both the beautiful cheerleader and the hunky UT football star running it?”
Quinn’s lips move with what I assume is a curse, but whatever she says is spoken too softly for me to make out the words. Her frustration, though? That’s more than clear to see to anyone paying attention.
The timer of the oven dings and Quinn jumps all over the interruption, saying a hasty goodbye before rushing into the kitchen.
I hang back and watch her for a minute. It doesn’t take a genius to see she’s agitated. She yanks open the oven with a clang. It isn’t until I shout that she even realizes she’s about to reach for the pan with bare hands. With an absentminded glance around, she locates the potholders in the same place we’ve always kept them—the drawer next to the oven—removes the dish, and turns off the oven.
I don’t know what is happening right now, but something is most definitely going on. I may not fully understand what all just went down, but I know Quinn well enough to recognize this isn’t normal behavior for her. This isn’t the same woman who gave me the space to get to know her without pressure because she was empathetic toward my history. Gone is the woman who wasn’t afraid to yell at me because she liked me, the one who seduced me with her own charming awkwardness.
I’m usually the one hiding behind my shy shell. I despise this absence of her crazy.
My feet eat up the distance between us, my strides double their typical length as the need to reaffirm my girl is still in there somewhere pulses through my veins.
She startles when I curl my fingers around the backs of hers and take her hands in mine. That’s all I need to prove how utterly lost she is inside her head.
“What’s wrong, baby?”
Quinn’s eyelashes twitch, her mouth pressing into a flat line at my question.
Adjusting my hold, I cuff both of her hands in one of mine and cup the side of her neck with my freed hand.
Stroking along the underside of her jaw, I tilt her face to mine. “Where’d my feisty spitfire go?”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
I roll my shoulders back at her apology. “What in the world are you sorry for?”