16. Talia

Holding her breath and closing her eyes, Talia spritzed her face with setting spray.

When she opened them, she was good to go.

Tonight was the first time she'd been out out since Felix had been born, and she was buzzing with excitement. She cast her mind back to the last time she'd been to a nightclub.

It'd been before she'd gone to America for sure.

Smiling to herself, Talia realised she was getting some of her life back. This would also be the first time Felix spent the night somewhere without her. She'd painstakingly prepared an overnight bag for him, including an ample store of frozen breast milk, but Kate and Warren were more than equipped to handle Felix for a night.

For half a second, she'd contemplated asking Jensen to have Felix this evening, but quickly vetoed the idea.

Jensen was lovely, and she genuinely believed he cared for Felix, but she wasn't confident in his ability to look after him without supervision—especially when she would be drinking alcohol, potentially being out of action for several hours.

Even if she did get shit-faced tonight, Talia knew Kate and Warren could handle anything Felix threw at them.

She wasn't so confident with Jensen.

Maybe one day, she hoped.

Even thinking of yesterday lifted her spirits.

Had anything ever been as arousing as Jensen expertly collapsing his son's pushchair? The thought made her giggle. And then there had been him in his swimming trunks…

Somehow, she'd forgotten just how muscular he was beneath his clothes, and how savage the scars across his torso looked. Talia remembered how it felt to touch his body, to take him in her mouth.

And how it felt to give birth to his son with only Darcy in the room to support her.

The thought was like being doused in icy water.

She liked Jensen, but she didn't trust him. Not yet. There was every chance he'd get bored of parenting once the novelty of having a son wore off.

Was he attractive and kind? Yes.

But was he dependable? That remained to be seen.

Talia was just giving herself a once over when she heard Felix yell from the living room. It wasn't an urgent cry, but he was certainly unhappy about something.

She walked into the living room, her heels clipping a quick rhythm across the floor, to find Felix in his walker—where she'd left him. The only difference was that he was now stuck in the gap between the table and the wall instead of propelling himself around the living room.

"Oh Felix," she murmured, a giggle lifting her speech. She pulled the walker out from the narrow gap, making a mental note to change things around so he wouldn't get stuck in the future.

Once he was free, Felix sped off in the direction of Quinn, sitting on the couch, phone in hand.

"Are we all ready to go?" Talia asked him.

Quinn nodded, his eyes still on his phone. "Sure thing, just let me get to the end of this video."

Against the backdrop of the video's commentary—from what Talia could tell, it was something about cryptocurrency—she dressed Felix in his coat and shoes. Or at least tried to. She could put on his coat without any issue, but he simply refused to wear shoes at the moment.

Was it normal for a child to reject shoes this much? His shoes weren't even really shoes. They were more slippers, designed to get him used to wearing shoes before he needed them.

"Ready," Quinn announced, getting up off the sofa, shouldering on his jacket, and jingling his keys.

The distraction was all Felix needed to kick off the single shoe Talia had managed to put on.

With a sigh, Talia loaded him into the pushchair, his chubby little legs flailing about. "Are you going to go stay with Kate and Warren for the night, cyw?"

He let out a happy shout. Or a victorious one.

The trip down to the underground car park was quick, with Felix happily squawking to himself all the way and Quinn carrying the mountain of items Talia had packed.

Perhaps she had gone overboard, she admitted to herself, watching Quinn loading three bags of stuff into the boot of his car. Or the trunk, as he called it.

The drive to Warren and Kate's house was long enough for Felix to fall asleep, but the moment they hit their long, gravelled driveway, he woke once more, glancing out into the darkness. Fences edged them in on either side, and Talia knew that during the day horses would be roaming in the fields beyond.

Up ahead, the Victorian farmhouse Kate called home loomed into view. Climbing roses scaled the stone exterior, and in a few short weeks they would bloom into a riot of colour.

Talia didn't often mourn her lack of a garden, but sometimes those climbing roses made her second-guess her decision to raise Felix in a flat.

The security lights flicked on as Quinn parked his car outside the duck-egg blue front door, with Warren opening it a few moments later to greet them. Warm light spilled onto the gravel—as did the two resident Jack Russells.

Talia opened the door, bending to fuss up Leo and Snowbell until her arms tired—at which point they promptly abandoned her and went to Quinn for attention.

By the time she stepped out of the car, Warren already had all of the bags out of the boot and Felix in his arms. "This bag has breast milk in it," she told him, pointing to the insulated one.

He nodded. "I'll put it in the freezer. Kate is just upstairs attempting to get Lucie to sleep."

"Thank you. And thank you for looking after him for the night." Talia pursed her lips to the side. Even the sight of Quinn peppering Leo and Snowbell with kisses wasn't enough to cheer her up. She was starting to second guess herself again, but this time the climbing roses weren't to blame.

"It's no trouble," Warren assured her.

Up until this moment, the idea of Felix spending the night away from her had been an abstract one. But now that it was here, Talia wanted to squeeze him in her arms and never let him go.

She swallowed. "Are you sure you don't mind? It's not too late for me to stay with him."

Warren gave her a knowing look, passing Felix over to her. "It'll be easier once you're away from him, I promise."

"Will it?" she asked, feeling teary all of a sudden.

He nodded. "Trust me. The first time I had to leave Lucie after she was born…" Warren shook his head, a soft look on his face. "Would you believe I put my phone in the holder on my windscreen, but I didn't have the navigation on. I had a live feed of her baby monitor."

Talia laughed out a smile. "That's the sweetest thing I've ever heard."

"I dunno," Warren paused, looking to the side. "Jensen's lessons are pretty sweet, if you ask me."

"Lessons?"

His brows drew together. "His how-to-look-after-a-baby lessons."

She blinked. "What?"

Warren's eyes danced in her direction, as though he had only just realised something. "Jensen's been coming here so I can teach him all the ins and outs of caring for a baby. Changing nappies, feeding, bathing, getting them to sleep. He has all his notes jotted down on his phone."

Talia was quiet. He'd been having lessons?

Swallowing down the emotion rising in her throat, she pressed her lips to Felix's forehead in lieu of an answer.

Yep, that'd do it. That was the sweetest thing she'd ever heard.

She remembered him collapsing the pushchair after Felix's swimming lesson. He'd done that far too smoothly for a novice. "Would one of those lessons be in folding and unfolding a pushchair?"

Warren didn't even bother to conceal his lopsided grin. "It might have been."

In the end, Warren was right. Talia might have sobbed her heart out after saying goodbye to her son, wiping tears off her face the entire way back down the gravel driveway, but by the time she and Quinn reached the nightclub, excitement had built in her.

"Are you sure my make-up looks okay?" she whispered to Quinn, as the vivid lighting from the bright Celestial sign above washed over them.

They joined the queue to get in, and Quinn nodded, rubbing her elbow. "You look stunning," he reassured her with a wink. "As always."

Trying not to preen under the praise, she took his hand. "Thank you. And thank you for being my designated driver tonight."

Beneath his jacket, his muscular shoulders shrugged. "You don't need to thank me for that. I just want to ensure you get home safe." Quinn gave her a mock-stern look. "And that you don't go home with any of these stuffy British guys."

"They're not stuffy," she spluttered, stepping forward with the rest of the line. There was literally a guy sitting on the kerb over there, looking as though he might puke at any second.

"They're the stuffiest assholes I've ever met in my life. We just came from a house that looks like it's out of Pride and goddamn Prejudice, Talia. Even your apartment block has a load of posh shit on it."

She sealed her lips together, trying not to laugh. Or shiver. The cool night air was beginning to bite her exposed skin, and goosebumps were rapidly appearing.

"You know it's true!" he pointed at her. "I can see it on your face."

"You may have a point," she said slowly, biting down on a smile.

Quinn knocked his shoulders against hers. "Damn right I have a point."

Thankfully, the queue moved along quickly, or else Talia would have been an icicle by the time the beefy security guard inspected their tickets, quickly granting them access to Celestial. The music thumped as they walked down the long corridor, but she was far too busy looking around to notice.

It was… hypnotising.

Light surrounded every inch of the space, ever moving, ever changing. It was the night's sky, but not as she knew it. Interstellar clouds swirled around them, pulsing and shimmering and interacting with each other. Colours cycled between them, and Talia watched as two clouds seemed to merge together in a mesmerising curl, responding to the beat of the music.

She reached her hand up to touch it—

"Oh!" she gasped. Had that just responded to her touch? She swiped at it, laughing when she realised that the swirling galaxies didn't only interact with each other and the music—they responded to her too.

Smiling, she traced a finger around a cloud, delighted when it swirled faster. When she drew a line through it, the interstellar cloud was cut in half, and each half whirled off, following its own trajectory.

Quinn moved closer, resting a hand on the small of her back. "That's insane."

"Isn't it?" Privately, she thought of how much Felix would love this. He'd be entertained for hours, giggling to himself.

They walked further down the corridor, in line with a star shooting across the wall, guiding them ever closer to the source of the music. And then, finally, they walked into Celestial's vast, awe-inspiring centre.

The corridor had been just a taster.

Talia came to a dead stop, gazing at the universe above her in wonder. This was everything. Planets and stars, colliding and reforming, against a backdrop of those mesmerising interstellar clouds she'd seen in the corridor.

Columns peppered the room like galactic thoroughfares, and she watched as a waterfall of shooting stars travelled down from the ceiling to the floor, only interrupted by the shadows of her fellow partygoers.

It was more spread out than a usual club, and Talia was glad of it. Perhaps it was to maintain the illusion, to let the stars and planets and clouds move around uninterrupted. Still, there was a sizeable crowd on the dancefloor to her left, clustered around the pumping DJ set, interacting with the lights, or—to her right—relaxing by the bar, an island in the galaxy.

"Talia! Quinn!"

She waved, sighting Darcy over by the bar. It was where the shooting stars emerged from, splintering out in all directions, lighting up everything in their path. On the other side of the teeming bar was a network of booths and sofas. It was darker over here, and several couples were taking advantage of the ability to slip into the shadows unseen.

"Happy birthday," Talia exclaimed, enclosing her younger sister in an enormous hug and getting a face full of chestnut hair for her troubles. She choked back down her cough, pretending she hadn't just inhaled a lungful of hairspray. "You look amazing!"

Darcy wiggled her hips, and her white sequinned dress glittered under Celestial's lighting, reflecting a thousand colours at once. "Thank you. So do you."

She hoped her sister couldn't see how uncertain her smile was. Talia had a wardrobe of gorgeous dresses… Except none of them fit her anymore.

She'd been hoping the baby weight would come off once she'd given birth.

But Felix's first birthday wasn't too far away now, and yet here the weight remained.

The dress she wore today was new, a royal blue one-shouldered mini dress, with a handy fabric belt that fastened at her waist—concealing her mummy tummy—and fell to her knees.

There was already a crowd of Darcy's friends here, and she greeted them all in turn. Before she'd even finished, Quinn touched her waist, a glass of something in his hand.

Talia accepted it, taking her first sip of alcohol in eighteen months. She had more than enough breast milk frozen to take a day or two off, especially with weaning him.

Warren was right. It was easier once she was away from Felix. He was likely asleep by now, whereas here she was, being dragged over to the dancefloor by a jovial Darcy.

Talia let herself enjoy it, moving to the beat, drinking freely and riding on her newfound freedom. It was easy to lose herself here, letting her responsibilities wash away under the ever changing, ever moving, ever beautiful lights.

It was like floating on air.

Letting her inhibitions loose, Talia danced like it was her last night on earth.

She and Darcy danced together, holding their arms above their heads and watching Celestial's mind-boggling illuminations until it made them dizzy. They giggled, each holding onto the other to keep them steady as the night wore on.

The crowd around them grew rowdier, drunker, louder. The illuminations moved faster, swirling and thumping in time with the beat.

Still dizzy, Talia stepped away as Darcy and her friend made a hurried exit towards the shadowed booths behind the bar. Already off balance, she trod on something on the dancefloor that sent her stumbling to the side—

Quinn caught her, letting out an, "Ooof!"

Alcohol slowed her reactions, and she desperately clung to him to regain her balance.

"All good?" he asked, his lips slowly curved, his eyelids lowering. Quinn's hands went to her hips, pulling her against his hard body. "Dance with me."

The night of the wedding came to mind as his hips ground against hers for song after song. Your dad wants me to take care of you.

Then there was their kiss at Lux, before everything with Jensen…

Quinn had been there for her at every step. Doubt and alcohol rushed through her mind as his hands eased over her hips, kneading handfuls of her rear and pressing her ever tighter against him. Another song came and went, but Talia heard little of it, realising that Quinn was moving them towards the exit.

As they left the building, the abrupt darkness almost rendered her blind. She stumbled when the pavement ended and the gravelled car park began, just managing to stay on her feet.

Quinn led her to an alcove round the back of the club, his hand coming up to her face to cradle her jaw. "I need you, Talia."

Did he? Her single kiss with Quinn back at Lux had been… forgettable, whereas her night with Jensen made her come alive. Even now, with Quinn's touch on her body, she didn't feel desire.

It was just touch.

Before she noticed what was happening, Quinn pressed her against the brick wall, knocking her head against it.

But then his lips were on hers, hungrily taking everything she had to offer. His hips pressed in on her, but it wasn't only the hardness of his torso she felt this time; he thrust against her, letting her feel every inch of his cock.

She was drunk. Far more than she'd realised. Her brain worked in slow motion, whilst Quinn's hands were everywhere at once. Her face. Her waist. Her hips. Dragging up her dress.

"W-wait," she stuttered, saying the only thing that came to her head. "Stop. I don't know if I want this."

Quinn silenced her with a kiss. "You do, it'll be okay. Open your le—"

Suddenly he choked, his hands coming up to his neck, desperately scratching at the arm that had locked around it.

But, even in her drunken state, Talia recognised the stranger's voice. That deep, rasping Scottish brawl that had purred to her at the peak of release, and that had whispered words of comfort in her despair. She'd never heard it seething with rage, however.

"Step back or I'll rip your fucking throat out."