Chapter 7: QUIN

Seven

QUIN

L ogically, I know I can get out of bed. I don't have to be here all morning, even if breakfast is finished. Old habits die hard. I make myself get up after forty minutes of staring at the ceiling.

Juliette and Hunter seem normal this morning, but I can't finish the eggs and toast Juliette cooks because watching her squirt ketchup all over her breakfast reminds me of Eugene and what he looked like lying there all mangled at the foot of the stairs.

I don't want to be gross, so I just pick at my food and pretend that I have a low appetite for a normal reason — not visions of dead people I can't get out of my head.

"Will you be okay on your own this morning?" Juliette asks. "We have to go to my OB this morning."

"The OB?" I know that's the doctor responsible for her baby and all of that, "Surprise," Juliette says with a smile. "I'm pregnant again."

"What?!"

"I know, and it might be twins," Juliette says. "I don't want to get over excited too soon and curse it or something."

I nod with understanding. It must be pretty early, so I can get why she didn't immediately announce it. I run over to my best friend and give her a congratulatory hug. Early or not, a pregnancy with twins is worth celebrating. Juliette hugs me back.

Holy shit. Mackenzie still seems like a new idea to me. When I met Juliette, I didn't think she would meet the love of her life and become a mother in such a short space of time. She seems crazy about Hunter, but I'm definitely surprised to hear her talking about more babies. Wow.

Life happens so quickly sometimes…

"I'll be fine on my own," I respond. "I'm not fragile or anything. I can hang out and wait..."

I'm desperate to look like I'm handling things. Juliette hands Mackenzie over to her dad and then wraps me up in a big hug.

"We'll be back before noon and we'll bring poke bowls, okay? Trust me, everything will be fine and you will get through this Quin."

Unless the cops show up. Unless I have to go to prison. Unless someone reports Eugene missing. I offer her a thin-lipped smile and try not to let every last one of my anxieties spill out.

I appreciate Juliette's support, but she has no idea what it's like to go through something like this alone. The second she left Kansas, she ran into a man like Hunter Sinclair — one willing to do anything to protect her. All the men I've known have either been entirely disinterested in me, like my adoptive father or terrifying, like Eugene.

That just means I have to take care of myself, but considering I spent the past several months as my brother's prisoner… I don't even know what that looks like. I feel scared. Embarrassed. Like he stole life from me that I don't even know how to get back. Juliette thinks I just need time to get through the shock and the trauma.

"Nothing will happen to you in Santa Fe… I promise…"

Juliette is one of those people who just automatically makes you feel better. She has a handle of her shit. She seems like she always did. It's how she ended up with a husband and a baby so quickly and I don't even know if I'll be able to keep my ass out of prison.

Unlike my high school days or those trade classes I took for a brief time before my parents died, I don't have any structure or anything motivating me to get started with my day so it took me forty-five minutes to throw on a red Kansas City Chiefs hoodie and a pair of black leggings with wide ankles after my shower. I hate how skinny leggings squeeze my thighs and force them into these uncomfortable shapes.

Then again, I've had a lot of time to hate shit while locked in my room. I even started a troll account to go after Jojo Siwa but eventually got a hold of myself and deleted it when they actually replied. My mind did not respond well to captivity.

But now that I'm free… I don't even know who I am.

After Juliette and Hunter leave, I stay in the kitchen scrolling through my phone. Juliette's kitchen is goddamn sterile compared to the one I used for the past three years. I'm almost afraid to touch anything. But I'm hungry. Juliette thankfully hasn't succumbed to any insane healthy eating trends so I don't have to go far to find something decent. I drop a few waffles in the toaster, pull out the butter and maple syrup before frying some sausages and getting some eggs together in a separate skillet. Yum.

The Eggos finish first, so I munch on them while I finish cooking up the sausage and eggs. By the time I'm done with the Eggo waffles, toast sounds good, so I put a couple slices in the toaster.

When I sit there with my full post-waffle breakfast, I feel relaxed. Really relaxed. Eugene can't hurt me anymore. The entire kitchen smells like a home. And there's food. Lots of it. I cut one of my breakfast sausages up and then shovel it onto a piece of toast with some scrambled eggs.

"That smells good."

I yelp and drop everything. It's more like I throw it, honestly. The voice behind me chuckles. I slowly turn around in my chair to see who it is. Not Hunter. But my instincts lean towards surprise more than they lean towards fear.

The man from the day before is standing right there in the kitchen like he lives here. He smiles when I look at him and a strange chill moves straight through me. But he's smiling, so there isn't anything about him that should scare me.

"Hunter and Juliette aren't here," I tell him.

"I know," he says, walking purposefully over to the kitchen sink. He takes a clear glass and begins to fill it with filtered water from the slower faucet on the sink. I can't help but watch as he fills the glass. His thick fingers seem big enough to break it just from the way he holds it. The man has huge arms too — gigantic, well-built arms that fill out and expand the tight black t-shirt he has on.

He has a light sunburn on the back of his neck, but I'm surprised he's not more red considering the climate in Santa Fe. His hair is a robust, scarlet color. Some ginger men look a little rough, no offense, but Tanner doesn't look like that at all. He sets the glass of water on the counter and turns to face me.

"How've you been?"

I give him a skeptical look. Why is this man talking to me? I'm pretty sure he's Hunter's best friend, so he must have a key to the place or something. Maybe he's just making small talk.

"It hasn't been that long since I last saw you. Everything's fine."

"What brings you out to Santa Fe?"

My eyes snap nervously to his. I have an immediate panicked thought that he knows everything and that he's the one Hunter called to bury the body. The breakfast I barely had two bites of suddenly feels extremely unsettled in my stomach.

"Visiting Juliette."

"Really? Couldn't pay me to visit anyone out here…"

Yet here you are…

But I don't say that out loud. I just keep looking at him.

"I'm getting paid," he says. "Just not to visit. But… business is almost over and I've got a place out in Arizona I'm heading back to."

"Cool…"

I don't know much about Arizona, honestly, so I try to eat a little more and pretend that talking to a guy who looks as sexy as Tanner Hollingsworth isn't making me nervous the longer the conversation lasts.

I'm the furthest thing from a natural flirt. I give all my Sims in the Sims 4 the "unflirty" trait, that's how serious it is.

Tanner smiles and a flush of red forms a funny pattern across his nose and cheeks, like a raccoon mask. I've known white boys before, but I've never seen any get all red this close.

"You ever think about going to Arizona?"

"Nope. Didn't even plan on leaving Kansas."

"Got a boyfriend back there? Family?"

I try not to give him a shifty look, but I know my ass must look suspicious as hell judging by the expression on Tanner's face. But maybe I have it all wrong.

I don't even know what to say.

"I asked you a question, ma'am," Tanner says. "Do you have a boyfriend back home where you're from?"

He means the question.

Our eyes lock as I stare at him for a few seconds to double check that he's serious. My opinions on my physical appearance are one thing but when you're a plus-sized black woman, random people feel extremely comfortable letting you know exactly how they feel about your looks. Old men make creepy comments about your "thickness" on the lighter end of things. A white guy at a gas station once said, "Damn that bitch is fat" right in front of me. Like I didn't have feelings.

It's like it says something about my worth as a person that I have extra weight. Tanner looks exactly like the type of guy who would typically target me, so I don't know what to say.

I would prefer not to be the target of some white guy's jokes.

"I don't have a boyfriend."

Tanner circles me a little and then takes a seat next to me. I can smell his cologne and damn, it smells good. He also has the largest arms I've ever seen. His biceps are insanely thick and muscular. I wish I didn't notice them. He has a tattoo of a red-tailed hawk on his shoulder.

I can tell because I used to love the Animorphs series growing up. I read every single book from my local library and I was absolutely obsessed with Tobias. I bet he has the hawk tattoo for some crazy redneck reason, but the feathers peeking out from beneath the sleeve of his t-shirt attract my attention.

"Well, Quin. I'm glad to hear you don't have a boyfriend."

"Why?"

He winks. "It means you have the perfect opportunity to run away with a cowboy."

"I don't think that's going to happen."

"Why not?"

"I'm not exactly built for running."

"That's funny," he says. But his expression doesn't change. "Can I get you a drink to wash down breakfast?"

"I already had orange juice."

"Water?"

His closeness and his pale blue eyes both make me nervous. Tanner walks towards the sink and again, I can't help but stare at him. He returns and sets down a glass of filtered water.

"There," he says. "I'll wait with you until Hunter and Juliette come back. You play cards?"

"Only spades."

"What about gin rummy?"

I shake my head and take a sip of water.

"I'll explain the rules," he says. "It's an easy two person game. I used to play with a buddy of mine and bet bike parts but he has somewhat of a gambling addiction, so we had to cut back."

Tanner pulls a deck of cards out of his leather cut which has the name CASH stitched across a tag on his chest. The cut has other patches sewn on with various symbols and a couple latin phrases. I get distracted from observing his patches when he shuffles the cards.

"So," Tanner says. "This is the goal of the game."

His eyes flicker towards mine and the second I make eye contact with him, I get nervous again and bury myself in the glass of water, chugging the rest.

He waits for me to set the glass down before he continues explaining the rules. I fixate my gaze at a point on Tanner's forehead as he keeps shuffling and bridging the cards.

"You want to be the first one to run out of cards…"

I try to nod, but my limbs feel sluggish. The weird feeling sends a single jolt of panic to my brain. The primal state of panic is the last thing I remember before either slumping forward or falling backwards, completely unconscious.