Chapter 23

CHAPTER23

It was none of his fucking business, Quinn told himself as he stood there, watching Bailey from across the large room as she slumped over onto the couch with a forlorn sigh and-

“You don’t have to watch over me all the time,” Bailey mumbled sadly as she continued staring at the wall.

“Yes, I do,” Quinn murmured quietly as he leaned back against the wall, his gaze quickly flickering around the loft to make sure that everything was as it should be before focusing back on the woman who looked absolutely fucking miserable.

“I’m fine,” she said, shifting to get more comfortable while Quinn stood there, wishing like hell that he could see her as just another job.

He should do one last check to make sure that everything was secure before calling it a night, but…

“Who is Jonathan Parkins?” he found himself asking, crossing yet another line.

“The jerk-face that used to be my best friend,” Bailey mumbled.

“What happened?” Quinn asked, pushing away from the wall and made his way around the large loft apartment, checking to make sure that everything was secure before turning in for the night and-

“He stole my baby,” she said, making him go still, that is, until she followed that up with a sadly mumbled, “That was my video game.”

“Of course, he did,” Quinn murmured quietly, feeling his lips twitch as he checked the windows while he made his way to the couch and dropped down on the oversized chair where he waited for the small woman releasing heartfelt sighs to continue. When she didn’t say anything else, he asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Will you let me have a Coke if I do?” Bailey countered with a hopeful look that had him narrowing his eyes on her.

“It’s easier to share my pain when I have caffeine,” she mumbled sadly, making sure to add a sniffle at the end there.

“That depends,” Quinn murmured, shifting to get more comfortable.

“On what?” Bailey asked, looking really fucking hopeful as she sat up.

“On whether or not your story moves me to tears,” he said dryly as he gestured for her to get on with it.

Her eyes narrowed on him as she thought it over. After a moment, Bailey said, “Don’t play with my emotions, Quinn.”

“You don’t trust me?” he asked, biting back a smile when she folded her arms over her chest and continued glaring at him.

“Not after you banned me from the office and stole the remote so that I couldn’t binge-watch serial killer documentaries so that I could pout,” Bailey said with a sniffle.

“You really didn’t leave me with much of a choice,” Quinn murmured as his gaze shifted back to her beautiful blue eyes and noted the strain still there. “Is your head still hurting?” he asked, already getting up to grab the pills off the kitchen island and a bottle of water from the fridge.

“It’s fine,” she said, lying her adorable ass off.

“Here,” he said, handing her the pills and a bottle of water before reclaiming his seat.

“Thank you,” Bailey grumbled with another sniffle as she reluctantly took the pills. “Now,” she said, clearing her throat when she was done, “where were we?”

“You were enthralling me with your tale of woe,” he reminded her, leaning back in his chair as he watched her.

Shifting, Bailey said, “Right,” with a firm nod as her pout turned determined. “Get ready to grab that box of tissues.”

“I’m ready,” Quinn assured her with a solemn nod that had her lips twitching.

“Once upon a time,” she began only to smile when he murmured, “Now, I know that this will be heartbreaking.”

“It will be,” Bailey assured him before adding, “Brace yourself.”

“Consider me braced,” Quinn murmured.

“Once upon a time, back when I was sixteen, I met this boy in detention and-”

“Why am I not surprised?” he said dryly at the mention of detention.

“I was a miscreant,” Bailey admitted with a solemn nod.

“I’m sure that you were a terror,” Quinn drawled, already having a pretty good idea of how she landed in detention.

“I really was,” she said with a sad shake of her head and a heartfelt sigh.

“You were reading in class, weren’t you?” he asked, remembering all those times he’d spotted her sitting in the principal’s office, trying to appear innocent as she kept sneaking peeks at the book she had hidden in her backpack.

“I might have glanced at a book to pass the time,” Bailey hedged, clearing her throat before moving on. “Anyway, so there I was one day, enjoying a lovely stint in detention when this boy decided to hack into the school’s computer system and was having a difficult time getting through their firewall. So, being the helpful and considerate person that I am, I helped him break through while we bonded over our love of hacking.”

“That, of course, led to us discovering that we also loved video games. We started hanging out and playing video games, and one thing led to another, and we started working on a video game together. It took us three years, but finally, it was ready. We got a very lovely offer for the game and we decided to accept it, only to find out that he’d accepted another offer, one that set him up with a very lucrative position.”

“And I’m guessing that he forgot to mention your name,” Quinn murmured, wondering why her brother was pushing her to go out on a date with the asshole.

“He really did. He offered me an unpaid internship with the company, one that would allow me the privilege of working on his team and fetching him coffee,” she finished with a helpless shrug.

“What did you do?” Quinn asked, watching her as he absently drummed his fingertips against the armrest of his chair while he thought about all the things that he would have done to the asshole if he’d been there.

“Hacked into his computer and destroyed the game,” Bailey said, shrugging it off like it was no big deal.

“How did he take it?” Quinn asked, only to go still at her next words.

“He made my life a living hell.”