She shoved at his arms. “Your mom might see us.”
“She might,” he mumbled against her earlobe right before licking the shell of her ear. “I’ll stop as soon as you say you’ll have dinner with me again tonight.”
“In the sunroom or your bedroom?” Her voice came out breathy.
Lick, nibble, fondle. “Well, we could start in the sunroom … or not.” Kiss, suck. He started grinding against her ass slowly, pausing when his phone buzzed. The name on caller ID surprised the hell out of him. “I should take this.”
She adjusted her tank, slid off the stool, and walked toward her room. A sigh escaped him as he watched her.
He answered the call. “Wyatt! Where you been, man?” Wyatt hadn’t acknowledged him since the press conference nearly two months ago. Yeah, this was a call he’d needed to accept.
“’Sup, Hads?” Not the most enthusiastic of greetings, but Quinn would take it.
They shot the breeze for a few minutes, discussing when the NHL might start back up, what they were doing to keep in shape, and how glad they were they’d been paid out their salaries for the season, though it sucked that they’d miss out on the revenues the league normally generated.
“So you know that blond you were seeing the night of the dinner?” Wyatt said when they’d run through the regular bullshit.
“Which one?” Quinn quipped—out of habit—then looked around, feeling guilty as hell. What if Sarah had heard him? Not cool.
“The hot one. Dory.”
Quinn’s wacko antenna shot up and began a sweep of the area. “What about her? We’re not seeing each other.”
“I know. That’s why I’m calling. I, uh, sorta, um, I started hanging out with her. Is that cool with you?”
Quinn’s first reaction was, “Take her! Please!” but he held it back. “Yeah, no problem.” Then he leapt to how the hell Wyatt knew Dory. He almost laughed out loud. She’d probably slipped her number to every guy on the team. For a puck bunny, sleeping with a player was about the conquest. Bragging rights. He pictured them swapping score cards and stories over pink cocktails, and it soured his stomach. Why had this never bothered him before now? Because he hadn’t given a fuck, but Sarah changed all that.
Should he warn his buddy that Dory was a potential nutjob? Maybe Quinn had blown it out of proportion. Besides, Wyatt was no stranger to crazy chicks. “How’d you two meet anyway?”
More hemming and hawing from the other end, then Wyatt broke out in his nervous giggle-laugh. “Uh, I ran into her at the same place the night after the dinner.”
“Have you been seeing her since?”
“Uh, not really. Until a few days ago. I ran into her again at the grocery store in Breckenridge, and we, uh, spent some time at my place in the mountains.”
Wait.“What?”
Wyatt started backpedaling, tossing out excuses like strip joint patrons threw out money. “Well, we might have started seeing each other a little sooner, but she said it’d be cool with you. It is, isn’t it?”
Quinn’s mind began calculating. “So you and she weren’t in town a few nights ago?”
“No, man. We just got back yesterday.” Wyatt sounded as confused as Jake from the State Farm commercial.
Could Dory have left Wyatt’s place, driven to Quinn’s to lob a rock through his window, then driven back? Quinn shook his head to dislodge the ridiculous idea. No way. No one’s that crazy.
“Yeah, it’s totally cool with me.” Quinn would worry about how awkward a team get-together might be in the future. Wyatt with Dory, him with Sarah, Nelson there too. He flinched inside. “Go for it. Happy for you, man.”
Quinn hung up, an uneasy feeling creeping up his spine. If Dory hadn’t launched the rock through his window, who had?
He texted Sarah. Workout with me in the gym in 5?
Sarah: Thought we already worked out?
Quinn: Different kind of workout, although I’m UP for a repeat of the last workout.
Sarah: Cute.
Quinn: Is that a yes or a yes?
Sarah: See you in 5.
He puffed out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, and his mind meandered away from the rock to being in bed with Sarah this morning. Despite his mom’s jarring wake-up call, there’d been no weirdness between him and Sarah. No awkwardness. Just a natural progression that felt so right.
By the time he’d changed into gym shorts and a T-shirt, excitement was percolating in his veins. He couldn’t wait to be with her again. Somewhere along the way, he’d convinced himself the wind or kids had been responsible for the rock toss after all, and he shoved the incident to a far corner of his brain.
Chapter 30
Did Not See That One Coming
The next two days unfolded in a surreal limbo. COVID-19 had turned the world nonsensical a while ago, but Sarah had floated contentedly between her usual daily role in the Hadley household and a totally different, unforeseen role in Quinn’s bed at night. There, they spent covert hours talking, exploring one another, and making love.
Lurking at the back of Sarah’s mind were two inescapable perceptions: First, Liz had been acting strangely distant since Quinn and Sarah’s first “date,” and while no one pointed to the elephant in the room, Sarah was convinced Liz knew what she and Quinn were doing after lights-out. Second, while Sarah enjoyed her intimate time with Quinn, she questioned whether their fledgling relationship would wither on the vine. Was it merely a COVIDism, a consequence of being forced to shelter in place together, or something more that could outlast whatever their “new normal” would be?
These thoughts drifted in her head as she prepared to check on Gage and Lily’s house. Maybe getting out of her pleasant bubble, driving across town and seeing firsthand that the world still spun on its axis, would infuse her with a sense of reality and force her to plan for what came next. She couldn’t live with Quinn and his mom forever.
Quinn walked her and Archer to
