“No, I haven’t! I’m so, so sorry.” The cold harsh winds bite against my cheeks and it feels like needles are poking my eyes. I can’t fight back the tears anymore. They fall down my face like razor blades against my cheeks. “But it’s not what you think, you just have to please let me explain. Listen to me for five minutes.”
He looks at me for a minute before closing his car door and crossing his arms.
Relief overwhelms my system and it’s like my lungs finally fill with air again. If he’ll just listen, he’ll understand. He has to.
“Thank you.” I take a step toward him, but he holds out his arm, stopping me from coming any closer.
“No,” he says. “Just talk so I can leave.”
That glimpse of relief, hope that we’d work everything out, crumbles to dust, floating down the street with the stubborn leaves that are still falling.
“I didn’t know it was Glenn Chandler’s event. When Mr. Mahler asked me to plan it, he didn’t tell me who it was for.” Desperation filters my words, making what was supposed to sound like my defense a plea. “I didn’t even find out who it was for until the day after Halloween.”
“The day after Halloween?” Quinton looks as if I punched him as he repeats my words back to me. “You’ve known since Halloween? You’ve been coming to my house, forging into this relationship, all while going behind my back to plan an event for the guy who has done nothing but slam me in the press? You’re supposed to try and help me! And you’ve been fighting for the guy who’s done more damage to me than anyone else!”
Even when Quinton has been angry before, he’s kept it contained. He’d shut down and get quiet. Having him standing in front of me, yelling in my face isn’t just unexpected, it’s scary. I know he’d never lay a hand on me. But the fact that he doesn’t even care to restrain his anger? It tells me he doesn’t think I’m worth the effort that the restraint would take. And that’s fucking terrifying.
“I signed a nondisclosure, you know I couldn’t tell you.” Between the tears openly falling down my face and the snow starting to fall, my face is wet and freezing as I beg him to understand.
“I told you not to trust Mahler! From the very beginning, you didn’t like what I had to say, but I told you. And you just refused to believe me!” he bellows, his words bouncing off the car-lined street. “And now you’re working with Glenn fucking Chandler on top of everything? Two old, racist bastards that are determined to bring me down. And I’m supposed to trust you?”
“It’s my job!” I snap back. I want to apologize for lying, but he, out of everyone in this world, should understand working for a person you don’t like. He knows! It’s fine for him, but I’m expected to give up everything and hold some moral high ground that I literally can’t afford? He just wants to be mad at me. “What did you want me to do? Throw away my entire fucking career because you carved a fucking pumpkin with me?”
I hate myself the moment the words leave my mouth.
“Wow.” Quinton rubs his hands through his hair and a humorless laugh falls out his mouth. “That’s how you want to spin this? That’s what the PR genius inside your head is doing now? Alright.”
“Quinton, no, you know that’s not what I meant, I just—”
He cuts me off.
“No, I get it.” The smile on his face is colder than the snow falling on us and causes every muscle in my body to tense. The Quinton I’ve gotten to know isn’t in front of me anymore. And I’m the one who pushed him away. “You know, when you told me how my taking a knee made you uncomfortable because it made you reevaluate the way you saw the world, I dropped it. It was already clear to me you had some childhood issues I had no business touching, but I hoped it meant you’d start looking at yourself and how you view things.”
At this point, I know he’s not going to forgive me, and explaining myself is probably useless, but he has me confused with someone else if he thinks I’ll just let him hit below the belt. “Seriously? I get you’re mad, you have every right to be. But that’s not okay. I don’t have childhood issues.”
“You don’t?” He steps in closer, not needing space anymore now that it works for him. “Is that why you practically shove your fingers in your ears and close your eyes anytime anyone points out racism to you? I told you what Mahler was. I told you how racist and disgusting he was, and you refused to believe me. And still, here you are, lying to me, planning a fucking fundraiser for a guy who does nothing but spew racist shit every single day?”
“Just because I don’t like to label everyone as a racist doesn’t mean I have issues.” The trembling in my hands has morphed from trembling to full-out shaking, but I don’t know if it’s because I’m so angry or cold. “How is me not wanting to throw that terrible label on everyone a bad thing?”
“It’s not a bad thing,” he says. As if the angry man in front of me was conjured by my imagination, every line in Quinton’s body falls. Even his eyes that looked at me with so much hate only moments ago go soft. He reaches out for my hands and rubs them between his, causing feeling to come back into my fingertips before pulling me into a tight hug and tucking my head into
