Unable to hold his penetrating glare, I let out a slow breath, closed my eyes, and turned away from him, just my face, and shook my head.
“I don’t know what to say.” I repeated, my voice sounding strangely lost to my own ears.
I felt, rather than saw, him shift closer. “If you’re not interested in me- that way, as something permanent- then you need to tell me now.”
My half laugh was involuntary, immediate, as were my words, “God, Quinn, you have no idea how permanent I’d like this to be. I’d like us to be twinkies and cockroaches, death and taxes. But I-”
His hands were on me again, on my waist, slipping around to my back, pressing me to his chest, pulling me into an embrace. I automatically gabbed fistfuls of his shirt and clung to him.
“Then stay with me tonight.” His words were warm against my ear, the earlier saturation of irritation absent. He sounded almost relieved.
“I just need-” My breath was ragged; I’d journeyed into uncharted waters and my unintentional confession didn’t calm my unease, but it didn’t exacerbate it either.
I was in emotional limbo.
I rested my head against his shoulder and breathed him; he was so warm, like a furnace; I closed my eyes.
Finally I said the only thing that made sense, made easier by the anonymity of darkness behind my closed eyelids; “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m afraid. I’m not used to it.”
I felt him smile against my neck where he’d dipped his head, his lips brushed against my shoulder. He pulled away, slowly, with obvious reluctance.
One of his big palms caressed my check; his fingers pulled through my hair and forced my head back.
“Look at me.”
I took a deep breath then opened my eyes.
Most of his earlier frustration was absent and the way he looked at me made me feel uncomfortably, but deliciously, aware that we were pressed together from the waist down.
“We’ll go out tomorrow night?” He kept his thumb on my face, rubbing it slowly over my cheekbone in trance-inducing circles.
I nodded.
“And you’ll spend the entire evening with me?” Quinn’s chin dipped to his chest so that he was peering at me through his eyebrows, “No feminist comic book organizing? No wine club knitting?”
“It’s knitting group wine drinking, but- yes. I will spend the entire evening with you.” My chin wobbled just a little, making my voice shaky and raw.
He may have detected the flimsiness of my emotional limbo because he smiled at me in a way that relieved the pressure of his earlier frustration and began calming the muddled upheaval.
“Ok.” His fingers dropped from my hair and he leisurely gained a step backward, his hands stuffing into his pants pockets like they needed to be restrained. The smile grew somewhat wistful as his eyes moved over my face. “I can wait.”
CHAPTER 23
It was Marie’s turn to host knit night; Quinn asserted that he would drive me to my knitting group leaving no room for discussion. He walked me to the door of Marie’s apartment building, and kissed me goodbye. It was a devastating kiss and, when he left, I felt part of me leave with him.
Needless to say it was a disconcerting sensation.
He also insisted, before he left, that I promise to call him while I sorted through my comic books later that night; he claimed to be interested in learning all about how second wave feminism influenced comic books of the late twentieth century.
Somehow I found the assertion dubious.
Elizabeth met me at the door and I floated through Marie’s well decorated apartment without really seeing anything or noticing anyone. Had I been more self-aware I might have detected the stares following my entrance and the quizzical glances exchanged.
My mind was engaged in wanderlust, and not the German predilection for wandering; rather, my mind was lustfully wandering. I pressed my fingers to my lips and recalled how Quinn had lifted me, like I weighed nothing, to the desk; his hot fingers under my skirt, above the lace of my stockings, and-
“Janie?”
I blinked several times in machine gun rapidity, pulled out of my trance, and focused on the person standing directly in front of me, staring at me with what appeared to be mild concern.
It was Ashley.
“I- yes?”
“Honestly, girl- where did your mind just go and do you need a traveling companion?” Ashley’s Tennessee twang was hushed, “Are you ok?”
“I-” I continued to blink at her, seeing the room and its inhabitants for the first time. They were all watching me with open concern and curiosity; the only sound breaking the silence was Sandra munching on potato chips.
“I’m sorry,” I finally managed, “were you talking to me?”