Neanderthal Seeks Human(128)

“Yes-” the word tumbled out of his mouth, “Yes, I wanted to tell you how sorry I am.”

I blinked at him, wondering before how I’d missed his very distinctive Bostonian accent; “Sorry? Why are you sorry?”

“Because Seamus is my brother and he is a complete fu- er, he is a very bad guy.”

I shifted slightly away, pressing my back to the passenger door so I could study him more fully, “Yes, well. In that case I suppose I should apologize for my sister. She is also a very bad… guy.”

He chuckled, “Yes. Yes she is.”

I squinted at him, “Did you know Jem?”

He nodded, “She is still just as crazy as she was when I knew her.”

“Oh- you saw her recently?”

He nodded, “This afternoon when you came to the new building with your friend, I was in the apartment with Quinn and Jem.” He glanced at me as he turned the steering wheel to the right and merged on to Michigan Avenue.

I stiffened, “So, you were there?”

“Yep- that bitch- er, your sister is crazy, but you know this. Quinn was trying to help her, he offered her money to disappear, but she started ranting and shit, taking off her clothes. I swear if I didn’t know her already- how nuts she is- I would have thought she was on something. Then she bit him, burned him with her cigarette, right through his shirt. It was crazy- blood coming from his neck.”

I winced, thinking about Jem biting Quinn with such force that she drew blood. “Why was she taking off her clothes?”

He shrugged his shoulders, “I donno. Cause she’s crazy? When you got there he was cleaning the bite mark and all the blood. He was leaving to get some new clothes. I would have taken a bath in alcohol and hydrogen peroxide if she’d bit me.”

I chewed on my lip, taking all this in, feeling relieved and stupid and anxious. Dan parked the car in the basement of the building and escorted me up to Quinn’s penthouse. He opened the door for me but didn’t go inside.

I’d been quiet since the car, wanting to start sorting through my tangled mess of emotions and the evening’s events. But I was restless to see Quinn and not really capable of dwelling on anything until I wrapped my arms around him and felt, rather than saw, that he was safe.

“So…” Dan handed me the keys to the penthouse, “Quinn should be home sometime tonight. When he called me they hadn’t charged him with anything and they shouldn’t ‘cause he has a license to carry that gun.”

I stopped him as he turned away, “Dan, can I ask you something?”

His eyebrows lifted as he nodded his assent. “Sure.”

I shifted the keys from one hand to the other, tucked my hair behind my ears, “How long have you known Quinn?”

He shrugged, “Since we was kids.”

“Do you know why Quinn left Boston?”

He hesitated, his eyes narrowed as his lips twisted to the side, “Yes.”

I couldn’t help but smile at his one word answer, the very picture of cautious loyalty. “So do I… I think.”

He stood very still, watching me, his eyes moving over my features with a concentrated intensity; at length he said, “You know, he is really crazy about you. Not crazy like your sister Jem crazy. But, trying-to-become-a-better-person crazy.”

I pressed my lips together, my heart, whole again, skipped wildly in my chest before I replied, “The feeling is mutual.”



~*~



At first I didn’t even contemplate sleep. I did laps around Quinn’s bare apartment, wishing I’d brought a comic book with me, realizing I didn’t even have my stupid cell phone. However, in a fit of petulant annoyance, I threw myself against the bed and promptly feel asleep.

When I awoke I was confused. The panorama of the park and the lake and the city told me that it was still the middle of the night but I had no idea how long I’d been asleep. I stretched, planning to get up and check the time on my watch via the light of the bathroom, but I, acutely, realized that I was not alone.

There was a body next to me.

In fact, I was curled around that body.

And the body was not asleep.

My breath hitched, “Quinn?”

The arm around my shoulders squeezed gently before he removed it, shifting on the bed and propping himself up on an elbow so that we were facing.

“Hey-” his other hand immediately entangled itself in my hair, tugging my head back so he could cover my mouth with his. I leaned into his kiss, pressing my body to his, feeling joy and relief and gratefulness that were indescribable.

We kissed, just kissed, for a long time. Sometimes I was over him, sometimes he was over me, sometimes we were sitting up, sometimes we were lying down. It went on and on and, were it not for the necessity of air, we might have kissed for the rest of our lives. I would not have complained.