Page 76 of Never Alone
I nodded.
He ran.
Jamie threaded her arm through mine. "Come on. They've all been waiting."
She walked me through a kitchen that was already loud—sun coming in through the back screen, the radio on low under the noise of women cooking and men yelling at each other in the yard. The sliding door opened onto a deck that opened onto a yard that ran clear back to a stand of pines.
The yard was full.
Men around the grill. Women in clusters on the lawn with drinks. Kids running through the spaces between. A folding table under a tree set with food.
Aunt Jenna was the first to reach me. She came up the deck steps with both hands out, Quinn a step behind her with a beer in one hand and a bowl of strawberries in the other.
"Oh, honey. There you are."
Her voice closed the distance before she did. She took my hands the way some women took hands—like you'd already met before.
"Look at her, Cole.Look at her.You took your sweet time bringing this girl to me."
Cole looked at the deck.
"I'm counting from the night you sat in my kitchen and wouldn't say her name."
Jenna squeezed my hands. "I hope he's been treating you alright, honey. He'll be a man of few words about it. I want to hear from you."
I looked up at Cole. He looked back at me with the look he had when he was waiting to hear what I was going to say.
"He has," I said. "He's been good to us."
Something moved at the corner of his mouth. Almost a smile.
Quinn set the bowl and the beer down on the railing in one motion. She came around Aunt Jenna with both arms out, and Aunt Jenna released my hands without looking—practiced.
"Oh my god."
She pulled me into a hug. She smelled like sunscreen and citrus. She held me the way Jamie had—a beat too long, on purpose.
"Quinn," Cole said.
"Oh my god, Cole."
She let me go and stepped back, both hands flying to her mouth.
"Quinn."
"I thought you were going to die celibate. I’d accepted it."
I felt the heat hit my face. Cole's neck went red.
Aunt Jenna patted my arm once like an apology. "She's the romantic in the family, honey."
"I'm not the only one."
"You're the loudest one."
"I'm the most enthusiastic one."
I laughed before I knew I was going to. It came up out of me like it had been waiting.
