Page 48 of Parallel

She grins. Her smile reminds me of someone, but I can’t place it. “I’ve jumped back and forth all day. Maybe it scrambled my math a little.”

“Convenient,” says Nick, restraining a smile of his own. “What about going backward to fix things? If someone died, and you knew how to cure it or change something, could you do that?”

I feel a lump in my throat. He’s thinking of his brother, I’m sure, and I wonder once again how devastating it must have been for Nick to lose his twin. I’ve never even met Ryan in this lifetime, yet somehow the fact that he’s dead is hard for even me.

“Like, could I go back and assassinate Hitler and stop all those deaths in World War II?” she asks. “No, for a variety of reasons, but most importantly, it wouldn’t do any good. Once someone is gone”—she averts her eyes—“they can’t come back. Otherwise, I’d have gone back to save my mom.” For a moment, she looks young, and heartbreakingly fragile.

“Which reminds me,” she says, throwing her napkin on her plate, “I have to get home to my sister.”

I exchange a panicked glance with Nick. I’m not done. Rose is the key to solving this, I feel certain of it. “Is there any way for us to get ahold of you?” he asks.

She smirks. “Sure, if Quinn finally learns how to time travel.” She thinks for a moment, rubbing a finger over her lower lip. “Look, I really have to go. But I can come here tomorrow morning, if you want. Early, though. Like, seven. Just bring my stuff.”

With that, she slides under the table. And all that remains behind are her clothes.

22

QUINN

Nick and I sit alone, staring at each other in shock.

“Dammit,” he says. “I just wish she’d stayed five minutes longer.”

“Well, there’s still tomorrow.” I look at my watch. “It’s already after midnight though. You should go home. I’ll get a hotel up here somewhere and see what she has to say in the morning.”

His jaw sets. “No way. We’re in this together. We’ll stay up here and come back tomorrow.”

My heart flops in my chest like a dying fish. It’s one thing to go get a second opinion with my gorgeous doctor in tow. Jeff wouldn’t have liked it, but it felt justifiable. As did driving to Baltimore tonight. But staying here with him? There’s no stretch of imagination by which that is okay. And yet here I am, nodding in agreement.

We get in Nick’s Jeep. “I’ll go on Expedia,” I say, pulling out my phone. He’s doing all this for me and I can’t possibly let him pay for his own room, but my stomach sinks at the cost of one room, much less two.

He shakes his head, pulling onto the street. “That’s okay. I know exactly where we can go.”

A few minutes later we pull up to the valet stand in front of the Four Seasons.

I flinch. A room here will be a fortune. Six hundred? More? And I’ll have to pay for two. I briefly think of all the things I could have paid for with that much money. It’s half the mortgage. And how the hell am I going to explain this to Jeff? I can’t. There’s just no way.

“Nick,” I breathe. “I think this place might be a little out of my price range.”

He does a double take. “You actually thought I’d let you pay for this?”

“Of course I did,” I tell him, frowning. “You’ve already done way too much. I’m sure we can find something more reasonable nearby.”

He hands the valet his key and tucks his head, trying hard not to laugh. “Quinn, you’re not paying. I think you remember the starving-resident version of me from London. That’s no longer the case.”

“But…”

“Stop,” he says. “Consider it payback for the honeymoon in Paris during which I apparently never let you leave the room.”

With that, he places his hand at the small of my back and leads me to the registration desk. He asks for two rooms and the bright smile on the clerk’s face fades a little. “You don’t have a reservation?” she asks. I’d have thought this was obvious, but apparently not. She goes on the computer and makes a sad face when she looks back at us. “We’re pretty much sold out. There are three rooms available but two of them aren’t cleaned yet. I can get you in a one-bedroom suite if that will work? It has a fold-out couch.”

Nick and I exchange a glance. It’s less than ideal for both of us. “Is that okay?” he asks quietly. “I can take the couch.”

“I’ll take the couch,” I argue.

“No, you won’t,” he says, turning back to the clerk and handing her a credit card. She begins ringing us up. “I promise it’ll be every bit as boring as our honeymoon apparently was,” he adds under his breath.

The clerk hands Nick our key cards. “Can we assist you with any bags this evening?”